A total of $18.8 million in prize money, including funds from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund, was distributed across 438 races at the 50-day meet.

With two additional racing days from the 2023 meet, Turfway Park saw an increase of 152 starters.

“Our successful season at Turfway Park would not be possible without the support of all owners, trainers, jockeys and horseplayers,” said Chip Bach, general manager at Turfway Park. “The racing product at Turfway Park has continued to thrive, thanks to the continued investments from Churchill Downs Incorporated and our dedicated staff here at Turfway Park.”

Jockey Luan Machado was a dominant force in the rider standings throughout the Winter/Spring Meet, tallying 62 wins from 289 starts. Machado's win total was 25 more than runner-up Gerardo Corrales and his mounts earned $2.3 million. This was Machado's fourth leading rider title at Turfway Park.

Trainer Eric Foster notched his first title at Turfway Park, winning 15 races from 86 starts. Foster finished one win ahead of Brad Cox and three in front of Juan Cano and John Ennis.

Foster's horses banked $837,777 in purse money while winning at 17%.

Christina Estvanko and Margo Scott led all owners with eight wins. The partnership's horses made 37 starts while earning $176,177.

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That storyline describes the long-shot career of Rich Strike, who upset the GI Kentucky Derby at 80-1 back in 2022.

But it also could be the 2024 script for newly crowned stakes victress Everland (Arrogate), who was haltered for $30,000 out of a trip-troubled win at Turfway three months ago, and on Mar. 23 captured the Bourbonette Oaks over the same Tapeta surface. The purse of that stakes was worth 10 times the gray filly's claiming price, and, just as importantly, the race awarded 50 qualifying points to get into the GI Kentucky Oaks.

Everland's trajectory is only part of the narrative. Her rise through the ranks is a testament to the upward arc of trainer and co-owner Eric Foster, 46, whose 15 wins are currently tops at the nearly concluded Turfway meet.

Foster's $828,364 in earnings for the season there are second behind only perennial powerhouse conditioner Brad Cox.

Foster Family Stables has been in business for a decade. Eric runs a 16-acre farm with a training track in rural Utica out in western Kentucky, about 45 minutes southeast of Ellis Park. Eric trains, exercises and transports the horses to the races while his wife, Brooklyn, manages the barn. The couple tag-teams, along with some help from their children and an on-track team of assistants, on everything else.

“Me and my wife, we work together. We talk together all the time about [the business],” Foster told Jennie Rees in a post-win video interview for the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protestive Association (KHBPA).

“It's just exciting to win. I tell everybody, we're still happy to win a $5,000 claimer. And to win these bigger races…” Foster's voice trails off in thought, and he has to take a moment to keep his emotions in check.

“I mean, we're leading this meet right now,” Foster said. “It wasn't  even something we had thought about going in [to the start of the season]. Of course, we would want to [be a top stable] if we could, [but] it seems that we've had a little bit better go here than we even expected.”

As a kid, Foster excelled in barrel racing. Then by 17 he was galloping and exercising Thoroughbreds. He initially took out his training license in 2000, but his first foray as a conditioner at smaller tracks like Fairmount, the Woodlands, Ellis, and River Downs lasted only a year, with a 6-for-59 record and a hard-won appreciation for just how difficult a vocation training racehorses could be.

Foster then worked construction jobs as a welder, taking on whatever work he could, which eventually allowed the couple to buy their house and farm on Highway 431 outside of Owensboro.

According to a 2022 profile in The Gleaner that was written by Rees, Foster initially raised cattle, built a barn, and bought a Thoroughbred baby with the intent of re-selling at a subsequent auction. After determining that it might end up being more cost-effective to race the horse themselves, Foster constructed the training track, taking on most of the job himself.

As his training business grew from 2014 onward, Foster got financial backing from a diverse number of clients, including those who would eventually partner with him to own Everland (Bill Wargel, Sidney Karmia's Maxis Stable, and R.K. Eckrich Racing).

Foster began honing a reputation as a trainer who could spot horses who could be acquired for comparatively short money via claims and at the sales, then get those Thoroughbreds to outrun their purchase prices.

