With six wins–five of them in graded stakes–and just over $1.6 million in earnings, Rattle N Roll has been a big success for the Mackin family's Lucky Seven Stable. After a two-month break from competition, the chestnut will face seven others in the 1 1/4 miles Gold Cup, long one of the premier races in the country for older horses.

From the rail out, the complete field for the Jockey Club Gold Cup.
1 – Proxy (Tapit)
2 – Unbridled Bomber (Upstart)
3 – Warrior Johny (Tapit)
4 – Rattle N Roll (Connect)
5 – Clapton (Brethren)
6 – Tyson (Tapit)
7 – Duke of Love (Cupid)
8 – Bright Future (Curlin)
*All starters will carry 126 pounds.

With a late-running style, Rattle N Roll benefits from some speed to take aim at. McPeek said that 10 furlongs should be within his range.

“You don't know how the pace of that race will unfold,” McPeek said. “He's not run that distance but I don't have any doubt he's going to like it. In hindsight, a year ago he won the St. Louis Derby but he could have run in the Travers. I'm excited to see him go that far.”

McPeek has targeted the Gold Cup for Rattle N Roll, who has won three of five starts this year. He opened the season with a non-threatening fourth in the GII New Orleans Classic on Mar. 25. A month later at Keeneland, Rattle N Roll won the GIII Ben Ali. He moved on to Baltimore to win the GIII Pimlico Special by a nose and ran his win streak to three in the GIII Blame on June 3 at Churchill Downs. On July 1, he ended up a half-length behind West Will Power in the GI Stephen Foster at Ellis Park.

Rattle N Roll (outside) wins the GIII Pimlico Special | Horsephotos

“He ran pretty steady and hard this spring,” McPeek said. “He had some back-to-backs and then I just thought that waiting for the Gold Cup would be a good idea. He's been up here all summer and thrived.”

Rattle N Roll has had five works during his time at the Spa.

McPeek said that even in defeat, Rattle N Roll was impressive.

“I think his last race, when he was beaten West Will Power, that was his best race,” McPeek said. “He ran super that day. It was quite hot that day down at Ellis, too.

Bred by St. Simon Place, Rattle N Roll is out of the Johannesburg mare Jazz Tune. He brought $55,000 as a weanling at the 2019 Keeneland November Sale and McPeek purchased him as a yearling for $210,000 at the Keeneland September Sale.

“You could see that he would develop into a big, handsome older horse,” McPeek said. “He's a little bit different-made than most. He stands over himself. He's a little upright, but has been smart from the beginning.”

Rattle N Roll made the second start of his career at Saratoga on Aug. 26, 2021 against maidens going 1 1/8 miles. McPeek said he bolted after getting hit in the left eye in the second turn and did not finish the race. He broke his maiden at Churchill Downs on Sept. 23 and picked up a GI victory in the Breeders' Futurity. A foot injury kept him out of the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

Last year, he was tested on the Triple Crown trail, but was well-beaten in the GII Fountain of Youth, the GII Louisiana Derby and the GI Blue Grass. McPeek changed course a bit and the colt won the American Derby, the St. Louis Derby and the GIII Oklahoma Derby.

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“I can't go in there and buy those mares for $200,000 or $300,000,” Wente says. “They're just not going to work out for me. You'd be so heavily invested, at that point, it would be no fun. And that's what keeps me going every day, the fun of it. Trying to find young mares with blank dams, and just sitting on them for a couple of years, and seeing if their families can go to work for you. Because when they do, it's so much more of a thrill if you took a shot on something nobody wanted.”

And who knows, maybe there's something in this temperate response to his recent success that explains why his program is functioning so effectively in the first place. Maybe the kind of person who would become giddily convinced of his or her genius would never have had the clarity required to spot the same bargains.

Wente first demanded our attention last fall, thanks to the very first crop bred from a handful of mares acquired, some five years previously, after he had moved his program from Indiana to St. Simon Place in Kentucky. Four of these juveniles had contested “Win and You're In” races for the Breeders' Cup. Three won; the other ran second. Their dams had cost Wente and his partners a total $32,400.

Everyone was asking him what his secret was. He shrugged. “Am I just really, really lucky?” he asked his buddy Tommy Eastham of Legacy Bloodstock. “Or is something going on here?”

“Well, I guess anybody can be lucky once or even twice,” Eastham replied. “But man, you're just doing it over and over again. You've got to be doing something right.”

