Tag: Panty Raid

Godolphin Homebred Proxy Back to Winning Ways in Monmouth Cup

Sometimes Proxy (h, 5, Tapit–Panty Raid, by Include), the GI Clark H. winner, shows up and sometimes Proxy, the last-place finisher in the GI Stephen Foster S., makes an appearance. Saturday in Monmouth's $400,000 GIII Monmouth Cup S., it was the former, as the gutsy bay and 2-5 choice called on his class to uncharacteristically set the pace and turn back stiff challenges from Whelen Springs (Street Sense)–the only horse in the field with a recent win over the surface–and last-out GII Brooklyn S. runner-up Calibrate (Distorted Humor).

“He really showed some guts,” said winning trainer Michael Stidham. “He's never been on the lead in his life. He's laid close early on in his career so we knew he could be close and still finish. But he was never on the lead so I didn't know what to think. I was hoping for the best, and then when they hooked him at the three-sixteenths pole, I thought, `Oh boy, here we go.' Then he dug in and class came through in the end.”

Proxy, who has been running with cheek pieces for his last couple of starts, took some bumping out of the gate, but shrugged them all off to emerge from the fray on top. After a first quarter in :23.80 and a half in :48.13, Calibrate tackled him from the outside while Wheelin Springs jumped in around the turn. With the trio heads apart coming into the stretch and well clear of the rest, Joel Rosario encouraged the winner with a couple of right-handed taps and he quickly put daylight on the interlopers to cross the wire 2 1/2 lengths the best. The final time for the nine furlongs was 1:49.99.

“I think it was just a case of too much class,” said Rosario. “He was the best horse in the race. He broke well and I just kind of let him go and do his thing. He's a little tricky sometimes to ride. You have to let him do the work. I know he always tries. He never gives up. He just does what he does. I was on the best horse and I rode him that way. They put some pressure on us but I was never worried. He has so much class. I just let him show the way.”

The Monmouth Cup was Proxy's third win at the distance. After knocking at the door with five graded placings from 2021-22, he finally broke through last November, getting his first graded score in a big way with a 101 Beyer Speed Figure and a visit to the winner's circle in the aforementioned Clark at Churchill Downs. He kicked off 2023 by missing the superfecta in the GI Pegasus World Cup, rebounded with a game second by just a neck to Stilleto Boy (Shackleford) in the GI Santa Anita H. prior to a GII Oaklawn H. win, then threw in the towel last out in the July 1 Stephen Foster.

Pedigree Notes:

Gainesway's remarkable Tapit, an annual fixture on the leading sires list, is the sire of Proxy and exactly 100 other graded winners bred in the Northern Hemisphere. His 159 black-type winners include the likes of Horse of Year Flightline, a number of champions including Godolphin's Essential Quality, and four GI Belmont S. winners. Both Proxy and MGSW Pink Sands are by Tapit and out of Include mares. Airdrie's late Include, a son of Broad Brush who passed away last summer due to complications from a heart condition, has 29 stakes winners out of his daughters.

Godolphin bred Proxy out of 2007 GI Juddmonte Spinster S. and GI American Oaks winner Panty Raid after John Ferguson purchased her for $2.5 million at the 2008 Fasig-Tipton November sale. The full-sister to GSW and 2011 GI Kentucky Oaks runner-up St. John's River has also produced GSW & GISP Micheline (Bernardini) and has an unraced 2-year-old gelding named Out in Force (Frosted). Her most recent offspring is a yearling filly by Into Mischief.

Saturday, Monmouth Park
MONMOUTH CUP S.-GIII, $400,000, Monmouth, 7-22,
3yo/up, 1 1/8m, 1:49.99, ft.
1–PROXY, 124, h, 5, by Tapit
               1st Dam: Panty Raid (MGISW, $1,052,380), by Include
               2nd Dam: Adventurous Di, by Private Account
               3rd Dam: Tamaral, by Seattle Slew
O/B-Godolphin (KY); T-Michael Stidham; J-Joel Rosario.
$240,000. Lifetime Record: GISW, 18-6-6-2, $2,024,970. *1/2
to Micheline (Bernardini), GSW & GISP, $695,103. Werk Nick
Rating: A+++. *Triple Plus* Click for the eNicks report &
5-cross pedigree. Click for the free Equineline.com
catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Whelen Springs, 118, c, 4, Street Sense–Holy Nova, by Pure
Prize. 1ST GRADED BLACK TYPE. O/B-Shortleaf Stable (AR);
T-Lindsay Schultz. $80,000.
3–Calibrate, 122, g, 5, Distorted Humor–Glamour and Style, by
Dynaformer. ($340,000 Ylg '19 KEESEP). O-Josh Engel, Rick
Engel, Greg Armatys and Chelsey Badura; B-Don Alberto
Corporation (KY); T-Jamie Ness. $40,000.
Margins: 2HF, 4 3/4, 2HF. Odds: 0.40, 6.90, 4.00.
Also Ran: Antigravity, Fowler Blue, Forewarned, Higher Quality.
Click for the Equibase.com chart and the TJCIS.com PPs.
VIDEO, sponsored by FanDuel TV.

