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Maryland Horse Breeders Association Elects New Officers

The Maryland Horse Breeders Association Board of Directors elected Richard F. Blue, Jr. as president, Christy Holden as vice president and Michael Horning as secretary/treasurer during its July 14 meeting.

Blue, President of Blue & Obrecht Realty LLC, served on the MHBA board in 2001 and 2002, again from 2011 to 2017 and was re-elected for another three-year term in 2019. He is a past president of Maryland Million and serves as co-chair of the Maryland Horse Library & Education Center Capital Campaign Committee and on the board of the Maryland State Fair.

Holden is the general manager of Country Life and Merryland Farms. She is serving her second term on the board after being elected in 2018.

Horning is a retired insurance executive and current board member of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. He was a presidential appointee to the MHBA board in 2018 and elected to another three-year term in 2019.

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Trainer Brittany Russell’s Progression Takes Her To Saratoga

Though only in her fourth full season of training, Brittany Russell appreciates the history behind her. Based year-round in Maryland, she currently ranks sixth in the Preakness Meet standings with 10 wins at Pimlico Race Course, the second-oldest Thoroughbred racetrack in the country.

The oldest, by seven years, is Saratoga, which held its first meet in 1863 and where the 31-year-old Russell – the winningest female trainer in Maryland in 2020 – will have a string for the first time this summer.

It is another step in the rapid upward progression for Russell, who established career highs with 46 wins and more than $1.6 million in purse earnings last year. Already in 2021 she has 30 wins and a bankroll of nearly $1.3 million, with 5 ½ months of racing left.

Her success led Russell, married to champion Maryland jockey Sheldon Russell, to establish strings during Gulfstream Park's prestigious winter Championship Meet in 2020-2021 as well as Belmont Park this spring. Both were overseen by assistant Amanda Olds, who will also handle day-to-day duties at Saratoga.

“It's really exciting. I hope I can go up and enjoy it for a little bit,” Russell, who is expecting the couple's second child in November, said. “You just hope that it works out. We were going to run up there anyway so it seemed like the right move to have a small string there. That way, they can ship up and get acquainted with the place.

“It's a little nerve-wracking because you want it to work out,” she added. “You don't want to go somewhere just to be there. You want to go to win races.”

Russell ran six horses last summer at Saratoga with two wins – King's Honor ($23) in an Aug. 6 claimer going one mile on the grass, and So Gracious ($73.50) in a 5 ½-furlong turf allowance Sept. 6. Among her other starters were Wondrwherecraigis, fourth in the Amsterdam (G2), and multiple stakes winner Hello Beautiful, sixth in the Prioress (G2).

King's Honor gave Russell her 100th career victory June 19 at Pimlico.

“King's Honor and So Gracious both won there. It was huge, absolutely huge. Especially because, it's not like they were favorites,” Russell said. “We've won shipping in and hopefully we can win a few stabled there.”

Russell said she plans to keep around 10 horses at Saratoga, which will take up residence under the same barn roof as Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey. Among them is stakes-placed Yodel E. A. Who, fourth in a July 11 optional claiming allowance at Belmont.

“We have a few up there. I sent a couple up to Amanda actually like two days ago. Hopefully we have a couple decent horses to run in the right spots,” Russell said. “I don't think any of the ones that I've sent up have started here yet. I have a couple maidens. Yodel will run back there. We're sort of at a crossroads with a couple of them, trying to decide whether to go up there or run here. A couple of them are undecided and are still here in Maryland.”

On July 3 at Delaware Park, Russell won the Alapocas Run Stakes for six-furlong sprinters with 6-year-old Whereshetoldmetogo and 1 1/16-mile Christiana Stakes on turf with sophomore filly Out of Sorts.

It was the first career stakes win for twice previously placed Out of Sorts and fourth in five starts for Whereshetoldmetogo, the previous three coming in the 2020 Frank Y. Whiteley and Dave's Friend and 2021 Not For Love at Laurel Park.

“That was awesome. We love Whereshetoldmetogo. When he's right, he's awesome. He's so much fun to have in the barn,” Russell said. “But for Out of Sorts to step up and win a stake, that was the cherry on top. The thing with Out of Sorts being a 3-year-old, you kind of want to find out now. Do you give her a bigger test and if she doesn't respond, no problem, you just kind of keep her local? We're still trying to decide.

“She came out of the race really well. Do you take her to Saratoga? We're kind of on the fence but it seems like, why not? They paid $1,000 for her. She's a stakes winner. We might as well find out if we can really have a lot of fun now,” she added. “And you don't know until you try, really. She's answered every test so far. [Once] we put her on the turf, it's like, [she's a] racehorse. And she's done really nothing wrong on the dirt. She's really cool.”

