Backside Learning Center Has Vested Interest in Derby

Edited Press Release

The Backside Learning Center at Churchill Downs stands to gain anywhere between $200,000 and $400,000 based on the results of Saturday's GI Kentucky Derby beneath the Twin Spires.

In January, Brook Smith–a longtime supporter of the BLC–placed a $10,000 Kentucky Derby Future Wager on Tiz the Bomb (Hit It a Bomb), pledging any winnings to the center. A Derby victory would be worth $114,000.

Smith's wager was a friendly challenge to Texas-based businessman and famed sports bettor “Mattress Mack” Jim McIngvale's Future Wager bet for the same amount on Smile Happy, a son of McIngvale's 2015 champion sprinter and current Claiborne Farm stallion Runhappy. The BLC used Smith's largesse as an opportunity to reach out to McIngvale, the Houston furniture magnate as famous for his philanthropy as he is his huge Gallery Furniture promotions tied to the outcome of famous sporting events.

“We wanted to engage him in our important mission of providing support and resources to the entire community of track workers and their families,” said Sherry Stanley, executive director of the BLC. “McIngvale's been a significant supporter of equine workers all over the country in the past. He was immediately interested in connecting with the BLC. We are thrilled to have Jim as a new high-profile advocate for our work.”

“Mattress Mack” appeared as a special guest at the BLC'S “Thoroughbred Owners' Derby Handicapping Social”, held Apr. 14 at the downtown Louisville Thoroughbred Society. McIngvale announced at the event that if the Kentucky Derby favorite or Smile Happy were to win America's greatest horse race, he would donate $200,000 to the Backside Learning Center to sponsor summer camp experiences for children of backside workers.

“The backside has helped so many people that put their heart and soul into the horse-racing business,” McIngvale said. “If we can bring in money, resources and networks, we can help the backbone of the horse-racing industry–which are these hardworking people who are taking care of the animals 24/7.”

In another twist, Smith upped his ante by announcing that if any horse other than the favorite or Smile Happy win, he will make his own donation of $200,000.

At the same fundraiser, Mike Mackin, a part-owner of Smile Happy, said the ownership group would pitch in another $200,000 if their colt prevails Saturday.

“Mack said he'd give the Backside Learning Center $200,000 if Smile Happy won and I said we'd match it,” Mackin said. “I'm just starting to learn about the Backside Learning Center. But from what I've learned, they are doing great work in helping the people who care for our horses.”

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Classic Hopefuls Turn It Up a Notch

With two weeks remaining until the first weekend of May, several chief protagonists for the GI Kentucky Derby and GI Longines Kentucky Oaks turned in some key breezes in Kentucky and California.

Jeff Drown's Zandon (Upstart), who cemented his spot in the Derby field with an eye-catching victory in the GI Toyota Blue Grass S. at Keeneland Apr. 9, has remained in Lexington to train up to the big race and went a half-mile in :48.60 (see below). The $170,000 Keeneland September graduate covered his opening furlong in :12.80, then gradually picked up speed through subsequent splits of :25.20 and :37 flat, with trainer Chad Brown and big-race rider Flavien Prat observing from the grandstand. Zandon galloped out five furlongs in 1:00.80, three-quarters of a mile in 1:13.80 and was up seven panels in 1:27.80.

“He was moving super; just what we wanted to see,” Brown said. “We just wanted to maintain where he is. He does not have to get any fitter. I was impressed with how he galloped out.”

Zandon is scheduled to ship to Churchill Sunday morning and will have his final Derby drill next Saturday.

 

WATCH: Zandon breezes a half-mile at Keeneland

 

Among those working beneath the Twin Spires Saturday was Blue Grass runner-up and 'TDN Rising Star' Smile Happy (Runhappy), who worked five furlongs in the company of his GIII Jeff Ruby Steaks-winning stable companion Tiz the Bomb (Hit It a Bomb). Smile Happy, whose docket includes a second-out victory in Churchill's GII Kentucky Jockey Club S., began the work about one length ahead of Brian Hernandez, Jr. and Tiz the Bomb (1:00.20), who moved to the outside of Smile Happy (1:00.40) and finished on even terms.

