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Dec 10: Olazabal Drives Green as Sire Bolt d’Oro Makes Cut

First-crop leading earner Bolt d'Oro (Medaglia d'Oro) continues to stride forward. Atop TDN's board, the sire had a half-dozen chances on Friday to extend his lead over chasers Good Magic (Curlin) and Justify (Scat Daddy). Named for a Spanish golfing legend, 2-year-old colt Olazabal ratcheted up the pressure with a tee-to-green victory in the fifth race at Turfway Park.

Looking to move up in the standings, Justify found the rough when his filly Prove My Love did not make the cut in the race prior as an also-eligible. Across the Pacific though, $400,000 KEESEP sale acquisition Lap Star secured third in race 6 at Nakayama Racecourse in Japan.

That Florence, Kentucky birdie gave the Spendthrift sire an almost $100,000 lead into the weekend over Hill 'n' Dale's own. Both had draws on Saturday with Bolt d'Oro being represented at Los Alamitos in the seventh race with $475,000 KEESEP purchase, Navy Man; and Good Magic with first-timer and morning-line 5-2 favorite, Delusively in the eighth race at Golden Gate.

Sunday's final round of the weekend gives Coolmore America's Justify a pair of opportunities. The first could come on the dirt at Hanshin Racecourse in Japan when $425,000 KEESEP graduate Dona Sweat debuts in the fourth race. Trying to get up and down from the newly-aerated turf fringe at Gulfstream Park will be homebred Alpha Bella. The filly is still looking to break her maiden after three races on the dirt, as she starts for the Don Alberto Stable in the seventh.

Before heading to the clubhouse, the one-seed and three-seed will square off at Laurel Park in a 5 1/2 furlong allowance optional claiming sprint. That eighth race matches Bolt's $260,000 OBSMAR Chiringo against the Triple Crown winner's well-traveled son Prove Right, who is making his 10th start of his young career. Both ran in Aqueduct stakes last out, with the latter quadruple-bogeying the Grade II Remsen S. Dec. 3 to Good Magic's ace, Dubyuhnell.

Current Earnings Standings through racing of Dec. 9:

1st—Bolt d'Oro, $2,543,416

2nd—Good Magic, $2,448,337

3rd—Justify, $2,281,355

TDN sire lists contain full-dollar earnings of Northern Hemisphere foals winning anywhere in the world. To view the current standings updated overnight, click here. Take note, Japanese earnings are added every Sunday night, and there may be delayed reporting from other countries, which could postpone the final results in a very tight race into early January.

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With His Exercise Rider Aboard, Promising Post Time Wins Again

The Week In Review, By Bill Finley

When Eric Camacho retired from riding in 2016, he thought he knew what his future would be. He'd work as an exercise rider in the mornings and step aside in the afternoons and let someone else get all the glory and the big paychecks. Never did he imagine he'd win another race, let alone get the mount on an undefeated 2-year-old who might just be good enough to be pointed toward the GI Kentucky Derby. But after Post Time (Frosted) won Saturday's Maryland Juvenile at Laurel with Camacho aboard, it's beginning to look like anything is possible.

“It's been amazing,” Camacho, 39, said. “Words can't express it.”

Camacho rode regularly from 2004 through 2016 and won 787 races and captured Laurel Park's 2005 winter meet riding title. But he won just 16 races in 2016 and was having a hard time lining up decent mounts.

“I needed to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life,” he said.

So he quit riding and took a job galloping horses for trainer Keith Nations. It was his first stop of many before he signed on to work for trainer Brittany Russell in May. That was just about the time that Russell was starting to prepare Post Time for the races. In the son of Frosted, she knew she had a talented prospect but one who was a handful and was immature and quirky. Someone needed to teach him the right way to go about things and she assigned the job to Camacho. The two hit it off.

“He liked to rear up, he liked to play around,” Camacho said. “This horse liked to do things way he liked to do things. I have a lot of experience with younger horses trying to get along with them. We had a bond. Don't get me wrong, we had our bouts. But he came to respect me. He's a very smart horse.”