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Proxy Gets ‘Last’ Laugh In Oaklawn Handicap

The names of some of this country's most accomplished Thoroughbred owners grace the honor roll as winners of the GII Oaklawn H., including Loblolly Stable, Greentree Stable, Allen Paulson, Golden Eagle, John Franks, Ogden Phipps, Jerry Moss, Pin Oak Stable and the late Oaklawn president Charles Cella.

Following the conclusion of nine sometimes rough-and-tumble furlongs Saturday in Hot Springs, you can now add the name of Godolphin to the list, as the operation's immaculately bred 5-year-old Proxy (Tapit) stormed down the center of the track and managed to outfinish defending champion Last Samurai (Malibu Moon) by a head, with the hard-knocking GI Santa Anita H. hero Stilleto Boy (Shackleford) another unlucky nose away in third.

Sent off the 37-10 third pick, Proxy was sporting cheekpieces and landed in fourth position into the first turn, as Stilleto Boy showed slightly more speed than Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway), who applied the pressure from the outside. On the back of 'TDN Rising Star' Charge It (Tapit), blinkered for the first time and very erratic through the opening stages, Proxy was guided into the clear by Joel Rosario a turning into the backstretch. Racing as many as six paths off the inside approaching the entrance to the second turn, Proxy was asked to pick it up a bit at the seven-sixteenths, but there wasn't much of a response, as Last Samurai improved at the rail.

When longshot Senor Buscador (Mineshaft) commenced a sharp rally of his own that saw him overtake Proxy to his inside, that seemed to serve as a wake-up call and Proxy jumped back into the bridle while widest into the lane. In the meantime, Stilleto Boy had left the rail open, and leading rider Cristian Torres tried to send Last Samurai through a razor-thin opening, appearing to bounce off the fence at the furlong grounds and ricocheting off the rail to brush with Stilleto Boy and consequently putting Charge It in tight. But all the while, Proxy had worked up a full head of steam, was zeroing in on the leaders while out of harm's way down the center of the track and was shoved across the line first.

“I knew there was enough speed to set up his late run,” said winning trainer Michael Stidham. “The way it went, with Charge It sitting right in behind them [speed horses] and us outside of him, the only concern was turning for home it looked like he was trying to drop out of it again. But Joel [Rosario] had him out there for a reason, to stay out from behind the dirt.”

A fringe player on the Louisiana road to the Triple Crown two years ago, Proxy was third in last year's GIII Ben Ali S. and filled the same spot behind Olympiad (Speightstown) in the GII Stephen Foster S. before returning from a 4 1/2-month break to defeat West Will Power (Bernardini) in the GI Clark S. in November. He was a non-threatening fifth in the GI Pegasus World Cup Jan. 29 ahead of the Big 'Cap, where he got home well, but the wire came a couple of strides too soon.

Pedigree Notes:

Proxy's dam, a $260,000 purchase by Glencrest Farm out of the 2006 Keeneland April Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, was one of the more versatile performers of her generation, winning the GII Black-Eyed Susan S. on conventional dirt in May 2007 and the GI American Oaks on turf two months later before doubling her Grade I tally in that year's Juddmonte Spinster S. over the Keeneland all-weather.

Panty Raid was purchased by John Ferguson on behalf of Sheikh Mohammed's operation for $2.5 million at the 2008 Fasig-Tipton November Sale, but took some time to make her mark in the breeding shed. Her first foal of note was Proxy's year-older half-sister Micheline, a Grade II winner on turf and second in the GI QE II Challenge Cup at Keeneland. Panty Raid, whose full-sister St. John's River went excruciatingly close in the 2011 GI Kentucky Oaks, is the dam of the 2-year-old colt Out in Force (Frosted) and a yearling filly by Into Mischief. Panty Raid was among the first book of mares bred to Tapit's two-time Eclipse Award winner and 'TDN Rising Star' Essential Quality.

