mike utley | Horse Racing Free Tips

Mike “Hotdog” Utley, this Bud's for you!

Utley, who runs his family's Edward Utley Jr. Inc. beer (including Budweiser) distributorship in Henderson, got his biggest thrill in horse racing as favored Yes It's Ginger wore down the speedy Elle Z for a 1 1/4-length triumph in the $100,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Ladies Sprint at Ellis Park. That's where the 59-year-old Utley has been going to the races since he was 12, as well as the hometown track for his eight partners who collectively own 25 percent of the 5-year-old mare with majority owner Brilliant Racing and Tagg Team Racing.

“It's great, in front of everybody,” Utley said. “I don't know how you can describe it… There will be a lot of Bud. I was crossing my fingers, trust me.”

He said the victory ranks No. 1 in his racing career as owner and fan “and it doesn't get any better.”

The Ladies Sprint was part of a turf stakes quartet Sunday that wrapped up the two-day Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Weekend at the RUNHAPPY meet at Ellis Park.

Marcelino Pedroza rode the Greg Foley-trained Yes It's Ginger for the first time, pressing Elle Z through a stiff pace before edging clear late. The Foley-trained Skinny Dip finished another 2 1/4 lengths back in third in the full field of 12 fillies and mares.

“I watched the replays on her and she's quick out of the gate,” said Pedroza, who earlier this meet won the Good Lord Stakes on the Foley-trained Bango. “She was quick out of the gate when she ran (finishing second June 3 at Churchill Downs) against Elle Z. We didn't want to be in the lead. We just wanted to sit there and make sure Elle Z felt the pressure. Turning for home, I asked her to go and she responded like a Quarter Horse. She was running in the end and was very impressive.”

Yes It's Ginger was the only one of the four Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Weekend stakes winners Sunday who didn't set a course record over the very firm turf. But she came close, powering 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:00.71, just off Totally Boss' mark of 1:00.26 set in 2019. Yes It's Ginger, a son of Yes It's True out of Ginger Light, paid $7 to win.

The mare now is 3 for 3 at Ellis Park. Brilliant Racing approached Foley about buying half-interest in Yes It's Ginger when she was a 4-year-old maiden who'd had arthroscopic surgery for a bone chip. Foley liked what he saw and brought in Utley's group, which had been looking for a horse and wanted to be part of the Foley family's Tagg Team Racing.

Yes It's Ginger promptly won a maiden and allowance race last summer at Ellis Park off a 13-month layoff. She came into this race off victory in Lone Star Park's $75,000 Chicken Fried Stakes in her last start. That made her the first stakes-winner for Utley, as well as for Louisville-based Brilliant Racing and Tagg Team, the partnership headed by trainer Greg Foley, wife Sheree and their sons Travis and Alex.

It was no sure thing that Yes It's Ginger would run at Ellis Park. She also was entered for a turf stakes Wednesday at Indiana Grand. While Foley thought the Indiana race's five-furlong distance would be even better, and the competition softer, the forecast for rain this coming week helped make the decision to stay put at Ellis.

“When we decided to run here, there were a lot of happy people, the boys from Henderson,” Foley said. “They're a great group, along with Brilliant, and then our own little group, our family.

“She's just a gutsy little filly. She gives you all every time you run her. From this time last year, when she broke her maiden over here at Ellis, she's just done nothing but gotten better all the time. She ran very impressive in Texas last time and again today. She's just a nice filly.”

Foley also was happy with Skinny Dip, who was making her stakes debut. The goal was to get at least a stakes-placing for the well-bred Into Mischief filly, a mission accomplished.

Yes It's Ginger now is 6-5-0 in 18 starts, earning $295,511. The $40,000 Ocala 2-year-old purchase in 2018 — the first horse bought by Brilliant Racing— was picked out by Brilliant founding members Natalie Gils and Brandon Stauble.

“She's been incredibly special to us — being the first one we bought, giving her all that time not knowing if she was going to come back,” Gils said. “… When it came to the point where we had to sell (part of) her, having the Foleys step in, it's just been a great relationship with them. It was really a blessing in disguise.”

The post ‘It Doesn’t Get Any Better’: Utley Wins Stakes At Home With Yes It’s Ginger appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Mike “Hotdog” Utley wasn't sure what he was buying into when approached last year about acquiring part-interest in Yes It's Ginger, a winless 4-year-old filly who'd been off for a year. But he trusted trainer Greg Foley, who already planned to buy into the horse on behalf of a partnership spearheaded by his sons.

