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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘I Never Thought We’d Be Able To Go Twice’

When longtime family friend and Thoroughbred trainer Todd Fincher starts throwing around labels like “really special,” owner/breeder Joe Peacock, Jr. definitely starts to get his hopes up.

“That actually makes me more nervous,” said Peacock, 62, chuckling genially. “Todd doesn't generally talk about horses like that.”

Fincher was describing a 2-year-old colt who, at that point, had done little more than break his maiden over suspect company in a 5 ½-furlong contest at Remington Park. Third-generation Peacock homebred Senor Buscador missed the break in that race, rallied six wide and got up to win by 2 ½ lengths, but his final time of 1:03.78 wasn't particularly newsworthy.

However, the trainer's faith in the colt, and Peacock's returned faith in the trainer, convinced the owner to enter the colt in Remington's $200,000 Springboard Mile on Dec. 19. It was a massive step up, both in distance and in class, but Fincher remained confident.

“Todd told me, 'I won't guarantee you that he'll win this race,'” recalled Peacock. “Then he added, 'I will guarantee you that his talent's gonna shine through.' It certainly did!”

Senor Buscador missed the break once again and was 17 lengths behind the field early on, making his connections nervous from the start. The colt needed just 1:37.87 to change their minds, showing up with a powerful late rally to pass all nine of his rivals and win the one-mile contest by 5 ¾ lengths.

“If we can ever get him out of the gate, he'll be really dangerous,” Peacock quipped. “To do that in just his second lifetime start, though, that was pretty impressive.”

Compared to older horses racing earlier on the same card, Senor Buscador put up a quality time for the mile. Dont Tell Noobody, a 3-year-old Oklahoma-bred gelding, won the one-mile $70,000 Jim Thorpe Stakes in 1:39.50. Dipping In, a 3-year-old Oklahoma-bred filly, won the $70,000 Useeit Stakes at one mile in 1:40.69.

Unfortunately, Senor Buscador was not eligible for the 10 Kentucky Derby points usually offered to the race's winner. The 2-year-old son of Mineshaft raced on Lasix in the Springboard Mile, and the 2021 Road to the Kentucky Derby will not award points unless horses compete without the race-day medication.

Moving forward, that won't be a problem for Senor Buscador, Peacock said.

“(The Springboard Mile) was only his second lifetime start, and he's a late foal, born in May, stretching out from 5 ½ to a mile stakes,” Peacock explained. “Todd just felt like (running on Lasix) was the right thing to do just as a precaution, but obviously going forward on the Derby trail, we'll be running without it.

“We're not really worried about it.”

Should the colt's abilities prove just as eye-catching without Lasix, he will easily make the jump to most Kentucky Derby pundits' top ten lists as the 2021 season approaches. Fans and analysts will likely see Senor Buscador back in action at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, La., possibly as early as the G3 Lecomte Stakes on Jan. 16.

The colt's name is loosely translated from Spanish to Mr. Prospector, the result of a family-wide contest to name the year's foals and a play on the fact that Mr. Prospector appears on both top and bottom of Senor Buscador's pedigree.

It marks the second time in the past three years that Peacock's family have had a horse on the Kentucky Derby trail. In 2018, Senor Buscador's half-brother Runaway Ghost won the G3 Sunland Derby to earn his spot in the starting gate on the first Saturday in May.

Their Derby dreams fell apart, however, when Runaway Ghost suffered a fractured shin and had to be given time off, missing the Run for the Roses.

Connections of Runaway Ghost celebrate in the winner's circle after the Sunland Derby

It had felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so the entire Peacock clan decided to take the trip to Louisville, Ky., anyway.

“We already had all the plans in place,” Peacock explained. “We took Friday and went over to Shawhan Place where the mares are, and then it rained all day long on Saturday, but we still had fun.

“You know, we really enjoy the whole process, from owning the broodmare, determining who you want to breed to, raising the foal, and then seeing it out on the racetrack. I know that's not the way people are in this business very much anymore, but we love every part of it.”

It was one of the last trips Peacock would take with his father, the family patriarch Joe Sr., who passed in September of this year at 88 years of age. It was the elder Peacock who first fell in love with racing in the 1960s, coordinating trips from the family's home in San Antonio, Tx., over to Ruidoso in New Mexico to watch Quarter Horses strut their stuff on the track.

