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WinStar Stablemates Off to a Flying Start in 2021

Coming off a banner year in which its fillies finished one-two in the GI Coaching Club American Oaks, WinStar Stablemates Racing burst out of the starting gate in 2021 going two-for-two on Friday. The victories included a win by Gulf Coast (Union Rags) in the Cash Run S. at Gulfstream.

“It’s nice to get off to such a great start and we are very excited for 2021,” said WinStar CEO and President Elliott Walden. “To be two-for-two is great for our owners.”

The WinStar racing partnership is an offshoot of WinStar Stablemates, a club formed in 2011 that allowed members inside access to all things WinStar. Hoping to attract new owners into the business, WinStar branched out and started WinStar Stablemates Racing in 2018. The stable won with its first-ever starter, capturing the 2018 Wayward Lass S. at Tampa Bay Downs with Well Humored (Distorted Humor). All of the Stablemates horses are fillies.

The partners don’t actually own the horses. Instead, they lease them for racing purposes for the year. At the end of the year, the fillies will either join the WinStar broodmare band, return to WinStar’s regular stable or be part of the next year’s Stablemates stable.

There are 100 slots available and Walden said about 40 have already been sold for this year. The members share in the ownership of all the horses in the stable and the fees they pay go to offset the training costs.

“With the first Stablemates program we had a fan initiative for about 10 years and thought this was the next step to grow more owners and to educate them,” Walden said. “This is a great opportunity for people to get a taste of what it is like to own high-caliber horses without a lot of cost. It gives people an opportunity to get in and share in the ownership without having to be a Kenny Troutt or a B. Wayne Hughes. Hopefully, our owners will graduate and go on and do their own thing, just the same as if they were involved with West Point or a number of other syndicates.”

WinStar Stablemates Racing had its finest hour in last year’s Coaching Club at Saratoga, where Paris Lights (Curlin) defeated fellow WinStar Stablemates runner Crystal Ball (Malibu Moon) by a neck. Paris Lights has not run back since and Crystal Ball returned to finish fifth in the GI Alabama S. Both will run this year and are again part of the racing partnership. Walden said that Crystal Ball could run within the next four to six weeks and that Paris Lights could return shortly after that. Paris Lights is back in training in South Florida with Bill Mott.

“She came up with a little something behind and needed some time off,” Walden said. “She didn’t need any surgery, but we felt like she was worth waiting on and wanted to do the right thing. We wound up having to give her 60 days off and we kept her in light training at the farm and just sent her back down about a month ago.”

Walden has high expectations for the Grade I winner in 2021.

“With Paris Lights being by Curlin, we are really excited about her 4-year-old year,” Walden said. “They tend to get better with age. She’s a filly who has done nothing wrong and improved in all her starts. I think she’s going to be one of the best fillies in the country this year.”

The 2021 roster for the stable consists of 12 horses. Walden explained that they are all fillies because WinStar owns many of its colts in partnerships with other stables, including the China Horse Club, and because well-bred fillies always have the potential to join the WinStar broodmare band when done racing.

WinStar’s big day on Friday began with Signify (Speightstown), the winner of a $15,000 maiden claimer at Turfway Park. About an hour and 20 minutes later, Gulf Coast squared off against seven others in the Cash Run, a one-mile stakes for 3-year-old fillies. It was her third lifetime start after she broke her maiden at Indiana Downs and then finished second in the Sandpiper S. at Tampa Bay Downs. Trained by Rodolphe Brisset, she won by a half-length. She was purchased for $300,000 at the OBS April Sale.

“What’s exciting is that with her win we now have 12 fillies and three of them are stakes horses,” Walden said. “That’s not an easy feat.”

With the Coaching Club win, WinStar Stablemates Racing had its best year ever in 2020. They won nine races, including the Iowa Distaff S. at Prairie Meadows. They have Paris Lights and Crystal Ball coming back and Gulf Coast is an improving horse. Walden is also looking forward to the debut of Seascape (Distorted Humor), a 3-year-old WinStar homebred trained by Dallas Stewart who is part of the syndicate.

“This definitely could be our best year,” he said. “We have two Grade I fillies and Gulf Coast is now a stakes winner. The best thing about this is the passion these owners have for the industry. It should be a very exciting year for us.”

