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Wade Jost Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast To Tell The Story Of Carson’s Run

When Carson's Run (Cupid) won the GI bet365 Summer S. at Woodbine Racetrack this past weekend, earning a trip to the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita, the story was bigger than one horse and one race.

The 2-year-old chestnut colt is named for the 31-year-old son of Wade Jost, who bought into the horse from his classmate at the United States Military Academy, Terry Finley, thorough West Point Thoroughbreds.

Carson Jost continues to battle Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome. The story might sound familiar, as Cody's Wish (Curlin) is named in honor of Cody Dorman, who also suffers from the rare genetic disorder.

To learn more about Carson Jost and this colt, Wade Jost was the Green Group Guest of the Week on this week's TDN Writers' Rooom podcast presented by Keeneland.

“It's been emotional, as my voice breaks right now,” Jost said. “We just wanted to do something for Carson. He's never walked and this is an opportunity to give him some focus, give him some limelight. Terry and I have been talking for over a decade about this, the possibility of doing something in his honor. The timing was just right. Carson just turned 31. He wasn't supposed to be with us and was supposed to have passed early in life. But mainly because of all the love he gets from his mother, who has constantly taken care of him, he is still with us.”

The Josts have yet to see Carson's Run compete live, but a trip to the Breeders' Cup and a meeting with the Dorman family is a possibility.

“It sounds like both Cody's Wish and Carson's Run may be at the Breeders' Cup,” Jost said. “If so, we'd love to get together with the Dormans. We'll talk about it after we get through some more races here. It's good that the Breeders' Cup is at Santa Anita on the West Coast, given that we live in Washington State. It may still be tough. Carson has a lot of issues, one of which is a very low immune system. So with everything going on right now, with all the viruses going on in the world, it may be tough to get them down there, but we'll see.”

Jost's military career included fighting in the Gulf War. An inordinate number of people who fought in that war went on to have children born with disabilities. Could that be what happened with Carson?

“The bottom line is we don't know,” Jost said. “But yes, the possibility exists. I know it definitely did for some that have been diagnosed. By and large, this chromosomal disorder is overwhelmingly a matter of one of the two parents carrying it in their chromosomes. But it just hadn't affected them until they had offspring. That didn't happen with my wife and I. So we don't know. Carson was doing studies. We were doing studies for three years after he was born. And we got to a point where the studies got to be too frequent. The blood that they drew, the tests that they did, and we finally just decided that it was time to move on with life and not put him through any more of that rigor. Nothing was ever conclusive for us.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Retired Racehorse Project, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, WinStar Farm, XBTV.com, Lane's End and West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Zoe Cadman, Bill Finley and Randy Moss delved into another big weekend in North America for trainer Charlie Appleby, who won the GI Woodbine Mile S. and the GIII Jockey Club Oaks Invitational S. Cadman gave an update on the Keeneland September Sale and the trio looked ahead to Saturday's GI Pennsylvania Derby and the GI Cotillion S. at Parx. There was also a spirited debate about whether or not running a horse too often or on short rest could be a contributing factor when it comes to breakdowns. Moss said yes. Finley said no.

To watch the Writers' Room, click here. To view the show as a podcast, click here.

The post Wade Jost Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast To Tell The Story Of Carson’s Run appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The Week In Review: Juvenile Fillies Emerge As Intriguing Divisional Subplot

The juvenile fillies division is crystalizing into one of the most intriguing subplots of the Breeders' Cup as we approach the six-week mark to the championships.

The skyrocketing 'TDN Rising Star' Tamara (Bolt d'Oro), unveiled barely a month ago, has emerged from the West Coast as the obvious topper of her division. But the brilliant, 2-for-2 daughter of four-time champion Beholder is likely to have a fight on her hands as the upcoming stakes engagements extend around two turns, thanks to a talented trio of fillies who have ascended in the East.

The latest addition to that group of contenders is fellow 'Rising Star' V V's Dream (Mitole), who on Saturday ran up the score by 8 3/4 as-she-pleased lengths in the GIII Pocahontas S. at Churchill Downs.

The stylish victory by the athletic, unruffled 6-5 favorite represented the first graded stakes win for her freshman sire, Mitole. The 1:36.45 clocking for the one-turn mile was .83 seconds faster than 2-year-old males ran one hour later in the GIII Iroquois S., earning V V's Dream an 87 Beyer Speed Figure that ranks nine points higher than the number assigned to the winning colt.

V V's Dream has already tangled with-and run second to-the 4-for-4 Brightwork (Outwork), who has won the Ellis Park Debutante S., the GIII Adirondack S., and the GI Spinaway S. in succession this summer.

