Gary Young | Horse Racing Free Tips

The Week in Review: How to Buy a Derby Winner for $1,000

As consignor Christy Whitman remembers, it was deathly quiet when Medina Spirit (Protonico) entered the ring as a yearling at the 2019 OBS Winter Mixed sale. She seemed to be the only one paying any attention to him

“I knew he wasn't going to bring much because no one was looking at him,” she said.

A few minutes later, Medina Spirit would be hers, forever remembered as the GI Kentucky Derby winner who sold for $1,000 as a yearling.

It's the umpteenth reminder about how beautifully unpredictable this sport can be. The Derby field included horses who sold for $525,000, $725,000, $650,000, $950,000, plus a handful of beautifully bred homebreds. But these sons of super sires Tapit, Into Mischief, Curlin and others didn't have what it took to win the Kentucky Derby. A bargain-basement colt did.

“That's what is so great about this sport,” Whitman said. “Anybody could have bought the Derby horse. Anybody could have put up $1,000 and had a Kentucky Derby winner. That's what makes horse racing so special.”

One of Whitman's exercise riders, Jose Gallego, asked her to see if she could buy on his behalf an inexpensive horse that could be sold for a profit at the 2-year-old sales the following year. Whitman had a small budget and modest plans for the purchase.

“I've always been on a bit of a budget and I don't have a lot of money to spend on a horse,” she said. “I kind of have a knack for finding horses everyone else is overlooking, whether they are immature or maybe have a slight issue. I am looking for diamond-in-the-rough horses. I have honed that skill over the years because that's the only way I've been able to get horses bought.”

She realized that Medina Spirit's pedigree page was not a selling point. The sire, Protonico, who never won a Grade I race and stood at the time for $5,000, was hardly in demand. And on the dam's side you had to go back three generations before finding any blacktype. This was the first foal from a mare, Mongolian Changa (Brilliant Speed), who won one of six starts and earned just $25,970.

“He had all the things I look for,” she said. “He was really well balanced, had a really good hip and top line, was decently correct, athletic and had a good walk to him. I really liked the colt and nobody was looking at him and that was because of his page. With the mare there was pretty much no blacktype and it was her first foal. I didn't even know who Prontonico was. I had to look him up. This was a really nice colt, pretty well put together, but I knew he wasn't going to bring much because absolutely no one was looking at him.”

Whitman opened the bidding on Medina Spirit at $1,000. It was the only bid for the horse.

Gallego broke the horse and Whitman had him back in the Ocala sales ring for last year's July 2-Year-Old Sale.

Whitman was starting to believe that the $1,000 yearling had some talent, but she and Gallego stuck to their plan. Medina Spirit worked three furlongs in :33 flat prior to the sale, which, Whitman knew, would mean there would at least be some interest in him. He was bought by Gary Young, the agent for Zedan Racing Stables for $35,000.

“He sold for the $35,000, basically, because he had a good work,” Whitman said. “If he hadn't had that, he would have been a $10,000 2-year-old. I thought $35,000 for a $1,000 yearling was a pretty good turnaround.”

Whitman will occasionally keep a horse and race them, but she never gave that a thought with Medina Spirit.

“If I had kept the horse and raced him, he would have never made it to the Derby,” she said. “It takes a lot of things coming together to make that happen. He's a good horse, but it is important that he wound up with a good trainer in Bob Baffert. Everything fell into place for him.”

Whitman may never again come across another horse like Medina Spirit, but she will keep trying. She looks for horses that have been overlooked for one reason or another and doesn't worry about their breeding.

“One thing I've always been adamant about is that a lot of people overlook a horse for what I would say are stupid reasons, like their page,” she said. “The horses don't know what their pedigree looks like. They don't know what you paid for them. Just because a horse has a great pedigree does not necessarily mean they are going to be a great horse. I very much go for the individual. If I like the horse I don't care about their page. It's always easier to sell a horse who is an athlete, whether it has the pedigree or not.”

Speed Wins

It's no coincidence that Bob Baffert's two most recent Derby winners won the race in wire-to-wire fashion. Baffert and jockey John Velazquez clearly understand the importance of using early speed as a weapon in the Derby.

In five prior starts, Medina Spirit went wire to wire only once, but there he was on the lead at every call for the Derby. Of course, it didn't hurt that Rock Your World (Candy Ride {Arg}) got off to a poor start.

A year earlier, it was the same story. Authentic (Into Mischief) wasn't always on the lead in his starts prior to the 2020 Kentucky Derby. But in his Derby, he led every step of the way under Velazquez and had a relatively easy time holding off the heavy favorite Tiz the Law (Constitution).

Kornacki Picks the Winner

Medina Spirit wasn't an easy horse to come up with, but at least one person from the NBC team was not fooled. Working his first-ever Kentucky Derby broadcast, Steve Kornacki nailed it and was the only one from the NBC talent pool who picked the winner.

