‘They Like To Win’: Casse Quietly Confident In Pair Of Lightly-Raced Kentucky Derby Starters

The Hall of Fame trainer will be wearing his game face on the first Saturday in May, but on this day, Mark Casse was happy to be sporting a playful smile.

Just under a week before the 147th running of the Kentucky Derby, Casse, who'll be represented by the talented duo of Helium, and Soup and Sandwich, was his typical busy self, but not too busy to take a few minutes out of his hectic schedule to talk about a pair of skilled 3-year-olds, one of whom could deliver him a cherished first.

Having already won two-thirds of the U.S. Triple Crown, the 2019 Preakness with War of Will, and the 2019 Belmont with Sir Winston, the conditioner with over 3,050 career victories, a record 13 Sovereign Awards (as Canada's champion trainer), and dual Hall of Fame credentials, will look to add a Kentucky Derby triumph to his vast list of accomplishments.

“I guess the one thing that comes to mind first is that they like to win,” said Casse of his Derby twosome. “Combined, they've started six times and have five wins and a second. I look at them both and shake my head in amazement in what they've been able to accomplish in such short racing careers. I'm very, very happy with them.”

The Indianapolis native has plenty of reason to be.

Helium, a bay son of Ironicus, is a perfect three-for-three in his career. The Kentucky-bred, owned by D.J. Stable LLC, made his first two starts over the Woodbine Tapeta, including a win second time out in the Display Stakes last October.

“He kind of surprised me when he ran first time and won,” recalled Casse of the maiden special weight score on September 27 at the Toronto oval. “He ran better than expected. I thought his next race was very good at Woodbine too. We were looking forward to running him in the Grey Stakes, but obviously because of weather and then COVID, that wasn't possible.”

The original 2021 plan for Helium, a $55,000 purchase at the 2019 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale, called for him to make his sophomore debut in the Grade 3 Lecomte on January 16 at Fair Grounds, but a wrenched ankle sidelined the colt temporarily. He was brought to Ocala and given about 10 days off before resuming training.

“He had a few hiccups along the way, but he trained well leading up to his first race of this year.”

That first race was the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby on March 6.

Casse considers the performance one of the most impressive he's seen over his 40-plus years in racing.

“I would say in all my time training, I've never seen a horse overcome so many different variables that said he shouldn't have won. From not running in four-and-a-half months, to first time on dirt, to first time around two turns, and his wide trip… I just never thought in a million years he could win running so wide.”

Those are just some of the reasons why he's confident of his charge's chances in the Derby.

While Helium isn't being billed as a top contender, Casse is happy to float above the radar leading up to the big race.

“A lot of people are underestimating him because they look at his Beyer from the Tampa Bay Derby. If you look at his Thoro-Graph numbers, which to me is my bible, what I go by, his number is extremely good. It's a 3. It usually takes a 1 or a ½ to win the Derby, so it's definitely within his range, especially if he improves off his last race. He's come back and trained well. He has this habit and it's that he likes to win.”

Soup and Sandwich has been as equally impressive in the lead-up to the biggest race of his career to-date.

Bred and owned by Live Oak Plantation, the Florida-bred son of Into Mischief didn't race as a 2-year-old but turned plenty of heads with a stellar runner-up showing in the Florida Derby on March 27.

The second-place performance was the third start for Soup and Sandwich, who won his debut at Gulfstream Park on January 28, and followed it up with another winner's circle trip, this time at Tampa Bay Downs on February 24.

“He was a horse that we thought a lot of as a 2-year-old,” offered Casse. “He still hasn't grown up completely. He's kind of a teenage kid. He doesn't always pay attention and has a short attention span. But he's gotten better. His first race was good, I thought his second race was excellent, and I thought his Florida Derby race was very good. In keeping with Thoro-Graph numbers, he ran a 1 ¾, which is huge. Looking at that, I think he has 65 per cent chance to run as good a race or better. It's big. It's really big. Both of these horses just have to move up a little bit to be right there in the Derby. I couldn't be happier really.”

Casse isn't the only one.