Post Time's debut was delayed due to a quarter crack, but Russell, whose husband, Sheldon, is a jockey, had him ready to go by early fall. It was around then that Camacho came to her and said whoever would be riding Post Time in the afternoon needed to get on him in the mornings beforehand.

“I told her that if she put somebody on this horse they first need to come by and get on him in the morning,” Camacho said. “I don't want them to afraid of him in the afternoon.”

Russell considered his advice and started to think that maybe the best option was to let Camacho ride Post Time.

“I asked him if maybe he should ride the horse,” she said. “At first, I was kind of just joking around. But then I thought, you know what, he has a good relationship with the horse's owner, Ellen Charles, and I know he'll get this horse to the starting gate. Whatever tricks this horse might have up his sleeve on race day I know Eric will remain confident in him and will let him run anyway.”

The Maryland-bred debuted Oct. 7, facing off against open company in a 5 1/2-furlong maiden race at Laurel. Camacho, who had one mount in 2017 and another in 2021, had not won a race for nearly six years, since Oct. 20, 2016. Post Time won by two lengths, but it was far from smooth sailing. After making a sweeping move on the turn and gaining the lead in upper stretch, he swerved in and out down the lane.

He returned for an allowance race on Oct. 27 and it was a case of more of the same, a bold move on the turn followed by his ducking in and out down the stretch. He won by 6 3/4 lengths.

The Maryland Juvenile was next. Facing fellow Maryland-breds, this time Post Time closed from last, made an eye-catching move on the turn and drew off to win by 3 3/4 lengths. Though the competition may not have been that strong, it was a very impressive effort. And it was delivered without any antics in the stretch, giving Camacho his third win on the year from just three mounts. He has not ridden anybody else this year.

“This horse really turned a comer in the last two weeks or so,” Camacho said.

With the worst behavior perhaps a thing of the past, maybe now is the time for Russell to go to a different jockey, maybe even her husband, who is one of the top riders on the Maryland circuit. Russell said she has no plans to do so.

“I don't know where we'll go with him next, but it's kind of hard to pull somebody off a horse that knows him so well and has done nothing wrong on him,” Russell said. “I think this has meant a lot to Eric. And it should. He's done a lot of work with this horse, who has had his good days and his bad days. Yes, he has a lot of talent, but I'm sure there are a lot of days when Eric wakes up and thinks, 'Oh, gosh, I've got to get this sucker to the racetrack this morning.' We gave Eric an opportunity, but he has done a great job.”

It's clear that Post Time is ready for a tougher assignment, but it's hard to tell how good he is. He has been winning easily, but that doesn't mean that he can step up from Maryland-bred competition and be competitive in a prep for the Derby. Then again, Russell isn't ruling it out.

“That's why you're in this business,” she said. “Everybody wants a horse like this in the barn and everybody wants to dream. The Derby or Derby preps? I can't say no, but he has a lot to prove before you can start talking about something like that. He won the Maryland Juvenile against a horse that had just won a restricted race. He's going to have to step up. Ellen is Maryland through and through, so she might like to see him run through the series here in races like the Tesio. But it's not a far ship to New York, so something there might be in the cards.”

Wherever Post Time goes next, it will be with Camacho, his exercise rider aboard.

“People say this horse has so much ability, why do you let the exercise rider ride him in the afternoon?” Russell said. “You have to realize that Eric had to work really hard with the horse to get him to show his talent in the afternoon. I don't know where we'd be without him.”

In Appreciation of Mind Control

There have been better horses to run over the last few years than Mind Control (Stay Thirsty), the winner of Saturday's GI Cigar Mile H., but perhaps none tougher or more game. You don't want to get into a dogfight in the stretch with this horse because you will lose. That was the case Saturday when he was passed in the stretch by Get Her Number (Dialed In) only to fight back and win by a head. It was his 11th career stakes win and his third victory in a Grade I event.

In the last four races in which he has crossed the wire first, he has won by a head every time. The chart comments have included the following: “battled back gamely,” “bid stretch, came again,” and “dueled.” Outside of his maiden win, which he won by three lengths, he has never won by more than 1 1/2 lengths and he won both the GI H. Allen Jerkens S. and the GIII Toboggan S. by a nose.

