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Brody’s Cause Moves from Kentucky to Pennsylvania

Multiple Grade I winner Brody's Cause (Giant's Causeway–Sweet Breanna, by Sahm) will stand the 2023 breeding season at Equistar Training and Breeding in Pennsylvania after formerly standing at Spendthrift in Kentucky. The third-crop sire has been acquired by Rodney Eckenrode and will stand for $3,500.

A winner of both the GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity and the GI Blue Grass S., Brody's Cause is the sire of three black-type winners, including GI La Brea S. winner Kalypso and GIII Iroquois S. winner Sittin On Go. He is currently ranked in the top 20 of third-crop sires and has 64 individual winners, including two current 2-year-olds from a 2022 juvenile crop numbering 43. His progeny earnings top $4 million. In 2021, he covered 147 mares, his largest book to date.

The post Brody’s Cause Moves from Kentucky to Pennsylvania appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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For Chub Wagon, Tougher Spots Will Have to Wait

Owner-breeder Danny Lopez doesn't know how good Chub Wagon (Hey Chub), the 2021 Pennsylvania-Bred of the Year and 2021 Parx Horse of the Year, is. That's the way it is when you have a filly who is 11-for-12 lifetime and has won seven stakes, but has never faced graded stakes company. Is he curious to find out? Not at all.

“I'd rather be a big fish in a little pond,” said Lopez, who co-owns Chub Wagon with George Chestnut. “We've made a lot of money ($593,600) with her and, by taking it easy with her, she's going to last longer.”

That's pretty much been the play book for Chub Wagon since she debuted with a win on Nov. 16, 2020 at Parx. After two more wins, both in allowance company, Lopez and trainer Guadalupe Preciado got a bit ambitious and sent Chub Wagon to Aqueduct, where she won an April 2, 2021 allowance race by 4 3/4 lengths. She was four-for-four at that point and looked to have more than enough ability to successfully take the next step and compete in a graded race. Instead, she went back to Parx and beat state-breds in the Unique Bella S.

“The name of the game is to win,” said Lopez, a former trainer, who also owns Chub Wagon's sire, Hey Chub.

There were a couple of major races for 3-year-old fillies on the calendar that would have been a good fit, including the GII Eight Belles S. or even the GI Acorn, but the connections didn't waver. There were plenty of races out there worth good money and where Chub Wagon would be going against overmatched rivals. Starting on May 15, Chub Wagon ran three times during a 46-day period and won all three, the Skipat S., the Shine Again S. and the Dashing Beauty S.

The winning streak ended at eight when she caught a sloppy track and finished second in the Dr. Teresa Garofalo Memorial S. at Parx. She went back to work two weeks later and won the Roamin Rachel S. and, in her lone career try around two turns, the Plum Pretty S. for Pennsylvania-breds.

Lopez and Preciado had hoped to bring their filly back some time in early or mid-spring, but they had a problem establishing a regular work pattern.

“The weather was a big problem,” Lopez said. “Every two or three days it would rain. She would work and then she would walk, jog, gallop and then it would be raining again. That went on forever. So I had to be patient. After a while everything cleared up with the weather”

Chub Wagon returned on Monday in the Power by Far S., a five-furlong race at Parx for Pennsylvania-breds that came off the turf. Winning by three-quarters of a length, she didn't dominate, but it was a game performance in which she showed there was no rust.

What's next? More of the same. It will be the $100,000 Alma North S. at Laurel July 16. The Alma North is part of the Match Series.

“Right now, I'm just thinking about her next race, which will be at Laurel on July 16,” Lopez said. “That gives her 19 days between starts. After that, I'll go from there. After that, it's all open.”

While Lopez understands that people want to see Chub Wagon take on tougher rivals, he said it makes more sense from a bottom-line standpoint to keep doing what he's been doing.

“I'm going to let her tell me, which is the way I have always played it out with her,” Lopez said. “That's why I was able to run all those races together toward the end of last year. She overshadows those horses she's been running against. So instead of running for $300,000 once every six weeks she ran for $100,00 every two or three weeks and wound up making the same amount of money. There is no goal. It's just one race at a time. After her race at Laurel there are all these races at Parx for Pennsylvania-breds. I can come back this year in the Plum Pretty, and that's a $200,000 race for Pennsylvania-breds and we don't have to go anywhere to run. What more could you ask for?”

