martha jane mulholland | Horse Racing Free Tips

When You Ain't Poppn (Bolt d'Oro) fought his way to a first-out victory at Churchill Downs Saturday night, it was no surprise to longtime Mulholland Springs farm manager Jesus Pinales, who had already witnessed the colt overcome much more than his 4-1 debut odds. Bred by Carlos Rafael and out of Eyepopnruby (Take Me Out), the 3-year-old was born at Mulholland Springs, but what started as a normal foaling on the evening of Apr. 5, 2020 soon took a dramatic turn.

“I called Martha Jane and John Henry [Mulholland] and told them we had a foaling,” Pinales recalled. “We all showed up at the barn and I went through the same protocol that we do with all of them–check front feet, head, everything normal. But by the time the baby was a quarter out, his shoulders come out, we started having some real issues with the baby being stuck in the mare. We were on the phone with Carlos Rafael and he started getting nervous. We had to hang up with him and start to do our job.”

Pinales spent the next 10 minutes trying to make sure the foal had enough oxygen while attempting to extricate him from the mare.

“We were ready to go to the hospital, but it's hard to pick up a mare on the ground with the baby half inside and out, so we had to do the job here [at the farm] before we brought the foal to the hospital,” Pinales said. “So I had a few other options–use my tricks–I think everybody on different kind of farms have their own tricks. Finally we got the baby out. By that time, I can tell you that he was maybe 90% dead, basically. Martha asked me what I thought. And I said, 'He's going to live, he's going to live.' And in the end, another 10 minutes, you can see this baby open his eyes. It was unbelievable. He opened his eyes and finally took a deep breath. Five minutes later, with the oxygen and everything, that baby was like nothing had happened. He was normal.”

Once the colt was out of danger, Pinales admitted, “I was tired. Everybody was tired. We see one or two or three cases a year like that when you foal 70 mares. That wasn't normal that this baby stayed for so long in the mare. But when he opened his eyes, it was the best thing to happen to me in my life since I've been foaling mares for 10 years. It's a really nice feeling.”

The colt spent his first week in the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital.

“When he came out of the hospital, he was another horse,” Pinales said. “Typically when babies take this long to wake up, sometimes the lungs are affected. You never know. He was completely 100% normal, like nothing had happened. That's when I told Carlos and Martha Jane that we had a chance with this baby to go to the sales. Because he was a beautiful foal.”

You Ain't Poppn spent the next four months at Mulholland Springs before shipping back to Rafael's farm. He eventually made it to upstate New York where he sold for $200,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale, but he was always on Pinales's radar.

“I have him on my phone like the rest of our babies,” Pinales said. “I like to see the first start, I try to see all of them, but it's a lot. So it popped up on my phone and I was watching the race.”

You Ain't Poppn broke alertly in his six-furlong debut Saturday and sat just off the early pace while under a strong hold. He pulled his way into contention with a three-wide move into the lane and drove to the lead in the shadow of the wire (video).

“To be honest, I don't bet because I don't like to bet money,” Pinales said. “But in the end, I was so proud and so happy. There were a lot of feelings when you see a horse that almost died as a baby and he comes and wins his first race.”

Of the fight the colt showed in the closing strides Saturday, Pinales said, “I think that's the heart that the horse has. It's part of all of this. I hope he can win more races and I would like to see him in the future in a stakes race.”

Pinales, meanwhile, has a storybook story of his own. He arrived in Kentucky from his native Mexico as a 16-year-old and found himself at Mulholland Springs.

“I had zero experience with horses when I came here,” Pinales said with a laugh. “I didn't know how to put a chain on a horse. But [the breeding industry] was where the job was, especially in Lexington, it's the most popular place to find a job. John and Martha gave me a chance. And I am going to be appreciative all the time.”

Pinales is celebrating 19 years working at Mulholland Springs, the last 10 as farm manager.

Asked if his 16-year-old self had ever thought he would be manager of the farm, Pinales said, “Never. It was difficult, back in the day when I saw Martha Jane and John Henry running the farm, I thought it looked so difficult. I told them I don't know how you guys do this. And now, after learning from them, it's not an easy job, but knowing they trusted me, I knew I had to learn quickly. Now we have a good team here. I have a good relationship with Martha and John Henry. He's like my brother and she's like my mom.”

After watching You Ain't Poppn win Saturday, Pinales did admit to having one small regret.

“Carlos and all of the guys here at the farm named the foal Jesus,” Pinales said laughingly. “And I told Carlos, 'Please tell the new owner to name him like me.' He said, 'Well, I am going to try.'”

The colt may not be named after the man who saved his life as a foal, but he is still doing Pinales proud.

“I was so proud to see a horse with this beginning go and win some races,” he said.

The post Churchill Maiden Winner You Ain’t Poppn Gritty Since Birth appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

The wayward colt who was once known as “America's favorite maiden” is now a Grade 1 winner after his victory in the Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs on Nov. 27.

Bodexpress (by Bodemeister) had taken his first experience in a Grade 1, last year in the Florida Derby, so well that he finished second in the race behind eventual division leader Maximum Security, and great things were expected of the handsome bay who had leapt so quickly to national prominence. Breeders, fans, and the colt's connections shared that optimism.

