Arrogate, Catalina Cruiser Juveniles Earn Bullets in Timonium Thursday

TIMONIUM, MD – A filly by Arrogate (hip 552) and a colt by Catalina Cruiser (hip 568) set the fastest furlong and quarter-mile times, respectively, during the final session of the under-tack show for the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale at the Maryland State Fairgrounds Thursday.

Both juveniles were stabled in Barn A, with the filly consigned by Hartley/DeRenzo Thoroughbreds and the colt in the L.G. consignment of longtime Hartley/DeRenzo employee Luis Garcia.

Hip 552 became the sixth juvenile of the under-tack show to work a furlong in :10 flat in the day's second set Thursday.

“I knew she was going to go fast,” Randy Hartley said. “I was hoping for a :9 4/5. It just depended on the track. But she's been the best filly on the farm all year. And when she prepped here, my kid said she was ready and she felt the best of all of them.”

Out of Twixy (Mutakddim), the chestnut filly is a half-sister to multiple stakes winner Twixy Roll (Roll Hennessy Roll) and is from the family of multiple Grade I winner Caleb's Posse.

The filly was purchased by Hartley and Dean DeRenzo for $255,000 out of Book 1 at last year's Keeneland September sale.

“To me, she was the best-looking horse in Book 1,” Hartley said. “Her pedigree was a little lighter for Book 1 and I think that's probably the reason we were able to buy her. It wasn't a big, Grade I mare or anything, but we just loved the filly. She's just a gorgeous filly. She looks like a colt.”

Bloodstock agent Donato Lanni purchased Faiza (Girvin) on behalf of Michael Lund Petersen for $725,000 at last year's Midlantic May sale and Thursday, a day before that undefeated filly goes postward in the GII Black-Eyed Susan S. at Pimlico, Lanni and Petersen stopped by Barn A specifically to look at the speedy Arrogate filly in Barn A.

Hip 568 matched the quarter-mile bullet set by a Hartley/DeRenzo consigned son of Justify Wednesday when he covered the distance in :21 2/5 during the first set Thursday morning.

The chestnut colt is out of Wicked Speed (Macho Uno) and is a half-brother to stakes-winner Freedom Speaks (American Freedom). Wicked Speed is a half-sister to Canadian champion Fatal Bullet (Red Bullet).

Garcia and partner Gina Fennell purchased the colt for $70,000 at Keeneland last September.

“I liked his body. He is a beautiful horse,” Garcia said of the colt's appeal last fall. “And I like Catalina Cruiser. I have a couple of them this year. They are really smart. They relax and they do everything perfectly.”

The colt will be making his second trip through the sales ring this year. He RNA'd for $85,000 following a :10 2/5 breeze at the OBS March sale.

“He worked in March, but he wasn't really ready for that,” Garcia said. “I took him out and brought him here. He is a big horse and kind of heavy. So I gave him more training and more time. And now he's doing everything on his own.”

Of the decision to go a quarter-mile Thursday, Garcia explained, “We had him in that sale in March and he was kind of a heavy horse. So I trained him more, gave him more two-minute licks, and he was ready to go a quarter.”

Garcia is just a few months short of his 16-year anniversary of working for Hartley/DeRenzo.

“If I left them, I'd feel lost,” he said with a laugh.

While the under-tack show's second session Wednesday featured a significant tailwind throughout the day, Thursday's session was held amidst an intermittent headwind, which seemed to increase throughout the day.

“The track seems all over the place,” Hartley said. “I think [Thursday] is a mixture between the first day and second day. I think it's not quite like the first day, and with the tailwind yesterday, today is kind of somewhere in between those two days.”

The fifth set of Thursday's session was briefly halted when hip 536 got loose on the track prior to his work for Two Oaks Equine. The gray colt began running up the track as hip 421, a filly by Connect, was finishing up her furlong work in :10 4/5.

Eventually corralled by the outriders, hip 536 returned to the track during the session's seventh and final set and worked a furlong in :10 2/5.

After a pair of strong, if top-heavy, juvenile sales in Ocala earlier this spring, Hartley is hoping to see a broadening of the middle market when bidding opens in Timonium Monday morning.

“It's like we are missing the middle–we are missing that $150,000 buyer,” Hartley said of the 2-year-old market this year. “It's all or nothing, it seems like this year. Maybe people, like Linda Rice, are doing more claiming and getting their horses like that. The purses are really good, but it just seems like we need that guy to spend $150,000 or $200,000. I don't know if his wife is telling him, 'Oh, no. We're not buying a horse right now.' But we are missing that market and I don't know if it's going to be here or not. I hope it's going to be here. I hope we have more New York people coming down to this sale. The Maryland people will be here–I don't know if they will be in that middle market. They seem to shop to try to find nice racehorses for $100,000 or less, although there are a couple who step up and spend a little bit more. But we need the guys from California to come.”

