Tag: Horse racing news

Mr. Buff ‘Seems To Be Holding His Form,’ Could Try Cigar Mile

Chester and Mary Broman's New York-bred Mr. Buff breezed a sharp half-mile in 48.47 on Nov. 8 on the Belmont main track and is under consideration for the Grade 1, $250,000 Cigar Mile Handicap for 3-year-olds and up slated for Dec. 5 at Aqueduct.

Trainer John Kimmel said the 6-year-old Friend Or Foe chestnut, who garnered a 94 Beyer for his frontrunning Empire Classic score last out on October 24 at Belmont, is training well.

“It was a good work. He came out of his last race well and seems to be holding his form,” said Kimmel.

Mr. Buff, who boasts a record of 40-15-7-4 with purse earnings in excess of $1.2 million, enjoyed a profitable winter at Aqueduct winning the Alex M. Robb against state-breds in December and the open Jazil in January before romping to a 20-length score over state-breds in the Haynesfield at one mile on the Big A main.

Following the Empire Classic score, Kimmel said he would consider pointing Mr. Buff to the nine-furlong Grade 1 Clark on November 27 at Churchill Downs but is now focused on either the Cigar Mile or defending his title in the nine-furlong $100,000 Alex M. Robb for New York-breds 3-years old and up on December 12.

“We won't go out of town to the Clark. We'll look at either the Cigar Mile or the Alex M. Robb,” said Kimmel. “His one-turn mile race at Aqueduct last year [the Haynesfield] before he went to the shelf was excellent when he won by 20 lengths. The Cigar Mile is a possibility depending on who shows up. If it looks too deep, we could wait until the next week and go in the easier spot, but the Cigar Mile is something we'll nominate for and take a look at.”

Top contenders for the Cigar Mile currently include Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby-winner King Guillermo and 2019 Grade 3 Discovery-winner Performer. The Cigar Mile Day card also includes a pair of Grade 2, $150,000 nine-furlong events for juveniles in the Remsen and its filly counterpart, the Demoiselle, as well as the Grade 3, $100,000 Go for Wand Handicap for fillies and mares at one mile.

Nedlaw Stable and Tobey L. Morton's promising juvenile filly Secret Love, a $270,000 purchase at the OBS July Two-Year-Olds and Horses of Racing Age Sale, flourished on debut with a 6 ¼-length romp in a six-furlong maiden sprint against fellow Empire State breds at Belmont Park.

The Not This Time chestnut, out of the A.P. Indy mare Exotic Design, garnered a 62 Beyer Speed Figure for her winning debut. She has breezed twice following her maiden voyage, including a November 1 effort in 50.45 on the Belmont dirt training track.

Kimmel said he had hoped to enter Secret Love in Sunday's Key Cents, but will have to wait for another option for the talented filly.

“Unfortunately, when she broke her maiden she grabbed her quarter and pulled her right front shoe off at the start of the race,” said Kimmel. “So, she ran that race with only three shoes and it took me about three weeks to get it so I could put a quarter patch on it. She missed too much training for me to put her in that race.”

Kimmel will be represented by a strong set of maidens this weekend at the Big A, including a trio on Saturday with Sonic Speed [Race 1], Please the Pharoah [Race 3], and The Reds [Race 5].

Flanagan Racing's Please the Pharoah, a $320,000 OBS March Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training purchase out of the stakes winning Doc's Leader mare Please Sign In, will debut in a 1 1/16-mile turf maiden under Hall of Famer John Velazquez.

The Reds, also owned by Flanagan Racing, finished fourth on debut in a 6 ½-furlong maiden sprint after being bumped at the start on September 27. The Kentucky-bred son of Tonalist will have the services of Jose Ortiz on Saturday.

“I'm very excited about the group,” said Kimmel. “I think Please the Pharoah is like most of the “Pharoahs,” it looks like he's a little better on the grass and he's been work company for The Reds a number of different times. I also think The Reds is sitting on a very good performance.”