“That's kind of the closest place in Texas you can go to get to the mountains, so that's where we ran the horses in the beginning,” Peacock explained. “Eventually he switched over to Thoroughbreds, and since it's hard to get open-company races to go in New Mexico, we started running them all over. We took trips to Santa Anita, to Hollywood Park; we went to the races a lot. It was a wonderful childhood.”

Peacock Sr. purchased the family's foundation broodmare, Snippet, by Alysheba, at the dispersal sale of family friend Joe Strauss in the late 1990s. An Illinois-bred out of a G3-winning daughter of Damascus, Snippet won four allowance races on the track and earned just shy of $70,000. Peacock sent her to California's Old English Rancho for a mating to multiple G1-winning millionaire Peaks and Valleys (Mt. Livermore).

Miss Glen Rose, the resultant Kentucky-bred filly, didn't do much on the track, but it was a different story altogether with her daughter, Rose's Desert.

Rose's Desert was foaled in New Mexico in 2008, sired by the unraced Desert God (Fappiano-Blush With Pride, by Blushing Groom). The filly showed such promise in her early days that Peacock Sr. turned to a new up-and-coming trainer when she was ready for the track.

Fincher was winning a large number of the New Mexico-bred stakes races, and Peacock Sr. called him up out of the blue to offer him the chance to train Rose's Desert.

“The rest, as they say, was history,” Peacock Jr. said fondly. “She turned into an amazing race mare, and we trust Todd implicitly with all our racehorses, from breaking them to running on the track.”

Rose's Desert raced 15 times, winning 10 and finishing second the other five times, and was never beaten more than 1 ¼ lengths. Seven of her wins came in state-bred stakes races, and she earned a total of $626,035.

“She was just such a cool horse to have in the barn,” Fincher said. “She's definitely my all-time favorite. She was just unbelievably fast.”

An ankle chip ended the mare's career prematurely in 2013, and the Peacock family decided to send her after the best stallions in Kentucky. Her first mating to Ghostzapper produced Runaway Ghost in 2015, a horse who may have missed his chance at the Kentucky Derby but earned $783,509 and won eight of 15 lifetime starts. He'll stand his first season at stud in 2021 at Double LL Farms in Bosque, N.M.

Rose's Desert visited Curlin next, producing stakes-winner Sheriff Brown, and then produced a filly by Ghostzapper named Our Iris Rose, after the family's matriarch. Our Iris Rose is still in training, and while she's had a couple minor issues along the way, Peacock Jr. expects she'll be able to live up to her family's talent as a 4-year-old in 2021.

Senor Buscador is sired by Mineshaft, and marks Rose's Desert's third stakes winner from four foals on the ground. The mare took a year off from the breeding shed in 2018, then aborted a filly by Quality Road last December due to placentitis. Currently she's carrying a filly by Candy Ride due in February, and Peacock said he has no set plans for the 12-year-old mare's future.

Of course, should Senor Buscador continue to progress along the Kentucky Derby trail, a return visit to Mineshift could be on the horizon.

“It's a good problem to have, but we definitely haven't decided anything,” Peacock said. “We're just so grateful to her… I ought to take her some roses the next time I see her.”

Senor Buscador is listed as bred by both Peacock and his father, so his Friday night victory in the Springboard Mile was that much more special. The entire family, including Peacock's two sisters, his mother, five children, and six grandchildren will try to attend the colt's next start, whether it be in New Orleans or elsewhere, and cheer him all the way to Louisville.

“I guess nobody really knows what to expect, with everything this year,” Peacock said. “It would be incredible to take this horse to the Kentucky Derby. I never thought we'd be able to go twice.”

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Dobson: This Was Not The Year For ‘Big Changes’ In Graded Stakes Program

There's usually lots of teeth gnashing when the American Graded Stakes Committee announces its changes each December, but this year's press release from the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association – the group that organizes the committee – was greeted with a collective yawn.

That's a good thing.

There have been years when historically significant races are given a harsh reality check with a downgrade (i.e., the Hopeful and Ruffian going from G1 to G2 in 2012, the Blue Grass and Wood Memorial from G1 to G2 in 2017, or the Vosburgh and Santa Anita Oaks from G1 to G2 in 2020). This was not one of those years.

The biggest change was the elevation of the Saratoga Derby Invitational to Grade 1 from ungraded for its third running in 2021. No races were downgraded from Grade 1 to Grade 2.

Everett Dobson, chairman of the committee, told the Paulick Report the consensus of the 11 members was to take a cautious approach when grading for the 2021 racing season because of how the coronavirus pandemic affected the racing schedule and both domestic and international travel for much of the year.