The Midlantic May sale will be held Monday and Tuesday with sessions beginning each day at 11 a.m.

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Speightster Colt, Cupid Filly Fastest at Fasig-Tipton Santa Anita

Luis Garcia's L G consignment sent out the bullet furlong and quarter-mile workers during the under-tack show for the Fasig-Tipton Santa Anita 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale in Arcadia Monday. A colt by Speightster (hip 109) worked the day's fastest furlong of :10 2/5, while a filly by Cupid (hip 54) turned in the day's fastest quarter-mile of :22 flat.

Hip 109 is out of stakes-placed Pankhurst (Artie Schiller), a half-sister to graded placed Pro Prado (El Prado {Ire}).

“I got him after the [OBS] April sale–he was with someone else there–and we made the decision to bring him out here,” Garcia said. “He has talent and he's been improving. He worked really well and we are very happy with him.”

Garcia is consigning the colt on behalf of TNT Equine Holdings, which purchased him for $30,000 at last year's Keeneland September sale. The juvenile was a late supplement to the Fasig catalogue.

“He's an athletic-looking horse,” Garcia said. “You can tell he has speed. He looks like a Quarter Horse. It was kind of a late decision to bring him here because he had a little bit of sore shins after the April sale, so we had to take care of that. I made the decision at the last minute–I was just waiting to make sure he was sound. I just wanted to make sure he was ready.”

Hip 54 is out of Wild Mocha (Medaglia d'Oro), a half-sister to multiple graded stakes placed Zultanite (El Corredor). The filly was purchased by Valentin Jimenez for $13,000 at last year's Keeneland September sale. Consigned by Jimenez's Bold Arrow Thoroughbreds, she RNA'd for $45,000 following a :21 2/5 work at the OBS April sale.

“She RNA'd at OBS with Bold Arrow and he sent the filly to us to sell out here for him,” Garcia said. “She worked a quarter at OBS and I breezed her a couple of three-eighths back home. She was always sound and she was ready to go a quarter. She is a long, nice filly. She's ready to go.”

Garcia has been galloping his consignment over the past week and said he was happy with the condition of the Santa Anita track.

“I thought the track was pretty good and safe,” he said. “It was a little heavy for everybody, but I think it's safe. I gallop my horses, so I was galloping them over it the last week. It's soft and I think it's pretty good for the horses.”

Garcia will be offering his first consignment at the second renewal of the Fasig Santa Anita sale Wednesday.

“It's the first time I came here to California and we wanted to break the ice,” Garcia said. “We have some really nice horses here. I like it here and the Fasig team has done a great job and helped us out a lot.”

Garcia and pinhooking partner Gina Fennell enjoyed a major score at the April sale where they sold a Classic Empire colt for $450,000. The youngster had been purchased for $70,000 last fall at Keeneland. But once the partners realized they would still have horses to sell at Santa Anita, they reinvested some of their profits in a pair of colts at the Ocala auction to ship to California.

“We had horses left after April and it was kind of close to make the Maryland sale, so we decided to come here,” Garcia explained. “Since we already had a couple, my partner Gina Fennell and I decided to buy a couple more. So I bought two at April just to bring them here.”

Garcia and Fennell purchased a colt by Pioneerof the Nile for $30,000 in April. Consigned to the Santa Anita sale as hip 31, he breezed Monday in :10 4/5. The partners purchased a colt by Union Jackson for $15,000 at April. Consigned to the Santa Anita sale as hip 87, the colt also worked Monday in :10 4/5.

Garcia said the under-tack show was well-attended and he was already starting to see traffic pick up at the sales barns Monday afternoon.

“There are people who are starting to look,” he said. “They waited for the horses to cool out, but they are starting to look now and hopefully we will get more later in the day. There were a lot of people at the breeze show, hopefully they will come over to look at the horses.”

The Fasig-Tipton Santa Anita sale will be held Wednesday in the track's winner's circle, with bidding beginning at 1 p.m. PT

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Laurel Park: Retired Jockey Trujillo Scores Initial Win As Trainer

Ejetero LLC's Voodoo Valley tracked pacesetting Chuck's Dream into mid-stretch, surged to the lead inside the eighth pole and drew off by 2 1/4 lengths to give ex-jockey Elvis Trujillo his first career victory as a trainer in Saturday's second race at Laurel Park in Maryland.

A 5-year-old gelding racing first time for Trujillo, Voodoo Valley ($15.60) ran one mile in 1:39.36 over a fast main track to earn his second career triumph from 22 starts in the claiming event for 3-year-olds and up.

It was the fourth career starter for the 36-year-old Trujillo, who ran sixth with Mystic Times in Friday's fifth race at Laurel. The Panama native was second with Confusion Baby Boy and fourth with Eje Gama in his training debut Aug. 9 at Monmouth Park.