Kornacki is best known for his work as a national correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, but is also a long-time racing fan and horseplayer. He brought a lot of insights to the broadcast, in particular his explanation of how the $2-million-plus win bet on Essential Quality (Tapit) by Jim McIngvale affected the odds on the other horses.

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Medina Spirit 20th Santa Anita Derby Runner To Win the Roses At Churchill Downs

Bob Baffert-trained Medina Spirit, upset winner of Saturday's Grade 1 Kentucky Derby with John Velazquez aboard, not only provided Baffert with his record seventh Derby win and Velazquez with his fourth, he also became the 20th horse to exit the G1 Santa Anita Derby and go on to win the Run for the Roses.

Second, beaten 4 ¼ lengths by Rock Your World as the 4-5 favorite going 1 1/8 miles in the Runhappy Santa Anita Derby April 3, Medina Spirit, a Florida-bred colt by Protonico, out of the Brilliant Speed mare Mongolian Changa, was purchased for just $35,000 out of the 2020 Ocala Breeders' Sales Co.'s July Two-Year-Olds and Horses of Racing Age Sale on the recommendation of Santa Anita-based private clocker and bloodstock agent Gary Young.

A gate to wire winner of the Derby by a half length, Medina Spirit, off at 12-1, returned $26.20 to win while covering a mile and one quarter in 2:01.02.

A first-out maiden winner going 5 ½ furlongs at Los Alamitos Dec. 11, Medina Spirit, who is owned by Zedan Racing Stables, demonstrated the gameness that has now enabled him to become a Kentucky Derby winner when running a close second to stablemate and early Derby favorite Life Is Good in the G3 Sham Stakes at one mile at Santa Anita on Jan. 2.

A subsequent neck winner of the G3 Robert B. Lewis Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on Jan. 30, Baffert stayed home with Medina Spirit in the G2 San Felipe Stakes March 6 and he finished a well beaten second to Life Is Good.

Although Baffert downplayed Medina's Spirit's chances leading into Saturday's Derby, he and Velazquez made the decision to let the colt roll on the front-end, instead of trying to ration his speed as was done when he was beaten 4 ½ lengths by Rock Your World in the Santa Anita Derby.

“I was counting on his heart,” said Baffert early Sunday morning from Louisville. “He shipped well. He had to run his A-game and he brought it. He sort of ran the same race he ran in the Robert Lewis. He fought everybody off in the Lewis and did the same thing yesterday. It was unbelievable, a great feeling, because I'm used to going in there with the heavyweights, the favorites and all that.”

Young, who was also reached early Sunday in Louisville, touched upon the Derby-winning strategy.

“There wasn't much speed inside of him,” Young said. “Plan A was to go to the lead, and the horse I feared most in the race (Rock Your World), got eliminated at the start…Medina has a lot of ability, but what takes him to the next level is his heart. He never let a horse get in front of him yesterday, not even on the gallop-out.”

Private clocker and bloodstock agent Gary Young

Although John Sadler-trained Rock Your World finished a disappointing 17th after a rough start, Doug O'Neill-conditioned Hot Rod Charlie finished third, beaten one length under the Santa Anita meet's leading rider Flavien Prat, making for a 1-3 finish for Santa Anita-based runners.

Dating back to O'Neill's I'll Have Another in 2012, an amazing seven out of the last 10 Kentucky Derbies have now been won by Southern California-based horses and Baffert, who has now won four out of the last seven runnings, added Medina Spirit to a Kentucky Derby trophy case that already included Silver Charm (1997); Real Quiet (1998); War Emblem (2002); American Pharoah (2015); Justify (2018) and Authentic (2020).

In becoming the 20th horse to use the Santa Anita Derby as a prelude to glory at Churchill Downs, Medina Spirit joins an illustrious roster of local Derby alumni: Gallahadion (13^th, 1940); Hill Gail (1^st, 1952); Determine (1^st, 1954); Swaps (1^st, 1955); Lucky Debonair (1^st, 1965); Majestic Prince (1^st, 1969); Affirmed (1^st, Triple Crown winner 1978); Gato Del Sol (4^th, 1982); Ferdinand (3^rd, 1986); Winning Colors (1^st, 1988); Sunday Silence (1^st, 1989); Silver Charm (2^nd, 1997); Real Quiet (2^nd, 1998); Charismatic (4^th, 1999); Giacomo (4^th, 2005); I'll Have Another (1^st, 2012); California Chrome (1^st, 2014); Justify (1^st, Triple Crown winner 2018); Authentic (2^nd, 2020) and Medina Spirit, second in this year's Santa Anita Derby.

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OBS Spring Sale Returns Tuesday

The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, which was delayed until June in 2020 due to the pandemic, returns to its traditional spot on the calendar when it begins its four-day run in Central Florida Tuesday.