He's also been remarkably durable, winning the GI Hopeful S. as a 2-year-old and the Cigar as a 6-year-old in his last career start.

“If you like horse racing, you've got to love this horse,” said winning trainer Todd Pletcher after the Cigar.

Well said.

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Homecoming Victory In Maryland Million Classic

A decade ago, trainer Jamie Ness claimed a filly named Parade of Colors for $5,000 at Laurel Park. She only ended up winning three lower-level races lifetime and only one for Ness, and when she retired at the end of 2012, Ness simply gave her away to breeder John Williamson III.

But something about that filly resonated positively with Ness, and as he watched her offspring eventually reach the races as Maryland-breds, one in particular caught his eye: Ournationonparade, a son of Cal Nation, who won the 2019 Maryland Million Nursery as the favorite despite being a second-time-starter maiden.

Ness continued to follow Ournationonparade as he matured from ages two to five and changed barns several times via the claim box while competing on other major circuits.

So just four weeks ago, when the 7-for-24 gelding was on the cusp of a three-race winning streak, Ness, acting on behalf of owner Happy Got Lucky Stable, dropped a slip for $50,000 prior to a winning effort at Churchill Downs. Four other outfits had also put in claims for the Maryland-bred, but Ness and his client managed to win the five-way shake.

On Saturday, making his first start for the trainer who had been keeping tabs on his family for 10 years, Ournationonparade blasted past two previous $150,000 Classic S. winners to capture his fourth straight start, this one in the featured race on the 37th annual Jim McKay Maryland Million program.

The 5 3/4-length victory was the second stakes win of the afternoon for Ness and the second stakes score for jockey Jaime Rodriguez on the eight-stakes card for the offspring of in-state stallions.

“I've always been watching this horse,” Ness said in the Laurel winner's circle. “I've always had a little bit of a connection to the horse. And it kind of comes full circle [because we] finally got a chance to bring him back home to Maryland. He's a Maryland-

bred. He needs to be here. And hopefully, he'll be here for good from now on.”

Backed to 2-1 favoritism, Ournationonparade had a stutter-step start but quickly righted himself and took up the chase by assertively snagging a three-wide stalking spot through the opening turn.

Fourth for most of the trip down the backstretch, Rodriguez patiently rated with a handful of horse behind the speed-centric Prendimi (Dance With Ravens) and Monday Morning Qb (Imagining), the respective 2021 and 2020 winners of this same stakes.

But by the far turn, Rodriguez's calm body language atop Ournationonparade stood out in confident contrast to the desperate urging of the top two. The gelding cracked Prendimi first and then blitzed “Qb” at the head of the lane.

Ournationonparade began pouring it on in upper stretch, racing for a few strides with his head cocked out toward the grandstand before finishing with authority while kept to task by Rodriguez. The final time was 1:51.78 for nine furlongs over the “fast” dirt.

Other Oct. 22 highlights from Laurel included Great Notion, the state's leading stallion by progeny earnings since 2018, siring yet another Maryland Million winner, giving his offspring at least one Maryland Million Day stakes victory for 13 consecutive years.

And the second-crop stallion Blofeld swept the two Maryland Million races for juveniles, siring his first two stakes winners. It's the second year in a row one stallion has swept the card's baby races: Progeny of Buffum, who died in 2019, won both of those 2-year-old stakes in 2021.

Johnyz From Albany racked up the first stakes win for Blofeld by wiring the $100,000 Nursery. Off at 4-1, he turned for home with the three favorites bearing down menacingly, but he capably swatted them away to cruise home by five lengths in 1:11.35 for six furlongs under Jorge Ruiz for trainer Dale Capuano.

Owner Charles “Chip” Reed said that the win was special on several levels. First, he had named his homebred in honor of a recently departed Saratoga-area racetrack friend, John Zanella from Albany, New York. And second, Reed had also campaigned the colt's dam, Monster Sleeping, whom he had claimed for $30,000 in 2013.

“The mom won two [Maryland Million] races here, so we were hoping that the son took after the mom, and today he did,” Reed said.