Trujillo was not in the winner's circle for Voodoo Valley's photo, choosing to stay back at the barn with Ejetero's Lady Rozina, who ran fifth in Saturday's fourth race. Trujillo has eight horses stabled on the Laurel backstretch.

“It feels so good, brother. It's amazing. Everybody is watching and everybody is jumping. I am so happy,” Trujillo said. “It's so good. It's good for me, it's good for my family. It's good for everybody.”

Breaking from the far outside, Chuck's Dream was sent to the lead and held it through fractions of 24.10 seconds for a quarter-mile and 47.08 for the half, opening up by as many as six lengths while jockey Luis Garcia kept Voodoo Valley in the clear in second. Voodoo Valley began to gain ground midway around the turn and straightened for home with sights set on the leader, steadily grinding away through the lane to gain the advantage on Chuck's Dream, who held second over Just Chill Out.

Voodoo Valley had not run since running fourth in a 1 1/16-mile claimer Aug. 1 over a muddy Laurel track for previous trainer Jonathaniel Badillo.

“He surprised me today,” Trujillo said. “He was training good an everything, but the last time when he finished fourth he had an issue that we had to figure out and take care of. Thank God he got it done today. He ran great and Luis gave him a great ride.”

A 2000 graduate of Panama's Laffit Pincay Jr. jockey school, Trujillo first came to the U.S. in November 2001, landing in Southern California after riding 90 winners in his home country and Mexico City. He spent time on circuits in Chicago, Florida and New Jersey, winning meet titles in 2007 at the former Calder Race Course and 2009, 2011 and 2012 and Monmouth Park.

Trujillo won 2,102 races and more than $70 in purses between 2001 and 2018. He came to Maryland to ride full-time in the fall of 2017 at the behest of his uncle, Laurel-based trainer Jose Corrales, after spending that summer riding in China. Trujillo won 28 races over the next four months, including the General George (G3) aboard Corrales-trained Something Awesome, before injuring his ribs and sternum in a three-horse spill March 10, 2018. Once healed, he considered a comeback to riding before ultimately transitioning into a new career.

In all, Trujillo won 45 career graded stakes, five of them Grade 1, including his breakthrough victory in the 2007 Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint aboard Maryfield, on whom he also won the Ballerina (G1). His best horse was Presious Passion, teaming up to win six graded stakes and nearly $1.9 million in purse earnings from 2007-10.

Trujillo said he had a lot of help making the career change, including his uncle, his wife Raquel, Badillo and Abel Castellano, the brother of Hall of Famer Javier Castellano who also transitioned from jockey to trainer.

“I feel so good, man,” Trujillo said. “Everybody helped me a lot and supported me so much in making the big change.”

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Liam’s Map Colt Zips Fastest Quarter at Midlantic Breeze Show Wednesday

The three-day under-tack show ahead of next week’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale kicked off Wednesday under picture perfect conditions with temperatures hovering in the low 70s as the first of seven sets hit the track shortly after 8 a.m. Originally scheduled for May, the breeze show attracted a good-sized crowd to the Maryland State Fairgrounds, with bloodstock agents such as Liz Crow, Patti Miller, David Ingordo, Donato Lanni, Gary Young, Tom McGreevy, Steve Young, Gary Contessa, Joe Brocklebank and Alan Quartucci in attendance, as well as trainers like Linda Gaudet, Mike Trombetta and Ron Moquett.

A colt by Liam’s Map (hip 151) worked the day’s fastest quarter-mile of :20 4/5. The gray colt RNA’d for $290,000 at the OBS March sale following a :20 3/5 work.

“He’s a fast horse anywhere on any surface. He’s a special horse,” said Juan Centeno, whose All Dreams Equine consigns the colt on behalf of a client. “Anywhere you go, he would do the same thing. He’s been training on dirt and he’s been training excellent. He performed very well on synthetic, but I wanted to show that he can do it on dirt.  If he gets into good hands, I think he has a bright future.”

Bred by Nancy Shuford, the colt is out of One Foxy Grey (Big Brown), a daughter of Grade I winner Irish Smoke (Smoke Glacken). He sold to Superfine Farms for $67,000 as a weanling at the 2018 Keeneland November sale and he RNA’d for $88,000 at Keeneland last September.

Four horses shared the day’s fastest furlong work of :10 flat.

A filly from the first crop of graded winner Upstart (hip 173), the first horse on the track Wednesday morning, turned in the :10 flat work for consignor Cary Frommer. Frommer purchased the dark bay juvenile for $120,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearling Sale.

“I never expect a bullet work, but I was expecting her to work well. And we weren’t disappointed,” Frommer said. “I’ve loved her since the day we bought her from this sale in October. Everybody who has been around her has loved her.”

