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What Was Your Favorite Moment of 2023: Kelsey Danner

As 2023 draws to a close, the TDN is asking industry members what their favorite moment of the year was. Send your favorite moment to suefinley@thetdn.com

“My favorite memory was winning my first graded stake [the GIII Herecomesthebride S.] with Danse Macabre this spring. She is a special filly to me. It was also stretching out and she showed a ton of grit to win.” -Kelsey Danner

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European Riders Murphy and Levey Look to Make Their Marks at Gulfstream

What is already arguably the deepest jockey colony in the country has grown even stronger this year as two of Europe's top riders, Oisin Murphy and Sean Levey, are joining the riding colony at Gulfstream Park for the championship meet.

Murphy, 28, is the more familiar of the two. He was the British flat champion jockey three years running in 2019, 2020 and 2021 and has ridden Group I winners in Great Britain, Ireland, France, Canada, Germany, Japan, the UAE and in the U.S. His three Grade I wins in the U.S. came in the GI Belmont Oaks, the GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup S. and in the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff with the Japanese invader Marche Lorraine (Orfevre {Jpn}).

While flat racing quiets down in the winter in Europe, Murphy had been traveling all over the world to compete in big races, going to places like Australia, Japan and Hong Kong. But the chance to settle in at one track in the winter, one that offers good purses and perfect weather, appealed to him. Gulfstream also represents a chance to master a new surface–dirt.

“I wanted to try to get some more experience on dirt,” he said. “At Gulfstream, most of the important races are on dirt. There will be ample opportunities to get plenty of rides and ride over what is an important surface. It's important for me to show that I can win races over all surfaces.”

Murphy is the retained jockey for Qatar Racing, the global racing and bloodstock operation founded and chaired by Sheikh Fahad bin Abdullah Al Thani and is the presenting sponsor of the Pegasus World Cup card. Murphy can count on riding the Qatar Racing horses that show up in the entries during the Gulfstream Championship meet.

“I have been watching American racing since I was a kid and I had always wanted to do a little stint in the States,” he said. “The opportunity came up for me this time. Sheikh Fahad, who heads Qatar Racing, had a conversation with [Chief Executive Officer 1/ST Racing and Gaming] Aidan Butler and he said he thought it would be a good idea for me to come here. I will try to do the best that I can, stay busy in the mornings and make a real effort to ride to the best of my abilities in the afternoon.”

Murphy plans to joining the Gulfstream colony Dec. 27 and, except for a trip to Saudi Arabia for the Saudi Cup Card, intends to ride full time at Gulfstream at least until through January.

“From the first time I stepped across the Atlantic and came to the U.S,. I wanted to ride against these top guys,” said Murphy, who is 4-for-31 lifetime in the U.S. “I won the Belmont Oaks on Aspen Grove, won the Queen Elizabeth II on Mawj and I won a Breeders' Cup race in the Distaff. I have a huge amount of respect for the top riders here. Hopefully, riding against them will help me pick up a huge amount of knowledge and help me to learn their riding styles. I already have a good relationship with those guys.

Like Murphy, Levey, 35, is looking for new opportunities and a challenge. He said he usually spent his winters riding on the all-weather tracks in Great Britain, but wanted to try something different.

“I think I'm at the point in my career where I've been riding on the all-weather tracks in England during the winter for quite a few years,” he said. “There's nothing more that I can learn. This is a great opportunity to do something different and to put me in a good place for the season ahead. I was put in touch with the right people and they were looking for European riders to take part in the festival over here. It was an opportunity. It's not just the better weather, it's the better prize money. There are a lot of things that are better about riding here versus in the winter back home.”

Levey was born in Swaziland and his father was a jockey who rode all over Europe. In 2001, the family moved to County Tipperary, Ireland, where his parents worked at Ballydoyle for trainer Aidan O'Brien. Levey rode out for O'Brien and, together with his brother Declan, spent a year on the pony racing circuit. He started riding professionally in Ireland before moving on to Great Britain. He's won six Group I races, four in the U.K. and two in France.

He said he has made some connections with U.S. trainers when coming over with O'Brien horses for the Breeders' Cup and other major events. He's also spent some time in the U.S. working as an exercise rider.

“I'm hoping to make more contacts, but I worked with Saffie Joseph and he said come here and see what we can do,” Levey said. “I also have worked for Brendan Walsh.

“I'm coming over with no other plan than to gain as much experience as I can,” he said. “I'm coming over here with an open mind and will try to get as many rides as I can and gain as much experience as I can. If that comes with my getting a few winners that would be great. I'm coming here to be competitive. I know how many good riders are here and I know that lessens my chances of getting some good rides. It will be very competitive. But once I get my foot in the door that will lead to my getting a few winners.”

Levey hopes to begin riding next week and says his work visa lasts for 90 days.

