Longshot Get Smokin Wires Kentucky Turf Cup

When they throw $1.7 million at a race that entitles the winner to a guaranteed, fees-paid berth in the field for the GI Breeders' Cup Turf, sometimes you cast all logic aside and roll the dice against all odds.

As the saying goes, 'you miss 100% of the shots you don't take,' and it was with that mindset that Get Smokin (Get Stormy)–a Grade II and Grade III winner, but unproven over the 12-furlong trip of the GII FanDuel Kentucky Cup Turf–was even entered in the first place. But given a perfect ride from the front by Fernando de la Cruz on a day the rail was where you wanted to be at Kentucky Downs, the chestnut, off at 19-1, forgot to stop and proved 1 3/4 lengths superior over Spooky Channel (English Channel) when all was said and done. Santin (Medaglia d'Oro) raced prominently throughout and settled for third.

“I have often told [Ironhorse Racing Managing Partner] Harlan [Malter] that he is the craziest owner I train for. But this was not a crazy idea,” winning trainer Mark Casse said in the immediate aftermath of the upset.

The hard-fought winner of a Gulfstream allowance first off a September layoff back in April, Get Smokin was sixth in a graded-stakes quality renewal of the Opening Verse S. at Churchill May 4, then was run down late and finished runner-up in the GIII Arlington S. June 3 and in the July 1 Wise Dan S. at Ellis. Tried over 10 furlongs for the first time in the Kentucky Downs Preview Turf Cup Aug. 6, Get Smokin made the running, but was reeled in late and settled for fourth.

Though he had a bit of early company in the form of Santin in the final event of Saturday's stakes-laden program, Get Smokin took the field into the first turn and opened up four or five lengths on his rivals as they hit the backstretch. Despite the loose lead, Get Smokin switched off beautifully on the engine, getting the half in :49.61 and the opening six panels in a comfortable 1:14.18.

Even though the next couple of furlongs were covered in a testing :23.81, Get Smokin was still full of run down the side of the track, daring some proven stayers to come and get him. But catch him they could not, as he switched his leads at the quarter pole, flopped back and forth in the final furlong, but remained clear to the wire.

Malter was full of praise for de la Cruz, who won back-to-back runnings of the GII Woodford S. aboard Ironhorse's Bucchero (Kantharos) before also partnering with the horse in consecutive renewals of the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint.

“We looked at this race,” Malter said. “We wanted to test out at Ellis [in the 1 1/4-mile prep]. Even though we ran fourth, we were happy. He ran a similar figure to what he was running at a mile and a sixteenth. We were all systems go. We kind of came up with the idea to have Fernando. We made a very specific plan, and it's amazing how well Fernando executed it.”

Pedigree Notes:

By Get Stormy, winner of the GI Woodford Reserve Turf Classic at nine furlongs on the turf, Get Smokin is out of a mare by noted sprint sire Smoke Glacken. There is a bit of stamina as you go down the page, as second dam Doc's Leading Lady–the dam of MSW Spanish Pipedream (Scat Daddy)–was a full-sister to Phi Beta Doc, who set a Saratoga course record when winning the 1999 GIII Saranac S. over a mile and three-sixteenths before annexing that year's 10-furlong Virginia Derby, also in course-record time. Third dam Smart Queen was a half-sister to 1977 GII Arkansas Derby hero Clev Er Tell (Tell).

Hookah Lady is the dam of a 2-year-old colt by Vino Rosso who was a $32,000 RNA as a KEENOV weanling, then sold for $35,000 at KEESEP last fall before blossoming into a $550,000 OBS March breezer. Smoldering Ash, a yearling full-sister to Get Smokin, went for $102,000 at this year's Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July Sale to NBS Stable's John Ballantyne, coincidentally the owner of Turf Cup runner-up Spooky Channel. The mare produced a Classic Empire colt this year and was bred back to Practical Joke.

