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Racing a Timeless Odyssey for Smith Family

At first glance, it looks like a movie you've probably seen already. A horse-crazy girl leads her family into racing and, against all odds, they end up in the winner's circle after a big race. Only, for Gaylene Smith and her family, it's no movie. It's real life after Smith's 8-year-old granddaughter London asked for a racehorse early last year. Less than a year into operation, Smith's Willow's Green Stable won its first stakes race with Timeless Bounty (Elusive Hour), a $15,000 claim who took the family to Santa Anita for the GI Malibu S. last December and who will represent them in the GIII General George S. at Laurel Park Saturday.

“It all started with my granddaughter, she's a horse person,” Smith explained. “She started riding when she was five. She wants to do barrel racing and is working towards that as we speak. She is obsessed with all things Heartland and all things Secretariat and Seabiscuit. We were sitting there one day and we had just watched a race on T.V. and she had watched those two movies about 400 times. She said, 'I think we should have a racehorse.' I was originally kind of shocked. I said to my son, 'What do you think we have to do?'”

Smith's son Jeremy threw himself into the new endeavor.

“My son is a research person, so he started researching,” Smith said. “Last spring we got our first horse. And now we have 11.”

Before venturing into racing, the family had already come together to care for Smith's ailing 97-year-old mother at their Ohio home.

“We bonded because we all have shifts,” she said. “We all live together now because of my mom. We insist on keeping her home and I work full time, besides having race horses. So my son and his family, they have their shifts. My grandson is 21 and he has his shift. We bonded over my mom.”

Focusing on racing became something else for the family to bond over. And they aren't just weekend warriors. The Willow's Green horses, trained by longtime family friend Dave Wilson, Jr., are stabled on a farm where they receive individualized attention.

“Some people say we have a petting zoo,” Smith said. “They are all so different, they are all trained by Dave according to their personality. They don't all train exactly the same. It's the same basics, but the approach is different. We don't do anything with them for a few weeks. We let them evolve and try to figure out what their heads are like. Some of them are a little more difficult than others. And some of them are like big dogs.”

She continued, “We just have a different approach from what we've seen. We don't let them out in the pasture and do crazy stuff like that, but they are happy when they are at the farm. We

can be more hands on. We do have people to do stalls, but we do them, too. Dave is involved. Tim Maxey, our farrier, is like a family member, too. And we are all just kind of rocking and rolling with the horses and the races, and discussing which race is the best one.”

London Smith may just be the family's secret weapon.

“London came along and she's different,” Smith said with a chuckle. “They call her the horse whisperer. It doesn't matter if we just bought a horse that day, she wants to go in the stall and get them to lie down and lay down with them and talk to them. She says, 'I need to talk to them.'”

Last October, Willow's Green Stables made what would turn out to be its biggest acquisition to date, claiming then 3-year-old Timeless Bounty for $15,000 at Thistledown. Just two starts later, the colt became the stable's first stakes starter when he went postward as a 59-1 outsider in the $250,000 Steel Valley Sprint S. In an ending worthy of Hollywood, Timeless Bounty produced a powerful late rally to defeat a field which included established stakes performers Jaxon Warrior (Munnings) and Baby Yoda (Prospective) and earned over 11 times his claiming price.

“We got him in October and we didn't really know him that well when he shocked the hell out of everybody,” Smith said. “That day is a day I will never ever forget in my life. I would have been ecstatic with fourth or fifth because there were some nice horses in that race.”

Asked what it was like to watch her colors carried to victory in a stakes race, Smith said, “It was such a shock. My son just literally collapsed. We were speechless. I kept saying, 'Oh my God. Oh my God.' I'm crying, my son is crying. And London was saying, 'Daddy he just won.' Like why are you idiots crying? No matter what happens in the future, no day will be like this one.”

In recalling the day, Jeremy Smith used the word surreal more than once.

“We shed a lot of tears,” he said. “Our family has been going through quite a bit here lately with my grandmother not doing well. We've had some ups and downs as a family. The hugs, the tears and the embracing, was something that I don't think any of us will ever forget for the rest of our lives. It had nothing to do with the money–I don't think any of us could have told you what we'd won. That's what I think was neat about it. He was a representation about what our family has been through. He was off the pace, a 59-1 longshot, kind of an underdog. You get knocked down, some people give up on you, but you don't give up on yourself and you find a way to dig down deep and keep going. That's what he did in there. He wasn't expected to win. No one gave him a shot and I think he was just a representation of who and what we are as a family. If that makes sense.”

The victory earned Timeless Bounty and the Smith family a trip out West to test the deep waters in the Dec. 26 GI Malibu S. where he would finish fifth behind superstar Flightline (Tapit).

