Ricardo Santana | Horse Racing Free Tips

Coach Repels All Challengers For Pippin Score

Rick Kueber's Coach won her second race in a row in Saturday's $150,000 Pippin Stakes at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., repelling the challenge of stakes winner Miss Bigly for a three-length score. The 4-year-old daughter of Commissioner, sent to post as the 8-5 favorite, grabbed the lead at the start and was expertly piloted by Ricardo Santana, Jr. The pair completed a mile over the sloppy course in 1:37.58 for trainer Brad Cox.

Cox also won last year's edition of the Pippin with Getridofwhatailesu, and was just a few inches shy of sweeping Oaklawn's two-turn stakes series for older fillies and mares in 2021. He sent out Monomoy Girl to win last year's $250,000 Bayakoa Stakes (G3) and Shedaresthedevil to win the $350,000 Azeri Stakes (G2). Monomoy Girl, in what would be her final career start, was beaten a nose by Letruska in the $1 million Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) to deny Cox a four-race sweep.

When Coach broke sharply, Santana sent the filly out to take the lead but kept her off the deeper inside rail, about three-wide down the backstretch. They marked the first quarter in :23.44 and the half in :47.60. Miss Bigly tracked the pace along the inside, and moved up around the half-mile pole to draw even with the frontrunner.

Head-and-head around the far turn, the two riders were waiting to cue their mounts for the stretch run. When the question was asked, it was Coach and Santana who managed to find another gear on the outside. Coach pulled away from Miss Bigly with ease, racing to the wire a three-length winner. Miss Bigly had to settle for second, while W W Fitzy checked in third and Breeze Rider was fourth.

Bred in Kentucky by Three Lyons Racing, Coach is out of the Exchange Rate mare And Stay Out. She was a $65,000 yearling at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall sale, and won her first three races including the Rags to Riches Overnight Stakes at Churchill Downs. On the Kentucky Oaks trail, Coach managed a third in the G3 Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn before finishing ninth in the Run for the Lillies. She did not race again until December, when she won her comeback race at Oaklawn.

Overall, Coach's record stands at five wins from 10 starts for earnings of $387,840.

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The Week in Review: Pink Lloyd Reminds Us How Special the Thoroughbred Is

With the Medina Spirit (Protonico) positive, the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf debacle, the on-going saga of Jorge Navarro, Jason Servis and the rest and the closing of Arlington Park, it's been another tough year for horse racing. This game sure can get you down at times.

But we will always have the horse.

These beautiful, athletic, noble, graceful animals, they always find a way to make you feel good about the sport. Which is why so many people were smiling and cheering Saturday at Woodbine as Pink Lloyd (Old Forester)'s fairytale story had a fairytale ending.

Over the six years that he raced, Pink Lloyd, now nine, was never the fastest horse or the best horse out there. Since he never raced outside of Woodbine, it's fair to question his accomplishments. But there are other ways to measure how exceptional a horse truly is. Was there any horse more likeable or easier to root for? A horse that made you appreciate all that is good with this sport? No. It's not even close.

Pink Lloyd, who was retired after his win Saturday in the GII Kennedy Road S., is by a sire who stands for $4,000 and was bought as a yearling for $30,000 Canadian. He didn't even make it to the races until he was four. He appeared destined to be just another horse.

But what no one could have known back when he made his career debut on Aug. 28, 2016 was that this horse had something that few other horses have.

“I'll tell you what makes him so great–heart and desire and liking what he's doing and wanting to win,” said his trainer Robert Tiller.

Once Pink Lloyd got going, there was no stopping him. He made 38 career starts, won 29 times overall and won 26 stakes races, including three editions of the GII Kennedy Road S. These are the sort of numbers we are unlikely to see again.

He was named Canadian Horse of the Year in 2017 and will be named, for the fifth straight year, the 2021 Canadian Sprint Champion. But this has been his most extraordinary year, the year where he showed what he is made of.

Pink Lloyd finished third in the Kennedy Road in 2020 in his final start of the year and began his 9-year-old campaign with a loss to the 5-year-old Souper Stonehenge (Speightstown) in the GIII Jacques Cartier S. He lost his third straight when Super Stonehenge beat him again in the GIII Vigil S.