Saturday, Kentucky Downs
FANDUEL KENTUCKY TURF CUP S.-GII, $1,675,429, Kentucky Downs, 9-9, 3yo/up, 1 1/2mT, 2:28.66, fm.
1–GET SMOKIN, 122, g, 6, by Get Stormy
                1st Dam: Hookah Lady, by Smoke Glacken
                2nd Dam: Doc's Leading Lady, by Doc's Leader
                3rd Dam: Smart Queen, by King Pellinore

($11,000 Ylg '18 FTKOCT). O-Ironhorse Racing Stable LLC, BlackRidge Stables LLC, T-N-T Equine Holdings, LLC and Saratoga Seven Racing Partners, LLC; B-Hurstland Farm, Inc. & James Greene Jr. (KY); T-Mark E. Casse; J-Fernando De La Cruz. $972,220. Lifetime Record: 27-6-7-2, $1,650,497. Werk Nick Rating: B+. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Click for the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Spooky Channel, 124, g, 8, English Channel–Spooky Kitten, by Kitten's Joy. ($10,000 Ylg '16 FTKOCT). O-NBS Stable; B-Calumet Farm (KY); T-Jason Barkley. $316,200.
3–Santin, 122, h, 5, Distorted Humor–Sentiero Italia, by Medaglia d'Oro. O/B-Godolphin (KY); T-Brendan P. Walsh. $158,100.
Margins: 1 3/4, HD, NO. Odds: 19.57, 17.54, 4.29.
Also Ran: Red Knight, Verstappen, Kitodan, Me and Mr. C, Therapist, Never Explain, Foreign Relations, Another Mystery, Nautilus (Brz). Scratched: Cellist, Highest Honors, Red Run, Sy Dog.
Click for the Equibase.com chart and the TJCIS.com PPs. VIDEO, sponsored by FanDuel TV.

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Obituary: Breeder and Owner of Get Stormy, Mary Abeel Sullivan Passes

Mary Abeel Sullivan, the breeder and owner of MGISW Get Stormy (Stormy Atlantic), has passed at the age of 94.

The cherished youngest child of a prominent Hackensack, New Jersey family, Mary had three older siblings, Forster, Edith and Alice. Her family and loved ones said she never “participated,” but rather dominated her pursuits. She was active in the children's theater and ice skating. Her love of horses followed, along with tennis and golf.

She married George Brewster, also of Hackensack in the late 1940's. George was the son of William John Brewster, the well-known road contractor that built most of the highways in the northern part of the state.

In 1950, pregnant with her first child, William (Bill) Brewster, she began playing golf. By the time her second son Bobby was born four years later, she would be on her way to winning many titles in the Women's New Jersey League. She would also celebrate eight consecutive wins as Arcola Country Club champion. Along the way, her third son John would be born in 1962.

Mary wed Bob “Sully” Sullivan in the early 1970's, which brought Bob's children, Jeff and Lynn into the family. Bob and Mary shared a joyous life until Sully's passing a few years ago.

Among Mary's greatest joys were her grandsons William (Billy), Matthew and Patrick Brewster. William and his wife Beata gifted her with three great-grandchildren Harry, Teddy and Warren. She was finally blessed with the gift of a girl, Sophia Emma by Patrick and his wife, Maria Garrahan Brewster.

It's difficult not to think of Mary and her Thoroughbreds. For over 35 years, she bred and raced under the name of Sullimar Stable, in some of the most famous venues including Churchill Downs, Saratoga, Belmont Park and Gulfstream Park, to name a few.

In lieu of flowers please consider donations to Old Friends in Lexington, Kentucky.

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This Side Up: The Vital Quest for New Joy

Polite but perfunctory. That was pretty much the tone in which people tended to praise Kitten's Joy while he was with us, and I guess it should be no different now that he's gone. Even so, it strikes me that his loss has been inadequately lamented. Not just in his own right, as an avowed turf stallion who freakishly contrived two general sires' championships in North America; but also, virtually unremarked, as a final straw in what has over the past nine months become an outright catastrophe for the enlightened minority persevering with grass breeding in Kentucky.

Last November, the sustained challenge of English Channel to the primacy in this sphere of Kitten's Joy was unraveled by a sudden illness at 19. In March, Crestwood lost Get Stormy out of the blue at 16. And now we must bid farewell to the elder statesman himself, at 21.