“We were just looking for an easy move today and we got that,” trainer Kenny McPeek said. “We'll probably do the same thing again next week.”

A day after stablemate and 'TDN Rising Star' Zozos (Munnings) sizzled six furlongs in 1:12.40, Gold Square's GI Arkansas Derby hero Cyberknife (Gun Runner) followed suit Saturday morning. Working at 5:15 a.m. with Florent Geroux at the controls, the Gold Square colorbearer went the same distance a tick quicker, then galloped out an extra furlong in :12.40, according to noted Churchill clocker John Nichols. Geroux also breezed Zozos on Friday, but retains the call on Cyberknife for the Derby.

“It was a really strong move and he's a really good work horse,” Geroux said. “He continues to improve as time goes on and he showed that winning the Arkansas Derby. Even going back to his allowance win before the Arkansas Derby he showed a new level of class.”

 

WATCH: Brad Cox discusses Cyberknife's work with Jennie Rees

 

The one-eyed Un Ojo (Laoban) was also out for a serious move Saturday morning at Churchill, working five furlongs in :59.40 for trainer Ricky Courville in splits of :11.60, :23, :35 and :47.60 before galloping out six panels in 1:12.20.

“It's amazing being here at Churchill Downs,” said Courville's son Clay. “I've been here before but nothing like this. [Un Ojo] is getting over the track really well.”

At Santa Anita Saturday morning, 'TDN Rising Star' Messier (Empire Maker) went five furlongs in :59.80 for trainer Tim Yakteen, galloping out six furlongs in 1:12 and change, per a tweet from the ownership group's Tom Ryan. The Ontario-bred works again next Friday before shipping to Kentucky.

Expected to work Sunday are the Steve Asmussen duo of GII Louisiana Derby winner Epicenter (Not This Time) and Echo Zulu (Gun Runner), each among the favorites for the Derby and Oaks, respectively.

 

 

 

Kathleen O. Leads Oaks Workers…

Winngate Stables' Kathleen O. (Upstart), undefeated winner of the GII Gulfstream Park Oaks and also among the top fancies for the GI Longines Kentucky Oaks, prepped for that engagement Saturday at Keeneland, breezing a measured half-mile in :48.80  (see below) for her Hall of Fame conditioner Shug McGaughey.

“She picked it up and galloped out strong,” said assistant trainer Anthony Hamilton. “We are in good shape. She's a happy horse–that's what you look for.”

Kathleen O. ships across to Churchill Monday or Tuesday, according to Hamilton.

Candy Raid (Candy Ride {Arg}), upset winner of the Bourbonette Oaks at Turfway Park Apr. 2, went four furlongs in :49.20 (video) with Rafael Bejarano in the irons.

“This was her last work here,” said Bejarano, who rode Candy Raid for the first time in the victory at Turfway. “She's feeling good. I got her out five-eighths in 1:02 and change.”

Candy Raid is scheduled to ship to Churchill on Thursday and have her final pre-Oaks work there.

Oaks workers at Churchill included GIII Pocahontas S. winner Hidden Connection (Connect, 5f in 1:00.60); GIII Gazelle S. victress Nostalgic (Medaglia d'Oro, 4f, :48.80); and Busher S. romper and Gazelle runner-up Venti Valentine (Firing Line, 4f, :47.40).

 

WATCH: Kathleen O. breezes towards the Oaks at Keeneland

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Saturday’s Kentucky Derby/Oaks Update

With three weeks remaining until the GI Kentucky Derby, the trio of Crown Pride (Jpn) (Reach the Crown {Jpn}) (six furlongs, 1:18.60), Cyberknife (Gun Runner) (five furlongs, 1:00) and Tiz the Bomb (Hit It a Bomb) (four furlongs, :48.40) worked at Churchill Downs Saturday.

