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The Stage is Set for Phyllis Wyeth’s Dancing Rags

Dancing Rags, the 2016 GI Alcibiades S. heroine, will be offered at this year’s Fasig-Tipton November Sale on Nov. 8. and will represent the end of the line of an esteemed story in Thoroughbred racing and breeding as one of the last broodmares owned by the late Phyllis Wyeth. The daughter of Union Rags is in foal to top sire Curlin, and already has an Into Mischief yearling filly and a War Front weanling filly on the ground.

“I think Dancing Rags should appeal to a lot of people,” said consignor Braxton Lynch of Royal Oak Farm. “She is beautifully balanced. She has a lovely head and eye, and has plenty of power, length and athleticism. Both her yearling and weanling look very much like her.”

Raced by philanthropist and Thoroughbred breeder Phyllis Wyeth, who passed away in January of last year, Dancing Rags’s greatest appeal comes in the legacy she will carry on as a producer.

“She was an amazing person,” longtime associate Bill Farish said of Wyeth. “She was paralyzed in a car accident when she was in college, but never let that slow her down in life. She was a very big advocate for disabled Americans. I’ve been told that all the ramps on the sidewalks in New York City and other cities are really because of her and her efforts.”

“What a privilege it was to get to know Mrs. Wyeth,” said Fasig-Tipton’s Boyd Browning. “Many people that faced a disability and the challenges that she faced from a physical perspective would have felt sorry for themselves. But Mrs. Wyeth was a character. She brightened the sales grounds. I loved visiting with her and hearing her stories. She had a great wit about her and a great spirit of life.”

Wyeth grew up near her family’s farm in Virginia, where their racing and breeding operation was most noted for Devil’s Bag and Gone West. After marrying the acclaimed painter Jamie Wyeth in 1968, she and her husband resided at her family’s Point Lookout Farm on the Pennsylvania-Delaware border. Despite her physical disability, Wyeth’s love for horses never faltered and she was a carriage driver and active Thoroughbred breeder throughout her life.

Her biggest success in racing came when a homebred colt by Dixie Union went on to become 2012 Belmont S. winner Union Rags.

A fourth-generation homebred, Union Rags was initially sold as a yearling at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Yearling Sale, but Wyeth bought the colt back one year later for $390,000.

“He sold for just above the reserve she had set, but she still wasn’t very happy with the sale,” Farish recalled. “She got reports that he was training really well as a 2-year-old. She had really high hopes for him, and he ended up living up to it.”

Wyeth’s instincts proved to be correct when Union Rags went undefeated in his first three starts as a juvenile, and later retired to Lane’s End Farm as a four-time MGSW with Grade I victories in the Champagne S. and Belmont S.

“She was very attached to her horses, and Union Rags was a great example of that,” Farish said. “She came and visited Union Rags as often as she could and really loved seeing him.”

A few years after Union Rags’s Belmont S. victory, Wyeth found a filly at the 2016 OBS March Sale from the first crop of Union Rags that she couldn’t leave without. She purchased Dancing Rags, who had worked a speedy :10 breeze, for $210,000.

Again, Wyeth’s horse sense turned out to be accurate when Dancing Rags broke her maiden at second asking and then sailed to Grade I stardom in the Alcibiades S. at Keeneland for Graham Motion.

“When Dancing Rags won the Alcibiades, it was an incredible day,” said Farish. “To see Phyllis not only race Union Rags, but then race a Grade I winner by him was a real thrill for her and a thrill for anyone that knew her.”

The now six-year-old mare is out of Grade III-placed Home Court (Storm Cat), a daughter of Eclipse Award-winning older mare and Breeders’ Cup champion Jewel Princess (Key to the Mint). Following her racing campaign, Home Court was purchased for $1.4 million in foal to Gone West at the 2005 Keeneland November Sale.

As Browning reflects on the purchase, he said the buyer of the mare makes Dancing Rags’s story even more special to him.

“Our long-time friend and associate Bill Graves bought Home Court for Gordon Stollery’s ASG Thoroughbreds,” he said. “So it’s got the personal connection for us, with both Mrs. Wyeth and Bill Graves, in terms of the pedigree influences.”

Home Court was sold again at the Keeneland November Sale in 2012. Soon after, she produced her first blacktype winner in dual MGSW and sire Coup de Grace (Tapit), followed by Dancing Rags herself.

Lynch says that Wyeth’s family plans to gradually trim down the horsewoman’s broodmare band, and that they found this year’s ‘Night of Stars’ sale to be a perfect fit for the unique offering.

Dancing Rags will be sold as Hip 261 with Lynch’s Royal Oak Farm consignment.

