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Venezuelan Native D’Angelo Following His ‘Dream’ With First Preakness Starter

Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, Jose D'Angelo saddled his first winner in the U.S. with his third starter, Beach Dreaming, on June 27, 2019 at Gulfstream Park.

The 30-year-old South Florida-based trainer will saddle his first starter in a Triple Crown event Saturday, when he will send Jesus' Team to the Pimlico racetrack for a clash with 10 other 3-year-olds in the Preakness Stakes (G1).

D'Angelo has taken the fast track to Thoroughbred racing's center stage, but he is very well aware of the high level of competition he will face in the Preakness, including Hall of Famers Bob Baffert (Authentic, Thousand Words) and Steve Asmussen (Max Player, Pneumatic, Excession).

“I have grown up watching trainers like Bob Baffert and Steve Asmussen. To be in the same race with them is very special to me,” he said.

D'Angelo learned from the best in Venezuela, being the son of Francisco D'Angelo, who won numerous training titles in his homeland while based at La Rinconada Hippodrome.

“I went to the track every day, every week, because my father was a trainer,” said D'Angelo, who began training on his own in 2012.

Success came quickly.

“I won the Clasico Simon Bolivar, the most important stake in Venezuela, with Dreaming of Gold in 2014. That's my best race until Saturday,” he said. “It was a great day because I was the youngest trainer to win the race.”

D'Angelo's training career continued to flourish, winning the training title in Venezuela in 2018.

“I decided to come to the U.S.,” he said, “to follow my dream.”

And his father, who began training in South Florida in 2015.

“My relationship with my dad is amazing. I learned all my skills from him,” D'Angelo said. “He helps me with my horses, and I help him with his horses, because we're a team.”

D'Angelo first ventured to the U.S. to saddle Venezuelan-bred Forze Mau for a second-place finish in a race on the Clasico del Caribe Internacional program at Gulfstream Dec. 9, 2017, before returning to Venezuela. Since his permanent move to the South Florida, he has saddled 29 winners from 139 starters.

Jesus' Team, who is owned by Grupo Seven C Stable, joined his barn after breaking his maiden in a $32,000 maiden claiming race at Gulfstream for another trainer March 18. The son of Tapiture romped to a 6 ¾-length triumph for a $25,000 claiming price in his first start for D'Angelo before finishing a close second in an optional claiming allowance behind graded-stakes winner Sole Volante. He made a huge jump in class to run in the July 18 Haskell (G1) at Monmouth Park, finishing fourth behind Authentic, the Preakness morning-line favorite and Kentucky Derby hero. He went on to finish second behind Preakness rival Pneumatic in the Pegasus at Monmouth and second in the Sept. 5 Jim Dandy (G2) at Saratoga.

“I think in his last three races, he didn't have any luck during the race. I think he's a horse that is getting better with his races,” said D'Angelo, whose stable is based at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream Park's satellite training facility in Palm Beach County. “I'm very sure he's going to run a good race.”

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Still Plugging Away, Leatherbury Wins Race for 62nd Consecutive Year

Now 87, trainer King Leatherbury likes to tell a joke, the one about his destiny and his family’s burial plot.

“I feel perfectly good and healthy but when I visit my family plot down there, where my whole family has been buried, there’s this little sign. It says, ‘King Leatherbury, coming soon.'”

In the meantime, Leatherbury is not done yet or ready to walk away from a career that has earned him a spot in the Hall of Fame and fifth place on the list of all-time winningest trainers with 6,504 victories. He reached another milestone Friday night at Penn National when wining a $10,000 claimer with Paratycachaca (Jazil). In a streak that began way back in 1959 at Sunshine Park (now Tampa Bay Downs), he has now won a race for 62 straight years. It was his first win in over 10 months.

“That sounds great because it’s so many years. I didn’t even realize it had been that many years,” he said. “I saddled my first winner in 1959 and here it is 2020.”

But 2020 has been a difficult year for him. Having the sort of stable that struggles to win even one race in a year is something he will never get used to, not when he has won numerous training titles and has won as many as 365 races in a single year. He understands why: there aren’t many owners willing to hire someone his age.

“I’m 87 years old, for God’s sake. Nobody is going to give me horses,” he said.