Anthony and Stephen Mitola's Sonic Speed will look to graduate at third asking in a state-bred outer turf sprint following a close second last out at the same condition under returning rider Velazquez.

Kimmel said he is also excited about the debut of Flanagan Racing's Soupster, a gray daughter of Speightster out of the stakes-winning Alphabet Soup mare Souper Miss.

Purchased for $185,000 at the OBS Spring Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training, Soupster has breezed extensively at Belmont, including a half-mile effort in 48.84 on November 8 on the dirt training track.

“She's a Speightster filly that I think is very nice,” said Kimmel. “She's shown me that she has some talent. She's breezed well, looks good and I'm excited to watch her run.”

The Virginia-bred Soupster, with Irad Ortiz, Jr. up, will travel six furlongs on the Big A main track in Sunday's fourth race.

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Angel Oak, Half-Sister To Tiz The Law, Inching Toward Career Debut

Randy Gullatt of Twin Creeks Farm, breeder of New York-bred four-time Grade 1-winner Tiz the Law, said he is looking forward to campaigning the popular colt's 2-year-old half-sister Angel Oak with trainer Todd Pletcher for their Twin Creeks Racing division.

While Sackatoga Stable's Tiz the Law dazzled with dominant efforts in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes and Grade 1 Runhappy Travers at Saratoga over the summer for conditioner Barclay Tagg, Angel Oak has trained alongside Pletcher's Belmont Park-based contingent since the beginning of October after arriving from the WinStar Farm Training Center.

Angel Oak, a gray or roan daughter of Mission Impazible out of the graded stakes-winning Tiznow mare Tizfiz, logged a bullet half-mile breeze from the gate over the Belmont training track in 48.05 seconds on Monday, the fastest of 42 recorded works at the distance.

“She's got a little bit of a ways to go, but she had a nice gate work just the other day, so she's been making some progress,” Pletcher said. “She's always been a nice training filly, pretty forward and very professional. She looks like she's got some talent.”

Pletcher said Angel Oak will likely not be ready to race for another month.

“She will probably be ready at the end of the next condition book, I would expect,” Pletcher said.

The current Aqueduct condition book runs through November 29.

Gullatt spoke high volumes of Angel Oak and said she shares some of the same positive characteristics as her accomplished half-brother.

“We always have liked her,” said Gullatt who manages Twin Creeks Racing with director Steve Davison. “She has a very similar personality to her mother. She's just very classy and very easy to train, which are some of the same things the brother has. So far, we like what we see so we're expecting good things out of her.”

Foaled in New York, Tiz the Law spent his first 90 days in the Empire State before shipping to Gullatt's care at Twin Creeks Farm in Versailles, Kentucky where he was raised through his yearling year. Tiz the Law was purchased for $110,000 at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-bred Yearling Sale.

Gullatt said both Tiz the Law and Angel Oak were classy and manageable as young horses.

“They were very classy and easy to work with,” Gullatt said. “That trait is strong with what we've seen out of that mare as well as Mission Impazible. It's just something that we try to find. Classiness, desire and being easy to manage are all good characteristics and she has them all.”

While Tiz the Law, by Constitution, has thrived at a route of ground, Gullatt said he believes Angel Oak may be better running at shorter distances due to her natural speed that she has displayed in morning training.

“If I had to guess, I would say she's probably more of a sprinter, middle distance horse but we haven't seen anything to say she couldn't go further,” Gullatt said. “She does have some quickness and she could use that to her advantage going shorter distances. It's hard to gauge a horse before it has started.”

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John Velazquez To Ride Tiz The Law In Pegasus World Cup

Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez will replace Manny Franco aboard Belmont and Travers Stakes winner Tiz the Law in the colt's next planned start, the Jan. 23 Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park. Sackatoga Stable announced the rider change via Twitter on Thursday afternoon.

Trainer Barclay Tagg was unhappy with Franco's ride in last weekend's Breeders' Cup Classic, in which Tiz the Law finished sixth.