 

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Given the grim commercial odds to be overcome by anyone attempting to launch a turf sire in Kentucky, this trio's departure represents a colossal test of the way many Americans talk a good game about populating an expanding turf program. Because when it comes to walking the walk, they have tended to head straight to the exit the moment a yearling with chlorophyll in its pedigree is led into a sale ring.

One breeder's existential challenge, admittedly, can be another's game-changing opportunity. There are some promising young stallions around with the potential to fill these intimidating vacancies. Karakontie (Jpn) has been getting black-type action at an auspicious percentage, and should kick on again once over a numerical bump in the road with his current sophomores. In fact, he has just had three stakes winners in three days, one becoming his first millionaire. Oscar Performance, meanwhile, has been launched with real panache by a farm making a welcome return to the stallion game, and is already making a mark with his early runners.Even as it was, however, we're already well accustomed to the American turf program being farmed by European imports, whether as horses in training or, increasingly, from the elite yearling sales. Both the Grade I prizes contested on grass over the past two weekends were harvested by Chad Brown with one of each model, Adhamo (Ire) (Intello {Ger}) being acquired as a French Group winner last fall and In Italian (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) as a Book I yearling at Tattersalls.

But this kind of lopsided trade stores up trouble on both sides of the water. While a lucrative export market offers a crucial avenue to viability for European horsemen contesting inadequate prizemoney, it may ultimately contain the seeds of its own demise through the ongoing dilution of standards. And while purse money is plainly superior in the U.S., it surely can't supplant commercial breeding as the driver to sustainable investment. It's great that these imports can earn big on the racetrack, but they won't ever offer that home run in the breeding shed unless or until the Bluegrass changes its commercial perspective on turf blood.

Because right now you wouldn't give even a new Nasrullah (Ire) much of a prayer. We obviously wouldn't have had Bold Ruler or Nashua, and everything they have since entailed, if Kentucky breeders in the 1950s had been as insular in their outlook as their successors today.

The same farm that imported Nasrullah had, of course, already demonstrated the transferability of European turf blood through the likes of Blenheim (GB) and Princequillo (Ire). But if they could now bring even Frankel (GB) over the water, I wonder how low his fee would have to go before commercial breeders thought he would represent a feasible play.

I have regularly cited the same program's Flintshire (GB) as an especially flagrant example of the way things are today. Supplanted as Juddmonte's highest earner only by a member of the same family in Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}), he was nonetheless reduced to a final Kentucky book of eight mares before finally returning to Europe in despair. If Kitten's Joy and English Channel couldn't earn the indulgence of the market, with its inflexible prejudices on physique, then what chance did Flintshire ever have—even at a farm as far-sighted as Hill n' Dale?

It was John Sikura, of course, who gave Kitten's Joy a fresh Kentucky platform when his owners had become so incensed by commercial indifference that they very nearly put pen to paper to stand him in Europe instead. In the parallel world where that deal was done, however, it would have been instructive to see what kind of reception Kitten's Joy would have had over there. Even after finding a European champion in Book I of the 2016 September Sale for $160,000—and the tragedy of Roaring Lion only raises the stakes for Oscar Performance and others, in terms of their sire's legacy—David Redvers was still able to return to the same auction two years later and buy a G1 2,000 Guineas winner for barely half that price. European investors, it seemed, had learned little more respect for the horse than the local market.

Little wonder, then, if they remain still more unimaginative when it comes to the kind of dirt blood that has, historically, stimulated cyclical regeneration in the European gene pool. For another constant complaint of mine is that this has to be a two-way street, and this mutual schism will ultimately prove equally damaging to the Europeans.

As things stand, we must simply hope that the plucky few who remain more interested in fast horses than fast bucks—and, on any sustainable model, that must also mean horses competent to run hard and long—can respond to the crisis with exactly the kind of flair that already sets them apart. Those who did keep the faith with Kitten's Joy, English Channel and Get Stormy must now stick to their guns, and seek out their replacements.

They know where to look, after all. The farm that grieved Get Stormy, for instance, perseveres stubbornly with the same brand: teak-tough runners and/or aristocratic pedigrees. Nor must we neglect the potential contribution of stallions that might, in this perverse environment, have their commercial credibility damaged if unduly promoted as equally effective influences on turf, such as American Pharoah, Not This Time, Twirling Candy or Blame.

