Irish Trainer Pat Hayes Convicted Of Animal Neglect After Horse Found ‘In Shocking Condition’

Irish trainer Pat Hayes has been convicted of animal neglect after a horse was found starving on his land, reports extra.ie. He was handed a suspended three month sentence and ordered to pay €5,000 (about US$5,660) to a local animal charity, Kildare Animal Foundation.

The horse was found in February of 2020 by a passer-by, a source told extra.ie: “This horse was in shocking condition,” the source was quoted as saying.

Found with ribs protruding through the skin, a prolapsed penis, and cardiac disease, the horse had no food or water available. The horse had to be euthanized shortly after he was found.

Hayes, the brother of champion apprentice jockey Chris Hayes, has not had his license revoked as a result of the conviction, and is understood to still have horses on his land.

Read more at extra.ie.

The post Irish Trainer Pat Hayes Convicted Of Animal Neglect After Horse Found ‘In Shocking Condition’ appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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More to Come for Derby Sire Protonico

For all the round-the-clock pedigree scrutiny and conformation analysis that goes into finding a stallion that will produce a winner on the first Saturday in May, it took a horse standing for $5,000 and lacking that coveted Grade I win on their race record to get the job done.

Of the 26 fifth-year stallions standing in Kentucky today, Protonico was one of five to breed less than 20 mares last year. And yet, here he is now sitting atop the Leading Second-Crop Sires list after his son Medina Spirit charged home to win the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby at 12-1 odds.

When Protonico began his career at Taylor Made Farm in 2017, he bred just 34 mares. After moving over to Darby Dan Farm the next year, he couldn't do much better there with a 51-strong book. Eventually, he found a home at the Ryan family's Castleton Lyons Farm outside of Lexington and not long after, produced a Kentucky Derby winner from his first crop of 3-year-olds.

“It's kind of a fairytale story,” Castleton Lyons equine manager Pat Hayes said. “It just goes to prove that a good racehorse can come from anywhere- at any level and any price point in the stallion ranks. It gives a lot of assurance to breeders that good stallions might not be priced expensively, but they are out there. So you just have to dig a little deeper, I guess, and hope you land on one.”

While most of the commercial market may have initially turned its nose at the near million-dollar earner, Protonico's owner and breeder Oussama Aboughazale never wavered in his belief in the horse.

“The first time I met Mr. Aboughazale was in the spring of 2019,” Hayes recalled. “He put his arm around me and said, 'Pat, this horse will breed a champion.' So for all this to happen with his first crop is truly a testament of Mr. Aboughazale's belief in him. He told us he was going to support him with 10 to 20 mares every year and he has lived up to that and bred some really nice mares to him.”

Perhaps Aboughazale developed such a passionate faith in Protonico when he had a bird's-eye view of the son of Alpha Spirit (A.P. Indy) during his early days on the track. Aboughazale trained Protonico in his first two career starts, taking the colt to a 12 3/4-length debut victory before he was transferred to Todd Pletcher's barn for his 3-year-old campaign.

Medina Spirit's win in the 2021 Kentucky Derby gave his sire the first Grade I victory of any second-crop sire this year. | Horsephotos

As a sophomore, Protonico reeled off victories in the GIII Smarty Jones S. and GIII Discovery S. but came just short of a Grade I win in the Clark H., where he bested third-place finisher Constitution (Tapit), but came up just half a length short of Hoppertunity (Any Given Saturday). He came back at four to take the GIII Ben Ali S. and GII Alysheba S. for Aboughazale's Sumaya U.S. Stable.

“The stallion game is so competitive here,” Hayes said. “He was just a tick off in the Clark H. to win a Grade I, and I think that really hurts a stallion coming to retire in Kentucky. But his pedigree was there. There were a couple of other Giant's Causeways retiring at the same time as him, but looking at his race record, we thought he was just as good as a lot of them.”

So the team at Castleton Lyons was rewarded last weekend, when their belief in the previously-disesteemed stallion was fulfilled by Medina Spirit's victory and the calls starting coming in with breeder's begging for a slot with Protonico in the last few weeks of breeding season.

“Going into the Derby, I think everybody at the farm was a little nervous,” Hayes admitted. “We thought it was possible, but watching the race and seeing him go wire-to-wire was awesome. Since then, the phones have been ringing quite a lot. It's been pretty hectic, but we've gotten a lot of contracts to Protonico since, which is what every stallion owner wants to hear.”

