WITH BELLS ON (American Pharoah) starts her career for owners Bass Stables LLC and Cheyenne Stables after realizing $300,000 at the 2020 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. The dam, a juvenile stakes winner on the turf by Giant's Causeway, has already produced two winners on the dirt including Princess Mo (Uncle Mo). Second dam Marylebone (Unbridled's Song) was also a stakes winning juvenile, taking the GI Matron S. Trainer Todd Pletcher is 11-36 over the last five years with 3-year-old first-time starters on the dirt at Aqueduct and looks to add to that tally here. TJCIS PPs
MILLION-DOLLAR YEARLING FILLY DEBUTS AT TAMPA
6th-TAM, $40K, Msw, 3yo, f, 6f, 2:44 p.m.
When the hammer finally dropped at the 2020 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, GINA ROMANTICA (Into Mischief) left the ring for a final bid of $1,025,000, another million-dollar feather in her sire's cap. The filly makes her career debut here for owner Peter Brant and trainer Chad Brown after several quick works at Payson Park, including her most recent Mar. 6 where she went four furlongs in :49 4/5 to be the third-fastest of 33 at the distance. Gina Romantica is out of the prolific broodmare Special Me (Unbridled's Song) who, though not a winner herself, has produced the likes of MGSW Stonetastic (Mizzen Mast), MGSW Special Forces (Candy Ride) and MGSW and Lane's End stallion Gift Box (Twirling Candy). She picks up Irad Ortiz for the ride. TJCIS PPs
INTO MISCHIEF COLT TAKES ON THE TURF
6th-GP, $60K, Msw, 3yo, 7 1/2fT, 3:01 p.m.
Bred by Hare Forest Farm, WATASHA (Into Mischief) tries the turf for the first time for trainer Chad Brown. The bay colt realized a final bid of $450,000 at the 2020 Keeneland September Yearling Sale and returns off an eight-month layoff since making his only start as a juvenile, a distant fifth-place effort on the dirt July 24 at Saratoga. Watasha will seek to be the seventh winner out of the Elusive Quality mare Alwaan. He adds Lasix for the first time here, stretches out the extra furlong and a half, and gets Tyler Gaffalione aboard. TJCIS PPs
SPEEDY LORD NELSON COLT REACHES DEBUT
9th-GP, $60K, Msw, 3yo, 6f, 4:38 p.m.
From the first crop of recently deceased stallion Lord Nelson, CAPE TRAFALGAR (Lord Nelson) makes his first start at Gulfstream Park for owner Peachtree Stable. Bred by Spendthrift Farm LLC, the colt brought $325,000 at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton Selected Yearlings Sale, the second highest price paid for a Lord Nelson yearling that year. Cape Trafalgar is out of Goldrush Girl (Political Force), who placed second in the GII Golden Rod S. Trained by Saffie Joseph Jr., he comes into this race off a bullet drill Mar. 5 where he worked five furlongs in :59 to be the best of 31 at the distance. TJCIS PPs
There is always something especially shocking about the death of a stallion in his prime. Nature contains no more vivid an incarnation of vitality than this most literal of life forces, daily renewing the gift of existence. For a candle as bright as Get Stormy to be extinguished so abruptly, then, will leave a grievous void at Crestwood Farm.
Having spent five years in training, even at 16, Get Stormy's second career was only just entering its key phase. For not until the next year or two will his best stock start reaching the track, his books having soared in both quality and quantity after an early stakes barrage led, from his second crop, by triple Grade I winner Got Stormy. No less than her name implies, she was inlaid with the watertight genetic teak of her sire, matching his own record of graded stakes success through four consecutive campaigns.
It's all there in the McLean family slogan, “We raise runners.” In a business where so many horses are raised to do no more than stand and stroll, with breeders heading for the hills the moment the gavel comes down, that fairly rudimentary aspiration has an almost quixotic quality. But a trademark combination of blood and guts governs nearly the whole Crestwood roster: Jack Milton (War Front), for instance, won a Grade I at five and, much like Get Stormy himself with Moccasin (Nantallah), brings into play a Claiborne matriarch in Bourtai (Stimulus); while Heart To Heart (English Channel) won graded stakes annually from three to seven.
Get Stormy's nickname on the farm was Clyde, because he had so much brawn and timber that he evoked a Clydesdale. I've always had a mad theory (actually supported by the stats) that his reputation as a turf sire is self-fulfilling, and that his physical stamp, toughness, and speed-carrying style were ideally tailored for dirt. Be that as it may, despite nudging an initial fee of $5,000 no farther than $7,500, Get Stormy already leaves us half a dozen graded stakes winners. (That's as many as Maclean's Music, for instance, from the same intake.) And his two millionaires to date were respectively out of a $4,500 Malabar Gold mare, and a daughter of Brahms unsold at $18,000 on her only visit to the ring.
Click the arrow below to hear this column as a podcast.