Multiple stakes winner Hello Beautiful, second to undefeated Chub Wagon in the June 13 Shine Again, is being pointed to the $100,000 Alma North for fillies and mares 3 and up sprinting 6 ½ furlongs July 31, also at Pimlico. The Alma North is part of the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championship (MATCH) Series.

Hello Beautiful set a spirited pace in the six-furlong Shine Again and dug in when confronted by Chub Wagon in deep stretch, coming up a neck short in her first race in four months. She has been entered twice since – as main track only in Pimlico's July 4 Jameela, which stayed on the grass, and Delaware's July 10 Dashing Beauty, won in a romp by Chub Wagon.

“She's going to run here at the end of the month. That was the ultimate goal all along,” Russell said. “It's not that we're afraid to run against [Chub Wagon] again; we're not trying to duck her. Hello Beautiful ran a big number off the shelf. A big race. So to run her back in four weeks up there … that's a tough track, I've noticed, for speed horses so it was going to make us feel a little bit better just to give her a little more time out of that effort. The Pimlico race? If Chub Wagon comes, great. But I know that we're going to have a good filly on the 31st.”

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Maryland State Fair Meet At Timonium To Offer Highest Purses In Its History

The Maryland State Fair at Timonium will offer the highest daily average purses in its history for the seven-day meet that runs from Friday, Aug. 27, to Monday, Sept, 6, and will experiment with a “twilight” racing card on opening day.

The Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association Board of Directors June 29 unanimously approved a 15% across-the-board overnight purse increase from July 2 through the end of 2021. Timonium's base purses, normally lower than those at Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course, will be the same—including the 15% in additional funds.

The MTHA also agreed to provide funding from the Thoroughbred Purse Account for a stakes, the Timonium Juvenile, for 2-year-olds at 6 1/2 furlongs; contribute $1,000 toward the Maryland State Fair scholarship program; provide $5,000 for the “Horseland” program during the state fair; and contribute $20,000 from the Thoroughbred Purse Account for a trainers' bonus program that has been held in recent years to encourage participation at the entry box.

First post time for the 2021 meet will be 12:40 p.m. with the exception of opening day, when it will be 3 p.m.

Bill Reightler, Director of Racing Operations for the State Fair, said the experiment is designed to attract more interest in the racing product, and it also will dovetail with the awarding of 10 college scholarships throughout the course of the racing card.

The final race, depending on the number of races, will go off between 7:30-8 p.m.

“We came up with the idea because of the Timonium location (near a large population), and racing on a summer evening can help our goal to attract a younger crowd,” Reightler said. “We're going to coordinate it with College Day and offer reduced hot dog and beer prices. “We see our role at the State Fair as promoting racing to new fans. When you talk to racing fans you'll hear many them say their dad took them to the racetrack for the first time. You never know when the next significant person—the whale—is out there.”

Reightler said the initiatives are the result of “full support” from Gerry Brewster, Chairman of the Maryland State Fair and Agricultural Society, State Fair President Donna Myers, the State Fair Board of Directors, and the State Fair Racing Committee. He also thanked the horsemen's organization for its continued support of the Timonium meet.

“We can't thank the MTHA Board of Directors and the horsemen in Maryland for giving us the tools to have a successful race meet,” Reightler said. The $20,000 trainers' bonus this year will be based upon only a horse's first start of the meet in calculations for the bonuses.

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Record-Setting Yaupon Returns To Action In Sunday’s Lite The Fuse Stakes At Pimlico

Bill and Corinne Heiligbrodt's Yaupon, record-setting winner of the Chick Lang (G3) last fall, returns to Maryland looking to recapture his winning form in Sunday's $100,000 Lite the Fuse at Pimlico Race Course.

The six-furlong Lite the Fuse for 3-year-olds and up, named for the two-time Carter (G1) and Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash (G2) winner, returns to the Maryland stakes calendar for the first time since being run in 2002 at Laurel Park.

It is among four stakes worth $375,000 on the 11-race Independence Day holiday program along with the $100,000 Concern for 3-year-olds sprinting six furlongs, $100,000 Caesar's Wish going 1 1/16 miles for fillies and mares 3 and up, and $75,000 Jameela for Maryland-bred/sired females 3 and older scheduled for five furlongs on the grass.

The Lite the Fuse and Caesar's Wish are both part of the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championship (MATCH) Series. Sunday's program also includes a mandatory payout of the Rainbow 6, which carries a Maryland state record carryover jackpot of $1.351 million into the return of live racing Friday.

Post time Sunday is 12:40 p.m.

Yaupon gave the Heiligbrodts and Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen the second of three straight Chick Lang victories Oct. 1, after the race was pushed back from mid-May amid the coronavirus pandemic. They also won with Mitole, the 2020 older male sprint champion, in 2019 and Mighty Mischief on May 15 of this year. Mighty Mischief also returns in the Concern.