“It feels good to have April back in its normal slot,” agreed OBS Director of Sales Tod Wojciechowski.

OBS opened the 2021 juvenile sales season with a competitive renewal of its March sale last month which featured frenetic bidding through a wide swath of the market.

“We certainly would like to capitalize on the momentum from the March sale,” Wojciechowski said. “There were a lot of people on the grounds and a lot of people hungry for horses in March. We hope that trend continues. And there seems to be a good feel on the grounds so far.”

The March sale included a strong middle market. If that trend is to continue at the Spring sale, it will have to do so with the ongoing absence of Korean buyers, who have helped drive the middle market in recent years. South Korea currently has an embargo on importing foreign racehorses as a way to counteract the economic impact of the pandemic on the country's breeding industry.

“I see promise [for the middle market],” Wojciechowski said. “If the demand that we saw in March continues, that will certainly help things. We are going to miss the Korean buyers, but I think we have the capability to pick up that slack.”

OBS hosted a rain-shortened six-session under-tack show last week. The company was forced to cancel the first day of the show due to stormy weather, but added horses each day of the remaining days to compensate. The start of Saturday's final session was delayed over an hour by rain.

“It's April and it sometimes rains in April in Florida, as we all know,” Wojciechowski said. “But fortunately, we had built in a little extra time. The initial plan was to breeze over seven days, but we had that opportunity that if we were presented with a situation like we had on Sunday we could adjust and overcome it. And we got very lucky Saturday, there was rain all around us and rain early in the morning, but we were able to pull it off.”

During the under-tack show, a pair of fillies by first-crop sires earned the quarter-mile bullet of :20 2/5; a daughter of Classic Empire (hip 317, video) and a daughter of Cupid (hip 576, video). Twenty juveniles shared the week's fastest furlong time of :9 4/5.

With 1,217 horses catalogued for the four-day auction, buyers were spread out over the entire OBS backstretch during a busy day of showing around the raindrops Sunday.

“We are dealing with some rain, but in between the rain you see a lot of horses out around the barns and a lot of people looking,” Wojciechowski said. “We have 1200 horses on the grounds and there are horses in all 29 barns. The horses aren't as concentrated in one area, so sometimes it may not look like there are that many people. But there sure are a lot of people out here looking.”

A Top Line Sales-consigned filly by Not This Time topped the 2020 Spring sale when selling for $1.35 million to bloodstock agent Gary Young on behalf of Zedan Racing. Named Princess Noor, she won last year's GI Del Mar Debutante S. The filly was one of two to bring seven figures at the auction. In all, 634 head sold for $57,715,000 for an average of $91,033 and a median of $50,000.

The OBS Spring sale will be held Tuesday through Friday, with bidding beginning each day at 10:30 a.m.

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Don’t Jump the Gun, His Runners Are Coming On Fast

The team at Three Chimneys could hardly have asked for a better start at stud for champion Gun Runner. The most expensive horse to retire to stud for the 2018 season, he filled a 171-mare book his first year, was the leading first-crop weanling sire the following year with an average exceeding $275,000, and again topped his class with his yearlings in 2020.

By most accounts, the son of Candy Ride (Arg) has not done a thing wrong in his early stud career and yet, as his first crop was building a foundation in training early on this year, they were pigeonholed into the theory that they might take some time to develop into top form.

After all, Gun Runner was competitive at the highest level in his early career, but it wasn't until late November of his sophomore campaign that he scored his first of six Grade I victories in the Clark H. and from there, was nearly unbeatable against top company as he earned his Horse of the Year title at four, capped off with a GI Pegasus World Cup win at five.

The stereotype doesn't go without strong reasoning then, so the Gun Runners will just have to prove the doubters wrong.

Perhaps no one can provide more insight on how Gun Runner's first crop is progressing than the one who trained the dual champion.

Steve Asmussen currently has seven Gun Runner 2-year-olds in training at Keeneland, many of which he is pointing to debut once the Churchill Downs Spring Meet is underway. He said that each of these juveniles received glowing praise from his father Keith when they were first put under saddle at the family's training center in Laredo, Texas.

“We're very interested in wanting Gun Runner to succeed because of all he's done for us from an emotional aspect, but from all the conversations I've had from my father, he consistently talks about how good their attitude is about taking what you're doing with them. They're very businesslike, they keep their appetite and continue to get stronger. Straightforward is how he describes them.”

Asmussen stressed that the most common thread found in all of the Gun Runners is their mentality.

“They have very good minds about them,” he said. “They're extremely sound and mentally mature. They're showing some talent, so we're more than a little excited about them.”