Rattle N Roll won Keeneland's Breeders' Futurity | Coady

The right thing to do, next, was to close out the cycle by cashing in a couple of those mares. Wente had bred GI Breeders' Futurity winner Rattle N Roll (Connect) from Jazz Tune (Johannesburg), found for just $20,000 at the Keeneland November Sale of 2016. Back at the same auction last fall, Hunter Valley Farm bought her for $585,000. C J's Gal (Awesome Again) had been even cheaper, picked out for $9,500 in the same ring in January 2016. Her daughter Hidden Connection (Connect) having won the GIII Pocahontas S. by nine lengths, Woodford Thoroughbreds gave $450,000 for the mare.

Time, you would have thought, to let the dust settle awhile. But Wente was only just getting started. Since then, a couple of other mares to have caught his eye have also made a name for themselves.

Just about the least surprising thing to emerge from the GI Kentucky Derby success of Rich Strike (Keen Ice) was that his dam Gold Strike (Smart Strike) had been sold to Wente deep in the 2019 Keeneland November Sale, for just $1,700. Admittedly this was a rather different case: an older mare, picked out for a friend. But then last weekend Tawny Port (Pioneerof the Nile), who had finished seventh at Churchill, confirmed himself one of the crop's most progressive colts in the GIII Ohio Derby. And it turned out that his dam Livi Makenzie (Macho Uno) had likewise been sold since his foaling, to Wente and partner Scott Stephens, for $30,000 at Keeneland November 2020.

Wente happily credits this latest coup to Carrie Brogden of Machmer Hall, a trusted mentor ever since his Bluegrass transfer.

“When I'm at a sale, I never go to the barns to look at mares,” Wente says. “I never look at a book and say, 'Okay, let's go see these 10 today.' I buy them coming into the ring, and I'm trying to get a deal on. And Carrie was sitting there, and said, 'Hey, this mare coming up, you need to take a look at her: we sold the Pioneerof the Nile yearling out of her for WinStar in September for $430,000.' We're kind of suckers for chestnuts anyway, and I liked the way she looked, and I figured that a real good Pioneerof the Nile colt could be anything. I just thought the mare might be too expensive. Because she could run, she was a stakes winner [and graded stakes-placed]. I thought she'd make $75,000 to $100,000. But I thought, 'Hell, we'll give it a shot.' And we got her.”

Tawny Port followed up a Stonestreet Lexington win at Keeneland with last weekend's Ohio Derby | JJ Zamaiko Photography

She came with a bonus, as she was carrying a filly by Always Dreaming–who has meanwhile obtained a residual value as half-sister to Tawny Port. And while “a really nice colt” by Global Campaign followed this spring, his Apr. 25 delivery left his mother only a short window and she missed on a single covering.

“But that's fine, she's in her prime [13] and the year off will do her good,” Wente remarks. “She can get back on an early cycle next time. But we do like her baby, and if Tawny Port can go on and win a Grade I, then it's all good. She's a really laid-back mare, a real sweetheart.”

As for the dam of Rich Strike, she was being culled so cheaply that Wente reckoned her ideal for Indiana horseman Merrill Roberts.

“When I'm buying these mares, a lot of the time I'm thinking in the back of my head about people who have asked me to look out for one,” Wente says. “That particular mare I bought strictly for my buddy Merrill, because they'd just got a stallion [Candy Ride (Arg)'s son Looking Cool] going and I thought she's be perfect for him, with her race record and pedigree, if they could get her in foal.”

Unfortunately that final part of the equation proved difficult, and Roberts turned her over to Austin Nicks the very week that her son came out of nowhere to land the Derby. (Nicks, unsurprisingly, wasted no time in sending the mare to Munnings!)

As already indicated, however, Wente has a properly seasoned perspective on all this success. In fact, he has an unhappy bond with Eric Reed, trainer of Rich Strike, whose career was likewise nearly unraveled by a barn fire.

Wente had become captivated by horses when visiting the barn of his stepfather, former Hoosier Park trainer Tom Hickman. Before long, even though money was tight, Wente found himself buying one of the babies.

“I way overpaid, though!” Wente recalls. “He charged me $5,000 and, looking back, the horse probably wasn't worth $200. It was for me, though, at the time. I wanted it so bad. I was driving a truck in those days, and giving him like $500 a month for this horse. And I'd just got it all paid off, and the horse had just had his first run. They were stabled down there at the old Quarter Horse track in Henderson, Kentucky, and one night I got a call, 2 a.m., to say he'd lost all these horses burned up in a fire.

“He had always told me, 'You know, if you're not willing to put $1,000 in an ashtray and burn it, don't get into this business.' To this day I always try to remember that. Only in my case it wasn't bills in an ashtray. It was that poor horse in a burning barn. But I was hooked, even so. Next day I was back on it, looking for a new one.”