Up until 2017, Leatherbury didn’t necessarily need a large stable to enjoy success. He was the owner and trainer of Ben’s Cat (Parker’s Storm Cat), the obscurely bred turf sprinter who won 26 stakes races and earned 2,643,782. But when Ben’s Cat was retired after just three starts in 2017, Leatherbury didn’t have anything to fill the void. He won just eight races in 2018, the first time in his career that his win total was in the single digits, and only two in 2019. This year, he is 1 for 19.

“Winning one race in one year is nothing to brag about at all,” he said. “Fact is, I am down to four horses and one of them is a young horse who is not ready yet. So I have three horses running and they are all turf horses, which restricts their ability to start because you get a lot of times when it rains and the races come off the turf. That’s the predicament I am in. I’m happy to have won that race, but winning just one race doesn’t mean anything.”

When Leatherbury was among the leading trainers in the country in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, he had no problem attracting owners. With Leatherbury among the best there was at playing the claiming game, his owners knew that their trainer would win races for them.

“I have had great owners in my career and have great stories about them,” he said. “They were wonderful people. They just died off. Generally, the owner is older than the trainer. I had Mr. (Woodrow) Marriott who bred horses and I always got eight to 10 from him. He lived to be 93 years old, but sooner or later you go. I had my own horses for as long as I could. Generally, if you own a horse you lose money. If you don’t you are extremely lucky.”

He is down to one owner, Norman Lewis.

“Last year as the year was coming to an end, he said, ‘King, what is your plan for next year?’ meaning whether I was going to retire or not. I said to him that since he was the only owner that I have it all depended on what he was going to do. He stuck it out. He is a breeder. When you train for breeders you don’t win as many races as you do when training for claiming outfits. A breeder gets very attached to his horses and has sentimental interest in them. You can’t manage them as aggressively. You don’t have the ability to drop them and lose them.”

Leatherbury doesn’t want to retire. Like many other trainers who have spent most of their adult lives doing just one thing, he can’t imagine not training horses.

“I don’t want to retire because this has been my life,” he said.” I love it. If I retired, what else would I do?”

But he understands that if Lewis gets out of the business he could find himself without any horses to train.

“I don’t want to retire but I might be forced to if I lose this one owner,” he said. “Then I’ll just throw the towel in. When it comes that time, I’ll have to face the facts.”

But he’s not ready for that day to arrive. As long as he has horses to train he will keep doing what he’s been doing for 62 years and look forward to his next winner.

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Asmussen, Closing In On All-Time Training Record, Will Saddle Three In Preakness

Steve Asmussen last week became only the second trainer to win 9,000 races, the landmark win coming on Troy Ounce in the second race at Oklahoma City's Remington Park. That left him 446 victories — since whittled to 437 heading into Friday's racing — shy of becoming the sport's all-time winningest trainer, with the late Dale Baird accruing 9,445 in a career spanning 1961-2007.

Only 15 of Asmussen's wins have come at Pimlico Race Course, but they've accounted for 11 graded stakes and more than $3.3 million in purses, including Preakness (G1) victories in 2007 with two-time Horse of the Year Curlin and two years later with the filly and 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra. Asmussen's Pimlico wins have come out of 57 starters after going 0 for 10 from 1998 through 2006.

Now Asmussen will try to win the Preakness for the third time with a trio of horses: George Hall and SportBLX Thoroughbreds' Max Player, Winchell Thoroughbreds' Pneumatic and Calumet Farm's Excession.

Asmussen also plans to run Winchell Thoroughbreds' Tenfold in the Pimlico Special (G3), a race he won last year after finishing a close third in the 2018 Preakness to eventual Triple Crown winner Justify. Asmussen has nominated horses to other stakes at Pimlico and expects to again be a presence at Old Hilltop.

“We think we will have a lot of live action for the weekend, and I expect a couple of winners to add to the total,” said Asmussen, the 2017 and 2018 winner of Pimlico's $50,000 bonus to the trainer whose horses earn the most points racing in the Preakness festival's stakes. “At this stage, we're just blessed with some extremely talented horses and it is an important event for us. Preakness weekend has always been a big deal to us, and we've been fortunate to have fastest-enough horses to run in the races they offer.”