Saturday, Oaklawn

OAKLAWN H.-GII, $1,000,000, Oaklawn, 4-22, 4yo/up, 1 1/8m, 1:49.68, ft.
1–PROXY, 122, h, 5, by Tapit
                1st Dam: Panty Raid (MGISW, $1,052,380), by Include
                2nd Dam: Adventurous Di, by Private Account
                3rd Dam: Tamaral, by Seattle Slew
O/B-Godolphin (KY); T-Michael Stidham; J-Joel Rosario. $620,750. Lifetime Record: GISW, 16-5-6-2, $1,775,970. *1/2 to Micheline (Bernardini), GSW & GISP, $695,103. Werk Nick Rating: A+++. *Triple Plus*. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Click for the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Last Samurai, 123, h, 5, Malibu Moon–Lady Samuri, by First Samurai. ($37,000 RNA Ylg '19 KEESEP; $175,000 2yo '20 OBSMAR). O-Willis Horton Racing LLC; B-Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings LLC (KY); T-D. Wayne Lukas. $191,000.
3–Stilleto Boy, 122, g, 5, Shackleford–Rosie's Ransom, by Marquetry. ($420,000 3yo '21 FTKHRA). O-Steve Moger; B-John & Iveta Kerber (KY); T-Ed Moger, Jr. $95,500.
Margins: HD, NO, 2 3/4. Odds: 3.70, 2.80, 5.80.
Also Ran: Senor Buscador, Charge It, Classic Causeway, Rated R Superstar. Click for the Equibase.com chart and the TJCIS.com PPs. VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.

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Steadfast Airdrie Stallion Include Dies

Grade I winner Include (Broad Brush—Illeria, by Stop the Music) was euthanized July 18 at Airdrie Stud, the farm he called home for the past 19 years, due to a worsening heart condition. He was 25 years old.

The Airdrie team were made aware of the stallion's heart condition last year and he was pensioned from stud duty shortly thereafter, in the fall of 2021.

“His condition worsened to where he was showing us that there was potentially going to be an unhappy ending and we weren't going to let that happen. We made the very difficult, from an emotional standpoint, a very difficult decision [to euthanize him], but a very easy decision when you're acting in the best interest of the horse,” said Bret Jones, vice president of Airdrie.

Bred in Maryland by Robert E. Meyerhoff and campaigned by his breeder throughout his four-season career, Include gained national attention as arguably one of the country's top handicap horses as a 4-year-old in 2001, with victories in the GI Pimlico Special H., GII New Orleans H. and GII Massachusetts H.

Trained by Grover “Bud” Delp, the Maryland-bred was also second in that year's running of the GII Clark H., and third back-to-back in the GII Suburban H. and GII Meadowlands Cup H., with his worst finish that season a seventh in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic.

“[Include] is the second-best horse I have ever trained beside Spectacular Bid, and I've had some pretty nice horses,” Delp said in a Suffolk Downs press release sent out ahead of Include's victory in the 2001 Massachusetts H. “He's got a lot of class. The way he ran down Albert The Great from the three-sixteenths pole in the Pimlico Special proved to me he was more than just a good horse.”

The unanimous selection for Horse of the Year and champion older male in Maryland in 2001, Include retired as a 5-year-old with 10 wins from 20 starts and earnings of $1,659,560, also earning 13 triple digit Beyers along the way – including a 117 in the Pimlico Special. He secured seven stakes wins and was Grade II stakes-placed four times.

Include entered stud at Airdrie in 2003, with hopes high as the stallion, who carried his speed around two turns with great success, also offered an attractive outcross for mares with Mr. Prospector and Northern Dancer blood as a son of Broad Brush (Ack Ack).

“It was really a big deal when we first got Include. He had a very obviously impressive track record, you know a Grade I winner on the track, had run really incredible numbers. I remember that being one of the things we were really drawn to,” said Jones. “[He was] bred beautifully, [from a] wonderful family, out of a mare that's gone on to be a really great broodmare. He looked tough and he was tough, and all that added up to what we thought was a very exciting stallion prospect.

“We immediately started supporting him as strongly as we could to try to give him that opportunity. He was a success really from the start.”