His jockeys for the big race seem to like their Derby chances as well.

“It's a funny little story. Tyler [jockey, Gaffalione], the first time he was on Soup and Sandwich – he worked him the other day – it happened that Julien [jockey, Leparoux] was helping us out, working another horse, not Helium. Pulling up, Tyler said, 'We're going to win the Kentucky Derby.' He was so excited after working the horse. Julien told him, 'Wait a second… you can be a good second.' So there's already a little smack talk going on. I think both riders are extremely excited and happy with their horses, just as I am.”

What would it mean for Casse to notch his first Derby victory?

“I may retire,” he said with a grin.

For now, it's all smiles with Casse.

It won't be long, however, until he's dialed-in on Derby day, game face and all.

The post ‘They Like To Win’: Casse Quietly Confident In Pair Of Lightly-Raced Kentucky Derby Starters appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Julien Leparoux To Ride Helium In Kentucky Derby

Jockey Julien Leparoux will be aboard Tampa Bay Derby winner Helium in the Kentucky Derby on May 1, the Daily Racing Form reported Monday. Jose Ferrer rode the colt to victory at Tampa.

Trained by Mark Casse, the 3-year-old son of Ironicus is undefeated in three career starts, including two over the synthetic main track at Woodbine Racecourse last year. Helium provided a 15-1 upset in the Tampa Bay Derby, his first start of 2021, when defeated Hidden Stash (who returned to run fourth in the Blue Grass Stakes) by three quarters of a length.

Helium will ship to Kentucky this week, Casse said.

Out of the Thunder Gulch mare Thundering Emilia, Helium was a $55,000 purchase at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale. He is raced by D. J. Stable.

Read more at the Daily Racing Form.

The post Julien Leparoux To Ride Helium In Kentucky Derby appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

The Parting Gift of Don Bernardo

So just what are those Derby gods up to now? What seeds of comfort, of commemoration, did they sow in the grief of last summer?

Bernardo Alvarez Calderon was not just patriarch of a large and loving family, but something of a godfather for the entire Thoroughbred racing and breeding community of Peru. Its esteem was palpable after his loss last August, aged 78, following a fall. The president of the national breeders' association described him as “a horseman par excellence, whose contribution to our breed will last forever; an example for us all, both in his knowledge and his passion.” Another leading breeder suggested the ultimate tribute lay in their own hands: “Someday, I hope, we can all arrive at his type of horse; can all do things the way Don Bernardo did them.”

Nor should that ambition be confined to his countrymen. Don Bernardo–who excelled in show jumping in his younger days, but whose goatee and spectacles ultimately gave him rather a professorial air–was also much respected in the U.S. It was here that Teneri Stable, a small satellite of his Haras La Qallana, produced no less a horse than GI Pegasus World Cup winner Mucho Gusto (Mucho Macho Man).

And now his family and friends, approaching a first spring without Don Bernardo, find themselves wondering whether the first flowers of consolation, in the garland draped over the GII Tampa Bay Derby winner last Saturday, could yet bloom into a blanket of roses on the first Saturday in May. For Helium (Ironicus), now unbeaten in three starts, traces four generations to Don Bernardo's very first American purchase, a pregnant mare named Redwing Blackbird acquired for $9,600 at Fasig-Tipton in January 1986.

Don Bernardo's family with Stella Thayer and the Tampa Bay Derby garland | Courtesy of Gabriela Alvarez Calderon

In gratefully accepting the Tampa Bay garland, on behalf of Helium's owners D.J. Stable, Don Bernardo's daughter Gabriela could not help sensing that the colt's GI Kentucky Derby candidature has a unique benediction. On the way home she rang Jon Green, manager of D.J. Stable. “I just want to let you know that my dad is looking down on us and smiling,” she said. “I really appreciate the fact that you've allowed me and my family to stay involved in this horse, because he belongs to the last group that my dad actually bred.”

She told Green that she had been holding back tears in the winner's circle. “Because she knew it was all about her father,” Green explains. “It was her father that had gone against conventional wisdom, breeding to this $5,000 stallion.”