He looked done, at least when it comes to his being a top horse, and Tiller admitted that the gelding had lost a step. Behind the scenes, he was planning for his retirement.

But Pink Lloyd wasn't ready for retirement. The desire was still there.

He got untracked in time to win the GIII Bold Venture S. and then the Ontario Jockey Club S. But the Kennedy Road was supposed to be a different story. For the first time since August, he had to face Souper Stonehenge again, along with seven others, many of whom were half his age. Pink Lloyd was sent off at 7-2, the highest odds he had gone off at since April 15, 2017.

Never underestimate this horse. He won by a half-length and returned to winner's circle amid a standing ovation from those in the crowd.

“It was a tremendous way to go out,” Tiller said. “He's Woodbine's horse. He's Canada's horse.”

Making the story even better is the classy way Tiller and primary owner Frank Di Giulio, Jr. handled the end of his career. With Pink Lloyd finishing out as strongly as he did, it's not unreasonable to expect that he could once again make a lot of money on the track as 10-year-old in 2022. (He made $289,742 this year). But the owner and trainer understood what the right thing to do was. They let him go out healthy and still on top. Within a few days, his new home will be the LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Society.

He'll be pampered at LongRun, which is just what he deserves after all he has accomplished. Pink Lloyd embodied everything that is good about this sport.

Asmussen-Santana Divorce

Ricardo Santana, Jr. rode his first horse for Steve Asmussen in 2012, the start of a jockey-trainer partnership that has been one of the most successful in the sport. According to Equineline, Santana has ridden 812 winners for Asmussen from 4,069 mounts. The two have teamed up to win 65 graded stakes. The list includes six Grade I's this year alone, the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup, the GI Frizette S., the GI Cotillion S., the GI Hopeful S., the GI Spinaway S. and the GI Forego S.

But Asmussen is no longer putting Santana on any of his horses. He won five races Thursday at Churchill Downs, with Tyler Gaffalione riding three of the horses and Joel Rosario picking up the other two wins. This comes after Santana went 0-for-81 at Keeneland, with the majority of his losses coming aboard Asmussen-trained horses. Santana is 2-for-38 at the current Churchill meet.

Staying Away in Droves at Zia Park

Zia Park in New Mexico put together a terrific card last Tuesday. They had six stakes races, topped by the $250,000 Zia Park Derby. Flavien Prat rode the card and so did Irad Ortiz, Jr., who teamed up with Asmussen to win three stakes. The hope would be that a card of that type would generate some enthusiasm and bring out some fans. It didn't quite work out that way, which shows just how hard it has become to get people to turn out and go to the racetrack.

According to Tuesday's Equibase charts, the crowd at Zia Park was 650 and the on-track handle was a paltry $44,598. Actually, that was an improvement over the day before when the attendance was 300 with an on-track handle of $21,238.

Desormeaux Heats Up

Kent Desormeaux's off-track problems have been well documented and they threatened to end his career. In 2020, the Hall of Famer had just 29 wins, easily the lowest in his career, after missing much of the second half of the year as he was undergoing three months of substance-abuse rehabilitation. That came after he was suspended by the Del Mar stewards for 15 days after an altercation with a TVG cameraman in which the jockey is alleged to have used racial slurs.

It took a while, but he is back on track and again showing the sort of ability that once made him one of the sport's biggest stars. Desormeaux won two races at Del Mar Wednesday and another Thursday. He then won the GII Hollywood Turf Cup S. Friday and the GI Hollywood Derby Saturday.

After winning the first and fifth races Sunday at Del Mar, Desormeaux had won with seven of his last 12 mounts.

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Week in Review: Can Jack Christopher be Brown’s First Dirt Superstar?