“(Franco) said he was rank on him,” Tagg told the Breeders' Cup notes team on Sunday. “The winner was rank and he should have just followed him around. I had him ready to run, but I can't ride for them.”

Tiz the Law is currently at Palm Meadows Training Center in Florida, and will begin preparations for the Pegasus after several weeks' rest.

“I'm grateful for what has been accomplished thus far with Tiz,” said Sackatoga's manager Jack Knowlton. “How can you not be? But we have another year of racing ahead of us and want to do what's best for him and our partners. Tiz's story still has another chapter.”

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Former Session Topper Given Away as Zayat Liquidation Continues

After nine months under court-appointed receivership to liquidate and manage its remaining equine assets, the insolvent Zayat Stables, LLC, is down to 12 remaining horses at eight locations, according to an October status report filed Nov. 11 in Kentucky’s Fayette Circuit Court.

One formerly valuable colt had to be given away during the most recent month of transactions: Lexington-based receiver Elizabeth Woodward wrote that she released the ownership of a 3-year-old Empire Maker-Duke’s Dream colt “to offset boarding, training and veterinary charges which exceeded the estimated fair market value of the horse.”

That colt was the seventh-session KEESEP sales topper in 2018, acquired for $450,000 in a partnership purchase between Zayat Stables and St. Elias Stable. The receiver’s report, however, stated Zayat Stables had 100% ownership interest in the colt at the time he was relinquished.

“He looked the part,” Zayat told TDN back in 2018 just after the hammer fell. “He was very well-balanced, he had a great walk and a great pedigree…. Everything was going for him.”

In more general terms concerning the financial state of Zayat Stables, the report stated that “As of Oct. 31, 2020, the Receiver has collected approximately $1,624,277 through the collection of purse proceeds and other funds held for Zayat Stables and from sales of the horses referenced herein. She has expended approximately $1,029,293 on operations, such as board bills, veterinary bills, and administrative fees and commissions necessary to be paid for the sales to date.”

Woodward reported the collection of $135,068 from the September sale of an American Pharoah–La Vita Bella yearling as the largest single transaction since her last report was filed with the court. That filly hammered at FTKSEP for $300,000.

Two of Zayat Stables’ horses raced in October: Bob and Jackie (Twirling Candy) ran third in the Oct. 3 GII City of Hope Mile S. at Del Mar, earning $24,000. Alex Joon (Flatter) ran second in an Oct. 29 N1X allowance at Churchill Downs, earning $9,800.

Zayat Stables was ordered into receivership back in January as part of a $24.5 million civil lawsuit by MGG Investment Group, LP, a lender alleging fraud and loan defaults by  Ahmed Zayat and his family-owned bloodstock and racing operation.

That lawsuit revolves around accusations that Zayat Stables hid the proceeds from the sale of nine lifetime breeding rights shares to 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, plus at least 15 other “valuable racing Thoroughbreds” the lender held as collateral.

The MMG suit is one of three intertwined and currently active court cases involving Ahmed Zayat and his racing stable.

In a federal Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition filed by Ahmed Zayat Sept. 8, Thoroughbred trainers, horse farms, bloodstock businesses, veterinarians, and equine transportation companies were among 132 entities listed as creditors. They are due $14,755,1717 in “non-priority unsecured claims,” which means they are at the bottom of the hierarchy to get paid–if they get paid at all. Zayat Stables is listed as a co-debtor to 112 of those 132 non-priority unsecured claims.

Separately, Ahmed Zayat’s former financial advisor is among the entities who initiated a Sept. 14 federal “involuntary bankruptcy” petition against Zayat’s family-owned racing stable.

Although once prevalent, involuntary bankruptcy proceedings are now relatively uncommon in U.S. courts. They are designed to protect creditors, not debtors, and are often filed against companies (as opposed to individuals) as an attempt to get paid when it is believed that a firm is rapidly burning through assets and/or financial malfeasance is alleged.

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