And he was, with his first two crops of racing age producing the likes of multiple GI winner Panty Raid, a filly out of the Private Account mare Adventurous Di, and GI winner Cash Included, a filly out of the Chimes Band mare Henderson Band.

As a 3-year-old, Panty Raid won the GII Black-Eyed Susan S., her first stakes win, before taking the GI American Oaks Invitational Stakes and following up with a victory in the GI Juddmonte Spinster S. in 2007. A $110,000 yearling sold at the 2005 Fasig-Tipton July Sale, she eventually went on to sell for $2.5 million at the 2008 Fasig-Tipton November Sale.

“When you start thinking about these stallions, all the memories start coming back, and [Include] was with us for a very long time. We were lucky we bred and raced, in partnership with our great friend Tim Thornton, a filly named Include Betty, who won the [GI] Mother Goose for us, which was a wonderful day,” said Jones. “We bred Include Me Out, another Grade I winner, [and] I remember Panty Raid, how excited we were when she broke her maiden at Saratoga [in 2006] and then went on to be the Grade I winner she was.”

Include Betty, a $42,000 yearling, won the GI Mother Goose S. over favored Wonder Gal (Tiz Wonderful) in 2015, while also securing victory in that year's GIII Fantasy S. and finishing second in the GII Black-Eyed Susan S., while third in the GI Coaching Club American Oaks. Just three years prior, Include Me Out picked up three consecutive graded stakes victories at Santa Anita in the GII La Canada S., GI Santa Margarita Invitational S. and GII Marjorie L. Everett H., before winning the GI Clement L. Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar-all in 2012.

Oklahoma-bred She's All In, from Include's 2007 foal crop, remains his highest earner with $1,102,489 bankrolled from 16 wins, eight seconds and three thirds in 38 career starts, topped by an impressive victory in the 2012 GIII Sixty Sails Handicap.

“He was probably the most underrated stallion we ever stood. I don't know if he ever got his due in the commercial market because all he ever did was sire racehorses. The average earning index is something we pay a lot of attention to and historically he's always improved his mares,” said Jones. “He got labeled as a filly sire, because he had some exceptional fillies, I mean he really did, [but] he never threw a colt that really had his brilliance. I wish I was smart enough to figure out why that was.

“He was really a remarkable sire of fillies and through that I think will be a really, really good broodmare sire.”

Other progeny highlights include Virginia-bred colt Redeemed, winner of the GII Brooklyn H. and GIII Greenwood Cup S. in 2012, who also took the GIII Discovery H. the previous year. He retired with $832,140 in earnings and later ranked as a leading first-crop, second-crop, and third-crop sire in the Mid-Atlantic region while standing at Northview Stallion Station in Maryland.

Among current runners, 5-year-old mare Sconsin reigns supreme as she keeps her sire's legacy alive with multiple graded stakes victories, most recently capturing the GIII Winning Colors S. in May as she nears the $1 million in earnings mark.

“That's the amazing thing about the horse business, you can go back through the catalog pages and look back two, three, four generations and see those old friends. Include is going to be one of those old friends that is going to be on those catalog pages for a long, long time,” said Jones.

With 17 crops of racing age, from 19 crops total, Include has sired 799 winners (66%) and 988 starters (82%) from his 1,202 foals of racing age to date. Those include six champions in Puerto Rico, Argentina, Canada and Panama; 24 graded black-type stakes winners; and 56 black-type stakes winners. His progeny earnings are in excess of $63 million.

“If you have an Include that's a good 2-year-old, you may really have a special horse, like a Panty Raid, because they seem to always get better with more racing,” said Jones. “They run with that real desire to win, were very sound horses just like himself, and a lot of people that race Includes have a lot of fun not only earning money but winning a lot of races.”

Though there is a silver lining to be found in his final crops of foals, along with the continuous impact he'll have as a broodmare sire, the Airdrie team will forever mourn the loss of the longtime stallion and barn favorite.

“It's to his great credit and the credit of our syndicate members who really helped support him that he was able to stay in the stallion barn his entire life. He was absolutely one of the favorites in the barn for everybody, he really ran the show. Anybody who came to the stallion barn, any time one of the other stallions would parade by Include's stall, he let everybody know that he didn't want that horse anywhere near his turf. He would yell out, which would always make everybody laugh and they would say, 'There's Include.' He was the boss,” recalled Jones.

“I think the boss of the barn is a very fitting legacy for Include and he will be missed by everyone who ever spent time with him.”