In the counterpart $100,000 Lassie S. for 2-year-old-filles, the Blofeld-sired Chickieness was a 1 1/2-length victress at 9-10 odds while mowing down the center of the main track in 1:12.58 for six furlongs. Ness and Rodriguez again partnered here, this time for owner/breeder Jagger, Inc. and part-owner Morris Kernan, Jr.

In the $125,000 Turf Classic, 9-2 shot Wicked Prankster (Mosler) cleared the field from an outer post going nine furlongs over “firm” grass, but looked certain to be swallowed up late in the lane after leading the entire trip.

Yet the 4-year-old from owner/trainer Samuel Davis's barn fought back when headed, resurging to win by three-quarters of a length under Richard Monterrey in 1:49.44. Country Life Farm & Broken Trust Fund, LLC, bred Wicked Prankster.

Coconut Cake (Bandbox) delivered a score by a head at 6-5 odds in the $125,000 Ladies S. at nine furlongs on the turf, having gone winless since 2020.

Jockey Sheldon Russell stalked the speed, uncoiling the 5-year-old gray for a long stretch drive against a very stubborn 16-1 pacemaker, prevailing in the final few jumps for a 1:50.22 clocking. Tim Keefe trains and is part-owner along with N R S Stable and James Chambers. The breeders were Mr. & Mrs. Charles McGinnes.

The $100,000 Sprint S. yielded the heaviest-favored winner among the Maryland Million stakes, with the 1-2 chalk Fortheluvofbourbon (Bourbon Courage) getting a bit more late-stretch resistance than might have been expected from 15-1 runner-up Karan's Notion (Great Notion), the 2020 upsetter of this same stakes.

The winning margin was 1 1/2 lengths in 1:10.96 for six furlongs for connections Paco Lopez (jockey), Michael Pino (trainer), Smart Angle LLP (owner) and Hidden Acres 4-D Farm (breeder). The victory was Fortheluvofbourbon's sixth straight trip to the winner's circle and victory number 12 from just 23 lifetime starts.

Fille d'Esprit (Great Notion), the 1 1/4-length winner of the $100,000 Distaff S. over seven furlongs, is only one win away from matching Fortheluvofbourbon's impressive record. She's now 11-for-22 lifetime after stalking a legit pace with a rail run, then edging away powerfully in deep stretch to finish in 1:25.05.

The 6-year-old mare is making the most of regional incentives on the mid-Atlantic circuit. She also won her division of the MATCH stakes series this summer for jockey Xavier Perez, trainer John Robb, the ownership partners C J I Phoenix Group and No Guts No Glory Farm, and breeder Sweet Spirits Stables.

In the $100,000 Turf Sprint S., Sky's Not Falling (Seville {Ger}), forced the issue with an inside bid, split horses on the far bend, then repulsed late challenges to win by half a length at 7-2 odds under Lopez (two stakes-winning rides) in 1:02.75 for 5 1/2 furlongs. The Michael Trombetta trainee was bred by R. Larry Johnson, who partners in ownership with R. D. M. Racing Stable.

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Laurel to Swap Three Thursdays for Mondays in November

Laurel Park will swap out three Thursday racing dates for Mondays in November. The request was unanimously approved by a voice vote at the Oct. 4 Maryland Racing Commission meeting.

Mike Rogers, the president of the racing division for the Maryland Jockey Club's Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, told commissioners that the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association was in favor of the switch.

“It's kind of an experiment. We see that handle is a little bit low on the Thursdays, so we're going to see if we can get a little bit of a bump on the handle by shifting to Mondays,” Rogers said. “The sample size is a little bit low, it's only three days, but I think we'll get a little bit of a sense whether the Mondays are successful or not.”

According to the calendar posted on Laurel's website, the three dropped Thursdays are Nov. 3, 10 and 17, making the schedule Fridays through Mondays on those weeks.

The Thanksgiving Day program on Nov. 24 remains intact on the posted schedule. Starting in December, the Laurel schedule had already been slated to revert to three-day racing weeks on a Friday-through-Sunday basis (with the exception of the weekend of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day).

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