Kitodan (Point of Entry) is a prime example. In a partnership with Douglas Miller, Foster Family Racing claimed that gelding for $80,000 in May of 2022, and the 5-year-old has responded with two grass stakes victories (one a Grade III), plus a handful of other stakes performances in which he was only beaten by a couple of lengths. Kitodan was named the KHBPA claimer of the year for 2022, his career earnings have since swelled to $835,237, and is he still competing in graded stakes (he finished eighth on Saturday in the GIII Kentucky Cup Classic).

“Now, we have all the supplies, all the tools,” Foster said. “We have the help now. We have the confidence. We have the [better] jockeys. You know, it's just a matter of everything coming together. We do the blankets and all the therapy that we can do on them to get the horses happy. But you've just got to have good horses, and I think we've just been blessed with some good horses lately.”

Everland is being pointed to her secured spot in the GI Kentucky Oaks on the first Friday in May | Coady

When Foster spotted Everland entered for a $30,000 tag on Dec. 30, 2023, he notified his partners to see who wanted in on what would eventually be a four-way deal. Bred by George Strawbridge Jr. and raced by Augustin Stable with trainer Jonathan Thomas, Everland to that point had been 0-for-3 in maiden special weight races at Kentucky Downs, Woodbine and Turfway. Her pedigree-by Arrogate out of a Tapit mare-stood out.

Off at odds of 6-5, Everland endured a horror trip to win, checking on the first turn of a mile race and then almost getting wiped off her feet in a far-turn scrum. After losing all momentum, she determinedly bulled her way between horses, then scooted up the rail to win by three-quarters of a length, with Turfway announcer Tony Calo exuding in his call about the filly's display of athleticism.

Everland next won a $50,000 starter-allowance for her new connections by 3 1/2lengths at 15-1 odds on Feb. 10. She was then fourth in the Mar. 1 $150,000 Cincinnati Trophy S., a race won by stablemate Maxisuperfly (Optimizer), who was bought by the Fosters for $18,000 as a Keeneland yearling.

In the Mar. 23 Bourbonette, Maxisuperfly set the pace while Everland got caught four wide around the clubhouse turn. Guided to the rail by Abel Cedillo, Everland threaded through on the inside. Turning for home, she briefly got caught on the heels of her tiring stablemate (who finished eighth), then freewheeled up the fence while fending off several fresh challengers, quickening nicely inside the final sixteenth to win by 1 1/4 lengths (82 Beyer Speed Figure).

Despite Everland's sky's-the-limit pedigree, Foster doesn't feel like he stole a hot prospect from the filly's former connections. In the winner's circle after the race, he expressed empathy for anyone faced with the difficult business decision of whether or not to drop a well-meant horse in class for a claiming tag.

“It's hard. You expect them to win, and when they don't you say, 'We've got to do something different,' and you give them three or four chances [before trying a spot that's] a little cheaper,” Foster said. “We do it too. And a lot of time, we're happy that we didn't lose [a claiming dropdown].

“I would have to think that they knew that they would probably lose her,” Foster continued. “A couple of my good horses are claims, and [the outfits I claim from] are good. I wouldn't ever tell anybody that I'm a better trainer. “[But I do] want to be that guy that has horses that run for a long time.

“It's usually the horse that does the running. I don't want to take a whole lot of credit,” Foster said. “We take care of them. We do the best we can. We vet them deep. We feed them good. We do everything to make the health of the horse better. And then it's up to the horse.”

Everland is now 3-0-1 with 237,093 in earnings from seven starts, and with 54 qualifying points, she ranks fourth on the Oaks leaderboard. She is safely in the race, and Foster indicated post-win that his connections intend to run in that Grade I spot–even though Everland has never raced on the dirt. In fact, Foster has never personally witnessed her step onto a non-Tapeta surface.

“Now I'm going to have the same question everybody else has,” Foster said. “If she can run on the dirt, they better look out. That's going to be the thing. We haven't trained her on the dirt. We've left her [at Turfway] since we claimed her. So we're going to move to Keeneland this week coming up and just see how everything goes, and get her on the dirt. And hopefully she loves it.”

Even though Foster is a meet-leading trainer and on the cusp of breaking through in one of the most prestigious races in Kentucky, he is still facing some smaller-outfit business issues, like stabling.