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Saturday’s Insights: Freshly Minted Sophomores Debut

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency

HALF TO RUNHAPPY BEGINS HIS CAREER

8th-GP, $50K, Msw, 3yo, 1 1/16mT, post time: 3:42 p.m. EDT
PRAYER BOOK (Uncle Mo) gets the new year and his career started for seven-time Eclipse-winning trainer Todd Pletcher. Stonestreet bred the half-brother to champion and triple Grade I winner Runhappy (Super Saver), then sold him for a $500,000 hammer price at Keeneland September and stayed in to race the now 3-year-old in partnership with Harrell Ventures LLC. Stonestreet had purchased his dam for $1.6 million in 2015 just after Runhappy won the GI Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Prayer Book will have to get by Steadfast Stable’s Listowel Lad (Sky Mesa), another firster who is out of a GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup S. winner in Bit of Whimsy (Distorted Humor). The mare has already thrown two black-type winners from four starters, including GSW & GISP Caroline Thomas (Giant’s Causeway). Listowel Lad debuts for Barclay Tagg, who just lost stable star Tiz the Law (Constitution) to retirement. Flanagan Racing’s Please the Pharoah (American Pharoah) gets another shot here after a no-impact debut Nov. 14. The $320,000 OBS March buy (:21 1/5) is a half to English champion Certify (Elusive Quality) and to additional Grade I winner Cry and Catch Me (Street Cry {Ire}).

GODOLPHIN PAIR FACE OFF

10th-FG, $50K, Msw, 3yo, 6f, post time: 7:21 EDT
Some well-bred first-time starters, including a pair of Godolphin homebreds, make their debuts in this loaded Fair Grounds maiden. The first Godolphin runner is the Mike Stidham-trained and cleverly named GERSHWIN (Distorted Humor), who is out of the operation’s five-time Grade I winner Music Note (A.P. Indy). The mare is a half to another musically named multiple winner at the top level in Musical Chimes (In Excess {Ire}) and produced the 2020 GII Jim Dandy S. winner and GI Jockey Club Gold Cup runner-up in Mystic Guide (Ghostzapper). The Brad Cox trainee Colonel Bowman (Curlin) is Godolphin’s other entrant. The colt looks to become the sixth winner out of GI Ballerina S. winner Dubai Escapade (Awesome Again), who is a half to GISW Madcap Escapade (Hennessy), the dam of GISW Mi Sueno (Pulpit). Cox also sends Jerry Marks Stables LLC’s $180,000 Keeneland September buy Donzi (Distorted Humor), whose dam is a full-sister to GI Oak Leaf S. victress Rigoletta (Concerto), who in turn produced GI Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Battle of Midway (Smart Strike).

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This Side Up: John Keeps Bob Honest In Sham

We all trust that life must be better in 2021. But the immediate question is whether it will be ‘Good’ or maybe ‘Sweet’?

Right now, I’d settle for either. But it certainly looks an auspicious coincidence that the first race to sharpen focus on the Triple Crown trail–the opening leg of an adventure that reliably sustains us year in, year out–should include, among just five runners, one colt named Life Is Good and another out of Life Is Sweet (Storm Cat).

Their respective trainers, Bob Baffert and John Shirreffs, dominate the GIII Sham S. with two runners apiece. This, of course, was the race Baffert aptly chose last year to show that Authentic might just be the real deal. What a goofy animal he remained then, almost colliding with the rail as he hesitated to explore the overwhelming capacities lurking within. Despite virtually pulling himself up in the stretch, he won by nearly eight lengths: a spectacular overture to a campaign that will presumably see him formally anointed, later this month, as Horse of the Year.

The only colt ever to beat Authentic–if Swiss Skydiver (Daredevil) will indulge us a fairly technical distinction–was saddled by Shirreffs. Honor A.P. (Honor Code) seemed to do so on merit, too, but fortune scowled at him thereafter. As noted in our ongoing survey of Kentucky sires, Honor A.P.’s subsequent derailment (in running that extraordinary race behind Authentic in the Derby) does at least give breeders access to perhaps the most physically bewitching Thoroughbred of his crop at one-fifth the fee of Authentic.

Life Is Good arrives with a beguiling resemblance to Authentic, as another son of Into Mischief to have started out winning a sprint maiden at Del Mar in November. He did so in such flamboyant fashion, in fact, that Breeders’ Cup champion Essential Quality (Tapit) has suffered the indignity of being supplanted as the first horse named in the Derby futures pool. Certainly Life Is Good seems able to melt the stopwatch with little observable effort: the challenge here, much as was the case with Authentic, is to start stretching the trademark Into Mischief speed towards Classic distances. Baffert describes him as very aggressive, and an attempt to get him to rate didn’t really come off in a workout before Christmas. But these obviously remain very early days.