Yet it is the trip-troubled filly who ran second in the Spinaway, 'TDN Rising Star' Ways and Means (Practical Joke), who is widely regarded as the one to beat coming out of the Saratoga season. This lofty assessment for a non-stakes-winner is based on her blowout, 90-Beyer MSW debut score by 12 3/4 lengths, and then having her momentum stalled twice in the Spinaway when checking hard and clipping heels behind Brightwork, who only beat her by half a length.

V V's Dream ($130,000 KEENOV; $190,000 KEESEP) also summered at the Spa, but didn't race there. After winning her May 19 debut at Churchill by 6 1/4 lengths and running second to Brightwork by half a length in the July 2 Ellis Debutante, the Ken McPeek-trained gray posted five published workouts at Saratoga, even though the Sept. 16 Pocahontas S. was circled on the calendar as her next goal.

“Kenny wanted to take longer, didn't want her to do another sprint,” owner Mike Mackin (MJM Racing) said in a post-win interview published on the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association's YouTube feed.

Churchill Downs this year tweaked some aspects of its September stakes schedule, including shortening both the Pocahontas and the Iroquois from 1 1/16 miles to one mile. The Pocahontas had been carded at a mile from 1982 through 2012 and in 2020. Mackin said the move didn't initially register on his or his trainer's radar as they prepped V V's Dream for that spot.

“At the time when we first started [planning her campaign], we were thinking that the Pocahontas was a mile and a sixteenth, and just wanted her to do two turns from here on out,” Mackin said.

“But, close enough, I guess, a flat mile,” Mackin added with the afterglow relief of an owner not wanting to nitpick a romp that stamped his filly as a major divisional force.

In the Pocahontas, V V's Dream rated adeptly under Brian Hernandez, Jr., then assertively split foes leaving the chute to command a sweet stalking spot while outside and jointly third for most of the backstretch run. The second and third favorites in the betting were establishing a lively and seemingly unsustainable tempo (:22.83 and :45.55), allowing Hernandez to hone his striking sights while edging incrementally closer through the far turn.

Pouncing at will at the quarter pole after a six-furlong split in 1:10.24, V V's Dream inhaled the wilted pacemakers with little resistance. But it took her several strides before she found her best footing and torqued into a higher gear three-sixteenths out, widening her margin with no serious challengers in her wake. She won geared down and galloped out almost a pole ahead of the runners-up.

“She went on by them pretty easily turning for home, and from there she just kind of coasted on in,” Hernandez said, adding that he “just kind of stayed out of her way and let her get under the wire on her own terms.”

Mackin said the Oct. 6 GI Alcibiades S. at Keeneland is next. He attempted to compare V V's Dream to other recent graded stakes winners his family has campaigned with McPeek (as Lucky Seven Stable), but couldn't quite come up with the right analogy.

“Well, hopefully she's got more sense than Smile Happy,” Mackin said, speaking of the notoriously difficult-to-train Runhappy colt. “But she's got more tactical speed than Rattle N Roll,” he added, referring to the one-run closer by Connect. “He's going to be back of the pack.”

Hernandez, who has worked closely with McPeek's outfit for years, had no trouble pinpointing a comparison from different owners in that same stable.

“She kind of reminds us a lot of that filly we had a few years ago, Restless Rider,” the jockey said, referring to the McPeek-trained daughter of Distorted Humor who ran second in the 2018 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies.

If V V's Dream follows Restless Rider's pattern and also wins the Alcibiades, she, too, will enter the Breeders' Cup with a 3-for-4 record and a Grade I win at 1 1/16 miles as her final prep.

“She's just kind of big, and always forward,” Hernandez said of V V's Dream. “And from day one, when they first got her in here, she's always kind of done everything the right way. So she's just one of those types of fillies where it's exciting to see her just keep progressing.”

McPeek has now won the Pocahontas four times (2023, 2022, 2016, 2015), establishing a record for that stakes. As Mackin talked of plans for V V's Dream, it might have registered as a surprise to listeners when he touched on the fact that McPeek has never won a Breeders' Cup race. But he's been tantalizingly close-second seven times and third on 10 occasions.

McPeek himself wasn't at the post-race festivities to talk about whether V V's Dream could be the one to snap that oh-so-close Breeders' Cup streak. He was 80 miles east in Lexington, scoping out the Keeneland sale.

“As much as he would have liked to have been here today, his future is dependent upon buying the right yearlings,” Mackin said.

The post The Week In Review: Juvenile Fillies Emerge As Intriguing Divisional Subplot appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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StrideSAFE CEO David Lambert Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

As the sport continues in its efforts to drastically reduced the number of fatalities that occur in races and in morning training, there's little doubt that StrideSAFE is going to play an important role in preventing breakdowns.