“You know, I don't want to call out anybody, but we don't get the stalls we put in for,” Foster said, alluding to the tight allotments at Churchill and Turfway. “We had the horses to put into them. I think we get taken advantage of a little bit for having our own farm and our own training center….

“We're going into the Oaks here. We wanted some stalls at Churchill coming into this spring, and I was just certain we would get stalls. But you know what? You never know…

Foster said he would have to “map out” a shipping or stabling strategy for Everland.

“I'm not going to take one horse up [to Churchill] and train up to the Oaks. It's going to be a bit of a challenge,” Foster said.

In case you haven't already figured it out, Foster doesn't shy from challenges.

“I make three, four trips a week sometime,” Foster said. “It's over a seven-hour round trip. A lot of those nights are back to back-to-back. I don't always get somebody to ride with me. I have friends that I get to talk to on the phone. Somebody said, 'Well, how do you not get tired?' And I said, 'You know, I just think about my horses.'

“I just go,” Foster added. “I don't start to complain.”

The post Week In Review: Foster’s Work Ethic and Keen Eye for Bargains Propel Rise appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Over the next three weekends, there will be eight “Championship Series” races that will award Derby points to the top five finishers on a 100-50-25-15-10 scale.

Drawn widest of all in post 12, GIII Lecomte S. Jan. 20 winner and GII Risen Star S. Feb. 17 runner-up Track Phantom (Quality Road) looks like the one to catch in the Louisiana Derby. Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen will also saddle $1.4-million Fasig-Tipton Saratoga graduate and 'TDN Rising Star' Hall of Fame (Gun Runner), who disappointed in seventh over the sloppy going in the Risen Star.

“I generally believe for 3-year-olds, your last race is not good enough for your next one to be,” Asmussen said. “That's the way it ought to be. (Track Phantom) is a wonderful horse. I'm very fortunate to have him here at Fair Grounds for the 3-year-old series. He has run extremely well in the three prior races here at Fair Grounds. Hopefully, we can get him in the winner's circle again Saturday.”

'TDN Rising Star' Agate Road (Quality Road), winner of last term's grassy GII Pilgrim S. and a rallying second in the GIII Sam F. Davis S. at Tampa Bay Feb. 10, opts for this spot over the Jeff Ruby Steaks. Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher will also be represented by Antiquarian (Preservationist), a local maiden winner at second asking over promising next-out winner Cornishman (Curlin) Feb. 17.

The field for the Louisiana Derby also includes: the Brad Cox-trained Smarty Jones S. Jan. 1 winner and Risen Star third Catching Freedom (Constitution); longshot GII Rebel S. Feb. 24 runner-up Common Defense (Karakontie {Jpn}); and 'TDN Rising Star' Tuscan Gold (Medaglia d'Oro), a runaway maiden winner for Chad Brown at second asking at Gulfstream Jan. 31.

Endlessly (Oscar Performance), the 5-2 morning-line favorite and horse to beat in the Jeff Ruby Steaks, was a good-looking winner of the El Camino Real Derby over the Golden Gate all-weather Feb. 10. A two-time graded winner on grass in Southern California last year, Endlessly was eighth in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita Nov. 3.

“We tried to give him a short break after the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf, but he's a feel-good type of horse,” trainer Michael McCarthy said. “He likes to train and we were able to get him back slowly after that race to the El Camino Real Derby.”

The loaded 12-race Louisiana Derby card also includes: the GII Fair Grounds Oaks, headed by GII Rachel Alexandra S. Feb. 17 one-two 'TDN Rising Star' Tarifa (Bernardini) and Intricate (Gun Runner) and the two-for-two Our Pretty Woman (Medaglia d'Oro); and the GII New Orleans Classic S. and GII Muniz Memorial Classic S.

Saturday's graded action is rounded out by the GIII Essex H. at Oaklawn Park, the GIII TwinSpires Kentucky Cup Classic S. at Turfway and the GIII San Luis Rey S. at Santa Anita.

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Six weeks ahead of the running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, May 4, the Louisiana Derby and Jeff Ruby Steaks will both award Kentucky Derby qualification points, with 100 going to the winners of each race. The Fair Grounds Oaks will award GI Kentucky Oaks qualification points, with the winner of the race earning 100 points. Also, the Bourbonette Oaks from Turfway Park will be highlighted on Saturday's show.