“Pimlico is a nice track to run at. It fits our horses,” Bill Heiligbrodt said. “Going back to Mitole when he ran in the Chick Lang, he ran solid in the mud and he still ran exceptionally well. I couldn't believe he ran as well as he did. Yaupon ran good there last year in the Chick Lang. I'll be trying to win it again next year, I promise you that.”

Yaupon's final time of 1:09.10 in winning the Chick Lang by four lengths matched that of Lantana Mob, also trained by Asmussen, in 2008. It was the fourth consecutive win to open his career and second straight in a graded-stakes following the Amsterdam (G2) last August at Saratoga. Each of them came in front-running fashion.

The then-undefeated Yaupon headed from Pimlico to the Breeders' Cup favored to win the Sprint (G1), but found himself trailing horses for the first time. He ran into traffic trouble in upper stretch and wound up eighth in the field of 14, beaten 6 ¼ lengths.

“I need a race for him very badly. After his race there, he was odds-on heavy favorite in the Breeders' Cup and got a pretty rough trip,” Heiligbrodt said. “I've been trying to get him back on a straight line and he's doing pretty good right now. It's a wonderful opportunity to run him there.”

Yaupon has made one start this year, again encountering trouble running eighth in the Golden Shaheen (G1) May 27 in Dubai. He has been working steadily since mid-May at Churchill Downs for his return.

“I'm hoping he'll run good. Obviously, he's coming back,” Heiligbrodt said. “He went over to Dubai and had problems over there, so we're trying to get him straightened out if we can.”

Ricardo Santana Jr. will be in town to ride Yaupon for the first time from the far outside in a field of seven. Yaupon has raced exclusively at six furlongs throughout his career.

“He's doing really good right now [but] you never know until you race,” Heiligbrodt said. “He had a pretty bad experience in the Breeders' Cup, so we'll see what happens. But he's a very, very talented horse. He ran numbers like Mitole.

“He's not Mitole, and I don't think there will ever be another horse like him as far as consistently every time putting him on the track and running out of his skin, but he's a very nice horse,” he added. “He's a very nice pedigreed horse so I hope he runs well. I hope everybody over there will enjoy both [he and Mighty Mischief]. They're as good as I can send them.”

Two days after Yaupon's Chick Lang victory, Hillside Equestrian Meadows' Laki became a graded-stakes winner in the De Francis (G3), his first win following two previous subpar efforts at Pimlico. The 8-year-old gelding ran his win streak over the course to two in the April 24 Frank Y. Whiteley, marking his fifth straight season as a stakes winner.

An 11-time winner from 34 career starts with purse earnings of $805,162, the Maryland-bred Laki exits a fifth-place finish behind Special Reserve in the six-furlong Maryland Sprint (G3) May 15 on the undercard of the 146th Preakness Stakes (G1). Racing on the inside, he chased the early leaders but could not gain late and was beaten 4 ¾ lengths.

The Maryland Sprint came just 22 days following Laki's second career Whiteley victory. He'll have had 51 days from the Maryland Sprint to the Lite the Fuse, which trainer Damon Dilodovico believes is in his favor.

“I always like to give him the time when I can give it to him,” Dilodovico said. “Even though he didn't place well Preakness day, I still feel like he ran well. He came out of the race good. We scoped him after and he came back clean.

“His last breeze was a little bit slower than I was thinking I'd like to have going into it, but I had a bunch of horses work slow that day,” he added. “He came out of it pretty sharp; hopefully, not too sharp. He doesn't need too much. He probably just needs me to stay out of his way.”

Regular rider Horacio Karamanos will be aboard from Post 4.

Michael Dubb's Chateau, based in New York with trainer Rob Atras, has not raced since finishing second to Grade 1 winner Firenze Fire in the Runhappy (G3) May 8 at Belmont Park. The 6-year-old Flat Out gelding won the Tom Fool (G3), also at six furlongs, March 6 in his second start of the year and was fourth in the seven-furlong Carter Handicap (G1) April 3, both at Aqueduct.

Hillwood Stable's Valued Notion has won three of his four starts this year for Maryland trainer Rodney Jenkins. Most recently, he beat stakes winners Air Token and Oldies But Goodies in his stakes debut, the June 13 Ben's Cat at Pimlico, which was rained off the turf and run at five furlongs. His other wins have come at 5 ½ and six furlongs, both at Laurel Park against open company.

Also entered are 2020 New Castle winner Threes Over Deuces, second to Firenze Fire in that year's General George (G3); multiple stakes winner Lebda, eighth in the Maryland Sprint last out; and Whiskey and You.

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