Tag: Honor Roll

The racing world lost one of its highest-profile supporters when award-winning musician Burt Bacharach died on Feb. 8 of this year, but Duvet Day made sure he had one last hit on his resume.

The 4-year-old Starspangledbanner filly overcame traffic to win the listed Astra Stakes on Jan. 21 at Santa Anita Park, highlighting a career that took a brief detour at the 2022 Keeneland April Horses of All Ages Sale.

“That particular filly was the last winner that Burt Bacharach had,” said trainer Michael McCarthy. “It was a big deal for him.”

McCarthy trained horses for Bacharach and his wife Jane for just under a year at the time of the musician's death, and he continues to condition the couple's horses for Jane, who remains active with the stable after Burt's death.

Bacharach had owned racehorses over the span of seven decades, including champion Heartlight No. One and Grade 1 winner Afternoon Deelites and Soul of the Matter

“He was a wonderful man, loved his horses,” McCarthy said. “He was very well-versed on the game.”

Duvet Day was already running for McCarthy and the Bacharachs prior to the 2022 Keeneland April sale, after the filly was purchased privately following a pair of runner-up efforts in her native Ireland. She went into the sale to dissolve the partnership, and when the ticket went to De Burgh Equine for $72,000, the Bacharachs remained part of the filly's ownership group. Elite consigned Duvet Day, as agent.

The time through the ring apparently did Duvet Day some good. She won her next two starts after the Keeneland April sale: first a 1 3/8-mile maiden special weight at Churchill Downs, and then an allowance optional claiming race at Del Mar.

McCarthy said the filly's gameplan changed after the sale, and the decision quickly paid dividends.

“Added furlongs and maturity,” the trainer said. “She'll come back and run next week going a mile and a half in the Santa Barbara (at Santa Anita Park). She's by Starspangledbanner out of a Montjeu mare, so there's plenty of stamina there. She gave me the impression she'd run all day. These races out here in California seem to get lighter and lighter all the time, so it's a good spot for her to be in.”

Duvet Day finished the season facing graded stakes competition, but she was still seeking her first black type victory at the end of 2022. The Bacharachs also took on a new partner in the horse in Richard Schatz.

That streak was quickly snapped at the start of 2023 in the 1 1/2-mile Astra Stakes on Jan. 21, where Duvet Day overcame a slow start, and getting bottled in on the rail to get free at the right time, swing six wide, and pull away by 1 1/4 lengths. She followed that effort with her first graded black type, when she was third in the G3 Santa Ana Stakes on March 12 at the same track.

Even though McCarthy didn't gain or lose a horse when Duvet Day went through the Keeneland April ring, he still had plenty of incentives to shop at the racing age sales, which he gladly takes when the opportunity is right.

“You get to see what you're getting your hands on, if they're a multiple starter,” the trainer said. “You get an idea of what their ability level is. You see some of those that look they might be good candidates for the 'Ship and Win' program, or maybe they could use a firmer turf course, something like that. You're always looking for angles. Buying some of those horses that come from New York or Kentucky and taking them out to California has served us well.”

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Cazadero was a good horse when he went through the ring at the 2022 Keeneland April Horse of Racing Age Sale, but it was clear he could use a change of surroundings.

The son of Street Sense got off to a blazing start as a 2-year-old, winning on debut by 8 3/4 lengths in May at Churchill Downs, then running off with the Grade 3 Bashford Manor Stakes at the same track a month later for owner/breeder Stonestreet Farm and trainer Steve Asmussen.

Cazadero remained competitive as a 3-year-old in 2021, but he never quite found the same shine as he entered his 4-year-old season.

Intentions for a racehorse can vary from horse to horse, and from owner to owner, and sometimes, a horse with plenty of run left in him is entered in a racing age sale because he no longer fits the perceived window for certain time-sensitive races or to make a likely stallion prospect.

For $50,000, Fergus Galvin, acting as agent for owner Marc Detampel, was willing to take that bet at the Keeneland April sale that Cazadero still had some run left in him. After some time off, Cazadero was placed in the barn of trainer Brendan Walsh.

“If they've got some back form, it's always good, and you want to find a horse that's relatively sound and relatively fresh,” Walsh said. “The horse was still lightly raced.”

Whether it's a new 2-year-old or a horse from another barn, there is always an adjustment period when a horse enters a new trainer's program. When it comes to learning a horse with prior racing history, Walsh said knowing the barn they came from helps, but ultimately, each horse has their own discovery process.

“You've just got to try to figure him out yourself,” he said. “He came from a top barn, and you see if there's a way that you can bring him back to his old form, and thankfully, we did initially.”

Cazadero reemerged at Saratoga Race Course the summer after going through the ring at Keeneland, finishing third in an allowance optional claiming race.

Then, Cazadero headed north to contest the G2 Nearctic Stakes at Woodbine – his first graded stakes start since his 2-year-old season.