Britney Eurton will host Saturday's coverage alongside analysts Jerry Bailey and Randy Moss.

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time of 3:13 p.m. Following the conclusion of the race, a presentation will be made to the winning connections, which will include a TAA blanket and gift bag with branded merchandise.

“Turfway Park is excited to welcome back Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance for our Jeff Ruby Steaks Day,” said Turfway director of racing and racing secretary Tyler Picklesimer. “Raising awareness for accredited aftercare is crucial for the longevity and safety of horse racing.”

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Jockey Jose Ortiz is named to ride eight races Saturday at Turfway Park and, after Jeff Ruby Steaks Day, fans in Kentucky will begin to see his name regularly in the program as he's slated to ride full-time this spring at Keeneland and Churchill Downs.

For many years the 2017 Eclipse Award-winning jockey has been a regular rider on the New York circuit during the spring and summer, but this will be the first time he'll remain in Kentucky. Agent Steve Rushing, who also take the calls for his Eclipse Award-winning brother Irad Ortiz, Jr., will continue to have his book in Kentucky. (In a text, Rushing said Jose Ortiz is moving permanently to Kentucky, but will ride at Saratoga in the summer before returning for Kentucky Downs, where he won the 2018 and 2019 titles.)

Among his many mounts Saturday is GIII Sam F. Davis S. runner-up Agate Road (Quality Road) in the GIII Jeff Ruby Steaks for Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. Listed at 4-1 on the morning line odds, Agate Road was cross-entered in Saturday's GII TwinSpires.com Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds but Pletcher said that he's, “leaning towards” running the bay at Turfway. Other notable mounts for Ortiz Saturday at Turfway include Wolfie's Dynaghost (Ghostzapper) in the GIII TwinSpires Kentucky Cup Classic and Blue Eyed George (Flameaway) in the Rushaway S.

Ortiz will make a brief return to Florida following Jeff Ruby Steaks Day, but will be back to Kentucky when Keeneland's Spring Meet begins Friday, Apr. 5.

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Other entries in the field include: Freedom Principle (Flameaway) (30-1), Dancing Groom (Vino Rosso) (15-1), Lucky Jeremy (Lookin At Lucky) (15-1), Noted (Cairo Prince) (15-1), 'TDN Rising Star' Agate Road (Quality Road) (4-1), Northern Flame (Flameaway) (5-1), Woodcourt (Ransom the Moon) (6-1), Otello (Curlin) (10-1), Seize the Grey (Arrogate) (6-1), Endlessly (Oscar Performance) (5-2), Baytown Chatterbox (Street Sense) (30-1) and West Saratoga (Exaggerator) (20-1). The two also-eligibles are Circle P (Speightster) (30-1) and Triple Espresso (Omaha Beach) (20-1).

Similar to the Louisiana Derby, the Jeff Ruby Steaks offers a point breakdown of 100-50-25-15-10.

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As migrations go, one is rather less surprising than the other. On the one hand, over the past two years the synthetic circuit at Turfway has consecutively delivered the winner and runner-up in the definitive test of a dirt Thoroughbred. On the other, the trainer hoping to produce another GI Kentucky Derby horse from the same unlikely platform is only the latest in a perennial line of Irish expatriates to have successfully adapted their skills to a new environment in the Bluegrass.

Most of the compatriots to be featured in this series will do so through their endeavors on horse farms, rather than on the racetrack. But almost of all of them have a similar story to John Ennis, in having crossed the water with little more than a willingness to work for chances in “the land of opportunity” that might never have been found in their homeland.

“No chance,” replies Ennis, asked whether he could have achieved similar things back home. “Absolutely zero. You'd have to go back there with $1 million and probably still fail. That's the long and short of it. I love going jump racing, when I'm back home, love it. But could I do it there? Not a chance.

“When I came over here, I was going absolutely nowhere. Ireland, Newmarket, Dubai, it had all dried up. And I got here with nothing. I'd say I had $500 or $600 to my name, didn't have a phone. But it's amazing how things can snowball over here.”

