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Curlin Colt Graduates in Runhappy Juvenile Stakes

Pico d’Oro stormed to the lead in the dying strides to break his maiden in stakes company Sunday at Ellis Park. The bay colt, a well-beaten sixth on debut at Churchill Downs June 19, overcame traffic troubles to close for second, 3 1/4-lengths behind the front-running Medicine Trail, going six furlongs at this track July 19. With an extra furlong to work with Sunday, Pico d’Oro was at the tail of the field as Medicine Trail battled favored Cowan through an opening quarter in :22.29. Medicine Trail took control turning for home, completing the quarter in :45.64, while Pico d’Oro was systematically picking off foes. The front-runner took a two-length advantage into the stretch, but Pico d’Oro was rallying four wide and uncorked a furious late rally to win going away.

“He ran a really good race today,” jockey Joe Talamo said of the winner. “I was actually pretty confident after watching his last replay. He ran a really good race to run second and galloped out really well. So we definitely thought the seven-eighths would help. I tell you what, he ran, too. The pace was pretty solid up front for us, and he ran them down, very professional too. For breaking his maiden in a stakes, I definitely think he’s got a real bright future.”

Trainer Bill Morey purchased Pico d’Oro for $255,000 following a quarter-mile work in :21 1/5 at this year’s OBS March sale.

“My owner, Gerry Sandlin, was a big part of it,” Morey said. “He’s a good friend of mine. We played Little League baseball together 30 years ago, and this was the first horse we ever bought. So I’m really happy for him, mostly. He was a big part of picking this race and pointing for it and the horse did the rest.”

Asked where Pico d’Oro might go now, Morey said with a laugh, “I’ll talk to Jerry and figure it out. But he’s a nice colt. We think he’ll go a little farther, too. We think he’ll go a mile–I don’t know how much farther. We’ve always thought seven, eight furlongs.”

Pico d’Oro is the first foal out of Michelle d’Oro, a daughter of 2010 GI Acorn S. and GI Test S. winner Champagne d’Oro. The mare also has a yearling filly by Uncle Mo. She was bred to Arrogate this spring. Pico d’Oro is the 39th stakes winner out of a daughter of Bernardini. Click for the Equibase.com chart.

RUNHAPPY JUVENILE S., $100,000, Ellis, 8-9, 2yo, 7f, 1:23.95, ft.
1–PICO D’ORO, 118, c, 2, by Curlin
                1st Dam: Michelle d’Oro, by Bernardini
                2nd Dam: Champagne d’Oro, by Medaglia d’Oro
                3rd Dam: Champagne Glow, by Saratoga Six
($255,000 2yo ’20 OBSMAR). 1ST BLACK-TYPE WIN. O-Sandin
Syndicate Stable, LLC; B-Southern Equine Stables, LLC (KY);
T-William E. Morey; J-Joseph Talamo. $61,035. Lifetime
Record: 3-1-1-0, $69,517.
2–Medicine Tail, 120, c, 2, Kantharos–Leh She Run, by Pulpit.
($230,000 Ylg ’19 FTSAUG). O-PTK, LLC; B-Highclere Inc. (KY);
T-Dane Kobiskie. $19,850.
3–Perfect Mistake, 120, c, 2, Exaggerator–Rapid Decision, by
Stravinsky. ($20,000 Ylg ’19 KEESEP). O-WSS Racing, LLC & 4 G
Racing, LLC; B-Brandywine Farm (Jim & Pam Robinson) (KY);
T-John Alexander Ortiz. $9,925.
Margins: 2, 7, 3HF. Odds: 4.60, 4.70, 25.30.
Also Ran: Waist Deep, Cowan, Heart Rhythm, Libertyrun.

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Mitchell Road Fends Off Challengers To Win Ellis Park Turf

The $50,000 Ellis Park Turf proved Mitchell Road's path back into the winner's circle as she held off upset-minded Strike My Fancy to triumph by a neck.

The class of the field, Mitchell Road was a Grade 3 winner last year but came into the Ellis Park Turf 0 for 3 in 2020, finishing seventh in Churchill Downs' Grade 3 Mint Julep following a pair of seconds.

“I think we were just looking around for a good spot for her,” said Kenny McCarthy, who oversees the Churchill Downs operation for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott. “I mean, she tries hard every time we run her. I think sometimes mentally it's nice for them to win one, when they put forth so much effort. She's been pretty consistent, so it was good to get the win today.”