Success breeds success, and Baffert has earned the right to become a standard destination for a $525,000 Keeneland September machine like this. How interesting, then, to see Life Is Good accompanied by a horse of a wildly unfamiliar profile: Medina Spirit is by Protonico and was a $1,000 short yearling, pinhooked by Christy Whitman for $35,000 as a 2-year-old back at OBS this past summer. If he can upset in this race, he will give breeder Gail Rice hope that 2021 may yet prove every bit as remarkable as 2020, when Speech (Mr Speaker)–a filly she bred from a $7,500 mare–won the GI Ashland S.

Anyhow, the force certainly remains with this record-breaking barn, which also houses a monster with the potential to dominate the older horses this year, judging from that staggering comeback by Charlatan (Speightstown) in the GI Runhappy Malibu S. As such, possibly Shirreffs can feel some empathy with the horse whose memory is honored in this race. What a time to be a self-effacing genius training in California!

Sham is famously thought to have run the second-fastest Derby in history, but was unfortunately foaled in the same crop as the fastest of them all in Secretariat. He came back, moreover, with two front teeth dangling grotesquely from his jaw after slamming his head against the gate. What a wonderful horse he was: as statuesque as he was brave. Spared the attentions of Big Red, Sham won the GI Santa Anita Derby in 1:47 flat. And how skillfully he was prepared for the Classics by Frank ‘Pancho’ Martin, whose horsemanship was inherited by his late son Jose, trainer of the flying Groovy (Norcliffe); and in turn by his grandson Carlos–as evinced in the career of Grade I winner Come Dancing (Malibu Moon), who missed almost her whole sophomore year but has shown unfailing appetite as a nine-for-19 millionaire.

Both Sham and Secretariat were out of Princequillo mares. So, too, was Kris S.–the damsire of Life Is Sweet, saddled by Shirreffs to win the GI Ladies’ Classic the same year Zenyatta (Street Cry {Ire}) beat the gentlemen at the Breeders’ Cup.

For Shirreffs to try Life Is Sweet’s son Waspirant (Union Rags) in a Grade I straight after breaking his maiden speaks rather better for his potential than did his performance on the day. Barnmate Parnelli (Quality Road) apparently arrives on a more positive curve, having run both Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) and Spielberg (Union Rags)–rivals that have amplified the form in the meantime–close before finally breaking his maiden.

Shirreffs saddled the disappointing favorite against Spielberg in the GII Los Alamitos Futurity S., Red Flag (Tamarkuz), who had previously romped in the GIII Bob Hope S. But one way or another, it’s good to see him with several youngsters standing up to Baffert in his own backyard. None appears to have quite the charisma of Honor A.P., from this remote vantage anyway, but what I do know is that they are in the very best of hands.

The past five Sham winners include four subsequent Grade I winners in Authentic, McKinzie (Street Sense), Gormley (Malibu Moon) and Collected (City Zip): three for Baffert, one for Shirreffs. You can be pretty confident, then, that what this field lacks in quantity will be redeemed in quality. Earlier winners Goldencents (Into Mischief) and Tapizar (Tapit) later confirmed an affinity for the track in winning the GI Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile; while Colonel John (Tiznow) returned to win the Santa Anita Derby on his way to the GI Travers S.

But the name that resonates right now, from the roll of honor, is 2006 winner Bob And John (Seeking the Gold). Though actually named for Stonerside owner Bob McNair and manager John Adger, this race reminds us that another Bob, for all his fantastic achievements, is not the only show in town–even on the West Coast. Yes, he’s the greatest showman. But he will absolutely respect the understated John who takes him on again today.

In fact, if 2021 is really going to be a better year, then there could hardly be a happier symbol than the induction of Shirreffs, however appalled by the attention, into a Hall Of Fame whose members will surely feel their own distinction diminished until it is shared by him. In this era of industrial numbers, he remains a professor of the old school, and recent inductees like Mark Casse and Steve Asmussen have duly banked far more prizemoney. Likewise Todd Pletcher, who becomes eligible for induction this year. Per starter, however, Shirreffs has earned $16,132 compared with scores of $18,043, $10,002 and $7,755 respectively for Pletcher, Casse and Asmussen. Take Zenyatta out of the equation, moreover, and Shirreffs would still be at $13,852.

The best measure of a champion is the rival who does not permit him complacency, even in his own dominion. That was true of Secretariat and Sham. And it’s true of Bob and John.

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Florida Trainers React to Lasix Ban in Stakes

In Imprimis (Broken Vow), Joe Orseno has the morning-line favorite in Friday’s Janus S. at Gulfstream, the first race that will be held at the South Florida track under new rules that prohibit the use of Lasix in stakes races. Orseno isn’t looking forward to what will become the new normal for horsemen across the country at most major tracks.

