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Jockey Vince Halliday Able To Walk With Assistance, Exits Intensive Care For Rehab

Jockey Vince Halliday, who suffered serious injuries in a race spill at Delaware Park in July, is set to leave intensive care and move to a rehabilitation unit.

Belfast-born Halliday suffered two brain bleeds, fractures to his back, neck, shoulder and elbow, and spent two weeks on a ventilator as he was unable to breathe on his own.

The jockey, who moved to the US in 2008 after riding for nearly 20 years in Britain and Ireland, has spent the last four weeks at the Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware.

In an update on his condition, his wife Stephanie Pastore reported Halliday was off the ventilator, able to walk with assistance but still weak.

“Vince spent two weeks in the ICU and then as soon as he got off the ventilator he moved to the trauma step down unit,” she said.

“He was steadily progressing apart from being able to swallow so he had a stomach feed tube inserted last week. However he had some complications due to the new stomach tube and ended up back in ICU for two days.

“He came back to trauma step down this past Sunday and has kept progressing so today he is being discharged from the hospital and is moving on to acute rehab where they will work on his swallowing as well as general physical therapy.

“He is able to walk with assistance, but is just weak. So the next chapter of his recovery begins. He should be in rehab for seven to ten days.“

Halliday served his apprenticeship with Kevin Prendergast in Ireland, moving to England after two seasons. Over 17 seasons based in the north he rode 51 winners, mostly in the north of England for trainers including David Barron, Richard Whitaker, Karl Burke, Declan Carroll, Brian Ellison and Michael Dods.

Since moving to the US in 2008 where he works as a jockey and exercise rider. he has ridden 45 winners from 1,111 rides which have earned $1.2 million in prize-money. He has had two successes in 2021.

The GoFundMe page s set up for Halliday to help pay his medical bills have so far raised more than $40,000.

This story was reprinted with permission by Horse Racing Planet. Find the original piece and more content here.

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Grade 1 Winner Known Agenda Retired To Spendthrift Farm For 2022 Season

Known Agenda, the dominant winner of this year's Grade 1 Florida Derby, has been retired from racing and will take up stud duty at Spendthrift Farm in 2022.

The son of leading sire Curlin will stand for an introductory fee of $10,000 S&N and will be offered through the farm's renowned “Share The Upside” program on a limited basis. He is available for inspection by appointment.

“Any time you can add a Florida Derby winner by Curlin with his looks and pedigree, you jump at the opportunity. Known Agenda ticks an awful lot of boxes, and the Florida Derby has produced a lot of very good sires, especially in recent history,” said Ned Toffey, Spendthrift general manager. “We are delighted to partner again with Vinnie Viola, who bred and raced this colt out of his Grade 1-winning mare. Known Agenda is one of those rare classic-type Grade 1 winners that is by a Grade 1 winner and out of a Grade 1 winner. He reminded us quite a bit of Vino Rosso, another son of Curlin that we stand that Vinnie co-owned and campaigned with Todd Pletcher. If Known Agenda's foals look anything like what we have seen from Vino Rosso, then the sky's the limit.”

A homebred for Vinnie Viola's St. Elias Stables, Known Agenda broke his maiden as a 2-year-old last fall at Aqueduct, defeating eventual G2 Fountain of Youth Stakes winner Greatest Honour. At three, he won a Gulfstream allowance race by 11 lengths before capturing the prestigious $750,000 Florida Derby going away by 2 3/4 lengths, stamping himself as a leading sophomore.

“We are excited to be standing Known Agenda, our first homebred to go to stud, at Spendthrift Farm,” said Viola. “This colt showed early promise at two and continued to move forward at three with a dominant victory in the Florida Derby. We are looking for him to continue the great tradition of Florida Derby winners going on to successful stud careers, and we plan on supporting him heavily in that mission.”

Known Agenda joined champion Essential Quality and Medina Spirit as the only Kentucky Derby contenders to run a 6 on the Ragozin Sheets heading into the Run for the Roses, where he would encounter a troubled trip breaking from the vaunted post No. 1.

An earner of $641,700, Known Agenda became the first Florida Derby winner for his sire Curlin. He is also a Grade 1 winner by a Grade 1 winner and out of a Grade 1 winner, as his dam Byrama captured the 2013 Vanity S. (G1) on the main track at Hollywood Park.