Mitchell Road was unprepared at the start and broke last but was content to briefly settle behind Harmless, who at 33-1 was the longest shot in the field of six older fillies and mares, before lapping on alongside her rival. Harmless actually stuck her head back in front in midstretch, but Mitchell Road shook her off and then held Strike My Fancy at bay.

“It worked out pretty well,” said Joe Talamo, winning his first stakes at Ellis Park in his first year making Kentucky his base. “The pace was really slow. I just let her gather up her stride and slowly get up there. She got into a really good rhythm down the backside, the whole way around there. Then turning for home, I had a lot of horse. When that other filly came to me, she fought her off pretty nicely. When she got to the lead, I felt like she might have been waiting a little bit, so I was actually happy to see that other filly come to her. I think it made her pay attention a little bit more. Because even galloping out, she was still full of run. I was just thankful for the opportunity. She's a very nice filly.”

Mitchell Road toured 1 1/16 miles over firm turf in 1:43.12, quickening to cover the final sixteenth-mile in 6.10 seconds. The daughter of turf champion English Channel paid $3.60 to win as the 4-5 favorite.

“She's a filly, if you watch her races, she loves a dogfight,” McCarthy said. “It's like she kind of gets there and then is waiting there for that next one to come. I saw the 6 (Strike My Fancy) coming, but I felt she was still going to hold. That's the kind of filly she is.”

The Matt Shirer-trained Strike My Fancy closed with a rush under Colby Hernandez to make a close race out of it.

“My horse ran a big race. She tries every time,” said Hernandez, the younger brother of Kentucky mainstay Brian Hernandez Jr. “She's a very easy horse to ride. She puts you where you need to be in a race. At the sixteenth pole I thought I had a chance at the winner.”

Harmless — claimed for $62,500 in her prior start, and finishing eighth that day — came in another 1 1/4 lengths back in third under Alex Achard, thrilling new trainer Michelle Lovell.

“That was good,” she said. “I thought she may hang in for second. She hung in there for a long time.”

Mintd, who hit the gate at the start, came in fourth. Timeless Curls, who pushed the early pace in her first start in 13 1/2 months, and Our Bay B Ruth founded out the field. Sister Hanan, Makealitlemischief, Mighty Scarlett and Complicit were scratched.

Mitchell Road now has won races at ages 3, 4 and 5, with three stakes victories last year — including Pimlico's Grade 3 Gallorette two weeks after her younger half-brother Country House gave Mott his first victory in the Kentucky Derby. Both horses are out of the War Chant mare Quake Lake. Mitchell Road now is 7-5-0 in 15 starts, earning $501,060 for Mrs. J.V. Shields Jr. and E.J.M. McFadden Jr.

“Any year you can win a stakes is a great year for it,” McCarthy said. “Obviously this is probably her last year of running, so let's look around for her and try to find her some good spots and let her pad her resume.”

A good spot easily could be Ellis Park's $100,000 Kentucky Downs Preview Ladies Turf on Aug. 2. The winner of that race gets a fees-paid spot in the $500,000, Grade 3 Three Chimneys Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf on Sept. 12, a race Mitchell Road ran second in last year.

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Rafael Bejarano, Julien Leparoux Making Plans To Ride At Ellis Park This Summer

Rafael Bejarano and Julien Leparoux — two of America's leading jockeys and who rank among horse racing's top 25 in all-time purse earnings — plan to make Ellis Park their summer base.

Also expected to ride much of the July 2-Aug. 30 meet are Joe Talamo and Martin Garcia, who are riding regularly in Kentucky for the first time after moving their tack from California. The result will be a further strengthening of the already tough Ellis Park jockey colony.

Leparoux had never been to Ellis Park before riding opening day last year. Meanwhile, Bejarano was the track's leading rider in 2003 and 2004 and came full circle in returning to Kentucky this spring after leaving for California 13 years ago.

“With all this drama, with the coronavirus, (people) attacking horse racing in California, I had no other choice but to come here,” Bejarano said. “There's a lot of competition in California and less horses…. All the good trainers are here right now. There are more choices, a lot of racetracks around here. The purses are good, and the horses are better. I love Churchill Downs. I love Ellis Park. They have a beautiful racetrack, beautiful turf course. Hopefully I can get the opportunities like I had a long time ago.

“I'm really happy to be here where I started, in Kentucky.”

Bejarano, who turned 38 on Tuesday, won a total of 14 riding titles in Kentucky, including at least one at each of the state's five tracks, before relocating to California in late 2007. Riding many of the top horses trained by the late Hall of Famer Bobby Frankel, Bejarano collected a plethora of Southern California meet titles that included a sweep of all five major meets in 2008.