“She’s almost like the complete package for a breeder that’s looking for either success as a commercial operation or a racing operation,” Browning said. “Not only was she the product of many years of really astute horsemen and women’s matings, she demonstrated her quality on the racetrack. Now the family has set the stage by breeding her to two of the most preeminent stallions that have offspring, and she’s in foal to Curlin-arguably one of the world’s greatest stallions.”

“Dancing Rags represents one of the last opportunities to buy anything from [Wyeth’s] program,” Farish said. “She has Phyllis written all over her. She’s got a great pedigree, and I think she’s going to be a great broodmare.”

Browning added of the women the mare represents and her inspirational life’s tale, “It’s a story filled with tradition. It’s a story filled with hope. You look at what she was able to accomplish and it should inspire all of us to get up and make a little extra effort today because we know that she had to make a little extra effort every day.”

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Grand Slams for Great Notion, Sheldon Russell on MD Million Day

Great Notion, Maryland’s annual leading sire by earnings since 2018, showcased the prowess of his progeny on the 35th Jim McKay Maryland Million program at Laurel Park Saturday by accounting for four of the eight winners of stakes carded for the offspring of stallions standing in Maryland. The grand slam marks the 11th consecutive year that Great Notion has sired at least one winner on Maryland Million day.

Not to be outdone, jockey Sheldon Russell blasted home a quartet of winners as well, three of them in stakes. He captured top honors in the afternoon’s feature with a nervy, forwardly placed 3 1/4-length victory aboard the 6-1 Monday Morning Qb (Imagining) in the $150,000 Classic S.

Laurel’s second-leading rider in both wins and earnings at the current meet also rallied from last to nail the $100,000 Turf S. by a length with 15-1 Pretty Good Year (Great Notion). And Russell seemed like he was just along for the front-running ride about the day’s most impressive winner, the $100,000 Distaff H.’s 1-2 favorite, Hello Beautiful (Golden Lad), an 11 1/4-length victress trained by the jockey’s wife, Brittany Russell.

Owner/breeders came out on top in three Million divisions Oct. 24. But none championed the cause for smaller outfits better than Great Notion’s final winner of the day, Karan’s Notion, who wired the $100,000 Sprint H. field by a length at 16-1 for owner/breeder/trainer Nancy Heil and jockey Yomar Ortiz.

“I don’t believe it’s real yet. I’ve been training 50-some years, but I’ve never had a [Maryland Million] eligible horse,” said Heil, who entered the day with two wins from just 15 starters in 2020. “When he was a baby, he had these long legs, like spider legs, and we said, ‘I think he’s going to be the one.’

“Never give up,” Heil added emphatically.

Monday Morning Qb apparently took Heil’s advice to heart in the nine-furlong Classic. Earlier this season, the Cash is King and LC Racing color bearer held his own in open-company races behind deeper-end-of-the-pool sophomores like Happy Saver (Super Saver), Ny Traffic (Cross Traffic) and Max Player (Honor Code), all of whom went on to either win or hit the board in Grade I stakes.

After an 11th-place turf try in a stakes on the GI Preakness S. undercard, trainer Butch Reid Jr. refocused on the Maryland Million’s calling-card race for Monday Morning Qb, and the large-framed colt ended up being the only 3-year-old in the Classic.

“We’ll digest this one a little bit. I’m hoping we can find one more 3-year-old race before the end of the year, but they’re going to be difficult to find,” Reid said. “I’ve taken some stalls at Palm Meadows this winter so he’ll probably end up down there with us.”

This year the Turf was elongated from a mile to nine furlongs, and Pretty Good Year, who was third in the 2019 edition, showed he appreciated the added real estate by uncorking a wide-and-driving tailgate move under Russell to earn the win for Lead Off Stable, whose principal, Bobby Goodyear, is the racing manager for the 4-year-old gelding’s breeder, The Elkstone Group.

Beyond the play-on-words naming that ties together owner and horse, Pretty Good Year also happens to be Goodyear’s only campaigner.

“Distance has always been his thing,” trainer Kelly Rubley said. “We keep hitting these one-turn miles here and he hits the board and he picks up checks, but the longer the better for him. At the three-eighths pole, I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, we have a lot of horse.'”

A return to her home court after a last-place stakes foray to Ellis Park and a Grade II stakes sixth at Saratoga Race Course was the turnaround spark that ignited Hello Beautiful’s dazzling romp in the Distaff H. over seven furlongs.

Owned in partnership by Madaket Stables, Albert Frassetto, Mark Parkinson, K-Mac Stables and Magic City Stables, all of the 3-year-old filly’s five wins have now come over the Laurel main track–by a gaudy aggregate of 40 1/2 lengths.