Wente picked out the Derby winner's dam at Keeneland November in 2019 for a friend | Coady

Looking back, in fact, Wente wonders whether the early difficulties he has had to overcome–both in his own life, and then in his journey of Thoroughbreds–have condensed into a foundation stone essential to his better fortunes now.

“We were raised poor,” he stresses. “And I had my struggles, trying to find my way. I couldn't save money. I owed everybody. I robbed Peter to pay Paul. But I straightened up. I figured I wanted more from life. And I think it was the horses that did that for me.

“I don't know if you need that; whether you need to know the bottom to appreciate everything more. But now, when I look back to when I was new to the game, and thinking of those really poor horses as the best thing in the whole world, and my stepdad teaching me all those things, him being so back in the old ways, I think that really helped me towards where I am today. Having all that under my feet gave me a different perspective.”

Wente is candidly disparaging about the animals he raised in Indiana, but they sharpened his judgement and taught him to respect every horse as a potential opportunity. Coming to Kentucky just elevated the caliber of the disrespected, the rejects.

Conceivably, moreover, perhaps the resilience Wente had himself acquired can be shared with the young stock on St. Simon Place?

“It's so true,” Wente replies. “If you baby them, pamper them, to me they're not going to make racehorses. They need to get out there, need to knock heads, knock bodies. They need to get cuts, to get sore. They need to be in the snow, in the rain, in the heat. They need a struggle. Because when I struggled, I got tough. And I think it's the same with horses.”

MSW One Timer, another bred by Wente and St. Simon Place | Coady

Maybe, then, that's at least part of the answer. Not that many of those asking Wente for his “secret” will find that very helpful. It was only as an outsider, making a journey few would choose by design, that Wente found redemption in horses. Maybe that couldn't have happened if, like so many competitors, he had been born to this way of life, and not in suburban poverty near St. Louis.

“Everybody's just shaking their head and they're like, 'How in the world are you doing this!?'” says Wente with a chuckle. “And like I said, I don't know whether I'm just really, really lucky, or I'm doing something right. But I think the people that have the wealth to back themselves up would still rather buy mares with more page, mares with some produce under them, mares that are already proven out. But they've got the money. Me, I do the opposite. Because I have to buy cheaper mares, I'd rather buy one that has no page but might get some runners. Because things can change so fast. I bought Spanish Star (Blame) for $1,500 off the track [Keeneland November 2017], and then, bam, her brother [Sir Winston (Awesome Again)] wins the Belmont. And now she's had One Timer (Trappe Shot).”

That colt is currently four-for-five, his sole defeat at the Breeders' Cup. But while a lot of things have been falling into place, Wente emphasizes that he has not done it all on his own. On the farm Calvin and Shane Crain run a parallel sod-growing business, and he has partners in a broodmare band now extending to 40 or so, as well. And whatever inspiration Wente may bring to the equation himself, he will only take credit for perspiration.

“You've got to be dedicated,” he says. “You have to live and sleep this business. I'm hands on. I like to get out there and mow my own grass. I don't know if that helps me do what I'm doing, but I do know that I love it. And since I came over here, and Carrie took me under her wing, everything's been going great. I just feel blessed.”

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Code of Honor won the 2019 GI Runhappy Travers S. and GI Jockey Club Gold Cup and was second in the GI Kentucky Derby. On the board in 14 of 20 starts, the 6-year-old chestnut won seven times and earned $2,981,320.

Code of Honor stands for $10,000.

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The colt, bred by St. Simon Place and Machmer Hall, is out of Chelsea Road (Speightstown – Lambert Point, by Charismatic) who was the top priced mare purchased at the Keeneland November Sale for the sire.

Tommy Wente said of the foal, “He's a big attractive colt. I'm very pleased. (He's) got great leg and substance and a very kind eye.”

Carrie Brogden added, “He looks just like his father did as a baby.”

Gift Box (also bred by Machmer Hall) broke his maiden at Belmont Park with an impressive 93 Beyer and went on to become the highest-earning colt of leading sire Twirling Candy. The stallion comes from a strong female family, whose siblings include Stonetastic, Special Forces and Gina Romantica.

Gift Box stands for $10,000.

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St. Simon Place's Tommy Wente said of the foal, “He's a big attractive colt. I'm very pleased. [He's] got great leg and substance and a very kind eye.” Carrie Brogden added, “He looks just like his father did as a baby.”