Two days after Get Stormy's loss, on just the other side of Georgetown Road, the venerable heart of Go For Gin also gave out at the Kentucky Horse Park, his home since retiring from stud in 2011. At 31, he had been the oldest surviving Derby winner—and long enjoyed precisely the kind of dignified, pampered retirement everyone was someday anticipating, a few years down the line, for Get Stormy.
But while life's disasters seldom arrive with any rhyme or reason, perhaps we can glimpse some timely succor for Crestwood. Because any clients with mares booked to Get Stormy should certainly consider another stallion on the roster, also from the Storm Cat line, who only last weekend reiterated the striking promise he has shown from minimal opportunity to date.
Firing Line has mustered no more than 39 starters from his first couple of crops but 24 of them have already won and, having burdened him this winter with a place on a TDN “Value Podium”, I was delighted to see Venti Valentine confirm her candidature for the GI Kentucky Oaks with a seven-length romp in the Busher S. last Saturday. Other credits to Firing Line include Nakatomi's success in the Bowman's Mill S. at Keeneland last fall, after placing in the GII Saratoga Special S.; plus the recent Fair Grounds romp of his $210,000 2-year-old Oscarette.
Besides beating all bar a Triple Crown winner in the Derby, don't forget that Firing Line was only denied a juvenile Grade I by a head and broke the track record in winning the GIII Sunland Park Derby by 14 lengths. True to Crestwood principles, moreover, his talent was rooted in a mile-deep pedigree: his dam is a Grade I-placed sibling to the mothers of two Grade I-winning milers, their line extending to matriarchs Kamar (Key to the Mint) and Square Angel (Quadrangle).
Whether or not Firing Line can fill the breach, Get Stormy will undoubtedly be making posthumous additions to his legacy. After all, Giant's Causeway himself—perhaps the greatest conduit of all, for this sire-line—is not quite done yet, even though he bequeathed just three foals from a handful of final coverings before his death in the spring of 2018. Incredibly, two of them now line up together for the GII Langholm South Tampa Bay Derby with a total of 85 gate points on the line for the first Saturday in May.
Curiously, both were born on 22 February 2019. Classic Causeway is being brought along beautifully at Palm Meadows by Brian Lynch, with a foundation of longer breezes for his comeback before dialing up the speed since; while Giant Game has himself been working the house down after some running repairs on a displaced palate.
Still more remarkably, it was only last week that the final Giant's Causeway of all—born eight days after the other pair—made a winning debut for Shadwell in Dubai, charging clear by four and a half lengths. So the hope that the Iron Horse might “rust in peace”, which may sound irreverent but intends a wholly affectionate tribute to his ferrous qualities, is proving happily misplaced. This is not the dull shimmer of iron, but a last glint of genetic gold.
Perhaps Giant's Causeway is looking down in vexation after his son Protonico just had a Derby winner effaced from the record. Depending how things go at Tampa Bay, however, maybe this time he won't have merely a vicarious presence at Churchill, admirably though he is being represented by Not This Time.
Mind you, even giant steps must always be made one at a time. The card also features the resumption, at long last, of the colt who looked like the pick of his crop this time last year. Let's hope the patience of everyone involved with Greatest Honour (Tapit) finds due reward in his maturity.
Ironically, his own sire's frustrating sophomore career gave a quite misleading impression about the toughness he has tended to impart to his stock; and someday, no doubt, Greatest Honour will validly recycle one of the best pedigrees you will ever see.
Certainly he won't be one of those stallions, so corrosive to the breed, that teeter to market on a wafer-thin page and a whizzbang speedfigure or two. The Thoroughbred's vocation is not for the flimsy of limb, nor the faint of heart. So while Crestwood may have lost their flagship, they have not lost their bearings. They are navigating by the stars, by the fixed points of soundness and pedigree, and we would all do well to follow in their wake.
It may seem like yesterday, but the bombshell that was the announcement that more than two dozen people had been indicted for their alleged role in a horse doping scheme was made exactly two years and two days ago. What has happened to the 29 individuals since the day that shook horse racing to its core?
Here's a rundown:
Jorge Navarro: Navarro pled guilty to one count of drug alteration and misbranding and was sentenced to five years in prison, the maximum allowable sentence. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil was not the least bit sympathetic when Navarro blamed his juicing on the pressure he was under to win races and went so far as to say she wished she were able to sentence him to more than five years. In addition to the prison sentence, Navarro was ordered to payment of restitution in the amount of $26,860,514, reflecting winnings obtained through his fraudulent doping scheme. He is expected to begin his stay in prison as early as next week.
Jason Servis: Has not entered a guilty plea and seems intent on fighting this to the end. In November, in a superseding indictment, the government tacked on the extra charges of mail and wire fraud conspiracy. The maximum sentence under federal guidelines for the charge is 20 years. His trial has been delayed and is not expected to occur until the first quarter of 2023. He is represented by the high-profile attorney Rita Glavin, who also represented Andrew Cuomo, who resigned amid accusations of sexual harassment.