“We rolled the dice, and I tell you what, it was a good roll. A really good roll,” said Utley, who runs his family's Edward Utley Jr. Inc. beer and wine distributors in Henderson. “I've known Greg a long time. If he was going to get in it, as long as he was the trainer and we were going to be partners, I thought it was a good deal.”

Utley's faith in Foley has turned into the ride of his life as a racehorse owner. Yes It's Ginger won her first start for her new trainer and Brilliant Racing's new partners last summer at Ellis Park – and then won right back. Her fifth win came in her last start, taking Lone Star Park's $75,000 Chicken Fried Stakes by four lengths for Utley's first stakes victory.

Yes It's Ginger will be entered in Sunday's $100,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Ladies Sprint, running in either that 5 1/2-furlong turf race or three days later in Indiana Grand's $65,000 IU Hoosiers Stakes at five furlongs on grass.

Foley said the 5-year-old Yes It's Ginger will be entered in both races with a decision to be made later. The Ladies Sprint is one of four turf stakes Sunday, the second day of Ellis Park's Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Weekend, created as a launching pad to stakes at Kentucky Downs' September meet. Four stakes also will be held Saturday, three on turf as well as an overnight stakes on dirt.

Utley makes no secret that he hopes Yes It's Ginger runs at his hometown track, where he's a fixture at the races and also sells a lot of beer. But he said that call is completely up to the Foleys and Brilliant Racing.

“It's been a great ride,” said the 59-year-old Utley, who has been a regular at Ellis Park since first going with his dad about age 12. “All the guys in the group, we communicate, send out a text, keep everybody updated. Everybody's happy. They're all riding this good ride. Because I've been on some bad ones. I've been in it a long time. I had several horses back when my dad was living. The first horse I was actually part of was trained by Greg's dad, C. Wesleys Tiger. Greg's dad, Dravo, trained the stud, Tiger Lure. Goes back a long time with the Foleys.”

Brilliant Racing is a Louisville-based syndicate whose founding members include Churchill Downs and TwinSpires.com racing analyst Joe Kristufek. He approached Greg Foley's son and assistant, Travis, about buying half-interest in the filly, who was back in training after having arthroscopic surgery to remove a bone chip. The Foleys' Tagg Team Racing partnership – named for Travis, his brother Alex and dad Greg, with the last “g” being Group – agreed and the trainer then asked Utley if his group wanted to invest. They did, and got almost immediate gratification as Yes It's Ginger won — and won again — at Ellis Park's 2020 meet.

“Her form looked good,” Greg Foley said. “She was still a maiden but had run second and third, had a good chart. I went out and watched her gallop. She looked great. She's made a little money and now that she's got some 'black type' (stakes win or placing), she's got a little value to her as a broodmare.”

“The Henderson group had been wanting to get involved with us in some capacity,” Travis Foley said. “That was just the first opportunity. He said yes, and the rest has been a good year and a half. We've had a blast with her.”

Utley's group involves nine people from the Henderson and Evansville area. He said some are racing fans “and some aren't. But everybody is getting to know it. Everybody is getting to have fun. So everybody is a fan now.”

If Yes It's Ginger runs at Ellis, Utley estimates his partnership group alone will have 100 people in attendance.

“We may only own 25 percent, but we're having 100 percent of the fun,” he said. “It doesn't matter how much you own of it, hey, you feel like it's yours.”

Yes It's Ginger has earned most of her $237,266 in purses since Brilliant sold half-interest. Far from having any seller's remorse, Kristufek is thrilled how things have gone.

“This is our first horse with Foley, and it couldn't have gone any better,” he said. “Travis' group and Hotdog's group, the way things worked out for us to find such fantastic partners, I think we'll always be involved with them. They like to have a good time, they love racing, and what a great first horse to experience ownership with. It couldn't have worked out any better.”

Foley has two other horses under consideration for the Ladies Sprint in Skinny Dip and Dance Rhythms.

Skinny Dip has never raced on the turf, but it's not for lack of trying: She has been in three races taken on the grass and put on the main track, with two wins and a second.

“She's bred for the grass,” Foley said. “It's Mike and K.K. Ball's filly, and they've always wanted to try her on the grass at some point. She's a nice filly but hopefully will step it up a notch on the turf. Big, gorgeous filly. I got her this winter. She'd been laid up for a little while, and Mike asked if I'd take her to the Fair Grounds. I've loved her from day one.”

The 6-year-old Dance Rhythms, an eight-time winner, was third in last year's Ladies Sprint. She has two seconds and five thirds in nine races since then.

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