Max Player officially entered the Preakness picture on Wednesday, two days after a sparkling workout of 1:00 1/5 at Churchill Downs, the fastest of 21 works that day at the distance. While Asmussen is well-known for putting a significant work into his horses 12 days before a race, he is not a trainer who drills his horses or goes in expecting an extremely fast work. So when his horses do that, handicappers have learned to pay extra attention.

“He's an extremely impressive horse and I think he's doing really well,” Asmussen said. “His work Monday was excellent. His gallop-out was huge. He came out of it in very good shape, went back to the track with a whole lot of energy. Very exciting horse at the right time.

Hall sent Max Player to Steve Asmussen a couple of weeks before the Kentucky Derby (G1), in which he closed from well back to be fifth. The colt had previously been trained by New York-based Linda Rice, including winning Aqueduct's Withers (G3) and finishing third in the Belmont (G1) and Travers Stakes (G1), both won by Derby runner-up Tiz the Law.

“We've secured Paco Lopez to ride him,” Asmussen said. “We're hoping he's able to stay a little closer, not give himself a margin that is impossible to overcome with the Preakness being a little shorter than the Derby. But he is doing really well. He's a very clean-legged, good-moving horse with a great attitude.”

Excession hasn't raced since he was second by a fast-closing three-quarters of a length at 82-1 odds in Oaklawn Park's Rebel Stakes (G2). That March 14 race was won by Nadal, who before being injured was one of the top choices for the Kentucky Derby.

A son of Belmont Stakes winner Union Rags, Excession will be ridden by Sheldon Russell, won of Maryland's leading riders.

“He needed some time after the Rebel,” Asmussen said of Excession. “He's been working well recently. His race against Nadal was very impressive. Just a weird year that he's allowed him to take a break and come back” and still make a Triple Crown race.

Pneumatic won Monmouth Park's TVG.com Pegasus Stakes in his last start to run his record to 3 for 5, with a fourth in the Belmont Stakes. Asmussen also is shooting for a third victory in the $250,000 Pimlico Special (G3), including a repeat with Tenfold. That son of Curlin loves Pimlico, having finished a close third in the foggy running of the 2018 Preakness Stakes won by Triple Crown hero Justify.

Like Pneumatic, Tenfold is owned by Asmussen's long-time client Winchell Thoroughbreds.

Joe Bravo, who was aboard for the Pegasus, will be back on Pneumatic for the Preakness, Asmussen said. “We feel great about how he's doing, knowing that this is by far the toughest race he's ever been in.

“I believe it's quite obvious there are some extremely talented 3-year-olds left that are doing very well. It ought to be a great race. Pneumatic, coming off his lifetime best, deserves the opportunity.”

Tenfold has ground out $1.1 million the hard way, winning last year's Pimlico Special and Saratoga's Jim Dandy (G2) in 2018 while earning many more checks by finishing second, third and fourth in 19 career races. When he returns to Pimlico, Tenfold will be attempting to win for the first time since the 2019 Special 10 races ago.

“Solid horse. Right now it's not easy to find lucrative purses for horses that need to run as far as he does,” Asmussen said. “The Pimlico Special was probably equal to his Jim Dandy victory. He's a Grade 2 winner of a million dollars. He's a pretty damn good horse.”

In his last two starts, Tenfold shipped to California for a third in Santa Anita's Hollywood Gold Cup (G1) then second in the Charles Town Classic (G2). “He's huge,” Asmussen said at Churchill Downs. “I don't think the tight turns of the Charles Town Classic suited him. But this year's calendar has made finding a suitable spot for most horses difficult.”

Pneumatic and Tenfold will ship in from Saratoga, where their training is being overseen by Asmussen chief assistant Scott Blasi.

Asmussen currently is the meet-leading trainer at Churchill Downs (where he became the all-time win leader in June), Lone Star Park, Remington Park and Louisiana Downs. The record-breaking and goal-oriented horseman isn't shy about acknowledging he wants to be racing's all-time win leader.

“I read it or I heard it somewhere that if they don't want it to be important, then why do they keep count?” he said with a laugh. “Right now, after reaching a goal as significant as 9,000 wins, you feel a great amount of gratitude for the opportunities that we've been given and the effort that all the help has put into it to get it done.”