Bejarano was the champion apprentice in his native Peru before coming to the United States in 2002, when he started riding in Ohio and Kentucky. Two years later he led the nation in wins with 455. The jockey had 4,069 career wins heading into Thursday and more than $205 million in purses (15th all-time), including five Breeders' Cup races.

In returning to where his career kicked off, Bejarano is reunited with Julio Espinoza, a prominent rider in Kentucky in the 1970s and into the 1990s who now is the jockey's agent. Though Bejarano lived with Espinoza's family before, this is the first time they've had a business relationship.

“I'm very happy to be with one of my best friends,” Bejarano said. “He's been like a dad to me, a good mentor. He's been friends with me for a long time, and now we have a chance to work together here in Kentucky.

“I can't wait to start at Ellis Park, seeing old friends. I enjoyed it a lot, even when I didn't speak a word of English.”

Bejarano acknowledges he'll be facing a much deeper riding colony than when he last rode at Ellis Park.

“It's going to more of a challenge (but) more opportunities,” he said. “California, it was only five, six horses in races. Here, everyone has a chance to ride. It will be better for building a new business here. A lot of good riders here, and that's good.”

Leparoux's mounts have won 2,729 races through Wednesday and almost $169 million (25th all-time) since he came over from his native France in 2003 as an exercise rider. He started riding races in 2005 at Saratoga and was voted the Eclipse Award champion apprentice the next year, winning 403 races and almost $12.5 million in purses. Leparoux also was voted the Eclipse Award jockey in 2009, with more than $18 million in purse earnings and 246 wins, highlighted by three Breeders' Cup victories. Leparoux has seven Breeders' Cup victories overall.

The 36-year-old Leparoux, a fixture at Churchill Downs and Keeneland, spent every previous summer of his career at Saratoga with the exception of 2013, when he was in California. He has earned 12 riding titles at Keeneland, nine at Churchill Downs, three at Turfway Park and two at Kentucky Downs.

Leparoux and his wife, Shea, have planned to stay in Kentucky this summer since last year. Their eldest son, Mitchell, will be in pre-school next month. Meanwhile, younger son Vinn isn't the only 2-year-old the jockey wants to be around this summer.

“Ellis Park, the meet is getting much stronger now,” Leparoux said. “A lot of 2-year-old races look like they're very tough. I think it makes sense to stay home. As long as we can stay together as a family, it's a big thing for us. The school in Kentucky starts in mid-August, so it's good to be home. And if I need to, I can still go to Saratoga for the weekend and come back. It works out well for us if we can stay at home and not move, which is not easy with two kids. It's great. We'll stay home and try to get some good business for later on in the year.”

Leparoux rode opening day last year, winning on one of three mounts, returning a few days later to ride in a stakes race.

“I went in opening day just to see how it was,” he said. “I know the track is good. The turf course is good, too. Safe.”

In coming to Ellis Park, the jockeys are following the path taken in recent years by notable riders such as Florent Geroux, Brian Hernandez Jr., Corey Lanerie and others who have stayed in Kentucky for the summer while maintaining the flexibility to head out of town for weekend stakes races.

“The horsemen stay in Kentucky more now,” Leparoux said. “They used to go to Saratoga, like us jockeys. I don't think they're sending as many horses as they used to. I think you'll see the jockeys stay in Kentucky more than in the past. A lot of good 2-year-olds came out of Ellis Park. It's the future; you ride those horses for the next year and hopefully you can be in the Kentucky Derby with them.”

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Horses Helped Heal Jockey Rocco Bowen

Rocco Bowen has always known how to work hard and achieve his goals. The Barbados-born jockey made his way to the United States and found a second home at Emerald Downs in Washington State. There, he was the leading rider at in 2016 and 2017, the first jockey to record back-to-back 100-win seasons at the track.

Bowen was en route to a third consecutive riding title in 2018 when his whole world changed in an instant.

The morning of Sept. 8 dawned like any other, with Bowen at the track before the sun and readying to breeze over a dozen horses. On this morning, however, his inside rein broke on a horse he was riding and he went down hard.

Unconscious for 25 minutes, Bowen finally came to inside the ambulance on the way to the hospital. He didn't know where he was or what had happened, but as soon as he figured out what day it was the jockey wanted to go back to the track for the afternoon's races.