As a result, Bodexpress trained up to the classics without a start and was still a maiden when he went to the Kentucky Derby. There, he was racing prominently about a quarter-mile from home when taken up sharply as part of the chain reaction from the Maximum Security incident, then was placed 13th in the initial 2019 classic. That placement in an exceptionally rough race did not deter the colt's connections from trying the Preakness, and Bodexpress heightened the drama by dropping his jock, John Velazquez, at the start, then racing prominently through the rest of the 9 1/2-furlong race.

Riderless but not reckless, Bodexpress did not cause any trouble in the Preakness, just disappointment among his supporters.

The magnificent maiden went to a maiden special for his return in October 2019 and won his first race, then returned to win an allowance and was third in the G3 Harlan's Holiday in December. Unplaced in the G1 Pegasus World Cup and the G2 Gulfstream Park Mile, Bodexpress then finished third in the G3 Hal's Hope Stakes at Gulfstream, the Alydar Stakes at Saratoga, and he was second in an allowance at Churchill before killing a field by 11 1/4 lengths at Gulfstream Park West prior to the Clark.

Bred in Kentucky by Martha Jane Mulholland, Bodexpress was sold at the 2017 Keeneland September yearling sale. Although the good-looking colt went through the ring and was bought back for $45,000, he sold privately shortly thereafter.

John Mulholland recalled that “Bode was a little small, and we had to do a stifle surgery four or five weeks before the September sale. It was bad timing but also drew a knock from vets; so we sold him privately for about the hammer price.”

The buyer was Global Thoroughbreds through J.R. Boyd of Brick City Thoroughbreds, “which took him to Florida for breaking and early training,” Mulholland recalled.

J.R. Boyd said, “I'd liked this colt when I'd seen him at the farm before, and we were a little hesitant to buy a Bodemeister, but we love to shop with the Mulhollands because Martha Jane and John Henry are always up front and candid about their horses, and they raise a really good horse.

“The first reason I wanted to see this colt was that we'd trained his half-brother by Stormy Atlantic,” Boyd said, “and he was a really nice horse. Then, Bodexpress was such a pretty individual who looked like he could become a really good athlete. When I showed Bodexpress to our client at the sale, the owner of Global made the decision to buy the colt. He was that nice.”

Once Boyd and his wife Katie put Bodexpress into training, the colt “was a phenomenal mover, just a really nice colt.” But once again, ill luck showed up.

Boyd said, “We wanted to showcase him, put him in the Fasig sale in Miami or OBS March, but he banged his knee, and when I called Global, they said to be patient, give Bodexpress all the time that the colt needed, and so, Maryland was the spot for him.

“Our clients at Global Thoroughbreds are very game; if there's a hiccup along the way, they don't mind racing one, but they do like to offer everything for sale. At the Timonium sale in Maryland, I tried to tell everyone at the sales how good this colt was, but it was almost like Bodemeister had a disease. Nobody wanted one. I told the gentlemen behind the colt that we weren't likely to get what the colt was worth.

“Their answer to me was: 'Put a $37,000 reserve, and if someone wants to take him at $40,000, he sells. We want people to know that Global Thoroughbreds is willing to put reasonable reserves and sell their horses.”

The bright bay didn't sell, shipped home, was given a month to relax from the sale, then shipped to trainer Gustavo Delgado, who's had the horse ever since.

The good-looking colt never seemed to take things the easy way. He initially missed winning a maiden, although his fourth outing in that condition brought a narrow loss to Shancelot (Shanghai Bobby), who is a Grade 2 winner and finished second in the G1 Breeders' Cup Sprint.

Bodexpress's fifth start was the G1 Florida Derby, which appeared to be a giant step up, and there, the luckless colt ran into the buzz saw named Maximum Security.

Mulholland Springs has not participated in the luck of Bodexpress, either. The farm had worked with a pair of yearlings from the mare that “I had liked but not loved,” Mulholland noted, and then the mare had gone barren in 2016 after foaling Bodexpress. So, at the Keeneland November sale of 2017, the farm sold the colt's dam, the City Zip mare Pied a Terre, for $17,000.

Mulholland said, “She was a nice-looking mare, or I wouldn't have bought her,” but the commercial market wasn't very responsive to her foals. So, in foal to the Tiznow stallion Gemologist, Mulholland Springs sold the mare, and the purchaser was the KOID, which exported her to Korea.

On March 28, 2018, Pied a Terre foaled a filly by Gemologist who's since been named Gangseo Princess, and in 2019, the mare foaled a colt by the Tapit stallion Concord Point and was barren for 2020 on a cover to Take Charge Indy.

Bodexpress is the second Grade 1 winner for his sire, Kentucky Derby runner-up Bodemeister (Empire Maker), after Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming, who stood his first season at stud in Kentucky at WinStar Farm in 2019.

In the fall of 2019, WinStar announced the sale of Bodemeister to the Jockey Club of Turkey, and the horse stands at their stud farm outside Istanbul for a fee of 12,500 euros, approximately $15,000.

The post Bloodlines Presented By Diamond B Farm’s Rowayton: The Long, Strange Journey Of Bodexpress appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post