Gold Square's GI Arkansas Derby winner Cyberknife worked at 9 a.m. outside of multiple stakes-placed stablemate Tommy Bee (Medaglia d'Oro). Cyberknife started two lengths behind Tommy Bee and completed fractions of :12.20, :23.80 and :47.20. Cyberknife finished even with Tommy Bee around the seven eighths pole and easily galloped out six furlongs in 1:15.40.

“I thought he looked great,” said trainer Brad Cox. “He's done well at Churchill in the past and really likes it here.”

About 90 minutes earlier, Magdalena Lessee's GIII Jeff Ruby Steaks S. winner Tiz the Bomb worked with jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. in the irons. He recorded an opening quarter-mile in :24.20 and galloped out five furlongs in 1:01.20.

Moments later, exercise rider Masa Matsuda breezed Teruya Yoshida's G2 UAE Derby winner Crown Pride six furlongs from the half-mile pole. The duo easily completed opening fractions of :14.60, :28.20, :54 and 1:06.20. Crown Pride steadily picked up his work around the turn and onto the backside before completing his move through seven furlongs in 1:32.40.

Winngate Stables' unbeaten GI Kentucky Oaks contender Kathleen O. (Upstart), meanwhile, worked four furlongs in :48.60 Saturday morning at Keeneland.

According to Keeneland clockers, the GII Gulfstream Oaks heroine galloped out five furlongs in 1:01 and six furlongs in 1:15.80 after clocking splits of :12.80, :25.60 and :37.40 under exercise rider David Jego.

“I was hoping to see just what I saw,” trainer Shug McGaughey said. “She does not need a whole lot. She is coming off a race two weeks ago. [The time and the gallop out] were just what I was looking for. So far we are right on track.”

Tsunebumi and Sekie Yoshihara's Yuugiri (Shackleford), winner of the GIII Fantasy S., covered four furlongs in :50 at Keeneland with trainer Rodolphe Brisset aboard.

“You could see it a lot of times when horses would come here from Florida with the change in the air, the change in the weather that they would just blossom, and you can see it,” Brisset said. “She is doing that, and I am very pleased with her.”

Don't Tell My Wife Stables and trainer Keith Desormeaux's Bourbonette Oaks upsetter Candy Raid (Candy Ride {Arg}) worked four furlongs in :50.40 at Keeneland.

Slow Down Andy (Nyquist), winner of the GIII Sunland Derby, will miss the Kentucky Derby after recently spiking a temperature, according to a report in Horse Racing Nation.

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No Denying Tiz A Gamble On Dirt

There's nothing like giving up on a stallion, and offloading him overseas, to guarantee a sudden transformation in his fortunes. The latest exile to rebuke his vendors is Race Day, who was exported to Korea 18 months ago but last Saturday turned out to have left behind not only GI Florida Derby winner White Abarrio but also GI Arkansas Derby runner-up Barber Road.

But if this industry is too unpredictable for even a team as alert as Spendthrift to win every time, their program will reliably even things out. And just 15 minutes before the success of White Abarrio, who was bred on the farm before being cheaply sold, another Spendthrift graduate had booked a GI Kentucky Derby starting gate of his own.

Tiz The Bomb's success in the GIII Jeff Ruby S. quickly ended talk of an audacious raid on the storied British Classic, the G1 Qipco 2,000 Guineas. However he fares at Churchill, this colt is already a feather in the cap of a stallion still fighting his corner at the same end of the Spendthrift roster that once featured Race Day–and, in the process, serving a key priority of the farm's late owner B. Wayne Hughes, in trying to look after its less affluent clients.

Hit It A Bomb was launched at $7,000 in 2017 before slipping to $5,000 even before he made what proved a fairly low-key debut at the yearling sales. The fact is that the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Juvenile winner, though an unbeaten juvenile by War Front, has never mustered the kind of support enjoyed by so many other young stallions on this farm–presumably because of the usual aversion of Kentucky's commercial breeders to grass pedigrees and performance. His first two books did not quite reach 50 mares, and his third dwindled to just 20.