“It was so special,” assents Gabriela. “I don't even have words for it. I was there with my brother and his children, and we just feel like we're receiving so many incredible gifts. My father was a genius with horses. When he started breeding, he came up with a [Peruvian] Triple Crown winner within four years. He breathed, dreamed, talked of nothing but horses. And such a horseman: he could get on anything and a minute later it would be like he had been riding that horse all his life. And when he planned a mating, he would already be thinking ahead to three generations on.”

Don Barnardo had a sixth sense for horses. At Keeneland November in 2006, for instance, he bought a Rahy mare for $16,000 and a daughter of Sadler's Wells for $60,000. The foals they had respectively delivered the previous year turned out to be dual Grade I winner Life At Ten (Malibu Moon) and four-time Group 1 winner Campanologist (Kingmambo). In the same ring, a couple of months previously, he had bought a Touch Gold yearling for $7,000. The following year her half-sister Ginger Punch (Awesome Again) won the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff.

Don Bernardo with Emilia's Moon, Helium's half-sister | Courtesy of Gabriela Alvarez Calderon

It tells you everything about the wholesome nature of Don Bernardo's bequest to the breed that he named Teneri for the example of Federico Tesio and his iconic champions, Nearco (Ity) and Ribot (GB). (Each donated the first two letters of his name to form the composite Te-ne-ri.) Similarly, his choice of Shawhan Place as nursery for his U.S. stock–where their supervision includes two sons of that doyen of Kentucky horsemen, Gus Koch–attested to his faith in the best principles of the old school. (How typical of this up-and-down business that the Shawhan team, derailed from the Derby trail by a setback for graduate Senor Buscador (Mineshaft), should find themselves back with a rooting interest just days later.)

As such, it's not hard to imagine what appealed to Don Bernardo about Redwing Blackbird. Her sire Bold Favorite was admittedly not one of Bold Ruler's significant sons, but represented a fine Argentinian family. More importantly, her own maternal line brought into play trademark Tesio influences and, in turn, the stud of the 17th Earl of Derby–itself so key to the Italian's work. (Redwing Blackbird's second dam was by Bold Ruler's sire Nasrullah, duly securing a 3×3 foothold to this great conduit of Nearco.)

Redwing Blackbird was carrying a Proud Appeal filly, who became the graded stakes-placed Proud Emilia. Bred to Saint Ballado a couple of times before being sent to her owner's homeland, she produced a Peruvian champion miler, Domingo, who eventually stood at Haras La Qallana; and Saint Emilia (Per), a local Grade III winner/Grade I runner-up who made the reverse migration for her own breeding career, joining the Teneri broodmare band. (This has never exceeded nine mares, compared with around 40 on the Peruvian farm.)

“She was only 440, 460 kilos but beat the colts many times,” Gabriela says. “When people at the sales said her foals were little, I would tell them that this was a family of small horses that could run big.” Four of Saint Emilia's daughters have duly become stakes producers, mostly in Peru though the most accomplished, Thundering Emilia, did transfer to the U.S. to win an 8 1/2-furlong turf stake for Michael Matz.

Helium is Thundering Emilia's fourth foal. A couple of her previous ones have already excelled: Emilia's Moon (Malibu Moon), as a Peruvian Classic winner; and graded-stakes placed Mighty Scarlett (Scat Daddy). Despite their contributions to his page, Helium was by a sire struggling for commercial traction and the $55,000 given by Cool Hill Farm at Fasig-Tipton October made him the most expensive yearling of that debut crop.

“Matt Koch at Shawhan had said that he was an incredible colt from the moment he was born,” Gabriela remembers. “We were there with Dad, at the sale, and those Ironicus babies weren't selling. So we said we would keep him if he didn't make more than $50,000. Unfortunately he did, just!”

Helium had been bought as a pinhooking project for Bo Hunt, but fell into the juvenile auction cycle that was so disrupted by the onset of the pandemic last year.

“My parents are in their 80s, it wasn't on the cards to travel down there to the sales,” Green recalls. “But we've known Bo for 15, 20 years, and knew we could trust him enough to ask: 'Out of the 70-something you have, who are your top three or four candidates?'”