Brittany Russell said that last year’s champion Maryland-bred juvenile filly is not only special in her own right, but that Hello Beautiful’s sparkling career arc has enabled her training business to grow in Maryland by attracting the attention of new owners who have entrusted Russell with fresh stock.

“It’s huge. It’s very emotional. She’s been a big part of my career. I have clients and horses in the barn because of her,” Brittany Russell said.

In the Maryland Million’s pair of six-furlong juvenile stakes, the male division produced the flashier winner from a visual perspective. But the filly division produced the faster clocking.

In the $100,000 Maryland Million Nursery, trainer Dale Capuano saddled the one-two finishers.

Owned in partnership by with Louis Ulman and Neil Glasser, Kenny Had a Notion (Great Notion) ran his lifetime record to 3-for-4 with an inside stalking bid during which he first had to be ridden with restraint by jockey Jorge Ruiz to avoid running up into a tight pocket at the rail. But when given his head and clear passage, “Kenny” slipped deftly through at the fence, spurted clear, and left a number of legit chasers sputtering in his five-length wake.

Stablemate Alwaysinahurry rounded out the Great Notion-sired and Capuano-trained exacta.

“They’re both nice,” Capuano said. “Kenny is getting better and so is Alwaysinahurry. [Kenny] showed more speed than I thought he would. He was on the bit very early and the rider had to just get a seam and lucky the rail opened up and he got through.”

In the $100,000 Maryland Million Lassie, Miss Nondescript (Mossler) stalked from fourth in a strung-out field, advanced at will on far turn, then responded to deep-stretch urging from Trevor McCarthy in a long outside drive to prevail by a hard-fought neck.

Now 2-for-2 for owner/breeder Barak Farm, Miss Nondescript followed up her pace-pressing Monmouth Park maiden victory by showing a new dimension in rating from farther back.

Her victory represented the first stakes winner for freshman sire Mosler, who was a GSP turf sprint and middle-distance specialist. Although primarily based in New York for trainer Bill Mott, one of Mosler’s two stakes wins occurred over the Laurel grass course at six furlongs in the 2016 Laurel Dash.

The final clocking in the Lassie (1:10.13) bested the same-distance time produced three races later in the Nursery (1:10.55).

This year marked the return of the $100,000 Turf Sprint H. to the Maryland Million program following a seven-year absence. It had been won in each of its final three years by the late Maryland fan favorite Ben’s Cat.

Fiya (Friesan Fire), who began his career last November as a $25,000 maiden-claimer but was purchased for $400,000 at the Wanamaker’s July online sale after a 98-Beyer win that was .25 seconds off the Laurel turf course record for 5 1/2 furlongs, got pounded to 1-10 odds for the grass dash over the same distance on Saturday. He delivered with a 2 1/4-length tally that lifted his 2020 record to 4-for-4. Tom Albertrani trains for owner Robert Masiello. It was one of three wins on the day for jockey Trevor McCarthy.

Vivian Rall’s homebred Epic Idea (Great Notion), a two-time winner sprinting on the turf, successfully stretched out to 1 1/8 miles to win by three-quarters of a length, garnering her first career stakes win in the $100,000 Maryland Million Ladies S. The 5-1 wire-to-wire victress was ridden by McCarthy and trained by Ann Merryman.

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2020 Monmouth Meet Ends on a High

Monmouth Park showed increases in both the daily transmission of its signal and in total average handle compared to 2019 during the combined 44-day meet that concluded Saturday. Monmouth Park’s average daily simulcast handle increased 27.09% to $3,604,413 daily compared to $2,836,148 last year. The overall average handle was up 20.81% to $3,807,082 daily compared to $3,151,201 last year.

“We are so grateful to everyone for supporting this extraordinary meet and, more specifically, the Governor’s Office and the New Jersey Racing Commission for allowing us the ability not only to race, but to do so with fans,” said Dennis Drazin, Chairman and CEO of Darby Development LLC, operators of the racetrack. “And once we were green lit for racing, the entire Monmouth Park staff worked tirelessly to ensure not just great racing, but a safe environment for everyone. We couldn’t be more proud to report zero cases of COVID-19 over the course of our entire meet, and the credit goes to the horsemen and fans who not only followed the necessary guidelines, but collectively cooperated to ensure each person’s safety.

Drazin continued, “[Track Medical Director] Dr. Angelo Chinnici and his entire team deserve special recognition for their efforts and, literally, around the clock work. Our success this season is rooted in their dedication and Monmouth Park is better off because of Angelo.”