When pre-entries for the Breeders' Cup were announced last week it was no surprise that Chad Brown's contingent was dominated by turf horses. He has 11 entered for grass races and just three for dirt races. Since he went out on his own in 2007, Brown has established himself as the sport's best grass trainer and grass racing has always been his focus. Entering Sunday's races, he had won 1,316 turf races for a winning rate of 25% and 63.5% of his career wins had come on the grass. Brown has trained nine grass horses who won Eclipse Awards and has won so many grass stakes that it's hard to keep count. He's won 15 Breeders' Cup races, 13 in grass events.

But his most talented Breeders' Cup starter may not be a turf horse. Jack Christopher (Munnings), pre-entered in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile, has looked sensational in his two career starts, including a romp in the GI Champagne S. in which he earned a 102 Beyer figure.

“He was a horse that identified himself as early on as his first work,” Brown said after the Champagne. “I was on the phone with the connections saying, 'This is potentially a really good horse. I can't believe what I just saw.' He's just been brilliant in every work. There was some buzz around him before he ran, and he lived up to it.”

An awful lot can go wrong between now and the first week of May, but should he win Friday he will be a solid early favorite for the 2022 GI Kentucky Derby. This one looks to have the potential to go places where only special horses go, which, for Brown, could mean filling in what is maybe the only hole on his resume.

It's not that Brown can't train a dirt horse. He has 756 career dirt wins and his winning rate of 25% on the main track is identical to his percentage on the turf. He has won the GI Champagne S. three times and the GI Cigar Mile twice. He has also won, among others, the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile, the GI Haskell S., the GI Cigar Mile H., the GI Acorn S., the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint. In 2017, he snuck into Pimlico with the lightly regarded Cloud Computing (Maclean's Music) and won the GI Preakness S. at 13-1 for his lone win in a Triple Crown race. He had a nice run in 2016 with Connect (Curlin), who won the GII Pennsylvania Derby, the GI Cigar Mile H. and the GIII Westchester S.

But he's been quiet over the years in the Triple Crown preps and the Triple Crown races themselves. He's 0-for-6 in the Derby, 1-for-2 in the Preakness and 0-for-3 in the GI Belmont S.

Brown's best dirt horse to date has been Good Magic. After finishing second in the 2017 Champagne, he won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and later the GII Blue Grass S. He ran a winning race when second in the Derby, but just happened to run into a buzz saw in eventual Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy). After running fourth in the Preakness, he won the Haskell and was retired after a ninth-place finish in the GI Runhappy Travers S. Though unable to win a Triple Crown race, he proved that Brown could successfully navigate a good horse through the preps and the Triple Crown races.

He didn't fare quiet as well with his two other top prospects, 2018 Champagne winner Complexity (Maclean's Music) and 2016 winner Practical Joke (Into Mischief). Complexity finished 10th in his Breeders' Cup Juvenile and his biggest win thereafter came in the GII Kelso H. Practical Joke, now a well-regarded stallion standing at Coolmore, finished third in the Juvenile and fifth in the Derby. He later won the GI H. Allen Jerkens S. Brown has had five starters in the Juvenile overall.

Brown doesn't have anything to prove when it comes to dirt horses, but not everyone sees it that way. The Juvenile, next year's preps and the Derby itself will be seen as a test for him. He's just 42 and is arguably one of the best there's ever been. He's going to win the Kentucky Derby. Maybe as soon as next year.

What's Going On With Asmussen, Santana?

Steve Asmussen is not only the top trainer all time in wins, he is remarkably consistent. Since 1997, he's never had a year in which his stable won with less than 18% of its starters. All of which makes what went on at Keeneland so remarkable. Asmussen finished the meet Saturday with a record of 1-for-57. And it wasn't a matter of a lot of near misses. He had just seven seconds and seven thirds. Asmussen did win 14 races at other tracks during the Keeneland meet.

It was an even worse story for his go-to rider, Ricardo Santana, Jr. He was 0-for-81 with seven seconds and eight thirds. Including four races he lost at Belmont earlier in October, Santana entered Sunday's card at Churchill Downs having ridden 85 straight losers. On the year, he's won with 17% of his starters.

The last race Santana won was on Oct. 3 aboard Echo Zulu (Gun Runner) in the GI Frizette S. at Belmont.