Hunt came up with a shortlist, and trainer Mark Casse went over to see them gallop. He didn't take to one; they couldn't quite agree on a price for another, who turned out to be Miss Brazil (Palace Malice), an excellent second in the Busher S. last weekend; and two that D.J. Stable did buy. One of those was Helium.

Helium ran to a 4 1/4-length triumph in Woodbine's Display S. last year | Michael Burns

Though he won on debut at Woodbine in late September and then followed up in a stake over the same seven furlongs of Tapeta, things then started to conspire against the colt. Woodbine suspended first for snow; then for the pandemic. Shipped to Fair Grounds, Helium was nearing a return when he wrenched an ankle. In the circumstances, then, nobody should underestimate the talent underpinning a pretty extraordinary performance last weekend.

This was Helium's first start in nearly five months; and his first ever on dirt, or round a second turn. The idea had been that if he was going to experiment on the surface, he might as well stay local to Palm Meadows; and they could get a seasoned reading from Jose Ferrer, who actually won a race in these silks as long ago as 1987. They told him simply to keep out of the kickback, and not to punish him if the wheels were spinning. Sure enough, Helium raced wide the whole way until sweeping round the field on the far turn and grabbing the rail into the stretch. Understandably, that big move seemed to tell, and he was headed around the eighth pole. Outrageously, however, he then rallied to win going away.

Len and Jon Green | Fasig-Tipton photo

“He literally had a half a dozen excuses not to hit the wire first,” Green says. “We were asking him to do so many things that were out of his wheelhouse. But when Jose asked him, he just exploded. And then to see him put the other horse away, that's what got us really excited. We would have been very satisfied to run second, and have something to build upon. The fact that he had something left in the tank, and also had the interest to continue to run, is frankly mind-boggling.”

Training up to the Derby is obviously a bold move, but Helium has himself a gate and has shown that he excels when fresh. The other obvious reservation, to conventional thinking, will be his pedigree. We've already seen how Don Bernardo rooted this family in Classic influences, but Helium remains one of just four winners to this point by his young sire.

These, however, remain the earliest of days for a stallion certain to advance his stock with maturity; and one who simply doesn't have the numbers behind him to permit standard commercial comparisons.

Ironicus was homebred by Claiborne's longstanding client, Stuart S. Janney III, and returned to his native farm after maturing at four and five into one of the better turf runners in North America, just missing his Grade I by a head in the Shadwell Turf Mile. The son of Distorted Humor had the page, for sure: four siblings had won graded stakes (divided between turf and dirt), while his third dam is second dam of Flatter (A.P. Indy) (therefore also the family of Sea Hero, Roar, Congrats, etc).

Sadly the commercial market's puerile terror of slower-maturing/turf horses means that Ironicus covered only a couple of dozen mares last spring–but he's absolutely entitled to breed a Classic racehorse, on any surface, granted the support of breeders as far-sighted as Don Bernardo. It goes without saying that he is on the right farm for that, so perhaps Helium is about to reward those who persevered through a phase of his sire's career that was always going to require patience.

“I guess people will say it's a question mark on Helium's resume, that he's not by Tapit or Into Mischief,” Green acknowledges. “But if you look at his pedigree and race record, Ironicus checks a lot of boxes; while the female family brings in very respected broodmare sires.”

Mighty Scarlett | Sarah Andrew

D.J. Stable has duly doubled down on those genes. Helium's half-sister Mighty Scarlett, now a 6-year-old, was acquired for $240,000 at the Keeneland November Sale and sent to Uncle Mo, while a foal-sharing agreement has been negotiated on Helium's dam Thundering Emilia, with an American Pharoah covering. (Teneri, by the way, offered the dam of Mucho Gusto at the same November Sale but retained her at $500,000. She has since delivered a Medaglia d'Oro filly at Shawhan, and was this week covered by Uncle Mo.)

