peter brant | Horse Racing Free Tips

Brant’s Belle Gambe Released from Quarantine

Stuck in quarantine for a month due to what owner Peter Brant called a false positive for the disease Dourine, the 2-year-old filly Belle Gambe (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) has been released by the United States Department of Agriculture and will soon be on her way to Payson Park in Florida to join the Chad Brown barn.

The latest development ended a nightmarish period for the well-bred filly that had so disturbed Brant that he said the USDA had “kidnapped” his horse.

Belle Gambe is a Brant homebred who is a half-sister to 2019 champion turf female Uni (GB) (More Than Ready). On Jan. 13, Brant shipped Belle Gambe and three other horses from Ireland to the U.S. with plans to immediately send them to Florida. But Belle Gambe was forced to stay behind by the USDA and sent to a quarantine facility at Churchill Downs because she had tested positive for Dourine.

Dourine, a venereal disease, however, does not exist in Ireland or the U.S. and can only be transmitted through breeding, which Brant argued, meant the test had to be the result of a false positive. Worried about having a young, developing horse stuck in a stall while in quarantine, Brant lobbied the USDA to rely on common sense and release the filly, but says the government officials ignored him.

Given a subsequent test, Belle Gambe again tested positive. But she was tested a third time on Feb. 10 and came up negative. Had she again tested positive, Brant would have had to have either shipped her back to Ireland or have the horse put down.

“Firstly, we would like to thank Sue Brewster, Operations Manager of the Kentucky Import Center at Churchill Downs, Louisville, Kentucky and her team for their good care while the filly was stuck in quarantine, Mersant Horse Transportation and team for their diligent handling of this case, and most of all Belle Gambe for her class and patience during the course of her month-long lockdown due to no fault of her own,” Brant said. “As we were told by the staff at the facility when the filly left QT, 'Belle Gambe is a champion before she even makes it to the races.' We are obviously relieved that the filly has cleared quarantine, however the past few weeks have been stressful and have undoubtedly taken a toll on the filly's physical and mental well-being. Rather than being able to proceed to training during this crucial period of her development, she will now have to spend weeks if not months regaining strength and conditioning lost over the course of the past month since she arrived.

Brant said he researched the issue and found that false positives are a recurring problem when it comes to the USDA and horses shipping to the U.S. from overseas.

“From the research I have done many, many of these false positives exist,” he said. “It's not like they keep finding horses that actually have this Dourine. There are no cases in the countries these horses come from. It only exists in the Middle East and Africa. Obviously, this was a false positive. They are too rigid in their interpretation. And there's no flexibility with the current people that are there. On all these matters, you need to have some flexibility. It's not a good thing to do to these animals.”

He continued, “While we can certainly appreciate that the USDA and APHIS have prescribed regulatory protocols that they must follow, this experience has demonstrated to us and to most observers that those protocols are in desperate need of modification. The current methods are not in line with much of the rest of the world and all too often lead to false positives that jeopardize the welfare of horses and impose significant financial burden on owners. We would strongly encourage the USDA to revisit its existing policies and to permit industry participants to take part an examination of its quarantine protocols and testing methodologies. Ours is an international sport, and our industry must do everything it can to help ensure that equine athletes can safely move between countries without fear of encountering the same quarantine nightmare that we, and many others, have gone through.”

For now, after being unable to train for a month, Belle Gambe

will be behind many of the other 2-year-olds in the Chad Brown stable, but Brant is hopeful she will catch up.

“She's by Dubawi and they are probably more latter year 2-year-old performers rather than early 2-year-old year performers, so that goes in her favor,” Brant said. “Training is important and so is building bone. They also need to get speed work. She's obviously delayed with that. We won't know more until she moves further along in her training process.”

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Brant Says USDA “Kidnapped” His Horse

When Peter Brant shipped a collection of newly turned 2-year-olds from the Mocklershill training facility in Ireland to the U.S. on Jan. 13 he had no reason to expect that their transport from Europe to Payson Park in Florida would be anything other than routine. Brant ships horses from Europe to the U.S. all the time.