“We didn't feel this was the year to make big changes,” he said.

Dobson, who operates Cheyenne Stables and Candy Meadows Farm, pointed out that, while many races felt a negative impact from the pandemic, some tracks benefited when others were closed and forced to postpone or cancel some of their graded stakes.

The committee looks at the last five renewals of a race, so one good or bad year in terms of field quality will not make an overwhelming difference. But for those races that were run this year, the 2020 renewal will impact a race's average quality for the next five years and probably deserves an asterisk as the committee continues its work going forward in the next four grading sessions.

Also, according to TOBA's rules for the grading process, if a race “is substantially changed on the calendar (30 or more days), this will prompt a review and may result in a change of grade.” The committee can also change the grade of a race “if its distance is altered by more than one-eighth mile.”

I seriously doubt, however, if the Kentucky Derby or Preakness (moved by several months) or Belmont Stakes (shortened by three-eighths of a mile) were in danger of losing their Grade 1 status. Same goes for races that weren't run in 2020 because of the pandemic.

“If races have not been run in two successive years they are not eligible for grading,” said Dobson, adding this caveat: “This year, if a race was not run because of COVID, we gave them an extra year.”

While the committee used the same criteria that's been in place for many years (see end of this article for the TOBA Members Guide explanation), the pandemic did force the committee to work remotely via a two-day Zoom meeting instead of in person. As such, Dobson said, votes were done openly with a thumbs up or thumbs down whereas in the past they were done by secret ballot.

Additionally, just because some members of the committee are racing executives working for major tracks, Dobson said it would be wrong to conclude they vote in support of their own races when grade changes are under consideration.

“I can absolutely say they vote objectively,” Dobson said. “They work hard at understanding the big picture and do the best they can at leaving their biases at home when it comes to who they work for. They really help provide perspective. If a race looked particularly weak this time, what happened?

“In the case of New York,” Dobson continued, “some of their 2020 stakes races were weaker than they had been, but guess what? The Europeans couldn't ship over. Being able to understand from the racing secretary what was going on as we try to analyze a race is very valuable as we make our decisions.”

Beyond the nuts and bolts of grading races, Dobson said, the committee takes a 30,000-foot view of the entire program.

For example, in 1989, there were more than 83,000 races run annually in North America and 378 graded stakes. In 2019, there were 40,800 races and 450 graded stakes in the U.S. That's a 51% decline in races run but a 19% increase in the number of graded stakes.

“We spend a lot of time on that subject every year,” Dobson said. “We meet several times a year and that's always the No. 1 topic when we talk outside of the grading session. The first thing we did was analyze the foal crop. It is declining, but if you look at the numbers from The Jockey Club website, it's actually pretty stable in Kentucky (where the highest-quality foals are produced). Also, Kentucky-based stallions are now siring over 3,000 offspring foaled outside of Kentucky. Overall, the foal crop is down, but it's not a direct correlation as to quality. You have to dig a little deeper into what Kentucky is doing, and what New York and Florida are doing as far as quality. Despite that, we have brought down the number of graded stakes (from its peak).”

From TOBA Graded Stakes Members Guide: Information supplied to the members of the Graded Stakes Committee includes statistical data for the last five years for all eligible races indicating quality of the field based on 1) points assigned for best performance in unrestricted black type stakes (see Appendix A); 2) percentage of graded stakes winners in the field; 3) quality points achieved (see Appendix A) 4) the official charts of the five most recent renewals; 5) North American Rating Committee (NARC) Ratings; and 6) Thoro-Graph ratings. In addition, each renewal is identified by division, grade, distance, surface, purse, and number of starters. Members are expected to utilize this data, together with the knowledge drawn from their own experience, to make individual judgments as to the relative merit of the eligible races. Eight affirmative votes are required to upgrade any race and six affirmative votes are required to downgrade a race.

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Horseracing Integrity And Safety Act Signed Into Law

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act is now law.

The legislation passed by the Senate on Dec. 21 that will put anti-doping/medication control and safety programs under the umbrella of one independent, non-governmental Authority, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act was part of a 5,500-plus page, $2.3 trillion bipartisan government funding bill that included $900 billion in coronavirus relief extending unemployment benefits and providing up to $600 in cash payments to individuals. President Donald Trump, whose Treasury Department officials helped negotiate the package, had threatened to veto the bill, in part demanding that the $600 individual benefits be increased to $2,000.