The Maryland-bred filly, bred by Dark Hollow Farm, is out of stakes winner Plum (Pure Prize).

Of the decision to send the filly out first thing, Frommer explained, “We thought about it, we talked about it, we debated about it, but in the end we said she is going to do her best no matter what. High or low, she was going to do her best.”

Frommer purchased 15 yearlings at the 2019 Fall Yearling Sale and admitted it was a relief to see the Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training sale, forced to cancel its May date due to the pandemic, return to the schedule.

“This is a very important sale,” Frommer said. “Because it’s so different from the Florida sales, you draw a different crowd. A lot of people don’t want to go down there, so you get a lot of New York people here and you get a lot of Maryland people. I have a lot of friends here in Maryland, so this is a really good sale for me.”

During the day’s second set, consignor Al Pike sent out an Uncle Mo colt (hip 118) to work the furlong in :10 flat.

“He’s worked like a really good horse all year,” Pike said of the juvenile. “He’s kind of a natural. He came to hand quick. We haven’t had any problems with him at all. He’s never had a bad day.”

The dark bay colt is out of Miss Ocean City (Mineshaft) and is a half-brother to graded stakes winner Azar (Scat Daddy). Purchased in utero for $450,000 at the 2017 Keeneland November sale, the youngster was purchased privately by Pike after he RNA’d for $185,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Yearling Sale.

“He was a well-bred Uncle Mo who had a lot of presence about him. He was a beautiful horse,” Pike said of the colt’s appeal last year.

The colt was consigned to the Saratoga sale by Taylor Made Sales Agency and Pike admitted, “Actually Frank Taylor talked me into buying him. He promised me he was a good horse and he’ll probably bust me from now on because he was absolutely correct.”

Of the track conditions during the first of three days of breezes, Pike said, “I think it played pretty well. Naturally when it gets hot it gets a little slower, but I think they did a heck of a job on it.”

Troy Winfrey’s Wolf Creek Farms mostly concentrates on selling weanling-to-yearling pinhooks, but makes the occasional stop at the juvenile sales. The operation was represented by one of the furlong bullet workers when a colt by Outwork (hip 106) covered the distance in :10 flat during Wednesday’s second set.

The bay colt is out of the unraced Marialua (Maria’s Mon), a half-sister to multiple graded placed Honolua Storm (Old Trieste). Wolf Creek purchased the juvenile for $40,000 as a weanling at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Fall Sale. He RNA’d for $80,000 at last summer’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-Bred Yearlings sale.

“We’ve always liked him. He’s a big, pretty horse and he looks like he’s fast,” Winfrey said of the colt. “He’s a New York-bred and this is a good place to sell a New York-bred.”

Of his five-horse consignment at the Midlantic sale, Winfrey added, “We do come up here occasionally. We had some horses we didn’t get sold as yearlings and then a couple client horses needed to come here. We mostly try to sell as yearlings. We have a small group of clients or partners that we’ve had for 15 years, so we don’t do a lot. We do eight or 10 a year.”

While the market was difficult earlier in the month at the OBS Spring Sale, Winfrey is hoping the Timonium sale’s close proximity to several racing jurisdictions will prove fruitful when bidding starts next Monday.

“I think this will be a better place maybe because people won’t have to drive so far to go to OBS,” he said. “Maybe the local guys from New York will come here. I think it will be a better sale. I hope it will be a better sale.”

Wednesday’s final :10 flat work was turned in by hip 51, a son of Speightster, during the fourth set. The gray colt is out of Izzy Izzy (Mizzen Mast) and is a half to stakes winner En Hanse (Hansen).

“I was really happy with the work,” said consignor Luis Garcia. “I know the horse can run, but this is a little track and he’s a big horse. So I was kind of worried about what would happen. But he’s pretty smart and he went around the track pretty good.”

Speightster, represented by his first crop to race this year, has gotten off to a quick start on the racetrack and in the sales ring. A colt by the WinStar stallion sold for $1.1 million at the OBS Spring sale and he had his first winner when Queen Arella scored on debut at Gulfstream May 29.

“The Speightsters have been selling good and people are looking for them,” Garcia said. “I think he’s going to be a nice horse and I think Speightster is going to be a nice stallion.”

Garcia, in partnership with Gina Fennell, purchased the colt for

$50,000 at last year’s Keeneland September sale.

“From his ears to his tail, he’s nice,” Garcia said

Despite a few recent rainy days in the area, Garcia was happy with the condition of the Timonium track.

“We had a lot of rain in the past couple of days, but these people take care of the track really good,” he said. “So I am happy with the track. It seemed like horses moved nice over it today.”

The under-tack show continues Thursday morning at 8 a.m. and concludes with a third session Friday. The Midlantic sale will be held next Monday and Tuesday with bidding beginning each day at 11 a.m.

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