Miguel Angel Silva | Horse Racing Free Tips

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—A number of trainers with horses engaged in Saturday's Saudi Cup have been unable to travel but their horses and exercise riders have shipped in, mostly over last weekend, for the second running of the $20 million contest at King Abdulaziz Racecourse.

The 14-strong field includes two locally-trained horses, Great Scot (GB) (Requinto {Ire}) and Alzahzaah (KSA) (Worldly), who face competition from Britain, Japan and Bahrain as well as five runners from the United States.

For most of the American contingent, stronger work had taken place on the dirt track during Monday morning, meaning a walk or jog at the quarantine barn was the order of the day as a small gathering of international media and connections arrived trackside Tuesday.

There would be perhaps no more poignant winner of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's biggest race than Tacitus (Tapit), bred and owned by the late Prince Khalid Abdullah, a member of the country's royal family and greatly admired in the wider family that is the international racing community.

The 5-year-old has rarely been far from the heat of the battle in his 15 starts. His sole finish outside the top four has been when fifth in this race last year. And if prizes were dished out on the racecourse for manners and beauty, then the stallion would rarely be headed.

While his fellow greys and Saturday rivals Knicks Go (Paynter) and Sleepy Eyes Todd (Paddy O'Prado) walked the barn, the eye-catching Tacitus paraded out onto the main track Tuesday morning in company with stable-mate Channel Maker (English Channel) to take up his customary observation post on the outside of the far bend. Admittedly, Tacitus, unlike his European counterparts, is accustomed to being trained at the track so the morning's activities in relatively quiet Riyadh will be nothing like the hullabaloo he might face at Saratoga. Nevertheless, his near-inanimate stance for a good five minutes each morning in the company of trainer Bill Mott's assistant Neil Poznansky is quite something to behold.

Once asked to move off and complete his morning's exercise, Tacitus pleased his rider in a three-furlong breeze on the widely-praised dirt track.

“I thought today's breeze was quite exceptional,” said Poznansky. “He continues to mature all the time and he is mentally more focused. He's really coming into himself.”

Tacitus and Poznansky completed their exercise alongside Channel Maker and Umberto Gomez. The 7-year-old, who was voted last season's Eclipse Champion Turf Horse, is set to line up for one of the key races on Saturday's undercard, the 2,100-metre Neom Turf Cup. Tacitus and Channel Maker will be given an easy Wednesday and will be kept to walking before returning to stronger exercise on the track Thursday.

Few horses have arrived in Riyadh with more rip-roaring form that Knicks Go, who added last month's Pegasus World Cup Invitational S. to his unbeaten 2020 season, which culminated in victory in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.

The 5-year-old, who also adds another international element to proceedings as a color-bearer for the Korea Racing Authority, had an easy day following a 48-second four-furlong breeze to blow out the Monday morning cobwebs.

His rider and Brad Cox's assistant trainer Dustin Dugas said he was happy with the horse following that spin. “He jogged up the road really well this morning and is acting like he should,” Dugas reported. “The breeze seems to have woken him up since being here and his coat looks great.”

Cox added via telephone that he was, understandably, hoping for Knicks Go's progressive form to continue. He said, “We've had him a while now and he's really always trained with a lot of energy and has been aggressive. I don't know if I'm looking to see him progress as much as I am just looking for more of the same—he's been that good.”

Bob Baffert rarely misses a big international meeting with a runner but he has not accompanied the lightly-raced Charlatan (Speightstown), who atoned for his subsequent disqualification from the Arkansas Derby with a comeback win almost eight months later in the GI Runhappy Malibu S. The 4-year-old, who has finished first past the post in all four starts to date, heads for a jog Wednesday before returning to the main track on Thursday morning. He is reported to be in good order by Baffert's assistant Jimmy Barnes, who is in Riyadh with the colt.

The trio of American greys in town for the big race is completed by Sleepy Eyes Todd, whose trainer Miguel Angel Silva has travelled with him.

“Yesterday [Monday] the horse galloped one lap and then did a two-minute mile on the dirt track,” said the trainer. “He nearly did three miles on the track on his own ridden by my assistant, José. Today he took the day off. He is in good form, he ate all of his dinner and everything is ok right now.”

Thumbs Up Racing's 5-year-old has a bit to find with Knicks Go, having finished more than nine lengths adrift of him when fourth in the Pegasus World Cup off the back of victory in the GIII Mr Prospector S. just before Christmas.

American-trained runners filled four of the first five places in the inaugural Saudi Cup and Steve Asmussen will be hoping to go one better than his runner-up finish last year with Midnight Bisou (Midnight Lute). This time the trainer fields Max Player (Honor Code), who joined his stable last August and subsequently ran fifth in both the belated Kentucky Derby and Preakness S.

Communicating via a text message from the United States, Asmussen indicated that he was happy with how Max Player had taken the long journey to Saudi Arabia.

“Anxiously awaiting the post position draw,” said the trainer, who also runs GII Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint runner-up Cowan (Kantharos) in the $1.5 million Al Rajhi Bank Saudi Derby over a mile.

The draw takes place in Riyadh on Wednesday evening.

The post U.S. Quintet Tunes Up For Saudi Cup appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Some 12 months after trainer Miguel Angel Silva first thought Sleepy Eyes Todd ought to be considered for the $3-million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1), he is preparing his star for the fifth running of the race on Jan. 23 at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.

It is something of a better-late-than-never scenario for Silva and the 5-year-old son of Paddy O'Prado owned by David Cobb's Thumbs Up Stable.