“It’s a big adjustment and I’m not fond of the new rules,” he said. “I don’t see how you can take a horse who has been running on Lasix his whole life and all of a sudden penalize the best horses in the country for being good horses. They didn’t think this through. I don’t know how it won’t be animal cruelty when you see a horse come back and there is blood coming out of both nostrils.”

Though no fan of the new rules, Orseno doesn’t believe that Imprimis will have a problem and he did start the turf sprinter without Lasix in 2019 when venturing to Royal Ascot for the G1 King’s Stand S. Imprimis was sixth that day in his only career start without the anti-bleeding medication. But Orseno is adamant that the new rules will cause more problems than they will solve.

“Lasix isn’t going away,” he said. “These horses are still going to train on it and we’re going to breeze our horses on it. We’re going to do everything but run on it that day. And you know what? They’re going to find other things to use on these horses, whether it’s tomorrow or the next day. Someone down the line is going to find something they can cheat with and everyone is going to find out about it. All they are doing is creating cheaters in the sport. This just isn’t good.”

Trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. will send out Miss Auramet (Uncaptured) in the day’s Abundantia S. It will be her 17th career start and first without Lasix. Like Orseno, he is not a fan of the new regulations.

“I have been doing this for a long time and the one medication that I have seen that has been most important for the well being of the horses has been Lasix,” he said. “There has been a negative reaction to Lasix, but not from the horsemen or by horse people that use it. They say a concern is that it masks other drugs. I don’t see it that way. I see it as a medication that people take every single day. It helps people without doing anything negative to them and it’s the same thing with horses. People that aren’t horse people have made these decisions and I think it was somewhat fueled by PETA and others. If you went ahead and polled all the horse trainers they would be overwhelmingly for the use of Lasix.”

Lasix will be less of a factor in the Cash Run S., a race for 3-year-old fillies. With Lasix having been banned in 2-year-old races at Gulfstream in 2019, most of the starters have been running medication free. That’s nowhere near the case for the Janus S., which brings together a group of veteran turf sprinters, most of whom have never run without the medication. That includes the second choice on the morning line, Extravagant Kid (Kiss the Kid). Trained by Brendan Walsh, the 8-year-old veteran will be making his 47th career start. Walsh has no idea what to expect.

“You wonder what’s going to happen with an older horse like this one who has run a bunch of times on Lasix,” he said. “How is he going to react to it? We’ll just have to see what happens. He’s not a bleeder but he’s never run without it. We’ll be able to form a better opinion after we’ve seen a bunch of these races. It’s hard to make any judgments.”

While Walsh is willing to keep an open mind, he is among the many horsemen who believe the sport has far bigger problems than Lasix.

“I don’t think this is the be all and end all of the problems here,” he said. “There are a lot more factors outside of this. Lasix is one of the sport’s lesser problems.”

Trainer Jose Delgado will start The Critical Way (Tizway) in the Janus. He says his horse has been getting the minimum dosage of Lasix and should be fine without the medication. But he is among those who is not in favor of the ban. He doesn’t want to see situations where horses are visibly bleeding from nostrils after running without Lasix.

“I really don’t think it is fair for a lot of horses because they normally bleed,” he said. “I don’t know why they are doing this. Maybe PETA has something to do with it. You’re going to see horses come out of races bleeding from the nose and the public is going to see that. That’s not going to look good. But what can we do? We have to follow the rules.”

Kent Sweezey has Blind Ambition (Tapit), a horse who comes from off the pace, in the Janus. Sweezey said the Lasix ban is more likely to hurt front runners because they exert themselves early on in their races.

“I think the pace will be a big thing,” he said. “I’d love to see it where horses settled rather than always having some horse going :22 and change on the front end. You may not see that anymore because if they do that they’re going to bleed without the Lasix. It could be so bad that they won’t be able to run for another six weeks or at least run competitively for another six weeks.”

That’s something bettors may need time to figure out. And not only will they have to decipher races like the Janus and the Abundantia where every horse is coming off Lasix, there are nine horses on the Friday card at Gulfstream that are racing with Lasix for the first time. There will be dozens more in the days ahead, most of them newly turned 3-year-olds who are coming out of 2-year-old races where Lasix was banned in 2020.

Orseno wishes they just left everything the way it was.

“There are a lot of things they need to address, things a lot more important than Lasix,” he said. “And now they are picking on the best horses in the country by banning it in stakes races. To me, it just doesn’t make any sense.”

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