As it is, continuing the momentum of his best campaign to date in 2023, Ennis has already saddled 11 winners from 33 starters this year and one of those, Epic Ride (Blame), looks the horse to beat for 20 Derby points in the John Battaglia S. at Turfway on Saturday.

Whatever happens, just finding himself with a potential Derby type suggests that Ennis is entering a new phase after laying the foundations of his Stateside career with a pragmatic eye for precocity. Hitherto his modus operandi at the Thoroughbred Center near Lexington has been to showcase speed in early juveniles, in the hope of selling them on. It's almost been like transferring the breeze-up pinhook to racetrack competition.

“And we're still doing the same model,” he stresses. “I've plenty of sharp-looking individuals for the spring. But yes, if we can, going forward hopefully we're trying to get that bigger, maybe classier horse. I'm not trying to change things that are working, but every trainer wants to get up to the Premier League. You don't want to get labeled just with that cheap, early sprinting type. You always want better quality.”

Not that the two are mutually exclusive. As Wesley Ward has shown, you can upgrade while still dealing primarily with speed.

“Correct,” Ennis responds. “There's plenty that do go on from winning early in the spring to become Breeders' Cup horses, and then have a good 3-year-old career as well. So all I'm trying to do is get that better quality, whether it's five furlongs or two turns. Good horses make good trainers. The top trainers will tell you that those horses basically train themselves.”

Up to now, however, necessity has been the mother of invention. Since early, commercial types were more affordable, they became the seed corn. And, in contrast with the breeze-up programs, Ennis could also avoid the artificial deadline of a 2-year-old sale catalogue.

“It's just kind of a win-win situation,” Ennis says. “It was a quick turnover: I could get these horses to run fast, keep them sound, get them to the Keeneland spring meet. And I could make a little money, because I'd own a piece myself. There didn't seem to be many people doing it, and I thought that it could be a way to survive over here.

“For the 2-year-old sales, you get one day where they have to be ready. But if we're not ready for Keeneland opening weekend, we've still got the whole month, and then Churchill. Prize money is good, so if you can win you might get paid twice: you get your purse, and you can sell.”

The foundations were admittedly precarious. Ennis bought his first yearling, a $7,000 colt by Yes It's True, at Fasig-Tipton's October Sale in 2017. Other than dabbling with the odd bit of rehab or pre-training, in the five years since his arrival he had subsisted chiefly on freelance trackwork. Even $7,000, then, was more than he could afford.

“I was getting older, and it was getting harder on the body to be galloping all the time,” he recalls. “But it looked like I would just have to carry on as I was unless I could develop the training side. I remember going over to Fasig and thinking, 'Look, no one is going to give me horses. No one knows me. No one trusts me. So I'll have to buy my own.'”

Erin, meanwhile, his wife and mother to their twins Jack and Eleanor, was supportive as ever. Somehow they scraped the money together, with the help of friends, and Weiland showed a bit of dash before fading into fifth on debut at Keeneland. Ennis rolled the dice immediately, entering the colt for a stakes at Churchill, and was rewarded when Weiland just prevailed after a tense stretch drive.

“So after that we got him sold, and it just snowballed from there,” Ennis says. “And I just kept reinvesting, kept doing it, again and again.”

Deep in the Keeneland September Sale of 2019, for instance, he found an Oxbow colt for $9,500. The following July, as a Churchill debut winner and GIII Bashford Manor S. runner-up, County Final topped Fasig-Tipton's Horses of Racing Age auction at $475,000.

But now Epic Ride is threatening to elevate Ennis to new heights. He already did that, in fairness, simply by walking into the barn as a $160,000 yearling. He had been found at the Keeneland September Sale by Welch Racing, who were recommended to Ennis by his friend and client Martha Jane Mulholland of Mulholland Springs Farm.

“So it was great to be given that opportunity,” Ennis says gratefully. “It's a group round Jennifer and Mark Welch from Tennessee, lovely people and kind of new in the game. I think it was Mark's dad that always wanted to have a Derby horse, and for his ambition to be carried on, so that's why they named him Epic Ride.