The Monmouth Park meet that ran from July 3 to Sept. 27 consisted of 36 racing days after one live card was lost due to weather. The Meadowlands-at-Monmouth in the month of October provided an additional eight days of racing after one was canceled to weather as well. Last year’s racing season was 68 days.

The track operated with attendance restrictions throughout the 2020 season under COVID-19 guidelines. Opening day was delayed from its original starting date of May 2 to July 3 due to the coronavirus, with racing calendar reduced from 56 days to 37 as a result.

During the abbreviated Meadowlands-at-Monmouth Park meet jockey Jose Ferrer was the leading rider with 11 winners over the eight live racing cards. Wayne Potts topped the trainer standings with seven winners.

Trainer Kelly Breen, who captured his third Monmouth Park training title during the summer meet, ended the New Jersey racing season with a flourish by winning three races on Saturday’s 11-race card, including two of the three Jersey-bred stake races.

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Pine Ridge Hopes to End Yearling Sales Season on High Note at October Sale

When the global pandemic propelled the world into chaos and uncertainty earlier this year, perhaps no industry group was impacted more by cancellations than New York breeders, who saw all three Saratoga-based auctions cancelled and who were forced to find other outlets for their stock. The up-and-down yearling sales season concludes with next week’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October Yearlings Sale which features over 100 New York-breds, including four well-bred youngsters from Marty Zaretsky’s Pine Ridge Stables.

“I would say, not as I would have liked,” Zaretsky admitted when asked to assess results from the yearling sales. “High-quality horses sold really well–I had one of my horses sell at Keeneland, a Ghostzapper, for $400,000. So I shouldn’t say I’m disappointed, but I’m not excited about the sales. We didn’t have the Europeans or the Asian buyers, so it was bad because of that. It’s COVID and COVID has messed a lot of things up.”

Zaretsky will look to end the sales year on a positive note with his October sale quartet. All consigned by Paramount Sales, the group includes a filly by Street Sense (hip 325), a colt by Quality Road (hip 539), a colt by Gun Runner (hip 692), and a colt by Curlin (hip 1031).

“I have done fairly well in the past at the October sale,” Zaretsky said. “You want your horse to stand out and I’m hoping that’s what will happen with the four of them in October.”

Zaretsky has a commercial broodmare band of 15 head at his upstate New York farm and, like his October yearlings indicate, focuses on sire power when making his mating plans.

“I think it’s a bonus in New York-breds,” Zaretsky said of the sire power represented in his operation. “The stallion population in New York is mediocre. As a breeder, if you want to bring up the quality of horses to be in graded races, high-end stallions are the way to go with New York-breds. And there are a lot of opportunities at the track when they are New York-breds. Look, a New York-bred [Authentic {Into Mischief}] just won the Derby.”

Parlaying sire power into the sales ring, Zaretsky explained, “The hope is that you can sell for three times the cost of the stallion when you get into those realms. If you look at the averages for Into Mischief, [the stud fee is] $100,000 and their [yearling] average is over $400,000. So a three-time factor is a decent amount because to feed and take care of them is the same for a $5,000 mare or a $100,000 mare.”

He continued, “But you need the quality of the mare to hold it. You need a lot of black-type in its bloodlines. Whether it’s a runner or a producer or a daughter of a producer. Our Curlin that is in the October sale is a 3/4-brother to Connect. We bought the dam with a Candy Ride (Arg) in her belly absolutely with the thought of breeding her to Curlin after she foaled because of the bloodlines and the nicks to Connect.”

Hip 1031 is out of Whisper Wisdom (Rockport Harbor), a half-sister to GI Cigar Mile H. and GII Pennsylvania Derby winner Connect (Curlin). Zaretsky purchased the mare for $275,000 at the 2017 Keeneland November sale.

The Curlin yearling will be making his second trip through the sales ring next week after RNA’ing for $255,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Selected Yearlings Showcase in September. The youngster was offered during the auction’s opening section of New York-breds, which was in the unenviable position of leading off the entire yearling sales season.

“I would have not gone in the New York portion of that sale if I could do it again,” Zaretsky said. “I would have gone in the second portion of the sale. People who opted out of the New York portion to go in the second portion of the sale, they did better because they were mixed in with the higher-quality horses.”

Zaretsky’s highest-priced yearling this year was a filly by Ghostzapper (hip 242) who sold for $400,000 to Mike Pegram, Paul Weitman, and Karl Watson. The yearling is out of multiple stakes placed Lady of the Nile (Pioneerof the Nile), a mare Zaretsky purchased for $100,000 at the 2015 Keeneland November sale. Her first foal, the 3-year-old Chocolate Cookie (Declaration of War), is now two-for-three following a Belmont allowance win at the beginning of the month.