“He deserved the opportunity to be in that race,” Gaylene Smith said. “He had earned the right to be there. And so we flew him out there. I flew out there with some of my family and some of my family were already out there with him. There were lots of people–it's not like races out here– and we got the royal treatment, the meal, the whole nine yards. It was quite an experience. It was so different.”

Jeremy Smith described his first trip to Santa Anita like visiting the historic home of baseball's Chicago Cubs for the first time.

“It was an honor to be at Santa Anita–just going there and seeing the backdrop of the place. It was kind of like going to Wrigley Field for the first time,” he said. “You just felt the history of the place. It was beautiful.”

Of competing against a horse like Flightline, Jeremy Smith added, “Flightline is a special horse and it was an honor to be in that horse's presence and watch him run. He ran so effortlessly. It was an honor to be in a race with him.”

Timeless Bounty will get another try against graded company when he faces six foes in the seven-furlong General George Saturday at Laurel.

“We are excited,” Gaylene Smith said of the upcoming race. “I hope he does very well and makes himself proud.”

Smith is also looking forward to retiring from a 30-plus career in the food services industry to spend more time with her growing racing stable.

“I would love that. I would absolutely love that,” she said.

Looking at the winding road that has led to the 11-horse stable, Jeremy Smith said, “We have just been blessed and are enjoying the journey. That's what it comes down to. We didn't get into this business thinking it was going to be something that would take over our lives. But ever since we got into it, it's pretty much consumed all of us. There are no days off, it's around the clock. But honestly, I don't know if any one of us would change anything. Win, lose or draw, I think these animals have touched our lives in a different way. If none of them ever ran a race again, I think we would have a very tough time getting rid of any of them. They have become part of the family. They have welcomed us into their herd and we are blessed to have them in our life.”

Gaylene Smith is looking forward to the stable settling into its second year of existence.

“Last year, we had to start up, we didn't have anything,” she said. “We didn't have tack. We had to get everything. So hopefully this year, it will be a little bit more relaxed. As a family effort, it has been absolutely marvelous.”

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At 84, Reynaldo Nobles is Back in the Game

For Reynaldo Nobles, it was nice to have something to do. His jobs over the last few years included working as a security guard at Palm Meadows and as school crossing guard. But even as he got into his early eighties, he never gave up on the idea of training horses again.

His dream became a reality last month at Tampa Bay Downs. Now 84 and more than eight years after he had run his last horse, Nobles was back in the entries and back in the winner's circle. The win was delivered by a $10,000 claimer named Indian Buzz (Creative Cause), who is owned by Nobles's daughter, Jennifer.

“This is his motivation and it keeps him going every day,” Jennifer Nobles said. “It keeps him so happy. He still watches horse racing every day. Just to be a part of it again has been a dream come true.”

Nobles, a native of Cuba, started his first horse in the U.S. in 1971 and won a training title at Gulfstream in 1983. He got his big break when Robert Brennan hired him to be his private trainer. He trained Deputy Minster during the latter part of his career and was the trainer of Dehere. A sensation as a 2-year-old, Dehere was named juvenile champion in 1993 after winning the GIII Sanford S, the GII Saratoga Special S., the GI Hopeful and the GI Champagne.

Brennan's legal problems, which included his conviction in 2001 on money laundering and bankruptcy fraud, meant the end of his Due Process Stable. For Nobles, the days of training quality stakes horses were over. He won only six races in 2004 and stepped away from the game for seven years. He launched a comeback in 2011 and had his best year in 23 years when sending out 36 winners in 2013. But health problem caught up with him.

“I had a little problem with arthritis and it was getting bad so I decided to stop,” he said.

Nobles still has physical issues that might have stood in his way of a comeback, but his daughter figured out a way to work around them. Her teenage son, Anthony, 19, got involved in racing and started working as a hotwalker and a groom. He could do the heavy lifting for his grandfather and Nobles could teach his grandson the business.

“Anthony has pretty much grown up with the horses,” Jennifer Nobles said. “So I figured it's now time for us to start a family business. He helps my dad. My dad can't walk as good as he used to. It's a little bit harder for him to get back and forth, but with my son now helping him it's a lot easier.”

Jennifer Nobles has owned Indian Buzz for about a year and had been using Tony Wilson as her trainer. With the timing right for her father to take over, Nobles was listed as the trainer for the Jan. 23 race, which Indian Buzz won by three-quarters of a length.

“To do this along with my grandson really makes me feel good,” said Nobles, who lives with his daughter and grandson in Tampa. “It feels very good to be able to work with the horses again.”

Nobles was a Monmouth Park mainstay for years and the plan is for him to return to the Jersey Shore track this summer. His daughter said she will be on the lookout for a few more horses for him to train.

“My father is so excited to be back,” Jennifer Nobles said. “This is so good for him.”