On Sunday night, Trump signed the bill into law.

A previously formed nominating committee can now move forward in naming the nine members who will comprise the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (five independent members from outside of the horse industry, four from within the industry but without current investments or conflicts of interest). The Authority has been charged with contracting with the United States Anti-Doping Agency to oversee the anti-doping/medication control program on a national basis.

Two working committees also will be named. For more information on what comes next, read answers to frequently asked questions, as supplied by Marc Summers, vice president and general counsel for The Jockey Club, which helped steer the legislation through Congress.

Passage of the legislation, originally supported by the grassroots Water Hay Oats Alliance and sponsored in the House of Representatives by Democrat Paul Tonko of New York and Repubolcian Andy Barr of Kentucky, was years in the making. It got fast-tracked earlier this year when Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell threw his support behind it after Churchill Downs came on board and joined with other major racing organizations. It passed the House in September on a voice vote and was part of the omnibus bill passed overwhelmingly by the Senate Dec. 21.

The omnibus legislation that is now law includes other measures beneficial to the horse industry, including continuation of H-2B visa programs for foreign workers and extension of three-year tax depreciation for purchase of racehorses and COVID relief for small businesses in the horse business.

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Yakteen Stable’s Cal-Bred ‘Queen,’ Mucho Unusual, Takes Robert J. Frankel Stakes

Well beaten in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf on Nov. 7, George Krikorian's homebred Mucho Unusual seemed to relish a return home to Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif., as she rallied under Eastern-based John Velazquez to take Sunday's Grade 3, $100,000 Robert J. Frankel Stakes by three-quarters of a length. Trained by Tim Yakteen, the California-bred daughter of Mucho Macho Man got a mile and one eighth on turf in 1:46.94.

Comfortably in-hand while second, about two lengths off of pacesetting She's Our Charm around the first turn, Mucho Unusual inched up outside a three-horse spread that included favored Miss Teheran and She's Our Charm heading to the three furlong pole and held sway late under a hand ride from Velazquez, who collected his third win on the day.

“She broke good and it looked like the one speed filly (She's Our Charm) would go and she did,” said Velazquez. “Down the backside, Joel (Rosario, aboard favored Miss Teheran) moved a little early and I also wanted to make sure I put a little pressure on the two (She's Our Charm) because she had been running easily. Turning for home, I asked her and she finished up great.”

A front-running winner of the G1 Rodeo Drive Stakes here two starts back on Sept. 26, Mucho Unusual was the narrow second choice at 5-2 in a field of eight fillies and mares and paid $7.80, $4.40 and $3.20.

“We had an outside draw and that was a little bit of a concern,” said Yakteen. “There was one lone speed in the race. She is such a dream to train, so easy, so straightforward, she makes my job easy. She's my queen. We don't have a big stable but she's our queen.”

Out of Krikorian's Unusual Heat mare Not Unusual, Mucho Unusual, who turns 5 on Friday, is now a three-time graded stakes winner. With an overall mark of 18-6-3-4, she picked up $60,000 for the win, increasing her earnings to $762,715.

Owned in-part by former Santa Anita general manager, Ron Charles, English-bred Never Be Enough flew late for second money, prevailing by a nose over She's Our Charm. Ridden by Tiago Pereira, Never Be Enough was off at 32-1 and paid $18.40 and $10.40.

In a big effort, Ron McAnally's She's Our Charm fought bravely late and finished three quarters of a length better than Miss Teheran. Off at 4-1 with Juan Hernandez, She's Our Charm paid $4.00 to show.

Trained by Chad Brown, Irish-bred Miss Teheran shipped in from South Florida seeking her first stakes victory but her chances were seriously comprised when she hesitated leaving the gate and was subsequently shuffled back while in tight quarters. Thereafter, she appeared a bit keen with Rosario and when the rail opened up a half mile out, he asked her to engage the front runners in what proved a failed strategy as the actual 5-2 favorite.

Fractions on the race were 23.72, 47.90, 1:11.70 and 1:35.02.

Named in honor of the Hall of Fame trainer who passed away at age 68 in 2009, Bobby Frankel was a five-time leading Winter/Spring Meet trainer at Santa Anita and he remains the track's all-time leader by races won with 917 and is third on the all-time stakes-won list with 146. Frankel won the race's precursor, the San Gorgonio Stakes, a record seven times.

Live racing resumes at Santa Anita on Thursday with first post time for a nine-race card at 12:30 p.m.

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