While Lopez has not yet decided whether or not Chub Wagon will run next year, it's all but certain that once she stops running she will be sold at auction as a broodmare prospect.

“Do I want a broodmare that might not produce anything? No. You see some of these great race mares don't make it as a broodmare,” he said. “Do I want to be stuck with horses that can't run?”

But wouldn't a graded win enhance her value as a broodmare? We may never find out.

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Brok Family Closes Diamond B Farm After Two Decades

Glenn and Becky Brok's Diamond B Farm in Mohrsville, Pa., one of the state's leading stallion operations, will shutter after two decades in business, BloodHorse reports.

The Broks will move to a smaller farm near Georgetown, Ky., to be closer to their daughters.

Diamond B's roster in 2021 included Boisterous, Eastwood, Rowayton, Social Inclusion, Talent Search, and Uptowncharlybrown, all of which have been relocated to new farms.

The Broks purchased the 100-acre Diamond B property when Glenn was about 25. The operation was perennially one of Pennsylvania's leading breeders, taking home the top spot in 2017. Notable horses foaled at the farm include Grade 1 winner Real Solution, Grade 2 winner Emotional Kitten, and Grade 3 winner Hollywood Talent.

‘An Important Start’: Pennsylvania Commission Approves 10-Step Action Plan To Improve Equine Safety; Implementation Targeted For March 1

The Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission announced Tuesday a 10-step action plan to improve equine safety and welfare in the state, with March 1, 2022 the targeted implementation date. Thomas Chuckas, director of Thoroughbred Horse Racing for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, revealed the list during the commission's regularly-scheduled meeting.

“This list is a living and breathing list,” Chuckas said. “There are going to be changes obviously, it is not the end-all, be-all. It's a start, but it is an important start.”

The action plan is a result of the late-summer formation of a working group to address equine welfare, as well as examinations of what has worked in other states and the upcoming federal regulations.

The PSRC action plan is as follows:

Tracks will conduct an independent third party analysis of the racetrack two times per year. The first analysis for the Thoroughbred tracks is to be completed within 60 days and submitted to commission.
Increased monitoring and oversight of AM works, employing additional veterinarians to conduct oversight and examination. That will require a reshuffling of some of the vets and putting more vets in place, but the commission believes that what occurs in the morning is important to racing and moving forward.
Require the practicing veterinarians to attest that the horses are in fit, serviceable, and in sound condition and suitable to race.
Trainers must submit a pre-entry form to a racing panel for permission to race. It will require the submission of the most recent 30-day medical reports for the horses. The panel should consist at a minimum of the race secretary, commission vet, steward, and horsemen's representative.
Institute a rule for lower-level conditions or classes: a horse that doesn't finish in top four positions in five consecutive races is deemed non-competitive and not eligible to race in Pennsylvania.
Requiring the practicing veterinarian to conduct an examination within 48 hours of a horse being placed on the vet's list due to lameness. This examination will assist in determining the cause and if diagnostics are warranted. The practicing veterinarian will provide a verbal report to the commission vet.
Intra-articular injections: The initial injection is permitted based on the practicing veterinarian's examination and recommendation. Any additional injections require diagnostics to support further injections. If any injection is a corticosteroid, the horse is placed on the vet's list for 30 days.
Establish stricter criteria for removal from the vet's list, utilizing diagnostics, scanning, and imaging.
Establish a program to install either a pet scan machine or an MRI or the like at the racetrack in effort to detect issues.
Create a fatality database.

Chuckas added that some of 10 action items might be made via commission regulation, while others might be made by individual racetrack policy.

The PSRC also plans to create an integrity hotline which whistleblowers can call to report violations.

“We're not proposing anything that's never been tried before,” said commissioner Thomas Jay Ellis. “These are the best ideas to protect our horses, not some pie in the sky concepts, but things that can actually be done.”

Commissioner Dr. Corinne Sweeney motioned to approve the action plan, and commissioner Thomas Jay Ellis seconded. The motion carried.

The post ‘An Important Start’: Pennsylvania Commission Approves 10-Step Action Plan To Improve Equine Safety; Implementation Targeted For March 1 appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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