But in the case of a well-bred 2-year-old named Belle Gambe (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}), the filly has been stuck in quarantine at Churchill Downs for more than three weeks, the result of what Brant says is a false positive for a venereal disease called Dourine. What has ensued, he said, has been a nightmarish three weeks during which his pleas to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to release the filly have fallen on deaf ears and Brant's frustrations with the USDA have boiled over.

“She's in quarantine in Kentucky at Churchill Downs and you're in a trap there,” Brant said. “They've basically kidnapped my horse.”

Brant is known for racing some of the best horses on the planet, but he has every reason to believe that Belle Gambe might stand out from the rest. A homebred, she's by Dubawi out of Unaided (GB), by Dansili (GB). That makes her a half-sister to Uni (GB) (More Than Ready), the winner of the 2019 GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf and that year's champion turf filly.

“Obviously, she is a very important horse to us,” Brant said.

According to Chuck Santarelli, the president of Mersant International, the shipping company that brought the Brant horses to the U.S., blood was taken on the horses before they left Ireland and was sent to the USDA lab in Ames, Iowa and they all tested negative. Five horses were tested, four of which boarded the plane to the U.S. However, after they arrived and were under USDA supervision at the Kentucky Import Center, Brant was informed that Belle Gambe had tested positive for Dourine. Because she had not met the USDA requirements to enter the country, the USDA could not release her to the general population and instead placed her in quarantine.

According to the Center for Food Security and Public Health, Dourine is “a serious, often chronic, venereal disease of horses and other equids. This protozoal infection can result in neurological signs and emaciation, and the case fatality rate is high.”

Brant couldn't understand why the other four horses tested negative and Belle Gambe did not or why the filly showed no signs of being sick. He began to look into the situation and found that false positives for the disease being flagged by the USDA were not uncommon. In a 2020 article posted on the website Eurodressage.com that covered false positives for Dourine and other diseases, the author wrote: “Importing horses into the U.S.A. had become a nightmare for some horse owners whose horses produced 'false positive' blood tests in the quarantine process.”

“The USDA doesn't allow for interpretation anymore because the old guard is gone and been replaced with just bureaucrats who don't understand the testing and won't, and can't, interpret,” Dr. Scarlette Gotwals told the website. “The USDA used to have veterinarians in charge of field operations who would review an individual situation and make an interpretation. Now, no one will do anything outside of a rule book.”

Brant and his attorney Chapman Hopkins were convinced that Belle Gambe was the latest horse that the USDA had incorrectly flagged as positive and that its rules and testing methods were archaic.

“I have, unfortunately, had to handle dozens of international equine import cases involving false positives over the last decade,” Hopkins said. “The disappointment and outrage felt by Mr. Brant is entirely reasonable and understandable. As I shared with Mr. Brant yesterday, what they are experiencing is the unfortunate result of the USDA's imperfect testing methodologies and quarantine procedures.”

The disease is transmitted almost exclusively during breeding, obviously not a factor with a 2-year-old unraced filly.

“You have to understand this is not my area of expertise, but when Peter called me I consulted with a bunch of people to get some background information,” said Dr. Larry Bramlage. “This is a terrible and unfortunate set of circumstances. Dourine doesn't even exist in Ireland or in the U.S. It's only submitted by sexual contact and she's just a 2-year-old. None of this makes any practical sense. But it's one of those things where it's difficult to circumvent what's written down as the regulations that they have to follow.”

Brant considered his options. One was to ship the horse back to Ireland and have her race there rather than for trainer Chad Brown in the U.S. But he decided to let things take their course. That just led to more headaches.

On the advice of the medical and reproductive team at Rood and Riddle, Brant asked the USDA to treat the filly with a drug called Marquis, which treats protozoal myelitis, to wipe out any random protozoa which could be cause the false positive for Dourine..

“We wanted to have her treated with Marquis but the USDA just plain rejected it,” Brant said.

It was a pattern he would grow familiar with. He said the USDA was, from the start, uncooperative and uncommunicative.

“I have been dealing with them by email but get no response,” he said. “My lawyer has tried talking to them and so has Mersant. They can't get anything out of them. There's been no discussion. There is no flexibility and they just won't use common sense.”

