Keeneland | Horse Racing Free Tips

Sy Dog Remains Unbeaten In Transylvania

Sent off the 57-10 second-longest shot on the board for Friday's co-featured event on opening day of the spring meeting at Keeneland, Head of Plains Partners' Sy Dog (Slumber {GB}) remained undefeated in three career appearances, holding off Grand Sonata (Medaglia d'Oro) for a narrow success in the GIII Kentucky Utilities Transylvania S.. Coinage (Tapit) bid for the lead on the turn, but was outfinished by the top two and settled for third.

Racing at the back of the field and to the inside of favored Verbal (Flintshire {GB}) as they raced under the wire for the first time, Sy Dog found himself detached from the peloton as they cornered to the backstretch, as longshot Credibility (Nyquist) took them along at a sedate tempo. Coinage was happy to take the sit from second and clocked the pacesetter's every move before being allowed to stride into the lead with about 2 1/2 furlongs to travel. Verbal made a run outside of Coinage into the stretch and looked dangerous for a stride or two, but Sy Dog was asked for his best by Irad Ortiz, Jr., looked to exchange bumps on multiple occasions with Coinage into the final eighth of a mile and kicked on gamely, as Grand Sonata boxed on to earn the place spot.

“My horse was traveling perfect the whole race,” the winning jockey commented. “At the three-eighths pole, I thought it was time to pick it up. He did everything I asked for. He was ready. [Trainer] Graham Motion did a great job and I thank the owner [Head of Plains Partners] and the trainer for the opportunity.”

Sy Dog opened his account at first asking with a visually impressive victory going seven furlongs over the Belmont turf course Oct. 24 and peeled out wide in the stretch of the Nov. 27 Central Park S. at Aqueduct before behind shoved over the line a nose to the good.

Pedigree Notes:

Sy Dog is the second graded winner for his New York-based sire, who is also responsible for the Head of Plains-owned and -bred Fluffy Socks, a graded winner at two and three. My Love Venezuela is the dam of the 2-year-old filly Love Amplified (Exaggerator) and a yearling colt by Mshawish. She was most recently covered by Alternation.

Friday, Keeneland
KENTUCKY UTILITIES TRANSYLVANIA S.-GIII, $390,125, Keeneland, 4-8, 3yo, 1 1/16mT, 1:45.38, gd.
1–SY DOG, 118, c, 3, by Slumber (GB)
                1st Dam: My Love Venezuela, by Scat Daddy
                2nd Dam: Gold Point Gal, by Deputy Commander
                3rd Dam: Stylish Star, by Our Native
1ST GRADED STAKES WIN. O-Head of Plains Partners LLC; B-Head of Plains Partners & Madaket Stables (KY); T-H. Graham Motion; J-Irad Ortiz, Jr.. $244,900. Lifetime Record: SW, 3-3-0-0, $349,400. Werk Nick Rating: B. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree.
2--Grand Sonata, 118, c, 3, Medaglia d'Oro–A. P. Sonata, by A.P. Indy. ($125,000 RNA Ylg '20 KEESEP). O/B-Whisper Hill Farm,LLC (KY); T-Todd A. Pletcher. $79,000.
3–Coinage, 118, c, 3, Tapit–Bar of Gold, by Medaglia d'Oro. ($450,000 Ylg '20 KEESEP). O-D. J. Stable LLC, Chester Broman, Sr. and Mary Broman; B-Chester & Mary R. Broman (NY); T-Mark E. Casse. $29,625.
Margins: 3/4, HF, NK. Odds: 5.70, 2.50, 5.10.
Also Ran: Napoleonic War, Verbal, Credibility.
Click for the Equibase.com chart, the TJCIS.com PPs or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree. VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.

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Keeneland Releases Statement on Miscalculated Mutuel Payout

In Friday's fifth race at Keeneland, the order of finish was inadvertently posted as 3-8-9-10. The correct order of finish for the race should have been 3-9-8-10. Any tickets that were cashed on track before the corrected order of finish were honored, and later, the race was repriced and the correct running order prices are official.

Late Friday, Keeneland said that officials had determined that the mistakes was a result of United Tote operator error.

“While safeguards to prevent this from happening are in place, additional measures are being taken to create further checks and balances,” a statement from the track read.