Doctors told him that wasn't an option with his separated shoulder and serious concussion, but Bowen was determined. At the time of the accident, he was sitting at 97 wins and wanted to set the record with three straight 100-win seasons at Emerald.

After just one week out of the saddle, Bowen returned to win 12 more races and the title.

“I knew I had to take care of my body and get my hand fixed,” Bowen said. “My left hand wasn't working right. I may be right-handed, but I learned to be left-hand dominant in the saddle from Garret Gomez. I just kept horses in the clear and did the best I could to finish the season.”

Looking back at the time immediately following the injury, Bowen laughed and quipped: “You know, jockeys are notoriously stubborn and hard-headed. I'm no different. If our limbs don't have to be reattached, we get back on the horse.”

It was the long-term aftermath that began to break down Bowen's steely resolve. Doctors couldn't seem to find anything wrong with him, but he had persistent numbness in his left hand as well as occasional shooting pains from his neck all the way down his arm.

The injury dragged out for over a year, and Bowen just couldn't seem to find a solution. He'd be fine one day, then the next he'd drop a glass of apple juice on the floor. He was close to giving up by early 2020.

“It got me in a really bad place, and I was willing to give up everything and go back to Barbados,” Bowen said. “My weight went up to 152, but I didn't really care because the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. They wanted to send me back for light duty, but what am I supposed to do, wash buckets?

“I had people pulling me in a hundred different directions. Should I retire and take the insurance money, or try to come back, but where and how? I was lost.”

A telephone conversation with his mother, Nancy Bowen, who still lives in Barbados, finally began to put things in perspective.

“Mom said if I'm really not done, I need to get up and go do it,” Bowen said. “I tried to listen to doctors, but it wasn't working.

“I didn't know where to start to get back up. My brother reached out to jockey Rico Walcott, and we started by getting my weight down. Then I had to work on my confidence, but I just didn't feel like I was done riding.”

It was another conversation, this time with Kyle Watson, his brother not by blood but by choice, that really kicked Bowen into high gear to make his way back to the track.

“We were raised together – he's my brother from another mother,” Bowen joked, explaining that Watson lives in Barbados with Bowen's mother. “Through my comeback, we got even closer. He's my greatest critic, and we handicap together … he helps keep me in line from thousands of miles away. He told me, 'Roc, this is your time to shine.'”

On April 1, Bowen weighed in at 152 lbs. By May 22, he was down to 122 lbs. He was riding in the mornings everywhere he could and kept going by trainer Genaro Garcia's barn at Indiana Grand because his brother had noticed the trainer's success rate. On the ninth morning, Garcia finally let him work a horse, and the two hit it off.

His hand kept getting better and better; it was like the horses were healing him.

Bowen rode his first race back on June 4 at Belterra Park, after 640 days away from the races. He finished second aboard Dingdingdingding. On June 5, he won a $7,500 claimer aboard Hyndford, trained by Garcia.

“Once I rode that race, and the hand didn't go numb or anything, and I said I'm not back, but I'm coming,” said Bowen. “Genaro told me, 'I believe in you, I have the world of confidence in you,' and that was big for me.”

Bowen's entire family back home in Barbados was excited to watch him on television on June 11, when he got his first mount at Churchill Downs. He won the race by a nose.

“I called Mom and told her I got my first call, and all my family gathered at my grandma's big house to watch the race,” Bowen said. “I still can't believe I won my first ever race at Churchill. I cried from the winner's circle all the way back to the jock's room. … My agent, Mr. John Herbstreit, he put me on the map after 640 days!”

Bowen has now won six races since his comeback, and he is working hard to keep up the momentum.

“I love the Midwest, it's home for me right now,” said Bowen. “The feeling in my hand is all back, and it's like nothing but positive energy right now. I went from three weeks ago, my legs were at maybe 20 percent, and now they're up to 70 percent strength.”

In the short-term, Bowen wants to finish in the top three of the standings at Indiana Grand. Long-term, Bowen can see himself buying a house in the Midwest and trying to get a mount in either a Triple Crown or Breeders' Cup race by 2023.

“I'm just trying to be humble and keep moving forward,” Bowen said. “Hopefully I can take my career to next level. All these guys in Indiana are treating me like they've known me a long time, especially Joe Talamo. He's my brother's idol, he doesn't ride but he loves jockeys. Talamo was happy to sign a picture for him, and he got to meet Talamo via FaceTime from the jock's room. … This year, I want to surprise Kyle with a plane ticket to watch me in a big race: 'Here bro, get your suit ready and we're going to the big time.'”

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