Zaretsky offered a filly by Into Mischief out of Indian Rush (Indian Charlie) at the Keeneland sale, but bought her back at $140,000. He re-routed the filly to last week’s Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s October Sale where she brought the auction’s second-highest price of $200,000.

“I sent her to that sale to stand out,” Zaretsky said. “There were a lot of Into Mischiefs in Kentucky in the October sale and I think she was the only Into Mischief in Florida. Florida has a tendency to like New York-breds also. So I sent her with Stuart Morris and it was a good result.”

Zaretsky purchased Indian Rush for $80,000 at the 2012 Keeneland January sale and sold an Into Mischief colt out of the mare for $750,000 to Shadwell Estate Co. at the 2017 Keeneland September sale. She is also the dam of stakes winners Harlan’s Honor (Harlan’s Holiday)-whose first foal is already stakes-placed–and March X Press (Shanghai Bobby).

Of his success with the family, Zaretsky said, “It’s fabulous. You dream to take a horse that has potential and to have the horse deliver black-type. It’s very exciting. Indian Rush has an Into Mischief by her side. He’s beautiful, looks exactly like the one I sold for $750,000. So I’m pretty excited about next year with him.”

Zaretsky’s plan is to sell all his foals, but he is content to pick and choose the best time to offer his stock.

“I’m not going to let horses go for nothing,” he said. “You’ve got to believe in what you’re doing. I am in the business of breeding and selling and if I don’t feel I’m getting adequate money, I’ll go to the 2-year-old sales.”

The Brooklyn native also has a pair of 2-year-olds set to go racing with trainer Linda Rice.

“I have an Honor Code out of Indian Rush (hip 1179) with Linda Rice,” Zaretsky said. “He did great in the 2-year-old sale, he worked in :9 4/5 at the OBS Spring sale, but he had a chip, so I took him home and fixed everything. He’s doing really well and I think he’ll run this year. And I have an Uncle Mo [out of Lady of the Nile] who will go to Linda probably next month. He hurt himself in the March sale (hip 176, :10 2/5)-he is a very big horse, he’s every bit of 17 hands, so it’s hard to push those types.”

Zaretsky began breeding horses in partnership with Dr. Jerry Bilinski of Waldorf Farm decades ago before eventually deciding to take over sole ownership of his breeding operation.

“I was big into horseback riding,” he explained of his first foray into the breeding industry. “I used to go in the foxhunts. I was going to retire one of my horses and breed her, but my friend Dr. Bilinski said, ‘Why would you go and breed a horse just to have a baby because you love the horse. If you want to breed horses, go buy yourself a mare in foal or a mare you could breed and at least get some economic reward. So I went out and I bought a mare in foal. I think it was $5,000 at the time-this was over 20 years ago-and I sold that yearling out of her for $22,000. Then I partnered with Jerry for at least 10 years. We had a lot of horses together and we did well. Eventually I said, ‘I think I’d like to do it on my own.’ I wanted to make my own decisions, my own economics at my own farm. He’s still my friend, but I do everything alone.”

Zaretsky, whose primary business is in consumer packaging for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, generally splits his time between New York city and his upstate farm. But he has been harboring upstate since the outbreak of the pandemic in the spring.

“I still live in the city, but I have the farm upstate,” he said. “I used to spend half a week in the city and half a week upstate, but I’ve been upstate since Mar. 12. It’s fun seeing the horses every day. It is really a pleasure.”

He continued, “I have 13 weanlings at my farm now in New York-two Empire Makers, an Uncle Mo, I have a Pioneerof the Nile and two Into Mischiefs.”

Despite the ups and downs of 2020, Zaretsky is planning to continue to pursue sire power in his 2021 matings.

“Some of the horses that are perhaps not producing, I’ll breed down because of the virus,” Zaretsky said. “I do have a contract for Into Mischief for one of my horses already and I think I’ll go to American Pharoah with another mare. We’ll see how we go. The good news is a lot of farms are lowering their fees to make up for the way the industry is going. It takes a lot of the pressure off for spending all of our money with the results not being what we hoped. The virus is not gone, the tracks are not open yet, per se, so you have to be somewhat cautious and they still need numbers. If you can breed to a stallion for $50,000 who was $75,000 last year, it gives you a lot more flexibility in overhead.”

The Fasig-Tipton October sale will be held next Monday through Thursday at the company’s Newtown Paddocks in Lexington. Bidding begins each day at 10 a.m.

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