A graded stakes winning turf sprinter who was most recently a close fourth in a Grade I sprint on dirt, trainer Doug O'Neill's Wildman Jack looks like the horse to beat among a field of seven 3-year-olds and up in Friday's Grade II, $200,000 Eddie D Stakes at Santa Anita. The Eddie D, to be run at 5 ½ furlongs on turf, will serve as the main event on a 10-race Autumn Meet opening day card.
A W.C. Racing homebred 4-year-old gelding by O'Neill's 2013 Santa Anita Derby winner Goldencents, Wildman Jack was last seen at Santa Anita winning the Grade III Daytona Stakes three starts back on May 23.
Fresh off the best race of his career, California-bred El Tigre Terrible returns to turf for trainer Peter Miller and retains the services of Flavien Prat, who comes off another meet-leading performance at Del Mar this summer.
Named in honor of the retired all time great Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Delahoussaye, the Eddie D was run as the Morvich Stakes prior to being renamed in 2012. Delahoussaye won the 1984 Morvich aboard the Eddie Gregson-trained Tsunami Slew.
WILDMAN JACK
Owner: W.C. Racing, Inc.
Trainer: Doug O'Neill
Head and head for the lead throughout, Wildman Jack, a 4-year-old Kentucky-bred gelding, had to settle for fourth money when beaten 1 ½ lengths going six furlongs in the Grade I Bing Crosby Stakes on Aug. 1. Following his win in the Daytona here in May, Wildman Jack was off as the 3-1 favorite in a Grade II turf sprint going 5 ½ furlongs at Keeneland, but trailed throughout, finishing last by 7 ¾ lengths. With his performance in the Crosby serving as notice he's back to his best, he should be tough to beat in Friday's Eddie D.
EL TIGRE TERRIBLE
Owner: Slam Dunk Racing & Michael Nentwig
Trainer: Peter Miller
Off as the even money favorite in the state-bred Real Good Deal Stakes going seven furlongs at Del Mar July 31, this 3-year-old gelding by Smiling Tiger rallied four-wide turning for and won going away by 4 ¾ lengths. Well beaten at 7-2 two starts back in the one mile turf Oceanside Stakes July 10, he was a close second in the Desert Code Stakes going 5 ½ furlongs on turf here June 6—which was his first start of 2020. A winner versus open company of the 2019 Speakeasy Stakes going five furlongs on turf here on Oct. 6, El Tigre Terrible, who was purchased for a bargain $18,000 out of the 2018 Barretts October Yearling Sale, has won four out of his eight starts and has banked $210,510.
THE GRADE II EDDIE D STAKES WITH JOCKEYS & WEIGHTS IN POST POSITION ORDER
Race 7 of 10 Approximate post time 3:30 p.m. PT
Wildman Jack—Abel Cedillo—126
Give Me the Lute—Drayden Van Dyke–124
Mr Vargas—Tyler Baze—126
Grit and Curiosity—Luis Saez—124
Sparky Ville—Mike Smith—126
El Tigre Terrible—Flavien Prat—120
Big Runnuer—Juan Hernandez—124
With the Grade II Eddie D and the Grade III, $100,000 Chillingworth Stakes serving as co-feature, first post time for a 10-race card on opening day, Friday, is at 12:30 p.m. For additional information, please visit santaanita.com or call (626) 574-RACE.
The Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society (Alberta Division) Thoroughbred Sale brought in smaller bulk numbers during its 2020 renewal on Friday, Sept. 18, but it made up with increased average and median sale prices, led by a filly by Exhi who sold for $44,000 (Canadian).
In total, 40 horses changed hands during Friday's sale for revenues of $327,400, down 27 percent from the previous year when 67 horses brought $451,300. The average sale price rose 25 percent to $8,395 from $6,736, while the median increased 67 percent to $4,500 from $2,700. The sale's buyback rate finished at 38 percent, compared with 40 percent in 2019.
Greg Tracy, agent, purchased the sale-topper, an Exhi filly out of the multiple stakes-winning Forestry mare Eustacia, for $44,000.
