Tag: GII San Vicente S.

Muth Takes San Vicente with Style

Announcer Frank Mirahmadi said it best: friends in the morning, but rivals in the afternoons. Muth (Good Magic) put away stablemate Pilot Commander (Justify) en route to an authoritative victory in the GII San Vicente S. to open his 2024 season.

First or second for all four starts in his juvenile season, including victory in the GI American Pharoah S. two back and a runner-up effort behind fellow Eclipse finalist Fierceness (City of Light) in the GI FanDuel Breeders' Cup Juvenile, the betting public heralded this contest as Muth's to lose.

Sent off the overwhelming 2-5 favorite, he was content to track Slider and Pilot Commander as that pair stepped out fastest to his inside. Still widest of all as :45.27 and 1:09.76 splits floated by, he challenged his stablemate coming off the bend from four wide, and cleared the embattled dup with a furlong to go. He was ridden out to a 2 3/4-length victory as Pilot Commander go the best of the photo with Slider.

“I was happy with their performance. I thought Muth was going to be up there early like he was at Del Mar, but the other horse (Pilot Commander) was quicker away from there. I thought he would be stalking but Juan, he just took back and rode Muth with a lot of confidence. He knows his horse really well. I'm just glad it worked out,” said Bob Baffert.

He added, “Zedan Racing, he gives us all this ammo to work with. He handles the wins and the losses the same way and he let me name this horse after my good friend Aaron Muth, so it is fun for him.”

Pedigree Note

Muth is the first offspring to the races for the winning Hoppa, who has since produced two half-sisters to the Eclipse finalist–a 2-year-old by Violence and a yearling by Tacitus. She is due this spring with a full-sibling to the victor.

While his pedigree is quiet immediately up front as he and MSP March to Victory (Dixieland Band) are the only black-type earners, Muth does hail from the extended female family of GSW Wandering Star, who herself went on to produce G1SW-Eng War Command (War Front) and GSW-Fr Naval Officer. That extended family also includes New Zealand champion G1SW-NZ Rollout the Carpet (Aus) (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}).

Saturday, Santa Anita Park
SAN VICENTE S.-GII, $200,500, Santa Anita, 1-6, 3yo, 7f, 1:23.01, ft.
1–MUTH, 124, c, 3, by Good Magic
                1st Dam: Hoppa, by Uncle Mo
                2nd Dam: Handoverthecat, by Tale of the Cat
                3rd Dam: Frayne, by Red Ransom
($190,000 Ylg '22 KEESEP; $2,000,000 2yo '23 OBSMAR). 'TDN Rising Star'. O-Zedan Racing Stables, Inc.; B-Don Alberto Corporation (KY); T-Bob Baffert; J-Juan J. Hernandez. $120,000. Lifetime Record: GISW, 5-3-2-0, $716,600. Werk Nick Rating: A++. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Click for the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Pilot Commander, 120, c, 3, Justify–Rebuke, by Carson City. 1ST BLACK TYPE, 1ST GRADED BLACK TYPE. ($145,000 RNA Ylg '22 KEEJAN; $700,000 2yo '23 OBSMAR). O-CSLR Racing Partners LLC; B-AR Enterprises, Inc. (KY); T-Bob Baffert. $40,000.
3–Slider, 124, c, 3, Jimmy Creed–Days Like This, by Congrats. 1ST GRADED BLACK TYPE. ($240,000 2yo '23 OBSAPR). O-Hall Racing LLC, Pearl Racing and West Point Thoroughbreds; B-Jason Hall, Stephen Baker, Herschel Martindale, and Mike Riordan (KY); T-John W. Sadler. $24,000.
Margins: 2 3/4, HD, 5 3/4. Odds: 0.40, 2.90, 8.00.
Also Ran: Boltage, Moonlit Sonata, Formidable Man.
Click for the Equibase.com chart and the TJCIS.com PPs. VIDEO, sponsored by FanDuel TV.

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Baffert Has 14 Of 16 Nominees In Robert B. Lewis

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert will attack next Saturday's GIII Robert B. Lewis S. at Santa Anita with quality and an awful lot of quantity. The nominees for the $200,000 race were released Saturday and 14 of the 16 nominated for the race hail from the Baffert stable.

This Lewis will be run just six days after the GII San Vicente S. In that race, also for 3-year-olds, Baffert trains four of the five starters. The lone horse to take on Baffert in the San Vicente will be 20-1 shot Man Child (Creative Cause) from the barn of Ryan Hanson.

All four of Baffert's San Vicente starters are nominated for the Robert Lewis, but that still leaves 10 potential starters. Among the top names for the Lewis are the Baffert trio of Reincarnate (Good Magic), Newgate (Into Mischief) and National Treasure (Quality Road), who finished one-two-three in the GIII Sham S.

Baffert will come into the Lewis having won the race four straight years and 10 times overall.