StrideSAFE is a biometric sensor mechanism that slips into the saddle cloth to detect minute changes in a horses's gait at high speed. Those changes can, and often do, signal that a horse is in the early stages of having a problem that could lead to a fatal injury. If the StrideSAFE data is made available to trainers and veterinarians, they can use it to make decisions that very well could save a horse's life.

To learn more about StrideSAFE, we brought in its CEO Dr. David Lambert for this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland to discuss how the technology works and what it can do to keep our horses safer. Lambert was the Green Group Guest of the week.

“We recognized early on that every horse has his own unique way of going,” Lambert said. “The sensors would pick up the same pattern for the same horse all the time. But if something were to go wrong with that horse, then that pattern changes and the sensors are able to pick that up. And so the preliminary work was to look at cases where we knew the horses had suffered a fatal injury and try to quantify the nature of the patterns that preceded the fatality. That was the basic research that we had to tidy up, and that's where we are now. We've got that pattern. We can identify each individual horse's style. We've got an elaborate model that can tell us when the changes that are happening in a horse's body are happening and putting them at greater risk of a fatal injury.”

How effective is it? Originally, horses were put into three categories, red, yellow and green. Red representing the horses at the highest risk of being injured, while green includes the ones at the least risk. They have since changed the categories with horses in category five the most likely to suffer a fatal injury.

“The animals that have the worst signal and are in category five, the worst data, are 300 times more likely to suffer a fatality than are the ones that get the normal signal,” Lambert said. “So we're able to quantify the amount of risk a horse is at once he's come out of a race. So the horse is wrong. Here he is. He's back at the barn. We get the results. And that horse, the data that horse showed us in that race tells us that he was he's now 300 times more likely to suffer a fatality. We give that to the trainer. This isn't an absolute. But that horse is a seriously increased level of risk. And all we're asking the trainer to do is have a special look, bring your vets in, because the vets know where these fractures occur.”

While no one is doubting that StrideSAFE's information is accurate and can be vitally important, the racing industry has yet to embrace it. It has been used on a trial basis at some tracks, including the NYRA tracks, but is not yet in regular use at any track. Why?

“I think the answer to that is probably just human nature,” Lambert said. “When you come with any idea to a large group of people there are going to be those unusual folks who jump on it straight away. And then there'll be those who get used to it a little bit later. The establishment and the political players, if you like, the management level, are going to be slower still. They have a complex responsibility to the sport at large. They must be absolutely sure that something is valid before they allow it to happen. They can't go off, you know, with a knee jerk reaction jumping in and causing more harm than good. And then, of course, at the other end of that, there's always the soothsayers that just want no part of it. And then all of them are bound by money. They might want to do it and can't afford it. So there's the whole spectrum of things that have, I think, been in evidence as we've tried to bring this forward. But slowly but surely we're making progress. People are getting on board. And I'm feeling pretty optimistic now that we're going to get this done.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored byhttps://coolmore.com/https://lanesend.com/ the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders,https://www.nyrabets.com/ WinStar Farm, XBTV.com, Stonestreet Farms, Lane's End andhttps://www.threechimneys.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Zoe Cadman, Bill Finley and Randy Moss discussed the remarkable safety record at the recently concluded Del Mar meet where not a single horses broke down during the running of a race. The discussion included a look at a pair of 'TDN Rising Stars' who exited stakes races on closing weekend at Del Mar, where Tamara (Bolt d'Oro), the daughter of Hall of Famer Beholder (Henny Hughes), was a very impressive winner of the GI Del Mar Debutante. The team was not quite as bullish on the victory by Prince of Monaco (Speightstown), who was hard pressed to win the GI Del Mar Futurity as the 1-20 favorite. Randy Moss previewed the “Win and You're In” races to be held Saturday at Woodbine and will be broadcast by Moss and his team on NBC.

To watch the Writers' Room, click here. To view the show as a podcast, click here.

The post StrideSAFE CEO David Lambert Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Mage Half by McKinzie Brings $1.2 Million from CRK Stables

A half-brother to this year's GI Kentucky Derby winner Mage (Good Magic) by McKinzie brought $1.2 million when selling to CRK Stables at Wednesday's session of the Keeneland September Yearling Sale. MGISW McKinzie, a Gainesway sire, is represented by his first crop of yearlings this year. The $1.2-million colt is out of former 'TDN Rising Star' Puca (Big Brown), a SW & GSP runner whose three foals to race, including current juvenile Dornoch (Good Magic), are all stakes performers. Grandview Farm bred both the Derby winner and Hip 669, who was consigned by Runnymede Farm LLC. The May 13 colt's dam is a half to GISW Finnegans Wake (Powerscourt {GB}). Dottie Ingordo signed the ticket on behalf of Lee and Susan Searing's CRK Stables, who also purchased an $875,000 Into Mischief filly earlier on Wednesday.

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