Zoe Cadman | Horse Racing Free Tips

Danny Gargan Joins the TDN Writers’ Room

The GII Fountain of Youth S. may have received a few key scratches that diminished the overall quality of the field, but Danny Gargan won't let that take anything away from the victory earned by his trainee Dornoch (Good Magic). As this week's Green Group Guest of the Week on the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland, Gargan recapped Saturday's Fountain of Youth score and made a case for why we still haven't seen the best from Dornoch.

“We've just gotta get someone fast enough to get next to him,” Gargan explained. “If someone will get next to him, you're going to see a fast horse. I mean, he does explode working. But Luis [Saez] was just sitting there playing around. He'll wait on competition because he wants to play. He's a big boy and wants the competition.”

While the goal was originally for Dornoch to get some experience coming from behind horses, the game plan changed after a late scratch from Todd Pletcher trainee Speak Easy (Constitution), who got loose behind the gate. Gargan had to break out his running shoes to get to Saez before the horses started loading.

“Right where the stand is where they do the interviews and they're on TV, I ran down to the track where the horses walk on and Luis was right around that area. We had to have a conversation again, but he knew what we wanted at that stage. He's a pretty smart kid…I had to change our game plan completely because I didn't want to be behind one of those horses and have them get in our way. So we went ahead and decided to just go to the lead.”

The plan was a success as Dornoch, who is a full-brother to last year's GI Kentucky Derby winner Mage, wired a field of five and earned 50 points on the road to the Kentucky Derby. Gargan has said that he is considering either the GI Florida Derby or the GI Blue Grass S. for the colt's next start. On the show, he reported that he's leaning toward the Blue Grass, but should have a final decision at some point later next week.

Until then, he plans to soak up the experience of the Derby trail. A native of Louisville, Gargan has been to the Kentucky Derby once before in 2019 with Tax (Arch), who finished fourteenth, but this time around he said his outlook is a bit different.

“We're just going to enjoy where we're at right now,” Gargan said. “We're lucky enough that we didn't have to run that hard to get the points. We're already probably in the race. I believe we have a horse that, if we get him in the gate on the first Saturday in May, he'd have a chance to win it. So it's a totally different ballpark and it's a fun thing to be a part of. Hopefully we get lucky and we're there.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is sponsored by Coolmore's Epicenter, WinStar Farm's Global Campaign, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, 1/ST Racing, West Point Thoroughbreds and XBTV.com, the team of Randy Moss, Zoe Cadman and T.D. Thornton reviewed all the major Kentucky Derby and Oaks prep races from coast to coast and questioned the implications the many scratches might have had on the weekend's results. They also took a look at the new Tapeta track at Santa Anita, as well as the announcement of 1/ST's new racing series and the GI Preakness S. purse increase.

Click here to watch the show.

Click here for the audio-only version.

The post Danny Gargan Joins the TDN Writers’ Room appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Brook Smith Joins TDN Writer’s Room Podcast

The families and children who rely on the Backside Learning Center have a GI Kentucky Derby horse to root for. Sierra Leone (Gun Runner), the winner of the GII Risen Star S. at the Fair Grounds, is partially owned by Brook Smith, who is part of a partnership led by Coolmore. Smith has been a generous supporter of the Backside Learning Center and, through the Purses for a Purpose program, donates a portion of his earnings every time a horse of his picks up a check. Smith joined this week's TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland to talk about Sierra Leone, how he got involved with Coolmore and his philanthropy. He was the Green Group Guest of the Week.

“I have had some good fortune and had a lot of great, amazing people around me,” he said. “But, for me to really enjoy something it has to have some kind of social component to it. I mean, what's the point otherwise? I started learning more about the backside learning center and realized the backside is the backbone of the racing industry. Those are the workers that get up early and they have a tough job. It's a tough duty. They have the business and the industry in their blood. And the budget that the Backside Learning Center had was kind of anemic, especially when you consider all the money that flows through the industry. So, when I sat down with a few of the folks there, I said there's got to be a program where the owners can and should contribute a percentage of their purses to elevate the foundation. I was looking at what the backside learning center's programing is, and how they ran their, their nonprofit. I thought this deserves, a few more logs on the fire. So we came up with this Purses for a Purpose.”

His association with Coolmore started when he invested in a business partially owned by Charlie Pearson, who is John Magnier's son-in-law. From there, Smith connected with the Coolmore team and that led to him owning a piece of Sierra Leone and Hall of Fame (Gun Runner), who was seventh in the Risen Star.

“They're great folks, good friends and we started doing some business together and have had success,” Smith said. “One thing led to another, and I was introduced to the Coolmore ecosystem. Their breeding, farming operation in Ireland is second to none. And they are just amazing people that are wildly successful. Somewhere along the way, they asked if I would you be interested in maybe becoming one of their partners? I thought, 'Wow, that's a great opportunity? Coolmore, they play at the top.'”

Sierra Leone is the first legitimate Kentucky Derby contender Smith has owned. How has he kept his feet on the ground?

“I'm just trying to have fun with it and enjoy it,” he said. “And I can use the opportunity to be a voice for places like Purses for a Purpose and maybe a few other non-profits. It's not just coveting the moment, but reveling in it and reveling in it with everybody involved. These things can change in a step. I'm just hopeful that the horse stays sound and healthy. He seems the type.”

During the stallion spotlight segments of the podcast, the crew sang the praises of Coolmore stallion Jack Christopher , who stands for $40,000, and the WinStar stallion Audible, who stands for $15,000.

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, Coolmore, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, 1/ST Racing, West Point Thoroughbreds, and XBTV.com, the team of Randy Moss, Bill Finley and Zoe Cadman reviewed the major races run last week, which included Sierra Leone's win in the Risen Star and the victory by Tarifa (Bernardini) in the GII Rachel Alexandra Stakes. The team looked back at the career of Echo Zulu (Gun Runner), who had to be euthanized after getting cast in her stall. Moss and Cadman explained why they voted for her for champion female sprinter over Goodnight Olive (Ghostzapper).

To watch the Writers' Room podcast video, click here. To listen to an audio version, click here.

The post Brook Smith Joins TDN Writer’s Room Podcast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Frank Taylor Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

Frank Taylor, the director of new business and development for Taylor Made, knew that there was an acute labor shortage in Kentucky, with farms unable to find reliable help. But Taylor thought he had a solution. Identify those who were struggling with substance abuse problems, put them into a recovery program and, when they are ready, teach them horsemanship skills that can make them candidates for jobs throughout the industry. Thus, Taylor created Stable Recovery, a rehabilitation program, and the Taylor Made School of Horsemanship.

What he didn't know at the time was whether or not farms would be willing to take a chance on individuals that had been in prison and/or struggled with drug addiction. He soon found out. His programs have been embraced in the Lexington area and several graduates have landed steady jobs and have moved on to meaningful lives.

Taylor joined this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland to talk about his programs and their many success stories. He was this week's Green Group Guest of the week.

Taylor said he arrived at the idea of starting the program when confronting his own alcoholism.

“Once I did it and quit, I started feeling better,” he said. “I was having more fun than I've ever had. It was that that kind of spurred me on to start the School of Horsemanship. It was going to be a 90-day program to teach the basics of horsemanship, to get people started off at, say, a groom level, either for Taylor Made or another farm. I had kind of a tough sales job. I went to my brothers and said, 'I've got this idea, I want to bring in a bunch of heroin addicts and alcoholics and felons in here to work with these horses.' They were looking at me like I had two heads. I just wanted a chance to make it work. They were reluctant because there were a lot of concerns. But here we are, 3 1/2 years into it. We have had a hiccup here or there, but not many. I really think we have changed a lot of lives. We've introduced a lot of people to the horse business and trained a lot of people. The results have been amazing.”

The program has been so successful that Taylor would like to expand, but, for now, it's a matter of one step at a time.

“If we wanted to have 500 people in this program by the end of the year, that wouldn't be a problem,” he said. “We need the space, money and management. The need for something like this is way beyond what we can serve at this point and always will be. It's just such a crisis and a terrible situation. It's destroying society, is destroying families. It's just absolutely one of the worst epidemics in the history of mankind. The beautiful thing is, is we have that huge problem and that we have a huge problem with labor in this country. If you blend those two together, they can help solve each other.”

It's been proven that working with horses can solve all kinds of problems for people, whether that be soldiers suffering from PTSD or individuals with drug issues. Taylor knows that the horses deserve a lot of the credit for the success of these programs.

“The horses, they are like the secret sauce for stable recovery,” Taylor said. “That's something we have that other recovery places don't have. I was born into the horse business and I love horses and they're my passion. But I didn't really realize how therapeutic horses were or understand that part of it until I started seeing people that are broken interacting with those horses and seeing the peace and joy that comes to them immediately. It's just an amazing thing.”

In the stallion spotlight segments, the podcast featured Coolmore's Corniche, who stands for just $15,000. The focus was also on Improbable, who stands at WinStar Farm for a fee of $15,000.

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, Coolmore, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association,https://www.kentuckybred.org/https://www.nyrabets.com/ 1/ST Racing, West Point Thoroughbreds, https://www.winstarfarm.com/and XBTV.com, the team of Randy Moss, Bill Finley and Zoe Cadman delved back into the Bob Baffert ban at Churchill Downs, which also extends to the GI Kentucky Oaks, which means the impressive winner of the GIII Las Virgenes S. Kinza (Carpe Diem) will be shut out. Moss agreed that the Derby week races might deserve an asterisk if Baffert's horses are all banned, but he argued that it's not too late for Churchill to change its mind and to lift the Baffert ban. The team took a look at the GII Risen Star S., to be run this Saturday at the Fair Grounds and all agreed it will be by far the deepest Derby prep run so far this year.

For the podcast video, click here. For audio only, click here.

The post Frank Taylor Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Kenny McPeek Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

No one was hotter last week than trainer Kenny McPeek, who won two stakes at Oaklawn over the weekend, one a prep for the GI Kentucky Derby, the other a prep for the GI Kentucky Oaks. McPeek scored with the filly Band of Gold (Preservationist), who, at 24-1, won the Martha Washington S. Two races later, it was the colt Mystik Dan (Goldencents), who was an impressive eight-length winner of the GIII Southwest S. at odds of 11-1. That meant there was plenty to talk about when McPeek joined this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland. McPeek was the Green Group Guest of the Week.

Though Mystik Dan had been a bit inconsistent during his brief career, McPeek said he always knew the colt had ability.

“This horse is really fast,” McPeek said. “He has been from the beginning. Initially, I ran him twice in sprint races and afterward I kind of regretted it a little bit because we had to retool him a little bit. He's so quick, but you had to kind of re-teach him and he needed to learn how to go longer. What he did this past weekend was pretty special in the sense that we've been teaching him to sit off horses. Let him just go easy and then learn to utilize that speed. The last three furlongs, it looked like he was shot out of a cannon.”

McPeek has won the GI Preakness S. and the GI Belmont S., but a Derby win has eluded him. He came close with his first ever runner Tejano Run (Tejabo), who was second in 1995. But, overall, he is 0-for-9 in America's greatest race. How badly does he want to add a Derby win to his resume?

“For me, being from Kentucky, it is a big deal,” McPeek said. “I think any horse trainer wants to win a race like that. But it's got to come together on its own. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. I'm not going to put all my eggs in the one basket and say I haven't won the Derby so I haven't had a full career.”

Band of Gold was a badly beaten fifth in the Untapable S., but McPeek wasn't about to give up on her after she won her debut, a maiden race at Churchill Downs.

“Any filly that wins first time out like she did at Churchill Downs is obviously talented,” he said. “I think that she got a little confused in her second start at the Fair Grounds. We ran her in the Untapable, but she never really figured out what she was supposed to do out there. She was the one that we somewhat had to regroup with.”

In the stallion spotlight segments, the podcast featured Coolmore's Tiz the Law (Constitution), who stands for a fee of $20,000. The focus was also on Audible (Into Mischief), who stands at WinStar Farm for a fee of $15,000.

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, 1/ST Racing, West Point Thoroughbreds, and XBTV.com, the team of Randy Moss, Bill Finley and Zoe Cadman reviewed the ultra-impressive win by Nysos (Nyquist) in the GIII Robert B. Lewis. Because he is trained by Bob Baffert, who remains under a ban at Churchill Downs, he cannot run in the Derby. The panel agreed that the absence of Nysos and the other Baffert runners could turn into the type of controversy that could overshadow the race itself. The discussion also included the GIII Holy Bull S., in which the heavily favored champion Fierceness (City of Light) didn't have the best of trips on his way to a third-place finish. All agreed that it was a subpar race from a horse who shows signs that he can't handle adversity. The podcast closed with a look at the story of trainer Jeffrey Englehart, who is facing a two-year suspension for clenbuterol, which he insists was administered to the horse before it came into his barn.

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