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Empire Strikes Back with Morello

If the early trials have produced a Derby horse to “rise without trace,” then that might well turn out to be Morello (Classic Empire). As winner of two sprints round Aqueduct this winter, he obviously still has a long way to go–in every sense. But there's no mistaking his raw talent, nor the fact that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg even in that very stylish exhibition in the Jimmy Winkfield S.

Certainly Morello looks eligible to restore some deserved attention to his sire. Though they're all gasping in the wake of the phenomenal Gun Runner, to me Classic Empire has been rather neglected among the four Ashford sires who featured among the next six in the freshman's table last year. He's standing this year at $17,500–half his opening fee–and his fourth book came in at less than half of that assembled by Practical Joke, who has duly produced exactly the kind of precocious stock anticipated by all that sales buzz.

Yet Classic Empire laid very solid foundations with his first crop of juveniles, lacking only the kind of headline horse that so often covers a multitude of sins. Collectively they ranked fourth by prizemoney from 60 runners, fewer than each of his studmates: Practical Joke fielded 68, Cupid 75 and Caravaggio, having started his career in Europe, as many as 81. Five of Classic Empire's 21 juvenile winners earned black type, including Classy Edition, who followed up her debut win at Saratoga with a couple of state-bred stakes.

She had made $550,000 as a Timonium 2-year-old, in the same session where Morello–who had similarly clocked :10 1/5–realized $250,000 from BL Racing out of the Sequel Bloodstock draft. (He races in the silks of Blue Lion Thoroughbreds, Craig and Victoria Taylor.) That concluded his second pinhook cycle, having made $200,000 as a yearling at Fasig-Tipton the previous year (sold to Autrey Bloodstock by Paramount Sales, in the same consignment as GII San Vicente S. winner Forbidden Kingdom {American Pharoah}); and $140,000 when sold to American Equistock through Betz Thoroughbreds as a Keeneland November weanling.

Morello was bred in partnership by Robert Tillyer, who has meanwhile returned to Dixiana as farm manager after 18 years with Betz Thoroughbreds, and reproductive veterinarian Dr. Chet Blackey. They had bought his dam Stop The Wedding (Congrats), a winner just once in 25 starts at claiming level, after breeding a good one from her half-sister Saint Bernadette (Saint Ballado).

Saint Bernadette had cost them just $20,000 from Adena Springs as a 10-year-old at the 2009 Keeneland November Sale and the following spring they sent her to the rookie Pioneerof The Nile. The result was eventual GI Preakness S. third Social Inclusion, who prompted Tillyer and Blackey to move privately for his dam's half-sister after he broke the Gulfstream track record in thrashing Honor Code (A.P. Indy) in an allowance on his second start.

Saint Bernadette became something of a goldmine thereafter. A brother to Social Inclusion made $475,000 as a yearling; a Curlin colt brought $575,000; and her last foal, a filly by American Pharoah, realized $425,000.

“We just felt she was one of those mares that deserved a chance,” recalls Tillyer. “She'd been graded stakes-placed, she was never off the board in eight starts, one of her early foals had made good money, and she was very attractive herself. So we got lucky, managing to buy her for that money and then breeding her to Pioneerof The Nile when he was just getting started. And then we got lucky again breeding her to Curlin, who was still only $35,000, and would then make a great comeback before we sold that colt.

“Sadly we lost Saint Bernadette a couple of years ago, and overall she was just a bit unlucky with some of her offspring on the track. And it had looked like becoming a similar thing with Stop The Wedding. We were getting to the point where she was on the bubble, commercially, and opted to sell Morello as a weanling. He was always a lovely colt, really classy, and it was nice to see everybody making some money. Obviously Pat Costello [of Paramount] did a great job raising him, and I think he could have probably got a little more for him but for hitting the middle of a pandemic.”

As a son of Pioneerof The Nile, Classic Empire had been chosen for Stop The Wedding to try and hit the same kind of chord with the family as Social Inclusion.

“It was the usual thing of deciding what was going to be commercial, and what we could afford,” Tillyer says. “With where the mare was at the time, we couldn't justify Pioneerof The Nile [standing at $110,000 prior to his premature loss the following year], so we went with his son as the next best thing. Classic Empire was obviously a really talented horse, so it all made sense.”

If Tillyer's record is anything to go by–besides being ahead of the curve with Pioneerof The Nile and Curlin, as just noted, he co-bred GII Fountain Of Youth winner Ete Indien (Summer Front) from a $23,000 mare–then his approval augurs well for Classic Empire. But even the shrewdest horsemen need luck on their side and, having resolved to reorganise his own breeding interests on leaving Betz Thoroughbreds, he is now grateful that the market turned down the chance to buy Stop The Wedding at the 2020 Keeneland January sale. Instead, his good friend Nicky Drion stepped in to take a third after she failed to meet her reserve at $11,000, and she now boards at Foxtale Farm.