The second foal out of the dam, the Alberta-bred sale-topper hails from a deep family of stakes producers throughout North America, including stakes-winning second dam Sparkling Pink. Highfield Investment Group consigned the filly, as agent.
True North Stable landed the auction's second-highest-priced offering, a Kentucky-bred Laoban filly, for $26,500.
The bay filly is out of the stakes-placed Bernardini mare Kimono, and her extended family includes Grade 1 winners Declassify, A Phenomenon, and Seattle Meteor. Stone Ranches Ltd. consigned the filly.
This year's sale, like all of the country's sales operated under the CTHS banner, offered online bidding for the first time in 2020 to accommodate those unable to attend due to COVID-19.
Online bids accounted for six of the auction's successful purchases, totaling $45,900 – roughly 14 percent of the sale's total gross. The two most expensive online purchases each brought $15,000: an O'Prado Again filly who sold to Shot In the Dark Racing and a Cross Traffic filly who sold to Meadowlake.
Clear Creek Stud is proud to announce their new stallion for 2021 in Imperial Hint (Imperialism-Royal Hint)
The son of Grade 2 winner Imperialism, Imperial Hint earned in excess of $2.2 million while winning 11 graded stakes including four Grade 1 stakes.
He twice won both the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt at Saratoga Race Course and the G1 Vosburgh at Belmont Park. In the 2019 edition of the Alfred G. Vanderbilt he set a new track record running six furlongs in 1:07.92, getting the half mile in 44.21, while beating Eclipse Award-winning male sprinter, Mitole.
Also on his list of accomplishments is the G2 True North Stakes and the G3 Smile Sprint Stakes. In the Donald LeVine Memorial Stakes at Parx Racing he ran six furlongs in 1:07.55 with the half mile clocked in 43.81.
Imperial Hint recorded triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures eleven times in his career with a high of 114.
Imperial Hint will be syndicated with shares available that will grant shareholders seven breedings in his first four years at stud plus bonus seasons after that. Shareholders participate in both stallion awards and stud fees from excess seasons sold.
Imperial Hint will stand the 2021 breeding season at Clear Creek Stud for a fee of $2,500 payable Sept. 1.
While the marquee horses and seven-figure fireworks are long since in the rear-view mirror when the Keeneland September Sale–the largest of its kind in the world–reaches its later books, there are still horses to be sold, even as the demand for those youngsters could begin to wane. Several years ago, in an effort to drum up interest in the latter stages of the sale, officials at the Lexington auction house began mining smaller, off-the-beaten-path markets, and those efforts have borne fruit in places like Russia, where Lyudovik (Constitution) became the fourth Keeneland graduate since 2014 to prevail in the $55,000 Russian Derby (RUS-G1, 2400m) at the historic Central Moscow Hippodrome last month.
“Dating back to long before I was here, we have made a concerted effort to find owners and trainers in emerging markets to get them to come and buy their Thoroughbreds here at Keeneland,” said Chip McGaughey, son of Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey, who joined Keeneland in 2015 and acts as a liaison to these smaller racing jurisdictions. “Obviously you can see that it’s had dividends with the success we’ve had in certain of those markets.”
Lyudovik, who became his sire’s second winner overall when graduating at first asking in domestic Group 3 company at Moscow last May, was bred by Pope McLean, Marc McLean, Pope McLean, Jr. and Phil Hager and was purchased out of the 2018 September sale for $40,000 by Marc-Antoine Berghracht’s M.A.B. Agency on behalf of his client Edward Mordukovich.
“Mr. Mordukovich is very keen on pedigrees and especially stallions and he follows American racing much more than I do,” the French agent explained. “The Constitutions are pretty special-looking horses and I said to him, ‘We must buy one.’ He quite liked that horse too, so we decided to go for one.”
He continued, “Most of the racing in Russia is on dirt, and for that reason, I like to buy those horses in America at Keeneland. Conditions [in Russia] can be pretty tough and sometimes it isn’t very easy keeping them sound, so I would not be very keen on those big, scopey kinds of horses. I probably tend to focus more on the European-type horse, but those that have a pedigree for dirt.”