Advance Deposit Wagering (ADW) accounts, including NYRA Bets, TVG, TwinSpires and Xpressbet, will be adjusted to reflect the correct pricing.

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Kevin McKathan To Give Training A Try

Kevin McKathan has many talents. One of the principals behind McKathan Bros. Training Center in Ocala, he's helped start the career of many a good horse, including 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile), and he's also a major force as a consignor at the 2-year-old sales. But he's ready for something different. Thirty-three years after starting his last horse, McKathan will return to the training ranks when he sends out long shot Fenwick (Curlin) in Saturday's GI Toyota Blue Grass S. at Keeneland.

“I am very excited,” he said. “My brother (J.B., who passed away in 2019) and I used to train horses at the racetrack years ago and the reason we started doing what we've been doing is because we weren't training good horses. I've always said that bad horses make bad horse trainers. Whenever you can touch a good one, it's fantastic.”

McKathan started his last horse in 1989 and shortly thereafter started up his new business in Ocala. There wasn't time for much else.

“For years and years, I've always had 150 horses at the house,” he said. “It's not like I could just head out and run around at the races.”

McKathan bought Fenwick for $52,000 at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton Fall yearling sale for owner Jeremiah Rudan. The original plan was to sell him as a 2-year-old at theFasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale, but he was withdrawn. Rudan decided to race him and sent the colt on to trainer Steve Asmussen. McKathan had high expectations for Fenwick, but he lost his first four starts. Things hit bottom when he was beaten by 24 3/4 lengths in a Feb. 13 maiden special weight race at the Fair Grounds. The decision was then made to send him back to McKathan in Ocala and to more or less start over.

“In his first race, he ran a huge seven-eighths and just got beat,” McKathan said. “By Curlin, we had high hopes for him. He looked like a two-turn horse, but after his first start, he had such bad racing luck every time he started. Jeremiah got a little disappointed and had us bring him home to Ocala. We went over him and he was in perfect condition. We put him out in a field for a couple of days to get some sun on his back.”

Fenwick was turned over to trainer David Fisher and sent to Tampa Bay Downs, where he broke his maiden by 5 1/4 lengths on March 12, beating the 1-20 favorite Commandperformance (Union Rags), who was second in the GI Champagne S. for trainer Todd Pletcher. Commandperformance, still a maiden, is back in the Blue Grass.

“He ran a huge race at Tampa,” McKathan said. “He finally got things his way and finally ran the way Steve and I always expected he could. I joked with Jeremiah before the race. How could we be so unlucky to run into a horse who was second in a Grade I in a maiden race at Tampa? But our horse ran great. For the Blue Grass, we were planning on moving him to someone. Jeremiah said that since I was taking the horse up to Keeneland why not just put myself down as the trainer of record? He talked me into it.”

Rudan planted a seed and McKathan has become interested in seeing where the training business can take him.

“I believe I can combine everything,” he said. “I have a great staff. If you think about it, we travel somewhere every month, whether it's for a horse sale or for a horse race. It's not undoable. It's just a matter of working things out.”

Fenwick is the only horse that McKathan has as a trainer. For now, that's good enough.

“This is definitely something I think I will be able to do,” he said of training. “I will enjoy this one, take a shot at them in the Blue Grass and if we make the Derby, I'll be there for it. I don't think this is a one-shot deal so far as my training. We've all been horse trainers our whole lives. It's just how you plan on going about it.”

McKathan won just seven races in his first go-round as a trainer and his stable earnings were just $30,461. That's what can happen when you train slow horses at tracks like River Downs, Beulah Park and Birmingham. All these years later he has a starter in the $1-million Blue Grass.

“I am expecting big things from this horse,” he said. “It's exciting and it's fun.”

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Pennsylvania’s Heroine Just One Time in Madison Stakes

A caravan of over 20 people made the 500-mile journey from central Pennsylvania to central Kentucky this week to watch star Pennsylvania-bred Just One Time (Not This Time) step up to Grade I company in Saturday's Madison S. at Keeneland.

“She has developed a bit of a following in Pennsylvania,” said Donnie Brown, who operates Warrior's Reward LLC with partner Tom McClay. “We wanted to get down early to visit a few farms in Lexington and go see her before race day. We have a group of people texting about when they're getting on the road and where they're staying, so we hope to have a nice Pennsylvania contingency there at Keeneland.”