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Remsen Win Has Gargan Thinking Derby for Dornoch

Dornoch (Good Magic)'s determined victory in the GII Remsen S. Saturday at Aqueduct has Danny Gargan mapping out possible paths to next year's GI Kentucky Derby, but the trainer admitted his charge has plenty of growing up to do if he is to make it to Churchill Downs on the First Saturday of next May.

Dornoch, who set swift fractions in the nine-furlong race Saturday, appeared defeated with a furlong to run when he bumped the rail and allowed Sierra Leone (Gun Runner) to surge past him. But Dornoch battled back along the inside and stuck his nose back in front in the final stride.

“It's crazy. Usually when a horse hits the rail at the eighth pole like he did, they just stop running altogether,” said Gargan. “I can't believe he re-rallied after that. He did see the other horse and get running back at him, but hitting the rail knocked him off stride and then it took him a few jumps to get back going. I think if he doesn't hit the rail, he stays in front. I've never seen a horse get passed a length and then come back and win. It was a really good race.”

Dornoch, a full-brother to this year's Derby winner Mage, will head south to winter at Palm Meadows with possible early 2024 targets including the GIII Withers S. at Aqueduct or the GII Fountain of Youth S. at Gulfstream Park, according to Gargan.

“He'll tack walk for two or three weeks and then we'll figure it out from there,” said Gargan. “We'll probably see him around the Fountain of Youth. The Withers is always something you could win real easy if you wanted to win a race, it just depends who's where.”

Of what he would like to see from the colt over the winter, Gargan said, “We need him to focus running. He kind of looks around playing a little bit, and that's why he hit the rail. He's got to grow up a lot, and he's still out there goofing off. He did dig in in this race in the end, but he kind of put himself in that situation running green early. I think if another horse is around him, he won't lose focus. What we'll probably do next time is bring him off the pace which he can do. He'll finish in the lane so he'll get a little more out of the race and mature a little bit from it.”

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Hall of Fame Jockey Bobby Ussery Passes at 88

Hall of Famer Bobby Ussery, whose many accomplishments in the saddle included a victory aboard Proud Clarion in the 1967 Kentucky Derby, has passed away, it was reported Friday by the Gulfstream Park media team. He was 88.

Gulfstream reported that Ussery, a native of Vian, Oklahoma, was in Florida at the time of his passing. His son, Robert Ussery Jr. told the Daily Racing Form that his father died earlier this week of congestive heart failure and was living in Hollywood, Florida, at the time.

Sports Illustrated called Ussery's ride aboard Proud Clarion “one of the best in Derby history.” Ussery thought he might have a good weekend in Louisville.

“I might have won it with Bally Ache in 1960, but we finished second,” he said. “Then I thought I'd win it this year with Reflected Glory. When that didn't work out, I still figured–just a hunch, I guess–that it was my year, no matter what horse I rode. I had a real hunch.”

Ussery wasted little time proving he could win at the highest levels of the sport. In his very first official mount, he rode Reticule to victory in the 1951 Thanksgiving Day H. at the Fair Grounds. But, according to a 2020 feature on Ussery on the America's Best Racing website, Ussery had been riding for years, often for trainer Tommy Oliphant in Texas, at a time when official pari-mutuel races weren't being held in Texas and racing was conducted on an unofficial grassroots basis. Dave Kindred wrote in the April 19, 1974, edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal: “At age 5 [Ussery] was first lifted onto a horse … at age 10 he rode Quarter Horses for $5 a race. At 14, he was galloping horses at Texas and Nebraska racetracks.”

Ussery spent much of the 1950's in Florida, where he was a top rider, before moving to the New York circuit. He had one of his best years in 1960 when he was the top North American rider in terms of stakes purses won. His mounts that year included 2-year-old male champion Hail To Reason and Bally Ache, who won the Preakness, Flamingo and Florida Derby.

In 1968, he was aboard Dancer's Image, who crossed the wire first in the Kentucky Derby but was disqualified due to a medication violation for phenylbutazone.

“Dancer's Image is a better horse,” Ussery said in the immediate aftermath of the 1968 Derby. “Proud Clarion just happened to have a day for himself. This is a real good one.”

Other notable wins for the Oklahoma native came in the Whitney H., the Alabama S., the Travers, the Hopeful, the Mother Goose, the Coaching Club American Oaks, the Carter H, the Canadian International S. and the Queens Plate S. He was a two-time winner of the Brooklyn H. and the Wood Memorial.

Ussery retired in 1974 with a record of 3,611 victories from 20,593 races. At the time he was one of only 10 jockeys to have ridden 3,000 or more winners. In 1980, the he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

Ussery had a unique riding style in which he would often take horse toward the outside of the track, near the crown, on the turn and before diving toward the rail. The theory was that his mounts would pick up momentum as they were essentially racing down hill. The move was dubbed “Ussery's Alley.”

After his retirement he worked as a bloodstock agent and as a jockey agent.

Expressions of sympathy may be made in Ussery's memory to the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund at pdjf.org.

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