Gift Box, bred by Machmer Hall, was accorded 'Rising Star' status for a first-level allowance victory at Belmont in 2016 and became an older horse of considerable importance for Hronis Racing and John Sadler, winning three graded stakes events, including the 2019 GI Santa Anita H. and back-to-back runnings of the GII San Antonio S. He retired to Lane's End with six wins from 18 starts and earnings of $1,127,060.

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“He (Hickman) was a trainer for years and he had a house in Indiana so when my mom moved to Indiana with him, I would go visit,” he said. “He kept all his racehorses in his barn and when I saw the first one, I was hooked. I just knew, 'I have to have one of these.' And the rest is history.”

More than 20 years later and Wente is on the precipice of one of the best seasons of his life as a breeder. His farm, St. Simon Place, recently produced stakes winner Hidden Connection (by Connect), who took the Grade 3 Pocahontas Stakes on Sept. 18 at Churchill Downs. The filly, along with several others already making an impression on the track, could send Wente and his partners to the Breeders' Cup World Championships with a roster that many Thoroughbred breeders never achieve.

But back in 1999 when Wente made his first foray into racing, the idea of the World Championships — or any graded stakes race for that matter — seemed a world away from his reality.

“My stepdad was a trainer and he got me my first horse,” said Wente. “I actually ended up losing that horse in a fire at a Quarter Horse track in Henderson, Ky. So that didn't go very well. But I stayed in the business, and I started off in the Indiana-bred program because that's where I'm from. I started at the bottom with no money, and we were foaling a lot of junk, but I thought it was the best thing in the world.”

Working and breeding in Indiana, Wente spent several years in the Hoosier State building up his program and his contacts. When the day-to-day operations began to stagnate, and with the allure of bigger prizes just over the state line, he decided it was time to make a change and shift the center of his operations south of the Mason-Dixon.

“It got to the point where I wasn't getting anywhere. I felt like I was in a rut,” said Wente. “So, I had a buddy of mine in Kentucky that had a farm, and I had a chance to move in on that deal. I just made the switch and came down. I have two partners now, they're sod famers — Calvin Crain and Shane Crain — So they do sod and I do horses.”

The trio now owns and operates St. Simon Place, a nearly 400-acre farm in Lexington, Ky. While the Crains focus on their sod business, the Kentucky Turf Company, Wente keeps his priority on the horses. In addition to breeding and foaling, the farm also offers yearling prep, lay-up, and boarding.

With the move to Kentucky came the opportunity for more frequent visits to the sales grounds and Wente wasted little time in buying. His strategy from the start was to suss out the diamonds in the rough: mares with minimal price tags that hold the prospect of future returns.

Hidden Connection wins the G3 Pocahontas Stakes at Churchill Downs.

“I bought a few mares and one of those that I bought was C J's Gal, who is the dam of Hidden Connection,” he said. “She was only about $9,500. Then the other mare we bought was Jazz Tune, she was $20,000. Actually, she just had a winner the other day by Connect, a maiden special weight winner.

“Our 2-year-old crop this year is unbelievable. I sold and Indiana-bred for $130,000 in October last year. Donato Lanni bought her for Quarter Pole, and she (Electric Ride) ended up getting a TDN Rising Star mention on his first time out. I also bought a mare out of a sale named Spanish Star for $1,500 and I bred her to Trappe Shot. After that baby was born, Sir Winston won the Belmont Stakes (G1) and he is Spanish Star's half-brother, so I ended up selling her for $150,000 privately. That baby, One Timer, is entered in the Speakeasy Stakes at Santa Anita.

“Then we have the 2-year-old out of Jazz Tune, Rattle N Roll, broke his maiden at Churchill and he's nominated for the Claiborne Breeders' Futurity (G1) at Keeneland. I don't know if it will work out, but it's just so exciting because that's a “Win and You're In” race for the Breeders' Cup. And of course, Hidden Connection looks like the real deal and we're all so excited to see what she does.

“I think I spent like $300,000 at Keeneland last year in November and I got a lot of babies out of those mares. All of those will go straight into the sale this November. I thought last year was a buyer's market so that's why I bought, and it really looks like it'll pay off because I got some fantastic foals.”

Today, Wente's broodmare band is comprised of close to 45 mares, several of which he owns with another partner, Scott Stevens. That being said, he does have plans to pare down in the coming months. Both C J's Gal and Why Oh You — the dam of Electric Ride — are entered in The November Sale, Fasig-Tipton's premier breeding stock sale, with the understanding that if their foals don't jump up to hit the board in their next races, they could remain with Wente on the farm.