On Monday, three of Asmussen's Gun Runner trainees, all Winchell Thoroughbred homebreds, had their first timed gate works at Keeneland. The first, a colt out of SW Louisville First (Girolamo) named Under the Gun went a half mile in :47.40 (5/38). Asmussen said he told his team to slow down the next set. Red Run, a colt out of the Tapit mare Red House, breezed in :47.80 (8/38) while Gunite, the son of 2015 Bolton Landing S. winner Simple Surprise (Cowboy Cal), worked in 49.20 (19/38).

“It's not hard on them to move fast,” Asmussen noted. “Gun Runner was that way too. We had Gun Runner at Keeneland at a similar time when he was a 2-year-old, and it was the same thing-very intelligent, athletic and forward in his training. He was capable of working and training and racing as fast as horses can do.”

$1.7 million Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Gun Runner colt is now settling into training at Santa Anita. | Fasig-Tipton

Another Gun Runner that may not be too far off from debut made headlines a few weeks ago at the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale. Selling as Hip 181, the colt out of the stakes-winning Ohio-bred mare Needmore Flattery (Flatter) brought $1.7 million as the second-highest purchase of the sale. Agent Gary Young purchased the April foal on behalf of Zedan Racing Stable to train under the tutelage of Bob Baffert.

“He was the spitting image of Gun Runner,” Young recalled. “There was no DNA test necessary for him. I loved his work on the track and then I went to see him and I thought him and the Nyquist [Hip 28, $2.6 million sale topper] were two very, very nice colts. Between Baffert, Mr. Zedan and I, we decided that the Gun Runner would be the one we would go for and we were very happy to get him.”

Young reported that the colt is now thriving in training at Santa Anita.

“He's galloping there and Bob is very happy with him,” he said. “His barn habits are terrific. He goes to the track and trains and then goes back in his stall and lies down and relaxes all day. So there's absolutely no buyer's remorse so far.”

Young explained that he has always expected Gun Runner's progeny to progress early on in their career.

“Gun Runner was built like a fast horse and he was a very athletic horse,” he said. “I wasn't surprised that the Gun Runners are showing precocity, but the people who are more surprised probably base that on how Gun Runner got better as his career progressed. He wasn't a bad two-year-old or three-year-old, he just wasn't dominating as much as he was later on when he was practically unbeatable.”

Young recalled watching Gun Runner train in California leading up to his memorable victory in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic.

“This horse trained like there was no way he could lose that race. You could tell by watching him train that it was going to take one hell of a horse to beat him. He definitely got better as he got older, but he was a good 2-year-old too, which is a very good combination.”

Speaking from his hotel in Ocala, Young said he has his eye on a few more juveniles by the same sire at the upcoming OBS Spring Sale.

“I'm very bullish on Gun Runner,” he said. “I could foresee myself buying more of them maybe even this year. It would be no surprise if he turned out to be a very good sire. Candy Ride hasn't had a whole lot of sons at stud yet, but he was a freak of a racehorse that turned out to be a very good sire, so you would expect his sons to make good sires.”

On the first day of the OBS breeze show on Monday, a Gun Runner colt selling as Hip 118 from the Eisaman Equine consignment and out stakes winner Salamera (Successful Appeal) fired a :10 bullet.

Consignor Barry Eisaman said he was not surprised by the speedy work.

“His breezes had been showing us that kind of speed any time you asked him,” he said. “He's a really big colt and a classy mover. It's astonishing that he has as much speed as he does because he doesn't look like a sprinter at all; he looks like a classic, two-turn sort of creature.”

Eisaman said that he has worked with roughly half a dozen Gun Runner juveniles at his farm this spring.

Hip 118 is one of nine Gun Runner juveniles currently entered in the OBS Spring Sale. | Tiborphoto, courtesy Barry Eisaman

“All of them have excellent minds, including this colt,” he noted. “This colt will work like that and then come back and act like a sensible 3-year-old. Nothing rattles him. If I was rooting for Gun Runner's success with his first crop, I would think he has a pretty good chance.”

Eisaman said he was once a believer that Gun Runner might not see a fast start at stud with his first 2-year-olds, but that working with them this year has proven him otherwise.

“All the Gun Runners that I have act precocious,” he said. “When I was looking at them as yearlings or when we were first breaking them and watching them gallop, I would have agreed wholeheartedly that they're probably going to be later. But as I started to do little baby breezes with them, they all displayed plenty of speed.”

A winner in his first two starts as a juvenile, Gun Runner should have all the potential to produce the same with his first runners. But even so, just as the best was still to come for Gun Runner's career, the same may be said someday for his progeny.

“He was a special talent,” Asmussen said. “As we all know, he was very good at two and three against good company, but he was Horse of the Year as a 4-year-old. Who he was at four and five is as good as it gets, so it's hard to measure that. We were pleasantly surprised that his progeny are showing plenty of ability now, like him, but the exciting part is the fact that his last four to five starts were so phenomenal and when he retired at five, he was still trending up.”

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