But on the weekend when Zandon attempts to renew the fleeting impression he made on the home turn in the Derby, in a compelling race for the GII Jim Dandy S., it would be remiss not to finish with a nod to the farm that may have marked its 50th anniversary with the emergence of a new Indian Charlie or Harlan's Holiday in his sire Upstart.

Because Airdrie's fidelity to the kind of genetic resources most urgently required by the modern Thoroughbred gives breeders of sufficient vision a chance to roll the dice on a son of Kitten's Joy receiving precious little oxygen even in this suffocated division. Divisidero won graded stakes across five consecutive seasons, accumulating 13 triple-digit Beyers, and was denied his third Grade I in the Breeders' Cup Mile by barely half a length. Critically, moreover, the four mares in his dam's third generation are (drum roll, please): Miesque, Lassie Dear, Height Of Fashion (Fr) and a daughter of Cosmah. Not too many Thoroughbreds could better that, anywhere in the world.

True, his studmate Preservationist comes extremely close, with Natalma, Weekend Surprise and Too Chic. Down the shedrow, meanwhile, Cairo Prince is proving quite a flexible influence, in terms of surface, while Airdrie is also showcasing a son of War Front—the one patriarch of our time to have maintained elite stature at the sales despite an aptitude for turf.

Obviously War Front now has a luminous new dirt prospect starting out elsewhere, in Omaha Beach, but attractive channels for his versatility include not just Summer Front at Airdrie, but War of Will alongside his sire at Claiborne—who, promisingly, were pushed to their absolute limit in his debut book.

War Front's own traffic is naturally being managed more conservatively than ever, as he enters the evening of his career. He has long been beyond the reach of most breeders anyway, but remember that he only owes his credibility in Europe to opportunity (thanks largely to John Magnier). And that's the one thing—opportunity—breeders need to be brave enough to give some of these young turf stallions now.

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Sunday Insights: Half to Maxfield Debuts in Hallendale

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency

4th-GP, $60k, Msw, 3yo, f, 6f, 2:01p.m. ET
Beautifully bred and sporting the royal Godolphin blue, LOVED (Medaglia d'Oro) will be unveiled by Brendan Walsh, a conditioner well-versed with her family as the trainer of the filly's half-brother, MGISW and new Darley sire Maxfield (Street Sense). Out of a daughter of Caress (Storm Cat), Loved hails from the female family of leading sires Bernstein (Storm Cat) and Sky Mesa (Pulpit), as well as MGSW & GISP Golden Velvet (Seeking the Gold), the dam of two multiple graded stakes winners. Loved comes off a bullet half-mile work Mar. 3 going :48.25 in company. TJCIS PPs

11th-GP, $60k, Msw, 3yo, f, 7 1/2f T, 5:42p.m. ET
A pair of blue-blooded homebreds are scheduled to be unveiled here, including Joe Allen's PERSONAL BEST (Tapit), the first foal for American Grade I winner and French GSW War Flag (War Front). The filly's second dam Black Speck (Arch) has a line of graded success beneath her, including Hong Kong's Champion Stayer Lines of Battle (War Front) and Group 3 winner, turned producer Homebound (Dixie Union). The other starter of note will be Get By, a daughter of the recently departed Get Stormy and a full-sister to GSW Getmotherarose. She is also a half to the hard-knocking winner of over $305,000 in lifetime earnings End Play (Cape Blanco {Ire}). This is the family of Puerto Rican champion 3-year-old and U.S. import Devil's Bag Copy (Devil's Bag). Get By will carry the colors of the Mary Abeel Sullivan Revocable Trust. Ian Wilkes sends her to post. TJCIS PPs

9th-OP, $90k, Msw, 3yo, 6f, 6:10p.m. ET
BE THERE (Medaglia d'Oro), the first foal out of MGSW Tin Type Gal (Tapit), will debut here for breeder My Meadowview. With Miss Shop (Deputy Minister) as his second dam, the colt lays claim to the same female line as sires Trappe Shot (Tapit) and Power Broker (Pulpit). This is an active black-type family with GI Runhappy Hopeful S. runner up Shoplifted (Into Mischief) and MGSW Imprimis (Broken View) in its ranks. TJCIS PPs

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