At his current strike rate, Asmussen figures to be the sport's all-time win leader within 1 1/2 years. Then what?

“The open-ended, unanswered question of what's next, then every victory you lift your arms and say, 'new world record,'” he said cheerfully. “Every one you win, if you get fortunate enough to get to it, and afterward, you're the only one who ever did it.”

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Baffert-Trained Trio Tops Friday’s Chillingworth Stakes On Opening Day At Santa Anita

Bob Baffert holds a strong three-card hand in Friday's Grade III, $100,000 Chillingworth Stakes at Santa Anita, with his streaking 4-year-old Qahira, who is in search of her fourth consecutive win, rating top billing among a field of seven fillies and mares three and up going 6 ½ furlongs.

Due to air quality concerns resulting from the Bobcat Fire in the nearby San Gabriel Mountains, Santa Anita's 2020 Autumn Meet, originally scheduled to begin on Sept. 19, will instead open this Friday, with both the Grade III Chillingworth and the Grade II Eddie D Stakes headlining a 10-race card.

Baffert will also be well represented by classy Quality Response, a restricted stakes winner at two who will be making her second start of the year on Friday and by recent restricted stakes winner Message, a 4-year-old filly that will be shortening up out of four consecutive routes.

Richard Mandella's Amuse, most recently second in the Grade III Rancho Bernardo Handicap going 6 ½ furlongs, seeks her first graded stakes win at age five and rates a solid chance.

Formerly run as the LA Woman Stakes, the Chillingworth honors the memory of longtime Oak Tree Racing Association Executive Vice President Sherwood Chillingworth, who passed away in October, 2019 at the age of 93.

QAHIRA

Owner: Baoma Corporation

Trainer: Bob Baffert

A winner of four out of her six career starts, Qahira, who dominated her competition by taking a 6 ½ furlong classified allowance by three lengths on Aug. 16 at Del Mar, will be making her second start of the year and will also be trying stakes competition for the first time. Although ridden last time by Abel Cedillo, top eastern rider Luis Saez, who comes to town primarily to ride Maximum Security for Baffert in Saturday's Grade I Awesome Again, will be aboard for the first time. Dating back to her 4 ¾ length first-out maiden romp on Nov. 25, 2018, she has dominated her competition by a combined 13 ¼ lengths in her four victories. With speed to spare and Saez aloft, Qahira is the horse to beat in the Chillingworth.

QUALITY RESPONSE

Owner: Mike Pegram, Karl Watson & Paul Weitman

Trainer: Bob Baffert

A winner of her first two starts in September of last year by a combined 12 ¾ lengths, this daughter of Quality Road was subsequently dispatched at 7-2 in the Grade I Frizette Stakes going a one turn mile at Belmont Park on Oct. 6, 2019, but finished a well beaten last and did not resurface prior to running a respectable fourth, beaten 3 ¼ lengths in second condition allowance going 5 ½ furlongs on Sept. 6 at Del Mar. With a recent race under her belt, look for big improvement.

AMUSE

Owner: Claiborne Farm, Ramona Bass, Perry Bass & Adele Dilschneider

Trainer: Richard Mandella

A game second when beaten 3 ¾ lengths in the Grade III Rancho Bernardo on Aug. 21, this 5-year-old mare by Medaglia d'Oro, who has two wins from nine starts, will be making her fifth start of the year and with two wins from three lifetime starts at Santa Anita, rates a solid chance.

THE GRADE III CHILLINGWORTH, WITH JOCKEYS & WEIGHTS IN POST POSITION ORDER

Race 6 of 10 Approximate post time 3 p.m. PT

Message – Flavien Prat- 124
Qahira – Luis Saez – 124
Into Chocolate – Umberto Rispoli – 124
Mucho Amor – Juan Hernandez – 124
Hang a Star – Tyler Baze – 122
Unique Factor – Heriberto Figueroa – 124
Amuse – Drayden Van Dyke – 122

First post time for a 10-race program on Friday is at 12:30 p.m. For additional information, please visit santaanita.com or call (626) 574-RACE.

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