“Known Agenda reminded me a great deal of Vino Rosso. He possessed the qualities of some of the better Curlins we've had. He's a good-sized, athletic, very well-balanced horse,” said trainer Todd Pletcher. “His Florida Derby win was ultra-impressive, and, obviously, that's been a great race for us when you think of the colts that have gone on to become top sires like Scat Daddy and Constitution.”

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Australian Star Winx To Visit Pierro For Next Mating

Four-time Australian Horse of the Year Winx will visit Coolmore Australia's Pierro for her next mating, the mare's ownership announced Wednesday.

A statement on the Winx website read:

“The Winx Ownership Group are pleased to announce that Winx will be visiting Pierro for this year's 2021 breeding season.

“Winx has been given a full year to recover from her ordeal and we are pleased to report that the mare has returned in great condition. She has been enjoying life on the farm with some friends while she is preparing to go back to the breeding barn this spring.”

The mating comes after Winx lost what would have been her first foal, a filly by I Am Invincible, in October 2020.

A winner of 37 races (25 Group 1, including four runnings of the Cox Plate) in 43 starts, Winx was victorious in her final 33 outings.Trained by Chris Waller and ridden most often by Hugh Bowman, the daughter of Street Cry retired with earnings in excess of AUS$26 million.

Pierro, a 12-year-old son of Lonhro, stands at Coolmore Australia for an advertised fee of AUS$110,000.

Arguably the best son of top Australian sire Lonhro on the track or at stud, Pierro became the sixth horse to win Australia's 2-Year-Old Triple Crown, sweeping the Group 1 Golden Slipper Stakes, AJC Sires Produce Stakes, and Champagne Stakes. He came back at three to win five group stakes races, including another pair of Group 1 scores.

Pierro has also sired Australian Derby winner Levendi, and additional Group 1 winners Arcadia Queen, Pierata, Shadow Hero, and Regal Power.

Coolmore Australia noted the mating announcement with the following statement on its website:

“We are so grateful to the connections of the great Winx that she will visit Pierro in 2021. As a graduate of the farm, Winx is a source of immense pride for all of us at Coolmore. It is a great honour that she will visit a stallion at the place where she was raised and grazed.”

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Indiana Trainers Express Concern About Testing In The Wake Of Earlier Post Times

Several trainers with horses entered at Indiana Grand on Wednesday and Thursday are concerned that the track's decision to move up post times, from 2:25 p.m. to 10:00 a.m., could cause their horses to test above the state's threshold for therapeutic medications.

Indiana Grand management officially announced the time change on Monday, due to projected high temperatures. By that point, however, trainers had already treated their horses with legal medications on Sunday, 72 hours out from the original post time for Wednesday's races.

That 4 1/2-hour difference in post times could prove to be significant in post-race testing — especially, trainers argued, considering the extremely small amounts at which the lab is able to test for therapeutic medications.

Eric Halstrom, Vice President and General Manager of Racing at Indiana Grand, said that while he understood the trainers' concerns, there would be no special dispensation from the commission, and that the allowable thresholds for those medications would remain at their present levels. If trainers did not believe their horses would pass post-race testing, or were concerned, Halstrom indicated that there would be no penalty for scratching.

“In this heat, for the last couple of weeks, the stewards have been letting anybody out because of the heat,” Halstrom said. “I'm more than supportive of them scratching, if that's what they feel they need to do.”

Indiana Grand does have lights on the dirt course, but not on the turf, and a pair of state-bred turf stakes races scheduled for Wednesday's card would have to have been moved had the track chosen to push the post times back, instead of moving them up.

“Those people have been paying into those races, and they deserve the right to run in them as scheduled,” said Halstrom. “Essentially what it came down to, we were either going to have to cancel, or we were going to do this.”

Wednesday's card saw a total of 18 scratches from 101 entries. Four of those were main-track-only entrants, and two were from the also-eligible list. The average field size was 9.18 starters before scratches; after scratches, average field size decreased to 7.54 starters, a difference of 17.9 percent.

By way of comparison, Monday's card, which was held at the regularly-scheduled post time of 2:25 p.m., saw eight scratches, including two also-eligibles. The average field size was 8.2 starters before scratches; after scratches, average field size decreased to 7.4 starters, a difference of 9.8 percent.

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