After holding back to last from the outside post, jockey Patrick Husbands kept Cazadero at the back of the pack while still several lengths wide heading into the turn of the six-furlong turf race. He was still well behind the rest of the field heading into the stretch, but Husbands swung his mount eight wide and rocketed down the straightaway to win by 2 1/4 lengths.

“He was a nice horse,” Walsh said. “He had some good back form, which is always good to see when you're trying to buy a horse that's moving along in age. We decided we'd take a shot on him, and thankfully it paid off in the Nearctic.”

After the victory at Woodbine, Detampel took on new partners on the horse – Galvin, Qatar Racing, and Barry Clohessy – and pointed toward the G1 Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint. Then, the horse took his game to a global scale, starting his 2023 campaign with a start in the G1 Al Quoz Sprint on the Dubai World Cup card.

“We went to the Breeders' Cup with him, we went to Dubai with him, and we didn't do too good in either, but when you've got a horse that can legitimately show up to those kind of races, it's fun for everybody, and that's what it's all about,” Walsh said.

A year after selling at the Keeneland April sale, Cazadero is once again entered in this year's Keeneland April sale, set to take place Sunday, April 30. He is cataloged as Hip 14.

Walsh said the horse might not necessarily go through the ring on Sunday, but if his team decides another change of surroundings would be beneficial, an opportunity is on the table.

“We haven't totally committed to it yet, but we put him in there as an option,” he said. “He's still a very nice horse and a very sound horse, so we'll make a final decision closer to the time.”

The post Keeneland’s April All-Stars: Cazadero’s Return To Form Under Walsh’s Tutelage appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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No one would have blamed Joe Sharp if his mind wasn't entirely on last year's Keeneland April Horses of All Ages Sale while he was there.

That morning, Callie Witt, an exercise rider for his barn, died from injuries suffered in a training accident. Her parents were flying in to meet Sharp, and he didn't plan on staying at the sale for long.

Hip 1 through the sale was Scarlet Fusion, a two-time winning son of Curlin with a deep page. Sharp landed the colt for $110,000 on behalf of owners Brad Grady and Carl R. Moore Management, and he got on with the rest of his day.

Scarlet Fusion proved worth the brief appearance, climbing the conditions ladder through the second half of 2022, and kicking off his 2023 campaign with his first stakes victory in the Grade 3 John B. Connally Turf Cup Stakes on Jan. 28 at Sam Houston Race Park. The win held a fair bit of extra weight in the Sharp barn.

“He was the only horse we purchased, so it's always held a bit of special energy for me, because of all we'd gone through as a barn that day, and then to acquire him and for him to turn out to be a good horse has been kind of neat,” Sharp said. “He's been a fun horse, and there's a lot of people that are pulling for him.”

A product of the Stonestreet Farm breeding program, Scarlet Fusion is out of the stakes-placed French Deputy mare Scarlet Tango, making him a sibling to Grade 1 winners Tara's Tango and Visionaire, as well as Grade 3 winners Scarlet Strike and Madison's Luna.

Sharp said browsing the sales with Grady and Moore tends to be a collaborative process, especially in racing-age sales, where buyers tend to have past performance to lean on to determine what a horse might be capable of achieving in their own barn. Scarlet Fusion was consigned at the Keeneland April sale by Eaton Sales, agent.

If Sharp could polish up the colt's resume to match his page, he surmised the return on investment could be significant. Furthermore, Scarlet Fusion had won on both dirt and turf, giving Sharp some options on his future.

“His pedigree on the bottom side, he has a stallion's pedigree, so that was super attractive,” Sharp said. “If you could get him to take some steps forward, you would have potentially residual value down the road. He would obviously have to take some significant steps forward, but based on what we've seen he has, and he looks like he'll continue to do so.”

Scarlet Fusion had previously raced as a homebred for Stonestreet, which campaigned the horse in partnership with e Five Racing, with Mark Casse handling the training duties. After he got the horse in his barn, Sharp said the colt's background with reputable connections made the transition to his program, and the feeling-out process to see where he might succeed, a simple one.

“We go over them, but especially when they're coming from a great outfit like Mark Casse's, you know the horse has been well cared for,” Sharp said. “It's pretty much just evaluating them. I breeze a lot of my own horses, and you see if there's anything you can pick up on that you think they might be better suited for, or a little something here or there that could be altered, like distance or equipment. You're trying to take care of the horse and let them mature into themselves, and that's what we've done with him. Nothing drastic, just training him straightforward and letting him develop himself.”

Though the long-term goal was to develop Scarlet Fusion into a potential stallion prospect, the barn has taken a patient route to get there. After joining Sharp's shedrow, he spent most of the year racing at the allowance optional claiming level at Churchill Downs, highlighted by a 3 3/4-length win on Nov. 2.

That race was at 1 1/2 miles on the dirt, and Sharp said that much of the time spent racing at Churchill was used to tinker with finding the horse's ideal racing conditions. He'd been showing talent in the mornings, but the trainer said that began to translate over to the races when he removed the colt's blinkers and ran him long.