Obviously there's a limit to what can be sensibly gleaned from his commercial performance, from such a modest footprint, but he showed what he could do with the right opportunity when Spendthrift paired him, in his second season, with a Tiznow mare whose aristocratic family we'll consider shortly. As a yearling the resulting colt sold (through Eaton Sales) to Kenny McPeek for $330,000 at the post-lockdown “Showcase” auction staged by Fasig-Tipton.

Needless to say, that transaction was central to Hit It A Bomb's unusual achievement in advancing the average of his second crop of yearlings ($47,916 from $30,153), but it's worth noting that his median also improved ($23,500 from $13,000).

Anyway this colt was, of course, Tiz The Bomb. He offered little immediate promise in his first venture onto the Churchill dirt, beating only one rival in a sprint maiden a year ago next week, but his tour of the other Kentucky tracks has told us rather more. Stepped up to a mile for an off-the-turf maiden at Ellis Park, he won by over 14 lengths before switching to grass to win a stakes at Kentucky Downs and a Grade II at Keeneland. He then left the state to prove best of the home team in the race won by his sire at the Breeders' Cup despite a messy trip. We have to put a line through his resumption in the GII Holy Bull S., but back in Kentucky he has now regrouped with consecutive wins on the synthetic track at Turfway Park.

Tiz The Bomb will plainly take one or two question marks into the Derby, and the answers lurking in his pedigree do not appear terribly encouraging. Its most consistent element, however, is quality–with Hit It A Bomb's own family tree stacking up pretty respectably against the exceptional maternal line introduced by Tiz The Bomb's dam.

The most blatant genetic note in Hit It A Bomb himself is an extremely proximate combination of the two principal international conduits of the Northern Dancer revolution: with Danzig as grandsire, and Sadler's Wells as damsire. (Additionally his second dam is by Danzig's grandson Danehill Dancer (Ire), while his fourth dam is by another fount of Northern Dancer in Be My Guest.) A more understated duplication meanwhile features Forli (Arg), whose excellence as a distaff influence is attested here by both Special, granddam of Sadler's Wells, and also War Front's second dam.

Overall there's no getting away from the fact that Hit It A Bomb's family carries a ton of chlorophyll. Four of his first five dams are by sires branded principally by their work in Europe: Sadler's Wells, Danehill Dancer, Be My Guest and Vaguely Noble (Ire). His third dam is by Private Account—primarily associated with dirt in the U.S., as we'd expect of a son of Damascus standing in Kentucky, but also sire of a couple of notable turf achievers for the Niarchos family in East Of The Moon and Chimes Of Freedom.

Hit It A Bomb was bred by the venerable Mrs. Evie Stockwell (mother of Coolmore boss John Magnier) from Liscanna (Ire), who had mustered both her wins, one at Group 3 level, over just six furlongs—hardly a common distinction in a daughter of Sadler's Wells. No fewer than five of Liscanna's nine named foals are by War Front, and two of them won elite prizes as juveniles for Mrs. Stockwell: Hit It A Bomb himself, and Brave Anna, who like her mother majored in speed by adding the G1 Cheveley Park S. to her G3 Albany S. success at Royal Ascot. (Winning both those races, incidentally, by a short head!)

Liscanna's mother Lahinch (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}) was another brisk performer, as a stakes winner at five and seven furlongs. She did introduce a little more stamina to the family record through two daughters of Galileo (Ire), respectively runners-up in the G1 Epsom Oaks and a nine-furlong Group 2; and while Galileo obviously loaded a ton of staying power into his stock, Lahinch also produced a son by the miler Hawk Wing to win a Listed race at 10 furlongs.

On the whole, however, this family is flavored by quite a bit of speed and War Front was hardly going to dilute that. Admittedly Hit It A Bomb only ran them down on the line at the Breeders' Cup, but that was primarily down to a very wide draw. So you could argue that the obvious caveats about Tiz The Bomb, regarding the dirt, should possibly also extend to the extra furlong awaiting him on the first Saturday in May.

So what help can Tiz The Bomb find, on both fronts, from his maternal family? Well, at first sight, you would take heart from his first two dams–both being by copper-bottomed two-turn dirt influences in Tiznow and A.P. Indy. (And don't forget that Tiznow's remarkable dam Cee's Song is by Seattle Song, like A.P. Indy a son of Seattle Slew.)