Fourteen days after Belle Gambe tested positive, another test was taken. In the initial test, the filly was positive for Dourine at a dilution of 3+1:10. In the subsequent test, the level had gone down to a dilution of 1+1:10. While that was a step in the right direction, it was not enough to release her from quarantine.

Meanwhile, Brant was growing increasingly concerned about the impact of quarantine on a young horse at a time when they need to be exercised to foster their growth and development.

“I'm of the school of thought that the training period between Sept. and Oct. through the following spring is extremely important for a young horse, whether they run as a 2-year-old or they don't,” Brant said. “It's a very important factor. It's important to get a horse like this into training as soon as possible. She been quarantined for nearly a month and that's damaging to this horse. There are enough hurdles in this game for owner to go through as it is. This is just not unacceptable.”

Perhaps, the worst might soon be almost over. The filly is scheduled for another test on Feb. 10, with the results due on the 12th. If she tests negative the quarantine will be lifted and she can resume training toward her racing debut.

“I hope she tests negative,” Bramlage said. “Everything indicates that she should.”

Brant is prepared for the worst. If she tests positive again, the only two options left are that she will have to return to Ireland or be put down within five days. Just in case, Brant has already reserved a spot on a flight back to Ireland.

“I am not optimistic,” he said. “I am not optimistic at all. There's no rhyme or reason as to why this has happened. The test is faulty and that's all there is to it.”

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Taking Stock: Mr. Prospector is the Most Influential

A few weeks ago, I was a guest on the weekly Going In Circles podcast, which is hosted by Chuck Simon, the former trainer who's also a top-notch writer at his blog, and Barry “The Sniper” Spears, an excellent handicapper and well-known figure on Twitter. Simon asked for my opinion on which stallion I'd consider to be the most influential of the past 50 years. You can listen to a nine-minute clip of the conversation here. My answer? Claiborne's iconic Mr. Prospector, of course.

The clip generated quite a bit of interest and debate on social media. Simon kept Northern Dancer out of the equation, and I made my selection on North American-based stallions whose careers had begun within the 50-year window. Mr. Prospector, a son of Raise a Native from Gold Digger, by Nashua, was born in 1970–the same year as Secretariat and Forego–and entered stud in 1975 in Florida. This timeframe eliminated not only Northern Dancer but also Raise a Native, another icon.

Mr. Prospector's stud career and substantial influence has been thoroughly documented through the years from the time he went to stud until his death in 1999 at the age of 29. All told, he sired 1,195 foals and 182 black-type winners, a ratio of 15% from foals– not starters. These days top stallions are lucky to hit 10%.

Fifty-odd years since his birth, Mr. Prospector's influence is still palpable. Five of the top 10 sires on the general sire list of 2022– Quality Road, Curlin, Gun Runner, Speightstown, and Munnings–trace in tail-male descent to him, as do four of the top 10 broodmare sires–Street Cry (Ire), Smart Strike, Distorted Humor, and Unbridled's Song.

In 2015, John Sparkman wrote a piece in Daily Racing Form titled “Mr. Prospector line has no American equal” that said in part, “…Mr. Prospector now stands at the head of the most successful classic sire line in the United States. His fifth-generation male-line descendant American Pharoah, who broke a 37-year Triple Crown drought with his Belmont Stakes victory on June 6, is the 32nd American classic winner descending in male line from Mr. Prospector dating back to when his son Conquistador Cielo won the Belmont in 1982.”

According to Sparkman, the Northern Dancer line was second to Mr. Prospector in this timeframe, with 17 Classic winners.

Since then, the Mr. Prospector line is responsible for an additional seven Classic winners in the U.S., the most recent of which was last year's Gl Preakness winner Early Voting (Gun Runner). The Northern Dancer line also has had another seven.

If the Classics are the gauge, Mr. Prospector's impact on them certainly makes him the most influential stallion of the last 50 years.

Florida to Claiborne

Mr. Prospector, who was bred by Leslie Combs ll, topped the 1971 Keeneland July sale at $220,000. He was purchased by A.I. “Butch” Savin's AISCO Stable and trained by Jimmy Croll, but he wasn't a Classic horse himself; he was sprinter, and a brilliantly fast one when he was sound. On the same day that Savin's Regal and Royal won the Gl Florida Derby, defeating Forego by three lengths, Mr. Prospector set the track record for six furlongs at Gulfstream in 1:07 4/5, winning by nine lengths in his third start.