“He's a beautiful, scopey horse; big but not too big, if you know what I mean. On looks he certainly wouldn't be out of place in the Derby paddock. And he's fast, but he carries it. The thing I really like is that he's uber professional, just settles so well. He probably should have won first time, sprinting, but it actually probably worked out better that he just got beat, as it got that extra race into him and he was able to win his maiden impressively. And then he came back for the Leonatus S. I didn't think he was quite ready, physically, but he won easy, didn't get a smack or anything and galloped out strong.”

Ennis is too familiar with the challenging margins of his profession to be getting carried away, but the reality is that a similar performance against a deeper field on Saturday could not fail to evoke the recent examples of Two Phil's and Rich Strike. The latter was probably not as effective on a synthetic track, but Two Phil's turned out to be one of those horses that are simply more adaptable than people tend to expect.

“And before those you've obviously had others, like Animal Kingdom, that switched between surfaces,” Ennis muses. “And you know what, one thing about Turfway, they come out of their races really good. They don't have the grueling, punishing races that they sometimes do on the dirt. These horses that have been coming out of the Jeff Ruby [the Grade III climax of the Turfway series], they've bounced out of it and they've run well in the Derby. So, look, we'll see if he can get the points, and then we can start thinking about the Ruby or the [GI] Blue Grass.”

Long before he started training on this scale, Ennis had always noticed the different effects of different surfaces in conditioning a horse.

“For years, I was riding a lot of nice horses for some of the bigger trainers,” he notes. “And when you're riding that many horses, every day, you'd get to feel how some of them were getting tired and labored underneath you. So I never want to empty a horse on the dirt, because it can bottom them fairly fast. At the Thoroughbred Center, it's a heavy enough dirt, it takes a bit of getting. You could easily overcook a horse if you trained them too much. So, yeah, less can be more.”

That earlier experience riding trackwork also introduced Ennis to what elevates the best horses from the herd. For he was once the regular exercise partner of a future dual Horse of the Year in Wise Dan (Wiseman's Ferry).

“He was just a different gear, a freak,” he says with enthusiasm. “He was your American Frankel (GB), he was that good. He'd have been quick enough to go six furlongs, his cruising speed was that fast. And he'd probably have stayed a mile and a half, too.”

Ennis has never attended the Derby and nor does he intend to do so–unless he meets one condition.

“It's only down the road, obviously, but I've always said that I'd never go until I have a runner,” he says. “If this horse doesn't make it, I won't go. But it would be a dream, just to be part of it. The Derby's not the be-all and end-all, but it would be huge just to do that walk over, with 130,000 people screaming at you. That stuff doesn't happen. It would be madness.”

In the meantime, Ennis is keeping his feet on the ground and sticking to the process. Here, after all, is a man who started with nothing. The first to support him was Allen Greathouse, now an investor in nearly every yearling project.

“I've got some great clients now, but he was the first,” Ennis says. “He trusts me, and he's doing well with it. We bought a Collected yearling off Stone Farm at Keeneland for $2,500, Gewurztraminer, and after he won easy at Churchill we sold him for $250,000. And actually I was out at Stone Farm the other day, and hopefully they'll be sending me his siblings.

“I've now got Three Diamonds Farm, Cheyenne Stables, Dixiana. Bourbon Lane are sending me some. It's building up crazily; really, I need more room. When I started out, I was subleasing a couple of stalls. Then I might have had two horses in this barn, four in that one, all spread out. Now I've got a whole barn of 40, plus 10 in another one. And 30 of them are 2-year-olds. Thank God, they've been running consistently well for quite a while now. Maybe it's the better horses, maybe I'm placing them better, maybe it's a combination. But momentum is key, isn't it? So, yeah, just keep the foot down.”

It's a world apart, certainly, from the cul-de-sac he had reached at the end of his 20s back in the Old World. Unlike so many Irishmen who have preceded him here, Ennis was by no means born into the game. His dad, a truck driver, would take him from their home in Co. Meath to the old Phoenix Park, and the boy would gaze in awe at Steve Cauthen riding out of the parade ring in the old Sheikh Mohammed silks. He left school at 15 and entered the apprentice academy at the Curragh with little sense of vocation. By the time he boarded that plane, his path with horses appeared to be fading. All he knew was that he had a friend to stay with, and hoped to pick up some trackwork. Within two or three months he was riding through to mid-afternoon daily, making good money, already beginning to sense that this was a place where a striver could make things happen.