What was the first thing Hayes heard from Aboughazale after the big day at Churchill Downs?

“I spoke with him yesterday and his comments were, 'I told you so,'” Hayes relayed with a laugh.

Hayes added that it should come as no surprise that a grandson of the 'Iron Horse' would display such grit.

“Medina Spirit has that heart and courage that Protonico had as a racehorse. When they were all bearing down on him in the [Kentucky Derby] stretch, he just kept fighting and fighting. Bob Baffert has touched on this a lot this week, that the horse never gives up and doesn't know how to say stop. It's great for a stallion to pass that along and Medina Spirit really embodies a lot of what Protonico was as a racehorse. They have quite a similar way of running with a low head carriage and they're very economical movers.”

Karl Keegan, who founded Lucan Bloodstock last year, was the eye behind the famed recommendation Aboughazale gave to Amr Zedan that resulted in Medina Spirit's $35,000 purchase for Zedan Racing Stables at the 2020 OBS July Sale.

Keegan vividly recalls first seeing Medina Spirit on the OBS sales ground.

“I was stabled at barn 15 and this horse kept catching my eye at barn 16, so I went to take a closer look and I was blown away.”

At the time, Keegan was working with several Sumaya Stables-owned horses, so he called their team to pass on the tip.

“That night I went home and watched his breeze a bunch of times and was amazed he had stopped the clock in :33 flat,” Keegan said. “We had a conference call the next day with the Sumaya team and they were happy about my positive review of the son of their stallion, so that gave Mr. Aboughazale the confidence to pass on the information to his good friend Amr Zedan and as they say, the rest is history.”

Protonico has had only 10 starters from his first two crops of runners, but three are already winners. Keegan, who breaks 2-year-olds for Aboughzale in Ocala, believes there are many more to come.

This week Protonic Power begins training with Todd Pletcher, the same trainer who oversaw his sire's career. | Karl Keegan

“We had five Protonico 2-year-olds this winter at Lucan,” he said. “They were all good-sized horses with strong bone and exceptional depth of girth. From day one in the round pen to breezing on the racetrack, they went out every morning and did their job.”

Hayes added of the youngsters on the ground at Castleton Lyons, “One thing we're really seeing with them is the athleticism and the walk. They've all got great bodies and are generally correct. Physically, Protonico is a really nicely-balanced horse. He's a great mover and has a really strong body. He has a lot of Giant's Causeway's traits, but even more so of A.P. Indy from the damside.”

One young son of Protonico that stands out to both Keegan and Hayes is a 2-year-old named Protonic Power. The colt is a three-quarters sibling to Princess Noor (Not This Time), the speedy filly purchased for $1.35 million last year who went on to take the GI Del Mar Debutante S. and GII Chandelier S. for Zedan Racing Stables.

“He's owned by Samaya Stables and he looks great,” Hayes said. “We're looking forward to seeing him at the races this year.”

Keegan reported that Protonic Power has wrapped up his early training and is shipping to Todd Pletcher on Saturday.

“He's a very good-looking, powerful horse with good balance,” Keegan said of the juvenile. “He's training super. He reminds me a lot of Medina Spirit, just a tad smaller. I had seen him at Castleton Lyons when I was up in Kentucky for the [2020] Keeneland September Sale and I was very excited at the chance to break and train him. When he got to our farm I went back and looked at some photos and  video I had taken of Medina Spirit at the OBS Sale and saw a lot of similarities.”

While the team behind Protonico eagerly anticipates more chapters to come in their stallion's Cinderella story, they aren't quite finished celebrating an unforgettable weekend as the stack of contracts on Hayes's desk continues to grow.

“This is a huge thing for Castleton Lyons,” Hayes said. “It's been a thoroughbred farm since the late 1700s and has had a lot of highs and lows over the years. Since the Ryan family took it over, they've typically had stallions in the barn since 2004 and we've had Malibu Moon, Bernstein, and Gio Ponti, who was a great homebred and is still standing here. To have a new stallion with some buzz around him right now is great for the farm and the staff and more importantly, great for the owners.”