Mr. Prospector, who was unraced at two, would go on to win seven of 14 starts, including the Gravesend and Whirlaway while contemporaries Secretariat won the Triple Crown and Forego three Horse of the Year titles.

Mr. Prospector attained his legendary status in the breeding shed, and improbably at that. Savin retired him to stud inexpensively at his AISCO Stable in Florida, far away from the best broodmares in Kentucky, but Mr. Prospector simply had what it took to overcome lesser mares. From his first crop, he got 1978 Eclipse champion 2-year-old filly It's in the Air, among others. Fappiano, a Grade l winner and top racehorse who became an influential stallion himself, was a member of Mr. Prospector's second crop. Another future successful stallion, Grade l-placed Crafty Prospector, was from Mr. Prospector's fourth crop.

Peter Brant | Sid Fernando

Peter Brant, who picked up an Eclipse award for Regal Glory (Animal Kingdom) as top turf filly or mare last week, was among the first owner-breeders to notice Mr. Prospector's prepotency and was instrumental in acquiring Mr. Prospector and moving him to Kentucky for the 1981 breeding season. I spoke last week to Brant, whose White Birch Farm is in Connecticut, of how he was able to move the stallion from AISCO to Claiborne.

“Butch Savin was in the concrete mix business in Connecticut. When he had Mr. Prospector, he lived in Connecticut and also in Boca Raton in Florida. I started to notice this horse was getting some nice horses from some cheap mares, as I was looking up stallion stats to see who to breed to, and this horse was looking very, very good, so I made it my business to meet Butch Savin. I would go down to Boca Raton, because at the time I was playing polo in Wellington. I kind of lived in Florida three months of the year while I was playing polo. So, I would go down to Boca–he had a condominium overlooking the ocean–and I would pick him up; he had a favorite Chinese restaurant and we would go there and sit and talk of the future plans of Mr. Prospector.

“I'd called Seth Hancock up and told him this horse was the real deal, and Seth was interested but the horse was in Florida and the horse was good with cheap mares but would he do well on the Kentucky circuit against those other stallions, especially the ones Seth was carrying at the time,” Brant said.

“Anyway, I'm talking to Butch and I tell him why don't we move the horse to Kentucky, and he says, 'Well, I'm not going to move. I have a farm in Florida.' And I said, 'Why don't you stay in on the horse, and we'll move him to Kentucky?' So, I'm talking to Seth and Butch Savin–it was really like arbitraging Seth and Butch Savin–and it wasn't the easiest job in the world. Finally, Butch agreed to move the horse to Kentucky and said he would stay in on the horse. I was going to keep like a third of the horse, and Seth was going to syndicate the rest of him. You know, Seth did a great job syndicating him–he had the best owners in there. And then Savin says, 'I don't want to stay in on the horse. I'm not, realistically, going to send any mares up to Kentucky.' So, he didn't stay in. And we paid real money for the horse. It was probably between $175,000 to $200,000 per share, and there were 40 shares.

“I ended up keeping a third, and as the prices went up I'd spin off some shares. You know, at one point he was standing for $300,000 no guarantee. He was a very valuable horse, and what made him a great investment for everybody involved was that the shares went to over a million dollars. And what made him even more valuable was he was one of the few stallions who was breeding to more mares back then, and so you basically got an extra season every other year. Back then, horses were breeding 40 to 48 mares, and he was breeding 64, 65 mares, up to 70. And so it was a very good deal, and he also lived a very long life and was fertile for a long time.”

And he sired some of the best colts and fillies of his era, and they in turn became sires and dams of other high-quality stock, and the cycle kept continuing.

And it keeps continuing, which is why Mr. Prospector is the most influential sire of the last 50 years in North America.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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2023 Mating Plans, Presented by Spendthrift: Peter Brant

After compiling Peter Brant's mating plans two years in a row, it's pretty clear that there may be no other owner/breeder who spends more time on this. And why not? With one of the deepest, most impressive broodmare bands in the business, mating his mares is both a big responsibility and a labor of love. He shared his system with us.