“I don't know what we'd have taken, to be honest, but obviously a lot more than she was making!” recalls Tillyer. “We knew she was a lovely mare. She's nice-sized, pretty correct in front, and every foal she's thrown has been beautiful. She's just been a bit unfortunate with her offspring on the track.”

Voric Stables also got lucky in picking up the Cairo Prince filly Stop The Wedding was carrying that day, deep in the September sale for just $16,000. They, too, will doubtless be following Morello's progress with enthusiasm.

“Yeah, it looks like he could be a good horse,” Tillyer says of Morello. “To me, knowing the family, he looks like a miler. But we'll see. Of course you'd love it if he can go a mile and a quarter. Time will tell and we're looking forward to seeing him in the [GIII] Gotham S. Mar. 5.”

With 50 starting points to the winner there, Morello could make it hard to turn down a tilt at the Derby. His first two dams are both by sons of venerable Classic influences in Congrats (A.P. Indy) and Runaway Groom (Blushing Groom {Fr}), and his fourth dam is by the sturdy turf/stamina influence Assagai. And of course Classic Empire, though a champion juvenile (and as precocious as they come from that sire-line), was consolidating as you would expect from his beautifully balanced pedigree when unfortunately derailing after a head defeat in the GI Preakness S.

Besides extending a resonant Classic sire-line, his maternal family is seeded through its first four generations by Cat Thief, Miswaki, Hoist The Flag and Princequillo. His third dam is a half-sister to champion sophomore filly Revidere (Reviewer) and the fifth dam, Alanesian (Polynesian), also features along the bottom line of Harlan's Holiday, Boldnesian and Ride The Rails. The lasting imprint shared by that trio, through Into Mischief, Bold Reasoning/Seattle Slew and Candy Ride (Arg), qualify Alanesian as a real linchpin of the modern breed.

Overall I'm confident that Classic Empire, granted adequate support, will prove a most wholesome and progressive influence. We actually gave him a place on the Value Podium for this intake, in our annual winter survey of Kentucky stallions, and if that seems a dubious distinction then don't forget he has already caught up with his studmate Practical Joke once. Having dropped down the divisional standings when discarding his rider in the GI Hopeful S., where all the plaudits went to winner Practical Joke, he came through in the Fall to reduce his precocious rival to a distant third at the Breeders' Cup.

But credit for Morello is obviously shared by his breeders. For Tillyer to be involved on the early Derby trail for the second time in three years is quite a remarkable achievement, at the level he operates in what is only a sideline to his day job.

Ete Indien was co-bred with another good friend, Eric Buckley, and sold as a Keeneland September yearling for $80,000. His dam East India (Mizzen Mast) is still only 10. She is in foal to War Of Will and, so long as she doesn't deliver too late, eyeing a date with Gun Runner next. Her 3-year-old daughter by Runhappy, sold as a weanling for $100,000, progressed to win a Churchill maiden for Rusty Arnold in November and is evidently well regarded.

Tillyer stresses that it was Buckley who was strongly interested by East India's deeper family, her dam being a half-sister to the important producers Words Of War and Ascutney (both by Lord At War {Arg}). And he says there's no big secret to his own eye for a mare: you obviously want something that will throw a good physical, and you don't want two blank dams when you come to sell. Bottom line is that Tillyer relishes ventures like this, with his buddies, as a fun ancillary to working for the ambitious farm where he first started out in Kentucky (under a previous ownership) a couple of decades ago and where he has already presided over the sale of its first ever seven-figure yearling, at Keeneland last September.

“It's funny how things work out, and to come full circle this way is fun,” he says of his return to Dixiana. “Working for Bill and Donna Shively is a bit of a dream come true, they've done an amazing job putting together three farms and some very nice mares, and they're just great people to work for. I've been very lucky, all round, and I'm very thankful to the people who have supported me. Chet and I have been friends for 20 years now, he's always been one of my biggest supporters, always willing to go in on a partnership, whether it's a pinhook or a broodmare. When these things go right, it's a lot of fun. And this mare deserves a good runner.”

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FHBPA Ballots in the Mail

The ballots for the 2022 Election of the Florida Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association Board of Directors were sent out Monday. The FHBPA has hired Election Services Co. as its independent third-party election provider. Ballots will be sent by email to all FHBPA members who have a valid email address on file or by paper ballot to the mailing address on file if there is no email address available. Election day is set for Mar. 15.

A total of seven candidates will run in the election: owners Adam Lazarus, Troy Levy, and David Rousso; and trainers Kathy Davey, Michael Lerman, Joe Orseno, and Terri Pompay. Outgoing President Stephen Screnci has withdrawn his name from consideration for the 2022 FHBPA Election.

Click here for more information on the election.

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