But the name that really pegs down Tiz The Bomb's pedigree is that of his fifth dam. For she is none other than Gay Missile, the granddam of A.P. Indy's mother Weekend Surprise. (Weekend Surprise, of course, was by Secretariat–whose half-brother Sir Gaylord sired Gay Missile.)

The daughter of Gay Missile who opened this branch of the dynasty founded by her dam Missy Baba (My Babu {Fr}) is Gallanta (Fr), runner-up in the G1 Prix Morny as a sprinting juvenile. The speed of her sire Nureyev would also come through in Gallanta's best daughter, Gay Gallanta (Woodman), who was rated the fastest young filly of her crop in winning the G1 Cheveley Park S. and the G3 Queen Mary S. at Royal Ascot–and would herself produced a pretty quick horse in Byron (GB) (Green Desert).

Though at one remove, with some sturdy influences arising in between, these are not the kind of names to shore up any holes in the stamina of Tiz The Bomb. Gay Gallanta did have a half-brother who lasted 10 furlongs well, earning a place at stud in South Africa, but he was by an extreme stamina influence in Alleged.

Gallanta produced Tiz The Bomb's third dam Mayville's Magic by that diverse influence Gone West. It's hard to draw any conclusions from the career of Mayville's Magic in Britain, as she regressed after winning a sprint maiden on debut. With her illustrious family she had cost as much as $725,000 as a Keeneland September yearling and, given corresponding covers in her second career, she did eventually produce four black-type performers. One, by Giant's Causeway, ran fourth in the GI American Oaks; while A.P. Indy's daughter Cabbage Key had won three in a row before twice placing in minor stakes company.

That was on grass, however, despite the input of A.P. Indy. In producing Tiz The Bomb's dam Tiz The Key from Cabbage Key, then, Tiznow really needs to have poured his love of dirt into the genetic equation–and by the barrel–if Tiz The Bomb is to vindicate the switch back to that surface.

Tiz The Key certainly restored some ability to this rather slumbrous corner of the Gay Missile legacy. Her physique got a $330,000 vote of confidence from Spendthrift as a September yearling and, sent to Richard Mandella, she did break her maiden on the dirt. But she was then stepped up to 10 furlongs of grass to follow up in an allowance race, and then emulated her “aunt” by running fourth in the GI American Oaks.

It cannot augur well for Tiz The Bomb's Derby challenge that his first two dams, though by avowed dirt influences in Tiznow and A.P. Indy, both ended up on the grass. With very little help available from his sire, in terms of dirt, this pedigree looks a pretty fragile foundation for the “Derby fever” that has, understandably with all those gate points in the bank, now altered his schedule.

On one level, it feels rather a shame that Tiz The Bomb won't be going to Newmarket. He has shown exciting talent on turf/synthetics and would have introduced an exotic factor on the Rowley Mile. But if the renewed dirt gamble does not pay off, he will naturally retain every chance to regroup.

Let's hope he can do so, as his sire deserves credit for stoking up embers of quality in a rather dormant branch of the Gay Missile family. Though facing some pretty steep commercial odds, Hit It A Bomb has also had a Grade I winner on dirt in Argentina; while his debut crop did include GII Best Pal S. winner Weston, albeit that horse has slithered down the grades since.

It must be said that the Guineas looked like Tiz The Bomb's best shot in the British Classics: the severe stamina test at Epsom, certainly, would look a highly speculative next move should the Kentucky Derby not work out. That's because the unusually “green” tinge under the dirt influences along the bottom line is complemented, in his sire's own family, by the kind of speed you wouldn't normally expect around Sadler's Wells.

But there would still be a ton of other exciting turf options, either side of the water, to capture the imagination of Tiz the Bomb's adventurous trainer. So it should be a fun ride ahead, regardless, and he's already a five-for-eight millionaire–as much as anyone could ask, clearly, of a stallion standing for $5,000.

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