By late 2019, Silva, 45, was confident that Sleepy Eyes Todd was a graded-stakes caliber horse. He had come back from a five-month layoff recovering from an injury to win three of four starts. The lone loss was a second to Owendale in the Oklahoma Derby (G3). One of the horses that Sleepy Eyes Todd finished ahead of in the Oklahoma Derby was Mucho Gusto, who went on to win the 2020 Pegasus. Silva said he called to see if Sleepy Eyes Todd might be invited to the 1 1/8-mile race.

“We were trying to get in but it was too late, I guess, and, we didn't have the earnings to get into the race,” Silva said. “Finally, this year, it's a dream come true.”

Sleepy Eyes Todd added to his resume in 2020, winning four stakes at different tracks and earning $540,760. The most recent of his wins was a half-length victory over Firenze Fire in the seven-furlong Mr. Prospector on Dec. 19 at Gulfstream Park. All eight of his 2020 starts were at different tracks.

In his first trip to a Thoroughbred auction, the November 2016 Keeneland Breeding Stock Sale, Cobb, a resident of Pleasanton, Calif., spent $9,000 on the weanling out of a Wild Rush mare who grew up to be Sleepy Eyes Todd. The colt made his debut at Remington Park in Oklahoma later in his 2-year-old year in 2018 and came from well off the pace win by a half-length at 29-1. He has won eight of his 15 career starts at 11 tracks and earned $744,825.

“The horse has been great,” Silva said. “He's a sound horse. He's beautiful. He is easy to manage. He lets you have fun. At the end of the day we are in this business to have fun. This kind of horse gives you all that.”

Silva grew up in Mexico, where his father, also named Miguel Silva, was a famous trainer. After graduating from college with a degree in accounting, Silva entered the corporate world. It didn't take him long to realize he wanted to return to horses and racing.

“I worked in some big companies in Mexico until I couldn't take it anymore,” he said. “I'm just not a desk person.”

Twenty years ago, Silva emigrated to the U.S. and started working as a hot walker at the Bay Meadows racetrack in San Mateo, Calif.

“I was there for a few years then moved to Arizona and worked there as a groom. I started climbing the ladder. I worked for the (farrier), the tattooer. Helped the vet. Everybody. I was trying to do it all until I was able to get my license.”

Trainer Miguel Angel Silva

Silva launched his career early in 2009 with a one-horse stable. He acquired that first runner, Glitternmeporridge, by using his tax return to claim the gelding for $6,250.

“We won several races with the horse,” Silva said. “From there it has been an amazing ride.”

Now operating on a circuit that takes him from Texas to Oklahoma, Arkansas, Minnesota and Louisiana, Silva entered 2021 with 722 wins from 4,209 starters. Thanks to Sleepy Eyes Todd, he had his best earnings year in 2020. Sleepy Eyes Todd gave him his first graded stakes wins, the Charles Town Classic (G2) and the Mr. Prospector. Silva has 43 horses in training at three tracks.

Instead of the Pegasus, Sleepy Eyes Todd opened his 2020 campaign in the John B. Connally Turf Cup Stakes (G3) at Sam Houston. He ended up last in the field of 10.

“The turf race was a mistake on my part,” Silva said. “We ran him a mile and a half on the turf and the turf was really soft. For a first timer on the turf and a first timer going a mile and a half, I think that was on me.”

After Sleepy Eyes Todd finished sixth in the Mineshaft at Fair Grounds on Feb. 15, Silva decided to remove the blinkers. Since that equipment change, the horse has four wins, a second by a head in the Lone Star Millions and a tiring fifth in the Awesome Again (G1). Silva said the blinkers made sense for a while, but that after the two losses it was time for a change.

“He is too aware of what's happening. He wants to see everything,” Silva said. “In the morning when we train him he can go to the track and stand for 20 minutes and just watch horses go by him and not move one inch. He just watches everything and wants to be aware. It's something I took from him and he was asking me to give it back. I did.

“I always say that we lost that Oklahoma Derby because he never saw Owendale coming from far outside. When Mucho Gusto tried to put pressure on him and passed him, as soon he was able to see him, he came back and beat Mucho Gusto. He was asking for it and I was a little stubborn.”

Sleepy Eyes Todd has had a different jockey in each of his last nine races and that list will grow again when Jose Ortiz rides him in the Pegasus. While Silva said it is positive that the well-traveled horse has handled many tracks under an ever-changing lineup of jockeys, he said the downside is the lack of continuity can be a negative. Since his past performances show that he has speed, jockeys may try to put him in the race early. Silva said that approach hurt him in the Awesome Again.

“We believe that we don't have the speed to beat those kinds of horses in the race, so we wanted to be in behind,” he said. “We were too close in that race.

Silva said the horse has matured and his versatility makes him effective coming from off the pace, the style he used in his last two races, both at seven furlongs. In the Lafayette on Nov. 7 at Keeneland he rallied from far back over a very fast track.

“Then we go to Florida in the same kind of race and tried not to be in the lead because they burn out,” Silva said. “Save the horse and finish strong. That's what we like.”

With a win over the track in the Mr. Prospector and more experience, Silva said Sleepy Eyes Todd is ready for the Pegasus distance and another try in a prestigious Grade I race.

“I love the mile and an eighth,” Silva said. “He already won at that distance and he performed really good at that distance. We're just hoping that we have a different kind of trip. We don't want to be on the lead and hopefully we can pick up horses at the end.”

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