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Forbidden Kingdom One to Celebrate at Springhouse

Foaling season is already underway at Springhouse Farm, where breeder Gabriel “Spider” Duignan says they are expecting to see around 50 new foals on the ground this year.

On Saturday, Duignan enjoyed a brief respite from his work on the farm to celebrate a successful day on the racetrack.

Forbidden Kingdom, a son of American Pharoah bred by Springhouse Farm, stamped himself as one to watch on the Triple Crown trail after he upset a trio of Bob Baffert runners in the GII San Vicente S. at Santa Anita. Trained by Richard Mandella and campaigned by MyRacehorse and Spendthrift Farm, the chestnut colt broke his maiden at Del Mar last summer and placed in the Speakeasy S. and the GIII Bob Hope S. in the fall before his winning sophomore debut in the San Vicente, where he showed the way down the stretch to win by 2 1/4 lengths and earn a 94 Beyer Speed Figure.

Duignan purchased Forbidden Kingdom's dam, Just Louise (Five Star Day), at the 2013 Fasig-Tipton November Sale for $150,000. The mare had been a precocious 2-year-old in 2010, breaking her maiden on debut and then taking the GIII Debutante S., while her half-sister Sara Louise (Malibu Moon) was a three-time graded stakes winner.

“She was a beautiful-looking mare,” Duignan recalled. “She was barren, which made the price better. When we inquired about her, it sounded like she had no fertility problems; it was just something that commonly happens with young mares. She was a very fast 2-year and it was a great family, a very good-looking family.”

While her first foal fetched $300,000 as a weanling and won on debut, the mare's first three foals did not make any major headlines.

When Just Louise was next bred to Malibu Moon, the mare produced a promising filly in 2018, so Duignan decided to send her to American Pharoah.

“American Pharoah speaks for himself,” he said of his reasoning behind the mating. “He's a fantastic horse and I'm a big believer. I thought that the fact that there was so much speed in her family would suite him well. Physically, I thought they would match up.”

Forbidden Kingdom as a yearling at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton Selected Yearlings Sale | Photos by Z

The resulting colt, Duignan said, was everything he had hoped for and more.

“Forbidden Kingdom was always a beautiful colt, beautiful-bodied and fast-looking. He was very straightforward with a lot of quality. He was one of those that never had a bad stage. He was just born nice and he stayed that way.”

Duignan thought the colt was impressive enough to send to the Fasig-Tipton Selected Yearlings Sale, which was held in Lexington in 2020. Despite an uncertain market due to the pandemic, Forbidden Kingdom brought $300,000, selling to Spendthrift and MyRacehorse as one of the top three highest-priced American Pharoah yearlings of the sale.

Just Louise's Malibu Moon filly, who brought $310,000 as a yearling in 2019 and was named Sianara, broke her maiden at Churchill Downs last year and remains in training with Steve Asmussen. The mare also produced a Bolt d'Oro colt who brought $275,000 at last year's Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale. She now has a Not This Time yearling filly in the pipeline who Duignan said is one to watch.

When the Not This Time filly was foaled in April, Just Louise was bred once to Tiz the Law, but did not catch. Duignan said mating plans are not yet set for her this year.

Forbidden Kingdom is not Duignan's first potential Kentucky Derby starter. He was represented by GI Blue Grass S. winner Brody's Cause (Giant's Causeway), who he bred in partnership with William Arvin, Jr. and Charlie O'Connor's Petaluma Bloodstock, in the 2016 GI Kentucky Derby.

“It's what you're trying to achieve as a breeder, so it's lovely when it happens,” Duignan said of the experience of having a potential Kentucky Derby starter. “It's really fun and hopefully he stays on the right track. You can never know which ones will be special, but he was definitely one that you could hope for because he was a beautiful horse.”

Duignan is also a founding partner in Paramount Sales. In addition to what was an exciting Saturday for Springhouse Farm, Paramount Sales enjoyed a big day with their sales graduate Life is Good (Into Mischief) in the GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational S. The gifted 4-year-old was part of Paramount's 2019 Keeneland September Sale consignment and sold to China Horse Club and Maverick Racing for $525,000.

Asked if he remembers the impressive colt from the Keeneland grounds, Duignan responded quickly. “I sure do. He was a beautiful Into Mischief with maybe a little bit more leg than some of them. He was very popular at the sales and brought a good amount of money.”

How does Life is Good compare with the rest of the long list of top-performing Paramount sales graduates?

“He ranks well no matter what company you put him in,” Duignan said, chuckling. “He's a monster.”

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Big Weekend Ahead for KMN Racing

Kevin and Kim Nish of KMN Racing are looking forward to a big weekend of racing in California with not one, but two homebreds entered in stakes races at Santa Anita.