“I'm getting to the point though where I don't want to get much bigger,” said Wente. “I'm working on trying to get some numbers down because I get more happiness out of buying cheap mares, watching them hit, and then reselling them for more money. I love that part of the game. We're getting hefty offers on C J's Gal, but I was informed to shut that down. If hers or one of the foals hit, then I'll probably sell. I know those mares are hard to find, but I can't always afford to keep them.”

While he now breeds largely in Kentucky, Wente continues to foal out a handful of mares in Indiana and shares part ownership of the stallion Speightsong, who stands at Swifty Farm in Seymore, Ind. Wente does race some of his stock with trainer Mark Casse, but his priorities lay heavily with breeding and selling. With so much upside in the pipeline — from Hidden Connection to Elective Ride, to One Timer, to Rattle N Roll — Wente finally feels that he, and his horses, have found their stride.

“We had an incredible yearling sale this year,” said Wente. “I think we sold eight horses for $756,000. None were spectacular but they were all good horses, and it was a great sale for everyone. I think I have a pretty good program going and I've gotten to work with some great people like Carrie and Craig Brogden of Machmer Hall, who consign my yearlings. I owe a lot to them, they steered me the right way. I also have friends I count on like Tim and Nancy Hamlin at Wynnstay. They've taught me a lot, too. I'm just blessed that I've met so many people who really help me.

“I'm not afraid to listen and learn things. I don't know it all, I just take it all in. With this game, the highs are the highs, and the lows are the lows. There is not in between. You will have more lows than highs, but you have to keep pushing through. It just seems like everything we did and the money we spent is coming full circle. I don't know the method to my madness, but it seems to work. I'm just very blessed.”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Wente’s Patience, Vision As A Breeder Is Paying Off appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The field of 10 broke cleanly, with Lemieux away fastest from the gate, taking a one-length lead. Hidden Connection stayed with her, Reylu Gutierrez putting his filly a half-length behind Lemieux.

Around the far turn, Hidden Connection drew even with Lemieux, passing her as they entered the stretch. From there, the filly ran away with the G3 Pocahontas, stretching her lead out to eight lengths as she crossed the wire. Mama Rina closed late to take second with Goddess of Fire and Code for Success rounding out the top four.

The final time for the 1 1/16 miles was 1:43.78. Find this race's chart here.

Hidden Connection paid $5.60, $4.00, and $3.20. Mama Rina paid $21.40 and $7.80. Goddess of Fire paid $4.20.

The G3 Pocahontas is a Win and You're In race for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. The winner earns a fees-paid, guaranteed spot in the starting gate for the corresponding race at the Breeders' Cup World Championships, scheduled for Nov. 5-6 at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club in Del Mar, Calif.

As a race on the path to the 2022 Kentucky Oaks, Hidden Connection's win in the Pocahontas earns her 10 points toward a spot in the starting gate for that classic.

Bred in Kentucky by St. Simon Place, Hidden Connection is out of the Awesome Again mare C J's Gal. Trained by Brett Calhoun, the 2-year-old filly is owned by Hidden Brook Farm and Black Type Thoroughbreds. She is 2 for 2 lifetime, with $207,525 in career earnings.

The post Hidden Connection All Class In Pocahontas, Gets BC Juvenile Fillies Berth appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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This time around, we're taking a look at a filly from the first crop of Vino Rosso out of the Hard Spun mare Twisted Adage.

This filly was born on Feb. 25 at St. Simon Place in Lexington, Ky., bred by Robert Slack.

Tommy Wente boards the filly and her dam at St. Simon Place for the breeder, and he said Slack is a fan of the cross between Curlin and Hard Spun. As a son of Curlin, Vino Rosso fit the bill for the mating.

The ensuing foal got rave reviews from visitors, and as Wente asked around to others with Vino Rosso foals on the ground, he found he was far from alone in being happy with what they had.

“I said, 'Robert, this is just a fantastic filly. She's really nice,'” Wente said, recalling a discussion with the breeder. “She kept growing and growing, and he asked me which one's my favorite baby out there, and I said, 'It's gotta be the Vino Rosso, hands down.' Then, I started hearing more and more about the Vinos, and it seemed like everyone's getting good ones. You see pictures online, and they're all the same way. He's just really stamping his babies.”

Vino Rosso, a 6-year-old son of Curlin, stands at Spendthrift Farm for an advertised fee of $25,000.

Vino Rosso won won six of 15 starts and earned $4,803,125 on the racetrack. In addition to his signature Breeders' Cup Classic score, the stallion picked up victories in the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita Stakes, and the G2 Wood Memorial Stakes.

The post Toast To Vino Rosso: Filly Out Of Twisted Adage Adds To Sire’s Growing Reputation appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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