Louis Grasso, Donato Poliseno, Conor Flynn, Thomas Guido, Rene Allard and Richard Banca: The defendants come from the harness industry and are under an indictment that is separate from the Servis-Navarro indictment. Grasso is a veterinarian, who, the government charges supplied adulterated and misbranded PEDs to trainers. The others are all trainers. All six have been charged with one count of drug adulteration and misbranding and have maintained their innocence. Their case goes to trial June 27.
Erica Garcia and Michael Tannuzzo: Tannuzzo was a NYRA-based trainer with a small stable who, allegedly, helped supply Navarro with drugs. Garcia is a veterinarian who also faces charges that she helped procure drugs for Navarro. Their trial is slated for December.
Marcos Zulueta: A Parx-based trainer who was winning at a 31% clip before being indicted, has pled guilty and has been sentenced to 33 months. He also assisted Navarro in obtaining PEDs. Has not yet reported to prison.
Gregory Skelton: An Indiana-based veterinarian, he is no longer under indictment.
Seth Fishman: The Florida veterinarian ran a large scale operation that manufactured and sold PEDs, Fishman went to trial and was found guilty after the jury deliberated for less than two days. He was convicted on two counts of conspiring to violate adulteration and misbranding laws and the manufacture of PEDS and faces up to 20 years in prison. He was absent from the court room for the last two days of his trial and his absence has yet to be explained. He will be sentenced May 5.
Lisa Gianelli: Assisted Fishman. Her trial was postponed after her lawyer came down with COVID.
Ross Cohen: Is no longer under indictment and testified against Fishman.
Chris Oakes: A prominent harness trainer who used drugs on his own horses and also supplied Navarro with drugs, pled guilty and was sentenced to three years. His sentence will begin June 1.
Nick Surick: Another prominent Standardbred trainer, he is no longer under indictment.
Rick Dane, Jr.: A harness trainer, he has pled guilty and has not yet been sentenced.
Kristian Rhein: A veterinarian based in New York, he sold SGF-1000, the drug that Servis was allegedly using on his horses. He was sentenced to three years and is serving his terms at FCI Fort Dix.
Michael Kegley, Jr.: A sales director for a company that sold PEDs, Kegley was sentenced to 30 months and is serving his term at FCI Ashland.
Alexander Chan: Like Servis, mail and wire fraud charges have been tacked on to the original indictment and he faces up to 20 years in prison. Allegedly procured drug for Servis. His trial has been postponed until 2023, when he will be tried along with Servis.
Henry Argueta: Servis' former assistant, he is no longer under indictment. Would come as no surprise if he were to testify against his old boss.
Scott Robinson: A drug supplier, he pled guilty and was sentenced to 18 months and is serving his sentence at FCI Coleman Low. Granted an interview from prison to the TDN and said he had “thousands of customers.”
Scott Mangini: A drug manufacturer and a former partner with Robinson, was sentenced to 18 months and Is serving his sentence at FPC Pensacola.
Chris Marino: The harness trainer is no longer under indictment.
Sarah Izhaki and Ashley Liebowitz: A mother and daughter team who appeared to be minor players in the scandal. Izhaki pled guilty and was sentenced to time served plus three years of supervised release. Her daughter, Leibowitz, entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the government.
Rebecca Linke: A New Jersey-based veterinarian, Linke entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the government. The charges in the indictment will be dismissed if she complies with all the rules, regulations and special conditions of the agreement.
After finishing behind the likes of future graded winners Olympiad (Speightstown), Speaker's Corner (Street Sense) and Known Agenda (Curlin) in his first three starts, the homebred followed up on a Gulfstream maiden win in late 2020 to take the GIII Holy Bull S. and GII Fasig-Tipton Fountain of Youth S. in his next three appearances. He makes his first start since finishing a well-beaten third behind Known Agenda in the GI Curlin Florida Derby last March. (Click for more from trainer Shug McGaughey in Steve Sherack's APB series)
Also on the comeback trail is Dynamic One (Union Rags), who was second to Greatest Honour in that one's maiden-breaking success before going on to just miss behind stablemate Bourbonic (Bernardini) in the GII Wood Memorial S. last spring. After beating home just one rival in the GI Kentucky Derby, the $725,000 Keeneland September grad defeated the Curlin duo of Miles D and 'TDN Rising Star' First Captain in the July 30 Curlin S. at Saratoga and was last seen finishing seventh in the GI Runhappy Travers S. Aug. 28.
'Rising Star' Shirl's Speight (Speightstown) is a somewhat surprising inclusion in the Challenger, given that three of his four wins have come on the grass, including a 1 1/2-length defeat of defending champion Get Smokin (Got Stormy) in the GIII Tampa Bay S. Feb. 5.
