Patience is Key as Tessa Bisha Develops Next Class of Cox Stable Stars

Impressive GIII Sanford S. victor Mo Strike was the first Brad Cox-trained 2-year-old to make it to the winner's circle at Saratoga this year, but the son of Uncle Mo probably won't be the last. At last year's meet, Cox saddled five juveniles winners at the Spa, including the future multiple stakes-winning filly Bubble Rock (More Than Ready).

In recent years, the Cox barn's arsenal of talented 2-year-olds has rapidly developed in terms of both quality and quantity. While many of the stable's runners have reached future success alongside their back-to-back Eclipse Award-winning trainer, nearly all of them received their early schooling at Keeneland under Cox's assistant trainer Tessa Bisha.

Mo Strike was one of the first juveniles to arrive at the Brad Cox barn at Keeneland this spring, putting in three recorded works in May. When the colt showed early talent, he was among the first group that Bisha sent on to Churchill Downs. A few weeks later, he broke his maiden there on debut and is now pointing toward the GI Hopeful S.

Bisha is passionate about training 2-year-olds. While she enjoys overseeing the older horses, she said that they usually have a good handle on their job already. With 2-year-olds, however, she has the opportunity to teach them and get their racing career off on the right foot.

“I'd say judging the two-year-olds is the biggest part of my job–making sure that they get on the right pathway for success for whatever life has in store for them as far as racing goes and I feel like beyond that as well,” Bisha said. “What I look for is I want them to be comfortable with what we're asking them to do. They need to come in with an open mind and a good attitude, and we try to help them get there if they're not when they come in. We go back to the gate early and often and we make it a laid-back and calming experience. We really focus on making everything a good experience for them.”

Every year after the Keeneland Spring Meet has wrapped up, Bisha's incoming class of 2-year-olds starts to arrive. During her busiest months of May and June, she will have up to 85 juveniles under her care. The most precocious among the group will head to the Churchill Downs race meet and later, other promising youngsters will ship to Saratoga. When training at Keeneland concludes for the summer, the remaining pupils will stay under Bisha's care either at Ellis Park or Turfway Park.

Tessa Bisha oversees a morning of training at Keeneland | Sara Gordon

“It's a bit of a revolving door in that sense,” she said. “We really try to watch them breeze every week without trying to say if this horse is going to win the Derby or if it's going to be an absolute bust because they can grow and develop so much. They love proving you wrong and showing you how little you know, so we try to make sure that they all have the opportunity to basically become the best individual they can be with whatever talent and heart they bring to the table.”

With that mindset, Bisha said she aims to keep an open mind when a horse joins her stable, regardless of any reputation that might precede them.

“You have to create an environment where they know what's expected of them,” she said. “With the babies, you have an opportunity to develop them into being an individual that's not too tough on the track, not silly in the gate and not fractious in the barn. If you can get them to act right, they're usually kinder on themselves and handle their job better.”

Bisha first began working for Cox in 2016 as an exercise rider before taking on the role of assistant trainer. In her first year overseeing the incoming 2-year-olds, she estimates that she had about 30 or 40 juveniles in her care. When stable star Monomoy Girl (Tapizar) came onto the scene, the influx of new trainees began soon after.

With the growth of their program, Bisha said that she has had to evolve her managerial role. She finds herself spending more time in the office checking and rechecking registration papers and set lists, going over charts with Cox, and putting in notes from blacksmith visits or for vaccination schedules.

“We have a staff that helps with all that, but I always feel better if I have a hand in it too,” she admitted. “The more people that can check the boxes, the more you know it's thoroughly done.”

Countless top-level horses have been under Bisha's care since Monomoy Girl's outstanding career. Essential Quality (Tapit) will always be one that stands out to Bisha. The four-time Grade I winner spent his early days at Keeneland and returned to Lexington to race several times during his juvenile and sophomore campaigns.

“He came in here and was just head and shoulders above everybody else,” Bisha said. “Things with him were really streamlined, so there was no guesswork. He followed his own mind and liked to do his thing, but for the most part he never missed a work, he went straight to the races, and that was just him.”

Asked which horses she is most proud to have had a hand in bringing up, Bisha named off a few trainees that required a bit more legwork. One recent favorite is GIII Ohio Derby winner Tawny Port (Pioneerof the Nile), who was in her care almost all of last year as a juvenile.