“And let me tell you this, the Irish expat community in Lexington is the best in the world, bar none,” he says. “If something goes wrong, or someone's in trouble, they all come together and look after you. I've seen it time and again. Everyone will get together to get you out of a hole. It's amazing. We're all competing, all trying to buy and sell horses, all trying to make money–but we're all in it together.”

Last year his father came over and found himself being photographed with Cauthen in the Keeneland paddock–a barn client, in his role with Dixiana–and watching races from the farm's box.

“I trained a Dixiana homebred filly [Icicles (Frosted)] to win a stakes at Turfway at the start of the year,” Ennis says proudly. “They're all so easy to deal with, Steve, Rob Tillyer, everyone.

“I'm 42 now and have still never had money. But the reason I don't have money now is because I keep buying horses! And at least I can provide for my family. I would definitely encourage other guys to come over. There's so many good people in Ireland and England, just wasting away. Come over here and give it five years. If you don't like it, go home. But give it a go.”

Of course, a spirit of adventure brings no guarantees. If Ennis has earned unusual success, he evidently has aptitudes that are no less common.

“American Dream, that's basically what it is,” he says with a shrug. “But it is all about hard work. You get over here, and you work. Look after whatever dollars or cents you can get, try to keep things together–and always invest in yourself.”

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Barbara Borden, the chief state steward presiding at Turfway, detailed the incident during Tuesday's Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) meeting.

“The horse got loose in the barn area, unfortunately ran through the stable gate, and actually ran over a person who was trying to catch him as he was leaving the barn area,” Borden said. “And he wound up on [the interstate] going north. So he was thankfully caught, without much ado or injury to himself or any humans, about six, seven miles up the road.”

Videos posted on social media by motorists, plus police body camera footage, showed the horse-whose identity was not revealed in news reports or by the KHRC-running up the interstate in the dark.

WCPO-TV out of nearby Cincinnati, Ohio, had reported drivers “dutifully turned on their hazard lights and slowed down” and that police from the city of Erlanger “tried to help by boxing in the horse with their cruisers.”

State police shut down the highway around 10:15 p.m., according to published news reports.

“At one point, the horse ran full gallop southbound in the northbound lanes into the rear of [a] police cruiser, causing damage to his trunk,” stated a police incident report quoted by WCPO. The TV station further reported that the horse fell down after striking the car, “only to get back up and continue making a break for it.”

Police body camera footage with a time stamp of 10:22 p.m. showed the horse standing calmly while shanked in the hands of a caretaker who was trying to soothe him on the side of the interstate.

“We were talking to Florence police, and we alerted them that the horse was loose,” Borden said. “I called one of our outriders and said, 'Hook your trailer up and get out there,' and he did. He was the one who actually brought the horse back. We got very lucky that no person or horse was injured.”

One officer could be heard saying on the police footage, “This is nuts, man. That's a first. Definitely a first.”

Actually, it wasn't.

On Mar. 2, 2013, a first-time starter named Joseph the Catfish ducked out, unseated his rider, and leapt Turfway's outer rail. He ran down Houston Road through a retail district before being captured in an attempt to run south onto the same highway.

Chip Bach, Turfway's general manager, told commissioners at the Feb. 27 meeting that the track's stable gate had been damaged in an unrelated incident prior to the horse escape.

The rebuilt version, Bach said, will include a safety arm with flashing LED lights that can be lowered at the press of a button if a security staffer hears the “loose horse” siren going off on in the stable area.

“The  plan is to work on it as soon as we get past this meet,” Bach said.

The post Turfway to Rebuild Stable Gate in Aftermath of Horse Escape onto Highway appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Thank You!! To everyone for kind messages. To staff,clients & horses for all they've done. What I'm most proud of was winning for Joe Murphy & @TurfwayPark where I began. Joe's father, JB Murphy gave me a horse as a very young trainer in 1987. Judge CW was my 1st $100k earner https://t.co/fcwrSagqbH pic.twitter.com/XKx8J9lVZS

— Kenny McPeek (@KennyMcPeek) February 22, 2024

The post McPeek Hits 2,000 Milestone at Turfway Wednesday Evening with Stoneleigh Farm Homebred appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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