Just One Time has been a bit of a celebrity in Pennsylvania since the day she was foaled. Warrior's Reward LLC purchased her dam Ida Clark (Speighstown) at the 2017 Keeneland November Sale for $45,000 with Just One Time in utero. The Not This Time filly arrived on Easter Sunday.

“We took the whole family over to see her,” Brown recalled. “From day one she had fans on and off the farm who thought she was a good-looking filly.”

Warrior's Reward LLC breeds almost exclusively to race, with a focus on producing Pennsylvania-breds, so the filly was slated to go to the racetrack from the start. She was sent to trainer Mike Salvaggio, who was high on her from the get-go, but Brown wasn't equally convinced until he heard an outside opinion.

“If we could tell ability based off half-mile works, we would all be geniuses,” Brown said with a laugh. “My partner and Mike always said she was going to be something special, but I didn't buy it until one of our other trainers called and asked if we owned a chestnut filly in Mike's barn. He had watched her train and said she was a nice horse.”

In May of her sophomore year, Just One Time won on debut at Penn National, but showed she had much to learn when she was rambunctious in the gate. She won her next start by over four lengths in the Malvern Rose S. at Presque Isle Downs, but her inexperience caught up with her when she accepted her first and only loss a month later in the Lady Erie S.

“Angel Rodriguez was up and he said after the race that he just couldn't slow her down,” Brown recalled. “They were wanting to go fast and he couldn't get her to rate. She didn't want to give up the lead.”

The chestnut filly returned to the winner's circle in her next two starts at Penn National, first an allowance race where she trounced the field by over six lengths, and then the New Start S., where afterwards Todd Mostoller inquired about buying into the filly for his Commonwealth New Era Racing.

“We struck a deal and he asked what we thought about going to the races outside of Pennsylvania,” Brown said. “I told him that the condition book and the filly are telling us we have to.”

Just One Time was sent to Brad Cox, where she received months of schooling and put in eight works before returning to the starting gate.

A young Just One Time | photo courtesy Donnie Brown

“Brad spent some time teaching her how to relax and be a more versatile racehorse,” Brown noted. “She was always wanting to beat anything that went by her and he got her to relax and slow down.”

The Cox barn was rewarded with their months of work when the filly made her first start against open company in the GII Inside Information S. on the GI Pegasus World Cup undercard. The 4-year-old was fractious in the gate and broke slow, but after traveling mid-pack throughout the race, she went four and five wide around the turn for home and flew to the wire to get the win.

“I remember [Joel] Rosario saying that she didn't like getting dirt in her face, so he decided to get her as wide as he could go and see what happened,” Brown explained. “Once he put her wide, she started running. She has learned something every time she runs. I think the biggest thing that we're realizing is that she's just so competitive.”

Just One Time's victory in the Inside Information marked Brown's first time in the winner's circle for a graded stakes as an owner.

“We got down two days early so we could meet Brad Cox and see her before the race,” Brown said. “What a great day that was, Pegasus Day at Gulfstream.”

Brown has been hearing only good things from Cox as the filly prepares for her start in the Madison S., but in the meantime he is closely following the progeny of Warrior's Reward, the Grade I-winning stallion his partnership owns. This year the son of Medaglia d'Oro is expecting his first crop of 2-year-olds since he arrived at WynOaks Farm in Pennsylvania in 2019.

“The first year he was here, he covered 115 mares,” Brown reported. “There are about 80 2-year-olds out there in training now and I've heard from quite a few people that they're very happy with them. Tom and I own about two dozen that are under saddle already. He passes on really good bone and size in his babies. When he was in Kentucky he had runners in the Breeders' Cup and in Dubai, Del Mar and Saratoga. We're hoping some of that success passes on right here to the Pennsylvania program.

This weekend, Brown and the rest of the Just One Time fan club are looking forward to cheering on their star Pennsylvania-bred.

“I've been racing horses for 30 years now but with her, even if you know she's not running for a month, people still talk to you about her,” Brown said. “I get excited any time we have a horse entered, but at the graded-stakes level, it has me talking to people everywhere. It's a whole new level of having something to be excited about.”

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