Scarlet Fusion's first stakes try came at the end of his 2022 campaign, where he finished third in the Tinsel Stakes at Oaklawn Park.

His 5-year-old campaign saw Scarlet Fusion face his biggest test to date in his first start, and he earned his biggest win. In the Connally, Scarlet Fusion settled in mid-pack under jockey Adam Bezchizza in the 1 1/2-mile turf race, and got up just in time to win by three-quarters of a length.

This year's Keeneland April Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale takes place Sunday, April 30.

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There may be no hotter ticket in Central Kentucky than a spot in the first book of mares for 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline, and Castleton Lyons ensured its place on the right side of the velvet rope when the operation purchased Brooke Marie at the 2021 Keeneland April Horses of Racing Age Sale.

When the daughter of Lemon Drop Kid went through the ring in April 2021, she had a pair of wins on her record, along with a stakes-placing. After the hammer fell to Castleton Lyons for $210,000, Brooke Marie went on to become a Grade 2 winner and eventually secure that coveted spot in Flightline's first book during the 2023 breeding season.

Bred in Kentucky by Mr. & Mrs. Jerome Moss and David Ingordo, Brooke Marie initially raced for Jim Bakke and Gerald Isbister and was trained by Christophe Clement.

She competed in turf races in New York and New Jersey, breaking her maiden in her third career start at Belmont Park as a 2-year-old, then notching an allowance win at Monmouth Park at three. She finished her sophomore campaign with a runner-up effort in the listed Christiecat Stakes at Belmont Park, leading in the stretch but getting caught at the wire to miss by a neck.

Brooke Marie was sidelined for 17 months after the Christiecat, and she returned to make two starts for Bakke and Isbister before being entered in the 2021 Keeneland April sale; finishing fourth in her return at Turfway Park and winning a one-turn turf allowance at Keeneland. She was consigned in the April sale by Elite, agent.

Trainer Eddie Kenneally spotted Brooke Marie in the catalog as Hip 48, and when her physical inspection impressed him as much as her pedigree and race record, he was sold.

“She was one of the fillies in that particular sale that had recent form, and she was on the way up,” Kenneally said. “She was relatively lightly-raced. She was a perfect horse to pull out of that sale.”

Brooke Marie is out of the unraced Giant's Causeway mare Mamasez, from the family of Grade 1 winner Marylebone and Grade 2 winner Alpha Kitten.

With Castleton Lyons being a high-level breeding operation, Brooke Marie's residual value as a broodmare was certainly a factor in her appeal in the Keeneland April catalog. Broodmare value is not a unique factor to racing-age sales, compared to shopping at a yearling or 2-year-old sale, but the potential to act upon it is often much more immediate.

Comparing the process of shopping a racing-age sale to buying yearlings, Kenneally said there is a bit less mystery in what you have with an older horse, but that does not necessarily dictate what a horse could be under a new shedrow.

“The biggest difference is you've got past performances to look at,” he said. “That's what you go on, for the most part. You look at horses that have run and run well, horses that you think are maturing or improving. You have that guideline, and that really helps you, whereas, when you're looking at yearlings, none of them have obviously done anything, so you're going on conformation alone. Conformation is a part of the horses in training sales, but the main thing is pedigree, and probably number one is past performances.”

Brooke Marie returned to Keeneland for her first start under her new connections, and she led at every point of call to win a 5 1/2-furlong turf allowance by a half-length. She followed that effort with her first career stakes victory in the Pan Zareta Stakes at the Fair Grounds, where she closed hard in the stretch and got up to win by a head.

After a third in the Frederick P. Aime Memorial Stakes at the Fair Grounds in her ensuing start, Kenneally shipped his mare west to run in the Grade 2 Monrovia Stakes at Santa Anita Park.

The Monrovia would be the site of Brooke Marie's biggest career victory. Throughout the trip down Santa Anita's downhill turf course, she did battle with Alice Marble, with each briefly conceding the lead to the other until jockey Juan Hernandez gained the advantage aboard Brooke Marie as the wire approached, and they finished with a half-length victory.

“She was a big, imposing filly,” Kenneally said about Brooke Marie. “A ton of class and quality. We liked her from the beginning. She won a listed stakes for us, and then she won the Monrovia, which was icing on the cake. Putting races like that on a filly's resume, a big, beautiful filly that's bred like her, she warrants a trip to Flightline.”

Brooke Marie retired with six wins in 20 starts for earnings of $480,647. She more than earned back her purchase price for Castleton Lyons on the racetrack, and after a visit to one of the most exciting incoming stallions in recent memory, Brooke Marie stands to continue rewarding her connections for their faith at the Keeneland April sale.

This year's Keeneland April Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale takes place Sunday, April 30.

Watch Brooke Marie's G2 Monrovia Stakes win below:

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