“My dad has an accounting firm that has 750-something Thoroughbred-related clients, so we're able to drill down on a lot of questions with people that have even more experience than we do,” Green says. “And this is something I noticed that Darby Dan would do, years ago, and Claiborne: collect family members when they felt like they had a good runner. That way, a positive change in a family would appear on three or four or five different assets. We've tried to replicate that.”

Whatever Helium can still do for the pedigree, the one guarantee is that the whole team will enjoy the ride.

“My dad said to me this morning: 'There are only a couple of things that got me more excited than this race–and those were meeting your mother, and when your sisters were born!'” says Green with a chuckle. “So yeah, this is a highlight in our 40 years in the business. We've been very fortunate: we've won a Breeders' Cup, we campaigned a champion, bred a champion. Years ago we even ran a horse in the Kentucky Derby, Songandaprayer [Unbridled's Song]. So we've had a great run in this wonderful business. But this is the first time I can remember having a horse that just checks all the boxes.”

One of those, of course, is a Hall of Fame trainer–something that heightens confidence in the unorthodoxy of the strategy now. Green knew not to expect big speed figures out of Saturday: the performance was all about context, and the eyeball test. “I honestly don't know if he's good enough to beat Life Is Good [Into Mischief] or those other top horses,” he says. “But I know that we're giving him the best chance possible.”

And it's not just his own family's long commitment to the game that could be consummated here. Another lifetime of study, patience and skill is dovetailing with their own cause. The Greens are delighted, then, to be sharing with his family this posthumous flourish from Don Bernardo.

“Gabriela is such a wonderful, kind individual,” Green says. “She's modest and humble, and just feels that this horse is carrying the banner for her late father, and for his family's love for him. So we just feel like everything's falling into place. It's a tremendous gift that we have, with this horse. So yes, maybe there are some racing gods smiling on us.”

“I really feel that with all these incredible things happening, it's one of those things in life that makes sense,” Gabriela says. “I feel Dad knows; I feel he's close to us. I know the passion he had, all his life, and this is the reward for that dedication.”

The post The Parting Gift of Don Bernardo appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Connections Confirm Helium To Go Straight to Derby

Helium (Ironicus), an impressive winner of the Tampa Bay Derby Saturday, will not have another Kentucky Derby prep and will go straight to the race in Louisville the first Saturday in May, according to Jon Green, the general manager of DJ Stables, the owner of the colt.

Green announced the news on the TDN Writers' Room podcast Wednesday.

“I'm pleased to make the formal announcement on our podcast that I sat down with the owners, my parents and Mark Casse, who between them have a collective 80 years of experience in the horse industry,” said Green. “We're going to go an unconventional route and bypass the rest of the Kentucky Derby preps and train him in Florida at Palm Meadows, and then ship him to Churchill Downs three weeks before.”

Green admitted that it was an unconditional route to the race, but said, “It's not unreasonable in history to give a horse eight weeks off and ask him to run in a big race like this. Is it perfect? It's not perfect. Are there risks? Yes. But we feel what's best for the horse is to give him the time and slowly peak him into the Kentucky Derby, which is our primary goal.”

Green said that unlike other horses looking to peak in May, that DJ Stables hoped to race the horse after the Derby and throughout the summer with a focus on the Haskell at Monmouth, which is held near their home in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

“Our goal is not to run him in the Blue Grass, or a race like that because we think he doesn't need it,” said Green. “Running in a prep, so many things could go wrong, and our main goal is to run him in the Derby and then the races afterwards. We're looking at it through a different prism.”

While Jose Ferrer won the Tampa Bay Derby aboard Helium, Green also said that the Derby riding assignment was currently up in the air.

“Jose did a great job on him and won the Tampa Bay Derby on him, but we are looking for other options with jockeys,” said Green. “For the same reason riding Jose at Tampa Bay made sense, you have to have somebody who has the experience in big races and the experience at Churchill Downs. That's no disrespect to Jose, but I would think we would need to explore other opportunities.”

The complete discussion on Helium will be available on the TDN Writers' Room podcast which will be posted tonight.

 

The post Connections Confirm Helium To Go Straight to Derby appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights