The first classic of the UAE season took place in the UAE 1000 Guineas (Listed) this Thursday at Meydan, held over one mile on the dirt. Godolphin's Saeed bin Suroor-trained Soft Whisper vied for favoritism with Al Rashid Stables' Doug Watson-trained Mnasek before the race.
What set up as a great matchup never manifested as Soft Whisper screamed home a dominant seven-length winner under stalk-and-pounce Frankie Dettori tactics, while Mnasek missed the break before closing to a distant second under Dane O'Neill. Watson-trained Super Chianti was another 2 1/4 lengths back in third under Pat Dobbs after racing greenly during the final three furlongs.
The final time was 1:38.67 and the winner landed her second race of the season, following a one-sided tally in the UAE 1000 Guineas Trial three weeks ago. By Dubawi out of the Sea the Stars mare Placidia, the homebred gave Dettori his fourth win in the race this century and Bin Suroor his 12th. Bigger races may be on the horizon for the now four-time winner from six starts.
“She missed the kick last time, but this time she jumped really good into position and was always in control,” Dettori said. “When I kicked, she went–simply as that. I didn't have to do too much. She has a bright future. Saeed mentioned everything–Saudi (Derby), UAE Oaks, UAE Derby–who knows. When you win so impressively, you get excited and you think of big plans. I was just saying to Saeed that the last time I won a race this easily was probably Dubai Millennium in 2000. It took me 21 years to find one just as easy.
“That was good. We have big hopes for her. Maybe she didn't beat the best in the world, but the way she did it, you have to be impressed. We'll take one step at a time. Nothing has tested her today, so it would be wrong for me to say how good she is because I need some better competition, but at the moment everything is in the right place.”
“We got beat by a good horse on the night, there's no doubt about that,” O'Neill added about the runner-up. “We got a bit of kickback early on and they got a couple lengths on me on the turn, but when she saw daylight, she stayed on well. She's a timid little filly and likes a little bit of space and out of the kickback. She's a nice filly and she'll probably stay farther next time.”
Regarding Super Chianti, Dobbs added: “She was greener tonight than she was the first night. She travelled well, but when I went for her, she just stuck her head in the air and never went forward for me.”
The $1.5 million Saudi Derby is set for a similar one-turn, one-mile trip at King Abdulaziz Racecourse on Feb. 20 in Riyadh, while the UAE Oaks (G3) over 1 3/16 miles on Feb. 18. The UAE Derby is slated for Dubai World Cup day, March 27.
Jockey Alexander Crispin is one of three finalists for the Eclipse Award as outstanding apprentice of 2020. The winners in 17 equine and human categories will be announced during a virtual ceremony starting at 8 p.m. Thursday.
Maryland-based riders have captured 11 of the 46 Eclipse Awards as champion apprentice, the most recent being Weston Hamilton in 2018. Other winners are Chris McCarron (1974), Ronnie Franklin (1978), Alberto Delgado (1982), Allen Stacy (1986), Kent Desormeaux (1987), Mike Luzzi (1989), Mark Johnston (1990), Jeremy Rose (2001), Ryan Fogelsonger (2002) and Victor Carrasco (2013). Hamilton and Carrasco continue to be based in Maryland.
Maryland Jockey Club host and analyst Naomi Tukker had a chance to talk to Crispin about his 2020 season and what it would be like to win the Eclipse Award.
Crispin graduated from Puerto Rico's famed Escuela Vocacional Hipica in December 2019 and made his pro debut last Jan. 1 at Hipodromo Camarero. After coming to the U.S. late last winter, Cripsin was fifth in his mainland debut aboard Time Marches On March 7, 2020 at Turfway Park.
He continued to ride in the Midwest, picking up his first win March 12, 2020 on Thorpe d'Oro at Turfway, until moving his tack to Delaware Park for the summer. Crispin finished the Delaware meet as its leading apprentice, ranking second overall with 58 wins and fourth with more than $1.3 million in purse earnings.
Crispin arrived in Maryland in late October, two weeks into Laurel Park's fall meet, and wound up leading all apprentice riders and ranking third overall with 29 wins while banking $725,920 in purses earned.
Trainer Jose D'Angelo put thousands of miles on his truck last year while giving his stable star, Jesus' Team, a tour of East Coast and Midwest racetracks.
“When Jesus' Team left Florida to go to Monmouth, when he went from Monmouth to Saratoga and back to Monmouth, when he went to Pimlico and when he went to Kentucky and back to Florida, I drove him there in the truck,” said D'Angelo, recalling the extensive road trip that produced Grade 1 placings in the Preakness (G1) at Pimlico and Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1) at Keeneland, as well as a lifetime of memories for a horsemen who was only in his first full year of training in the U.S. “Everywhere he went, I drove the truck.”
After hitting the road with Grupo 7C Racing Stable's reformed claimer for a full schedule of major stakes engagements last year, the 30-year-old native of Caracas, Venezuela will save a lot on gas for the 4-year-old son of Tapiture's 2021 debut start in Saturday's $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) at Gulfstream Park. Jesus' Team will only have to make the short trip from his home at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream's satellite training facility in Palm Beach County, to compete in the 1 1/8-mile Pegasus, which will co-headline Saturday's program with the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational (G1).
“I'm very excited about the race. I feel blessed,” D'Angelo said. “I feel like Jesus is going to run a big race Saturday, but I'm also very nervous.”
D'Angelo may have a case of big-race jitters leading up to the Pegasus World Cup, but that doesn't mean that he lacks confidence in his horse or his ability to bring him into one of the world's richest races in peak form. He's been there, done that in Venezuela.
He grew up in a Thoroughbred racing family, the son of trainer Francisco D'Angelo, the leading trainer in Venezuela on multiple occasions, and the grandson of a prominent Thoroughbred journalist. After attending university to study business administration for two years, D'Angelo dropped out to pursue a training career with his father's blessing.
“I learned everything I know from my father. He was a great trainer in Venezuela. He won many titles in Venezuela. He is my role model, 100 percent,” he said.
D'Angelo experienced a full range of emotion at La Rinconada after saddling his first starter at the end of 2012.
“My first race I won, but he was disqualified,” D'Angelo said. “The horse's name was Dasha. It was the 23rd of December.”
Merry Christmas, indeed.
D'Angelo's spirits were quickly lifted when he saddled his first official winner with his third starter, Queen Norma, at La Rinconada.
In 2014, D'Angelo saddled Dreaming of Gold for a victory in the Clasico Simon Bolivar, becoming the youngest trainer to saddle the winner of Venezuela's most prestigious race.
“When the horse won his first race for me, I told the owners, 'We have the horse to win the Clasico Simon Bolivar.' They looked at me like I was crazy,” D'Angelo said. “Dreaming of Gold wasn't the best horse in Venezuela, but he beat the best horses. Jesus wasn't the best horse in Florida, but he beat the best in Florida and ran in the Preakness and Breeders' Cup. Both horses are very, very similar.”
D'Angelo had continued success and achieved his goal of becoming the leading trainer in Venezuela in 2018.
“It was my goal. After that, I moved to Florida,” said D'Angelo, who joined his father, who had ventured to South Florida in 2015 to resume his training career. “To come here was always my dream.”
D'Angelo, who had saddled Forze Mau for a second-place finish in the Copa Velocidad on the 2017 Clasico del Caribe undercard at Gulfstream while based in Venezuela, saddled his horse since relocating to the U.S. at Gulfstream Park June 8, 2019, when Cocktail Skirt came up a nose short of victory while finishing second in a $12,500 claiming race. He broke through with his first U.S. victory with his third overall U.S. starter, Beach Dreaming, whom he had claimed out of a $12,500 claiming race and went on to score at the same level June 27, 2019. D'Angelo didn't have to sweat out an inquiry following the 5-year-old mare's dominating 2 ¼-length victory, but she was claimed out of the race.
D'Angelo quickly established himself in South Florida while finishing the 2018 season with 15 victories from 57 starters. His early success certainly was a contributing factor to Jesus' Team being transferred to his stable last spring, a partnership that also achieved early success. The Kentucky-bred colt, who had broken his maiden in his fifth career start for a $32.000 claiming price, won at first asking by 6 ¾ lengths in a $25,000 claiming race at Gulfstream May 8.
“When he won, I thought that race was very impressive. When he came back to the barn it was like he didn't race,” D'Angelo said. “The next time he worked, the way he galloped out, he was a different horse.”
Jesus' Team made a significant jump in class next time out in a June 10 stakes-quality optional claiming allowance at Gulfstream, in which he finished second behind graded-stakes winner Sole Volante, who went on to run in the Belmont Stakes (G1) and Kentucky Derby (G1), and ahead of Florida Derby (G1) runner-up Shivaree.
“He ran green in that race, but he finished second with a big heart,” his trainer said.
D'Angelo revved up his truck, led Jesus' Team onto a van, and hit the road for an amazing adventure that included a fourth-place finish behind Authentic in the Haskell (G1) and a second-place finish in the ungraded Pegasus at Monmouth, a third-place finish in the Preakness, and a second-place finish in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile behind likely Pegasus favorite Knicks Go. Jesus' Team tuned up for the Pegasus with a victory in the Dec. 5 Claiming Crown Jewel upon his return to Gulfstream.
“I would like to be a great trainer in this amazing country and have great horses to run in the big races,” D'Angelo said. “The experience I lived last year was the best in my life, for sure.”
Gastric ulcers in horses have been a problem for trainers, owners, and managers for years now, and studies suggest a majority of racehorses and performance horses suffer from them. As a result, they've been a topic of much academic research in the past five years.
Dr. Ben Sykes, assistant professor of equine internal medicine at Massey University, sat down with the Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation recently to give the public an idea of what we've learned in the past five years and what he and other researchers plan to focus on in the next five.
A complete replay of Sykes's seminar is below. A few key takeaways:
First of all, the term most of us use to describe this issue in horses is a bit outdated. Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome (EGUS) is still the common terminology in lots of advertising and lay articles about the topic, but that's actually a holdover from before we knew that there were two distinct types of ulcer-like disorders that could be happening in a horse's stomach.
Technically, there are now two terms in use which are more specific: Equine Squamous Gastric Disease and Equine Glandular Gastric Disease. Squamous gastric disease refers to ulcers in the upper half of the stomach, characterized by ulcers easily viewed on gastroscope. Glandular Gastric Disease refers to lesions [which technically aren't ulcers, but look and behave similarly to true ulcers] in the lower half of the stomach, particularly around the part where the stomach empties into the gut.
Until recently, gastroscopes were only long enough to reach the squamous part of the stomach, so we didn't really know if there could be problems lurking further along. The two terms really only came about in the last several years when the longer gastroscopes became common. Research we have on gastric ulcers in horses prior to 2015 is almost certainly referring to Equine Squamous Gastric Disease. Equine Glandular Gastric Disease is much less understood.
Why does this matter? The two diseases exist independently of each other, with different possible causes and different treatments. For Sykes, squamous ulcers come about as a result of management decisions that increase damage of stomach acid to the top of the stomach. The ulcers are caused by two types of acid – hydrochloric acid, which is reduced by common treatments like omeprazole, and volatile fatty acids, which are not addressed by omeprazole and come about as a way to digest grain. Sykes said researchers think that this acid damage occurs during exercise.
Studies have shown that exercise drops stomach pH, increasing the acidity. This is primarily because the abdominal muscles at a trot or canter squeeze the stomach into an hourglass shape, pushing the acid that was at the bottom of the stomach, where it was being buffered by a lot of fibrous feed material, toward the top, which is more likely to be fairly empty or contain thinner, more watery material. It's quite easy for the acid to splash around at the top of the stomach and cause damage.
High carbohydrate diets can be a problem for horses with this disorder since they require more volatile fatty acids to break down the structure of the carbs. That doesn't mean you can't feed an ulcery horse grain, Sykes said – you just have to do it in moderation. A balanced commercially processed feed provides a lot of important nutrients to working horses. Low carb, high fat and high fiber diets are good choices for keeping a horse fed without increasing ulcer risk.
Equine Glandular Gastric Disease on the other hand, occurs in the lower part of the stomach where the environment is commonly pretty acidic. Sykes said he thinks the disease occurs because the natural defense mechanisms of the stomach lining there have been compromised for some reason.
There's no evidence diet impacts Equine Glandular Gastric Disease, but workload might. Studies have shown that long stretches of work without days off make a horse more likely to exhibit signs of Equine Glandular Gastric Disease, and behavioral stress may be a factor as well. Horses with glandular ulcers have been shown to produce higher levels of cortisol in stressful situations than horses without glandular ulcers, though we don't know whether stress caused the ulcers or the ulcers worsened the horses' stress reaction.
A few discoveries from recent data: Perhaps surprisingly, omeprazole, the go-to treatment for gastric ulcers, does its best work on a relatively empty stomach. One study compared the acidity of horse's stomachs when they were fed free choice hay round the clock versus the usual racehorse schedule of two big meals with some hay offered in between. Researchers found that the drug worked best when the horse had an empty stomach first thing in the morning.
It seems misoprostal may be a better treatment for glandular ulcers than omeprazole, which works well on squamous ulcers. Both options improved horses' symptoms, but the misoprostal showed more healing of lesions on gastroscopy.
A new form of omeprazole available via intramuscular injection may show promise for horses with both types of ulcers. The drug isn't accessible in most of the United States yet, but one peer-reviewed study showed 100% healing of squamous ulcers and 75% healing of glandular ulcers after two doses.
For a long time, veterinarians have suspected a connection between prolonged use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories like phenylbutazone and ulcers, so for a while they suggested giving omeprazole along with bute as a preventative. Sykes pointed to one peer-reviewed study from 2020 that showed that may not be a good idea. In the study, horses were examined after being given a course of drugs — either bute alone or bute given alongside omeprazole. The bute group did show signs of ulceration while the other group didn't, but there was a high rate of serious intestinal issues among the group receiving bute with omeprazole. In two cases, those intestinal problems proved fatal.
One of the big questions Sykes hopes to answer in the coming years is the potential side effects of long-term omeprazole use in horses – particularly whether or not it increases fracture risk by changing calcium and magnesium absorption. Initially, long-term use of certain types of ulcer drugs in humans was thought to increase fracture risk only in geriatric patients but a recent study in pediatric patients showed that short term treatment of very young children resulted in a 13 percent increase of fracture by age 12 or 13.
We don't have any data to show whether or not the same thing occurs in horses, and part of the reason is that it's difficult to exclude other risk factors for a fracture. The human data does have Sykes worried – not only about the intersection of ulcer treatments and fatal fracture risk, but also about whether ulcer treatments could predispose a horse to bucked shins or other bone maladaptive disorders.
Sykes said thanks to Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation, he and others are currently constructing studies to look at the impacts of common ulcer drugs on mineral absorption in horses. With any luck, we should know more about the issue in the coming years.