A winner of two of his four starts at two, Lyudovik–a son of Speightlass (Speightstown)–returned from an 11-month absence to finish a strong second in a local Group 2 over 2000 meters July 25 and accounted for fellow KEESEP grad Whiskey Lemon Bars (Lemon Drop Kid–Film Maker {Dynaformer}, $40,000 yearling purchase) by a half-length in the Derby Aug. 16 (see below, SC #4). Other Keeneland-sourced winners on the Derby undercard included General Palace (Palace Malice, $33,000 ’19 KEESEP–video–#8) in the Criterium S. (RUS-G2, 1600m) and Gold Boy (Candy Ride {Arg}, $50,000 ’18 KEEJAN, video–#3) in the City of Moscow S. (RUS-G2, 2400m).
“He’s always complaining about the horses we bought that didn’t turn out, and I say to him, ‘Hang on, what about this one? What about that one? What about Lyudovik?’ and he goes, ‘You’re right,'” Berghracht said of Mordukovich. “And then we won the Derby and everything is fine. He’s a character. He’s a big fan of horses, he loves the game. He also races Standardbreds and Arabians. He’s a great ambassador.”
WATCH: Lyudovik winning the 2020 Russian Derby at Moscow
Also on behalf of Mordukovich, Berghracht signed a ticket on a son of Commissioner just two hips prior to purchasing Lyudovik during session nine of the 2018 September Sale. Snapped up for just $6,000, Bud’ Geroem broke his maiden in a domestic Group 2 race over the metric mile last September and added the Season Opening S. (RUS-G3) at nine furlongs first off the layoff May 17 (video, #6).
“We have a limited budget for Russia–we’re used to spending between $20,000 and max $70,000 or $80,000,” Berghracht commented. “So Lyudovik was right in the middle of our range.”
In most any line of business, the repeat customer is coveted, and given the success of Keeneland graduates in Russia, the clients are only too happy to return, hoping that lightning will strike twice. In a COVID-abbreviated racing season in 2020, some 32 Keeneland sales graduates have won Russia’s major events–10 at Group 1 level, 15 Group 2 winners and 12 Group 3 winners. And, in what was almost certainly a landmark achievement for the country, Tuz (Oxbow), a $7,000 graduate of the 2018 September sale who won his two starts at Pyatigorsk Racecourse by a combined margin of nearly 40 (yes, 40) lengths, ran a blinder to be second in the Listed Al Bastakiya S. at Meydan in Dubai this past March (video).
“It’s a competitive landscape. Everyone wants to have their market share and American Thoroughbreds have proven to excel on dirt surfaces around the world,” McGaughey said. “If they have success and their industry grows, they may start out just buying $5,000 horses, but that is twenty $5,000 horses that maybe otherwise would not have had a home. As their market continues to grow, they’re going to be inclined to come back to that source of success they had initially.”
Just five years ago, Russian interests acquired 60 horses for gross receipts of $1.7 million ($28,333 average), not an insignificant sum of money deep into the sale. Last year, they purchased no fewer than 112 horses for $4.1 million ($36,607 average). McGaughey is confident the trend will continue in a positive direction.
“The industry over there is definitely growing and they have made strides,” he said. “They’ve been working to try to become part of the IFHA [International Federation of Horseracing Authorities], the French PMU has set up their tote system and simulcasting throughout different regions.”
Foreign participation at this year’s September Sale is likely to be limited by travel restrictions currently in place, but McGaughey expects Russian interests to remain just as active as years past.
“With the pandemic, international sales are going to be down, but optimistically for the Russian market, there are currently no travel restrictions for Russian nationals coming into the United States,” he explained. “The majority of people I’ve spoken to are coming. There are a few exceptions, as the Russian Consulates are closed and are not issuing new visas at the moment, so some of them won’t be able to participate. But 90-95% of those planning to come over are still coming.”