The post More to Come for Derby Sire Protonico appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Bloodlines: Kentucky Derby Winner Medina Spirit’s Pedigree Not As Obscure As It Might Seem

The lyrics of Dan Fogleberg's song Run for the Roses, “the chance of a lifetime in a lifetime of chance,” are well understood in assessing Medina Spirit, the winner of the 2021 Kentucky Derby. By measures of pedigree fashion, economic success, or marquee appeal, the dark brown son of Protonico and Mongolian Changa (by Brilliant Speed) was not a star.

But in the Grade 1 classic at Churchill Downs, the colt who cost $1,000 as a short yearling, by an under-appreciated sire and out of a mare who was given away, bucked the odds, flattened the probabilities, and looked like several million dollars as he led from early 'till late and won the Kentucky Derby by a half-length from Mandaloun (Into Mischief).

On pedigree, Medina Spirit is not poorly or even quite obscurely bred. Neither could it be said that his parents are trend setters in bloodstock, at least not until the first Saturday in May.

The colt's sire is the beautifully pedigreed Protonico, a dark bay son of leading sire Giant's Causeway out of the A.P. Indy mare Alpha Spirit, a daughter of Chilean champion and U.S. G1 winner Wild Spirit (Hussonet). The latter won a trio of G1s in her homeland for owner-breeder Haras Sumaya, which also bred Alpha Spirit and Protonico, and in the U.S., Wild Spirit won the G1 Ruffian, was second in the G1 Apple Blossom and Personal Ensign.

Protonico's race record likewise was nothing to sneer at. A three-time winner at the Grade 3 level, the son of Giant's Causeway stepped to win the G2 Alysheba at Churchill Downs in 2015 as a 4-year-old. In addition, he also ran second in the G1 Clark Handicap at Churchill at three and was third in the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont at five.

Perhaps the prejudice against “turf horses” put Protonico in the wrong category, even though he could make a good claim as one of his sire's best dirt performers.

The colt represents the Storm Cat branch of Northern Dancer through the former's best stallion son Giant's Causeway, and this is the second year in a row that a descendant of Storm Cat won the Kentucky Derby after Authentic last year, who comes from Storm Cat through Harlan, Harlan's Holiday, and Into Mischief.

Whereas agent Gary Young was charged with finding his client a Protonico, and Medina Spirit was the result, the dam's side of the Derby winner's pedigree wasn't a commercial model either until her son began racing.

From the first crop of the Dynaformer stallion Brilliant Speed, Mongolian Changa was a big, scopey yearling who appealed to trainer Wayne Rice, and he purchased the filly for $9,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale in 2015. Racing only at two, Mongolian Changa won a maiden special at Presque Isle in August of her juvenile season and earned $25,970 in six starts.

A reported bowed tendon having ended the filly's career at that point, Mongolian Changa was sent to Protonico at Taylor Made Farm in 2017, and Gail Rice bred the Kentucky Derby winner from the mare in 2018. Then as part of a divorce, Rice sold the colt as a short yearling for $1,000 to Christy Whitman, who brought the colt back as a 2-year-old in the June sale of horses in training last year that was postponed to July due to the pandemic.

At that sale, Medina Spirit rocked his three-furlong breeze in :33 flat and earned the highest BreezeFig at the distance last year for his performance at the sale. Neither the time nor the fig brought a rush of buyers to Whitman's barn, but the dark brown colt is a study in how a horse should look when breezing. The breeze video can be seen here.

Gary Young, as agent, acquired the colt for Amr Zedan's Zedan Racing Stables. Zedan had wanted to buy a juvenile by Protonico because he's good friend to the owner-breeder of Protonico, Oussama Aboughazale.

Aboughazale owns Haras Sumaya near Santiago, Chile, and is a primary player in the drama that brought Medina Spirit into being and to prominence. In addition to urging his friend to purchase a Protonico 2-year-old, Aboughazale bred and raced the sire, as well as the dam and second dam.

Although at least one Grade 1 victory is nearly a requirement for a term at stud in Kentucky, the owner of Sumaya Stud wanted his horse to stand in Kentucky and backed him each year with mares. That is a difficult push commercially, however, and the horse stood his first season at Taylor Made Farm, where Medina Spirit was conceived, then stood his second season in 2018 at Darby Dan, and has since been resident at Castleton Lyons on Iron Works Pike north of Lexington.

Castleton's farm manager, Pat Hayes, said that the farm had received more than two dozen requests for seasons in the two days after the Kentucky Derby, and breeders are clearly not having trouble identifying Protonico now that Medina Spirit is a household name.

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