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Bloodlines Presented By Diamond B Farm’s Rowayton: Hope For The Holidays

The holiday season is a time of hope, and this year is especially so, as governments and people around the world look forward to a time without a pandemic. Racing is no different.

The sport was one of the bright points of a year that grated on the patience and optimism of millions because the organization and nature of horse racing allowed it to operate with few fans present but with hundreds of millions watching from afar thanks to technology.

Racecourse winners from the past several days have showcased some of the stories and horses that loom as likely pleasures for the coming year. One of the best potential stories is a follow-up to one the sharpest disappointments in two seasons of racing, with the return of the high-quality performer Maxfield (by Street Sense). In 2019, an ankle chip kept Grade 1 winner Maxfield from racing in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile; this year, a condylar fracture kept the dark-coated colt with star potential on the sidelines through the classics.

On Dec. 19, Maxfield returned for his second start of the season, here at the end of the year, in the Tenacious Stakes at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans. Trained by Brendan Walsh for Godolphin, Maxfield showed the class and early pace to overcome his lack of recent activity and won the Tenacious by 2 1/2 lengths from the promising Curlin colt Sonneman.

In addition to the star quality of Maxfield, owner-breeder Godolphin had a handful of results to cheer about. Highly anticipated among those was the second victory in three starts for the 2-year-old Tapit colt Proxy, who is a son of Grade 1 winner Panty Raid (Include). Proxy had won a maiden on Nov. 26, then returned on Saturday as the odds-on favorite to win his first-level allowance by 2 1/2 lengths.

The colt's dam, Panty Raid, was a high-class performer in 2007, when she won the G1 Spinster Stakes and American Oaks at 3, then was sold for $2.5 million as a broodmare prospect the following year at the Fasig-Tipton November sale. Now 16, Panty Raid is the dam of stakes winner Micheline (Bernardini), who won the Sorority Stakes at 2, then the Dueling Grounds Oaks this year at 3, when the filly was also second in the G1 Queen Elizabeth Challenge Cup at Keeneland.

In addition, Darley had an impressive maiden winner in the juvenile filly Divine Comedy (Into Mischief), who won her second start, going a mile and 70 yards at the Fair Grounds in 1:44.37 to defeat her closest rival by 5 1/4 lengths. Out of the Street Cry mare Via Strata, Divine Comedy is from the same female family as Maxfield that traces to the Storm Cat mare Caress.

One of four stakes winners out of the Affirmed mare La Affirmed, Caress won seven stakes, including three at the Grade 3 level, and is a full sister to the important sire Bernstein, the sire of champion Tepin and the promising young stallion Karakontie, who won the French classic Poule d'Essai des Poulains and the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Mile. Caress is the second dam of Maxfield and the third dam of Divine Comedy.

Another story of note is the continuing success of leading sire Into Mischief; in 2020, he is the sire of Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic winner Authentic, who has since been retired to stud at Spendthrift Farm, where he will stand alongside his famous sire.

In addition to Divine Comedy, Into Mischief had the maiden special winners By George and Prate. Both won on their debut. At Aqueduct racetrack in New York, By George won a six-furlong maiden by 5 1/4 lengths for owners Adele Dilschneider, Claiborne Farm, and Jump Sucker Stable. The owners had purchased the progressive colt out of the Keeneland September sale for $190,000.

Prate, on the other hand, is a home-grown gray colt racing for owner-breeder Juddmonte Farms. Making his debut at the Fair Grounds on Saturday, Prate won by 4 1/2 lengths in 1:09.81, faster than the two six-furlong stakes on the same card.

The Juddmonte colt is out of the gray Exchange Rate mare Vaunting, who was unbeaten in two starts. A full sister to Grade 2 stakes winner Bragging, Vaunting produced Prate as her first foal; the dam has a yearling full brother named Visualize and a weanling half-sister by Kantharos. Prate is the fourth generation of this family bred and raced by Juddmonte.

In addition to Prate, Juddmonte also had an allowance winner at the Fair Grounds on Dec. 18 when the Munnings filly Sun Path won her second race from three starts. Even more important was how the pretty chestnut won. She came to the fore after about three-quarters of a mile and blew the competition into the infield to win by 12 3/4 lengths in 1:42.95 for the mile and 70 yards.

Sun Path is a full sister to Grade 2 winner Bonny South, who also ran second in the G1 Alabama, and they are the third generation of the family bred and raced by Juddmonte.

Judging by the form and the connections, racing fans have a lot to look forward to in 2021.

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