Tessa and Grade III stakes winner Bubble Rock (More Than Ready) | Sara Gordon

“He actually broke his maiden at Turfway over the winter,” she recalled. “I think those types of horses are really rewarding because they have more of, I guess a long-shot feel in our barn. To know that you helped develop them and you let them go on their schedule, that can be very hard, but it's a big success when it works out.”

Bisha said that as their program has continued to develop, one thing she believes they do best is keeping an open mind when it comes to helping their trainees progress.

“When we launched into this 2-year-old program and it started to really take off and get the numbers behind it, Brad and I would have heated discussions over how it was working out and what we were seeing,” she said. “After horses showing us how wrong we were and us eating crow a few times, I think we kind of learned that you really just have to let the horse develop and show you who they want to be.”

Bisha explained that every year, they make an effort to try something new or use a certain tool more frequently–maybe putting blinkers on more readily for a workout, warming up without the pony with a first-time starter, or going back to the starting gate one extra time before breezing.

“It might just be something small, but we try to stay open minded and focus on improving all the time and not just using our ego or what we think we know to get in the way of improving the program,” she noted.

Last year, Bisha was a finalist for the TIEA Dedication to Racing Award. Prior to her time with Brad Cox, the Washington native worked at tracks in Southern California and all along the East Coast. These days, as her former pupils are making headlines at high-profile racetracks like Saratoga, she prefers to stay back home in Lexington training up the next class of future stars.

“I've been to a lot of different tracks so I feel like I've seen enough and done enough to where I'm pretty content just staying here and doing this,” she said. “I don't mind traveling, but I find myself most fulfilled by training the 2-year-olds, so I don't feel any need to stray away from that.”

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Bisha Finds Belonging Starting Cox’s Future Stars

Eleven years ago, Tessa Bisha needed to get away from racing.

She was 27 years old and she found herself at a crossroads. She had majored in communications at California Polytechnic University Pomona without completing her degree. She had embarked on the itinerant lifestyle of many race trackers, working as an exercise rider for Bob Hess, Jr., D. Wayne Lukas, Jerry Hollendorfer and Anthony Dutrow, Jr.

It was Dutrow who made Bisha lift up her head from the daily grind by challenging her with a question.

“Why do you come here every day and do this and work so hard at it?” Dutrow asked.

For sure, it was not about money. Bisha had been forced to take assorted part-time gigs to meet financial obligations. The gambling aspect had never interested her beyond the $2 she and her father, Jon, used to wager on races at Emerald Downs. Ambition? She was not driven to become a trainer.

“The why, I think I lost track of it a little bit,” said Bisha.

The “why” became an anguishing question when A Little Warm, Dutrow's 2010 Jim Dandy winner and a horse she had drawn particularly close to, fractured both front ankles during a routine gallop. Although the horse was saved, the frightening injuries only added to the doubts of a young woman struggling to find her way. Thoughts of the damage suffered by A Little Warm haunted her more than other breakdowns she had witnessed.

“The hardest part is always the fact that they're doing this because we're asking them to,” Bisha said. “Even though it's natural for them to run, we're the ones placing them on the racetrack that day and saying, 'Go ahead, do it buddy.' The good ones always want to and they'll run through pain and they're the ones who will get hurt.”

With the help of a $5,000 inheritance from her grandmother, Eloise, she retreated to her home state of Washington, to be with her father and other loved ones. She set up an apartment in the basement of her father's house and spent a long winter there, contemplating where she has been and where she was going. In a sense, she retraced her steps, talking to many of the people who had been influential when she was getting started.

“She was still every day trying to figure out where she belonged with a horse career,” Jon said. “She wasn't thinking, 'Oh, maybe I'll go back and study accounting or something like that.'”

Bisha had experienced such extreme emotions with A Little Warm, the absolute thrill of watching him give his all to win a major race at Saratoga before that burning desire nearly contributed to his demise.

She was still young – but no longer naïve.

“I'd kind of seen the good, the bad and the ugly,” she said. “And everything in between.”

Another question was added to Dutrow's. Did success have to come at the expense of hard-trying horses? Did it have to be one or the other?

“You can care about both. You can care about winning and you can care about the horses themselves,” her father said. “I think that kind of turned the corner for her.”

Bisha took care of unfinished business by completing her degree at Cal Poly Pomona. She returned to Hollendorfer to gallop for him while the goal of becoming   an assistant trainer gradually came into focus.

Tessa Bisha and Darain

She moved to Kentucky to pursue a romantic relationship that ultimately failed while a promising business relationship developed. She began to work for Brad Cox as a freelance exercise rider in the spring of 2016 and became increasingly important to his growing operation. She was able to catch on to a rising star when he hired her as an assistant.