Asmussen and Santana figure to bust out of their slumps any day now, but what if they don't? Both will be heavily involved in the Breeders' Cup races, including with Echo Zulu, who will be the solid favorite in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. Should handicappers look elsewhere? It's something to consider.

Watch Out For Americanrevolution

Though he was competing in restricted company, in the Empire Classic H. for New York-breds, Americanrevolution (Constitution) served notice Saturday at Belmont that he is going to be a force going forward.

A bit of a late-developer, he ran a creditable race when third against open company in the GI Pennsylvania Derby, earning a career best 101 Beyer figure.

The odds-on favorite Saturday in his next start, he took command on the turn and took off from there to win by 11 3/4 lengths. He got a 108 Beyer for the race, which puts him among the upper echelon of 3-year-old colts. Numbers-wise, he has improved in each of his six career starts.

He'll be back in 2022, and it could be a big year for him.

It was also a big day for his sire, Constitution. Twenty six minutes after the completion of the Empire Classic, Independence Hall (Constitution) won the GII Hagyard Fayette S. at Keeneland in a romp, winning by 7 1/4 lengths. A horse who has had an up-and-down career, it was his first win of 2021 and, perhaps, a sign that he, too, will take his place among the top older dirt horses next year.

The Trend Continues: Record Handle at Keeneland

Total all-sources handle for the Keeneland fall meet was $181,009,626, an all-time record for the Lexington track. Last year's fall meet handled $160,207,916.

The “boutique” meets in racing continue to show no signs of slowing down. This year, Saratoga, Del Mar and Kentucky Downs also set new records for total handle.

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Jockey Ricardo Santana, Jr. Voted Jockey Of The Week After Graded Stakes Double

Jockey Ricardo Santana, Jr. won two graded stakes at Parx and a stakes race at Remington Park to earn Jockey of the Week for Sept. 20 through Sept. 26. The award, which is voted on by a panel of racing experts, is for jockeys who are members of the Jockeys' Guild, the organization which represents more than 1050 active, retired and permanently disabled jockeys.

Santana travelled to Parx on Saturday for Pennsylvania Derby Day. It's been quite a while since Santana had ridden a 108-1 shot in a graded stakes and while the win on Hollywood Talent in the Grade 3 Turf Monster shocked the betting public, it wasn't a surprise to Santana. Before riding on a regular basis for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen, Santana rode on a regular basis at Delaware Park for trainer Juan Vazquez.

“I was riding everything for him,” said Santana. “Everything I ride for him I have a shot.”

The 10-year-old Hollywood Talent and Santana were seventh early in the field of nine. They were three wide down the backstretch and moved into third around the turn passing Admiral Abe in deep stretch to a 1-1/4 length win in 59.51.

“He was traveling beautiful and I was really happy with him, when we turned for home and when I asked him the horse really responded well,” said Santana.

Trainer Steve Asmussen gave a leg up to Santana on the race favorite Clairiere in the Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx for three-year-old fillies at one mile and one-sixteenth on the main track. Santana settled Clairiere in sixth in the field of eight. He asked her on the turn and the duo swung out into the stretch. With five lined up across the track, Clairiere circled the field and cruised to a 2-1/2-length score in 1:44.31.

“I broke her maiden last year at Churchill Downs and she's such a sweetheart and I was really comfortable with her and she kicked on really well,” said Santana. “I had too much horse and I was just waiting turning for home.”

Santana then travelled to Remington Park for Oklahoma Derby Day on Sunday. Riding for Steve Asmussen, Santana won the Kip Deville Stakes for two-year-olds at six furlongs on the dirt aboard Concept. Going straight to the lead out of the gate, Santana and Concept were never headed fending off a late run by Tejano Twist for a 1-1/2-length win in 1:10.12.

Santana's weekly statistics were 17-3-5-3 for $1,184,535 in total purses to lead all jockeys.

The other nominees for Jockey of the Week were Abel Cedillo with a stakes win at Los Alamitos, Irad Ortiz, Jr. with two graded stakes, Joel Rosario with two graded stakes and Edgard Zayas with a stakes win at Gulfstream Park.

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