“I go by three or four major things,” said Brant. “The mare's race record in terms of distance, speed, turn of foot, whether they don't have much of a turn of foot, if they're just stayers and gallopers. And then I do the same with the stallions, and then I nick them with the ones I have chosen. Some nick really well, and some don't. You have to handicap that really well; for example, if it's an American or European-bred stallion standing in Japan, there might not be any existing examples of that nick. So, I do the nicks, then I do the physicals–if the horse turns out, is weak behind, doesn't have a good shoulder, has a really good girth. I try to complement the type. The head and eye are very important. And then I hope for the best! You try to get the best stallion cross, get the very best mares to the very best stallions, and for the others, the ones who complement them more. For the best mares, we try to get to the very best stallions we can. We try to breed to the stallions we've raced–Raging Bull, Sottass, Demarchelier. The first year, we'll send them six or seven mares, the second year, maybe five; and the third year, sometimes more and sometimes less, depending upon what they need.”

“It takes a long time,” he continued. “I usually start working on it at Saratoga, and I finish right about now. But I think it's made a difference. If a mare is proven and I really like the horse she's thrown by that sire, I normally will go back to that sire.”

With all that in mind, here are Brant's matings for his mares in America. See today's TDN European edition for mating plans for his mares in Europe, or click here to read it online.

BOSTON POST ROAD (5, Quality Road-Lemon Bay, by Bernardini) to be bred to Life Is Good

We have just retired Boston Post Road this year. She's a dirt horse who won the Pumpkin Pie Stakes this fall. She's got a nice turn of foot. She's a great miler and I like to breed like kinds, miler to miler. Life is Good is a mile to a mile-and-an-eighth horse, and I like the cross with Into Mischief and Quality Road.

CAFE AMERICANO (7, Medaglia d'Oro-Roxy Gap, by Indian Charlie), will be bred to Into Mischief

She a horse with a lot of ability by Medaglia. She's a turf mare, and I normally would have chosen him for a dirt horse, but then we won the Queen Elizabeth with Gina Romantica (Into Mischief) and I see Into Mischief is getting good grass horses, too. And, the nick and the conformation complement each other.

DUNBAR ROAD (7, Quality Road-Gift List, by Bernardini) will be bred to Into Mischief

Dunbar Road was second in the Breeders' Cup Distaff in 2021, and she won the Alabama in 2019. She's a dirt mare, a mile-and-a-quarter mare, and I thought he would complement her.

ENCHANTED ROCK (19, Giant's Causeway-Chic Shirine, by Mr. Prospector) will be bred to Early Voting

Enchanted Rock is the dam of Verrazano and I wanted to breed her to a younger horse, so I'm breeding her to Early Voting. She's by Giant's Causeway, and that crosses well with Gun Runner (to whom she was bred in 2022). Early Voting won the Preakness, and he had a lot of speed, but also could carry it. She's 19, she's the dam of several stakes winners, King Ranch breeding, and I wanted a younger horse for her.

PAID UP SUBSCRIBER (m, 11, Candy Ride {Arg}-Shriek, by Street Cry {Ire}) to be bred to Quality Road

I have a filly out of Paid Up Subscriber by Quality Road who looks like our best two-year-old filly so far. Her name is Round Hill Road, so we're going back to him.

REGAL GLORY (7, Animal Kingdom-Mary's Follies, by More Than Ready) will be bred to Into Mischief

Regal Glory (last seen winning the GI Matriarch S. on Dec. 4) is retiring, and again I'm breeding like kind to like kind. She was a mile, mile-and-a-sixteenth, mile-and-an-eighth horse with a great turn of foot, great speed, great speed ratings, and a solid-looking, beautiful mare. I was on the fence between Gun Runner and Into Mischief, and I went with him. I like both stallions a lot.

WOW CAT (8, Lookin At Lucky-Winter Cat {Chi}), by Cat Thief), to be bred to Gun Runner

She's a multiple Group 1 winner who was second in the Breeders' Cup Distaff and we really like her foals.

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