“I saw that he himself was going up and it would be a good move job security-wise and probably a better financial position than other assistant jobs,” Bisha said.

Cox, of course, swept four Breeders' Cup races last season in winning his first Eclipse Award as the outstanding trainer in North America. His success this year includes Breeders' Cup Classic winner Knicks Go, Belmont Stakes and Travers winner Essential Quality and Mandaloun, runner-up in the controversial Kentucky Derby.

Bisha was a finalist for the Dedication to Racing Award, sponsored by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. Jorje Abrego, Dustin Dugas and Ricky Giannini are other highly-regarded assistants in Cox's massive, high-powered operation.

“He really puts an effort into being hands on but also trusts his eyes on the ground,” Bisha said. “The way he manages the team, it just couldn't be any better.”

Cox entrusts what has annually become a large and promising 2-year-old class to Bisha.

“She plays a huge role in our operation,” he said. “She does a lot with the young horses we get in. She's very patient with them. She's an all-around horseperson.”

In her current role, she never needs to ask “why” she does what she does. She relishes her position, eagerly waiting to see what each well-bred prospect might become. Is there a Derby winner in the bunch?

“They all get attention and care and the best chance they can to turn into the best possible version of themselves,” Bisha said.

Jon, once a concerned father, no longer worries.

“I think she feels like she is doing what she was always supposed to do,” he said contentedly.

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‘Special’ Penultimate Foal Out Of Leslie’s Lady Wins On Debut At Keeneland

Clarkland Farm's homebred Marr Time added another impressive branch to her family tree when she sailed to a 2¾-length victory in her debut at Keeneland on Thursday. Ridden by Florent Geroux for Brad Cox, the 2-year-old daughter of Not This Time won the 6-furlong race in 1:11.96 as the 3-5 favorite.

“Just getting to this first start with all the expectations was a big goal for us,” said Tessa Bisha, a Kentucky assistant for Cox, who has been with the filly all year. “We were hopeful she would run like she did, but we haven't made any plans after that race. She cooled out well and she looks great this morning (Friday). She's always thought she was special.”

Marr Time is out of 2016 Broodmare of the Year Leslie's Lady, one of the Thoroughbred industry's all-time great producers. The best offspring of the daughter of Tricky Creek are multiple champion Beholder, Grade 1 winner and leading sire Into Mischief, and Grade 1 winner and sire Mendelssohn. Two of her offspring have topped Keeneland's September Yearling Sale: Mendelssohn at $3 million in 2016 and America's Joy at $8.2 million in 2019.

Celebrating Marr Time's winning performance was the Clarkland team of Fred and Nancy Mitchell and their family.

“Every Kentucky breeder wants to win a race at Keeneland,” the Mitchells' daughter Marty Buckner said. “It can be nerve-wracking but to find out how (good) the bloodlines are, you have to race them.”

Marr Time is the 14th foal out of Leslie's Lady, whose final offspring is the yearling Kantharos filly Love You Irene. Now 25, Leslie's Lady lives as a retiree at Clarkland, which 15 years ago bought her in foal to Orientate for $100,000 at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale.

The family opted to breed Leslie's Lady to Not This Time in part because he is a grandson of Storm Cat and her best offspring have been from that sire line.

“Marr Time was always easy,” Buckner said. “Leslie's Lady's best foals are always easy to raise and when you ask them to do something new, they rise to the occasion.”

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Juju’s Map, Special Reserve To Ship Back To Louisville After Stakes Triumphs

The two stakes winners on Friday, opening day of Keeneland's 17-day Fall Meet – Albaugh Family Stables' Juju's Map, the 4¼-length winner of the Grade 1 Darley Alcibiades, and Paradise Farm Corp. and David Staudacher's Special Reserve, winner of the Grade 1 Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix, both spent the night at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky., following their triumphs.

“She's good and happy this morning,” reported Tessa Bisha, assistant to Brad Cox about Juju's Map, who earned a starting berth in the $2 million Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies to be run at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club in Del Mar, Calif., Nov. 5. “She is leaving this morning to go back to Churchill Downs.”

Special Reserve, who earned a fees-paid berth into the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Sprint on Nov. 6 at Del Mar, is scheduled to return to trainer Mike Maker's main base at the Trackside Training Center in Louisville, Ky. Maker indicated that Special Reserve would ship to Del Mar on Oct. 31.

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