On Saturday, What In Blazes (Straight Fire), a blaze-faced 3-year-old colt will make his third career start in the GII San Vicente S. After running a close second on debut, the colt was last seen defeating a field of maiden juveniles by nearly six lengths last July at Del Mar.

“What in Blazes was brought up by Jerry Hollendorfer,” Kevin Nish said. “He ran a little bit short in his first racing, coming out just one workout too early, but he made up for it in his next start at Del Mar. We gave him some vacation time and he's been training really well at Los Alamitos for the past four weeks.”

Nish admitted that the colt will need to take a step up to come out on top in Saturday's Grade II, but explained their reasoning for taking a shot.

“It's hard to fill allowance races in California and stakes races are much more predictable, so we decided to give him a chance against the much more expensive stock in other peoples' barns.”

The five-horse San Vicente S. also includes MyRacehorse and Spendthrift Farm's Forbidden Kingdom (American Pharoah), a $300,000 yearling purchase, as well as three more six-figure purchases in highly-regarded Baffert trainees Doppelganger (Into Mischief), McLaren Vale (Gun Runner) and 2021 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile contender Pinehurst (Twirling Candy).

On Sunday, a second KMN Racing homebred called Smuggler's Run (Straight Fire) will look to remain undefeated in the Baffle S. on the turf. The 3-year-old gelding trained by Richard Baltas debuted on New Year's Day this year, winning a six-furlong dirt contest by 5 ½ lengths

Regarding the switch to the grass, Kim Nish said, “We have heard from several people that he might like the turf. He has an older brother that is a graded stakes winner on the grass and his dam is by Kitten's Joy, so when the stake came up and it was time to run him, we thought it could possibly be a good spot for him.”

Young sire Straight Fire stands at Legacy Ranch in California I Legacy Ranch

Both What in Blazes and Smuggler's Run are from the first crop of California sire Straight Fire. KMN Racing was a partner on the son of Dominus during his racing career and they have stayed in as owners for his stud career.

“He was a really fast, precocious racehorse and he never had the chance to prove just how good he was on the racetrack,” Kevin Nish said of the stallion who placed in both the GI Del Mar Futurity and GI FrontRunner S. in 2016.

Straight Fire was represented by 10 juvenile winners from 13 runners in 2021, including two more KMN Racing-owned horses in Zuboshi and Carasynthia.

“Straight Fire proved himself to be a precocious Del Mar winner and that's where we like to target our horses,” Kevin Nish said. “We like to breed them so that they're speedy and early and that's what he seems to be producing so far.”

“They seem to have great heads on them,” Kim Nish added. “They look like they're all going to be really intelligent.”

KMN Racing has several 2-year-olds by Straight Fire in the pipeline this year that are currently in training in Ocala.

“The people breaking them are telling us they're exceptional,” Kevin Nish said. “We expect to see some of those come out in June or July to see if we can continue the good run he's had.”

Not long after its inception in 2011, KMN Racing had success through racing partnerships with 2013 GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint winner Mizdirection (Mizzen Mast) and Eclipse champion Shared Belief (Candy Ride {Arg}). Today, they focus on their breeding program by racing the majority of their homebreds. With about half a dozen mares in their broodmare band, KMN Racing's breeding program is somewhat of a rarity nowadays as they almost exclusively focus on breeding to race. They estimate that over the past few years, 80 to 90% of their foals will go to the racetrack while only a few will be sent to the sales if they can fetch the right price.

“With the way people will pay for horses these days, if you can get a few big ones, it can pretty well fund the deficit of a small operation like ours for an extended period of time and enable us to continue to be participants,” Kevin Nish explained.

Smuggler's Run's dam, Maddie's Odyssey (Kitten's Joy), was one of their first broodmares. Picked out by advisors Jason Litt and Alex Solis II in 2012, the mare has become a highly-successful producer for her breeders as the dam of GSWs Grecian Fire (Unusual Heat) and Sneaking Out (Indian Evening) as well as MSW Been Studying Her (Fast Anna).

“She's our foundation mare for our breeding success,” Nish explained. “We've had a few others that have produced stakes horses, but 'Maddie' is consistently giving us stakes winners that have run well and won significant money.”

Maddie's Odyssey has a 2-year-old filly that was bred on a foal share to Tapit and brought $500,000 at this year's Keeneland September Sale. She also has a yearling Constitution colt. Nish said the plan is not yet set on whether or not he will see the sales ring. Maddie's Odyssey was not bred in 2021, but she will be visiting first-year sire Charlatan this year.

What in Blazes's dam, Western Kitty (Western Fame), has an Army Mule yearling colt in the pipeline and is currently in foal to American Freedom. Nish said that this year, she has returned to California and will be bred back to Straight Fire.

Kevin and Kim Nish are currently living in Florida and won't be able to make the races at Santa Anita this weekend, but they said if all goes well with both runners, they will be sure to make the flight for their next start.

 

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