seitz gains further success with training

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flashy dresser, fred seitz, training success

The following post appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

Seven years ago, the successful horseman Fred Seitz left his Brookdale Farm operation in the hands of his sons, Joe and Freddie, and turned full-time to training racehorses. Seitz has met with successes along the way, but on Saturday, his colt Flashy Dresser remained unbeaten in two starts while winning the Rushaway Stakes at Turfway Park in northern Kentucky.

Flashy Dresser, from the first crop of the Holy Bull stallion Flashy Bull, beat some interesting classic prospects in the race, but Seitz is not hastening onto the classic trail with his lightly raced colt. Seitz said: “We want to do right by this colt. He’s a really nice horse, and the first step is to make sure he’s well, then go day by day and look at all our options.”

That philosophy is the one that Seitz has used since purchasing Flashy Dresser at the 2010 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July sale for $70,000. An attractive and well-grown colt at the time of sale, Flashy Dresser was one of a very nice group of first-crop yearlings by his Airdrie Stud-based sire that were presented at the first yearling auction of the year.

Only two yearlings from the sire’s first crop sold for more money in 2010, which indicates that Flashy Dresser passed all the criteria for a number of interested parties. Seitz secured the colt through the agency of Jun Park, who signed the ticket at Fasig July. Seitz said that he buys all his racing prospects on the advice of the David Lambert Equine Analysis team, and Park is part of that group.

A lifelong horseman who grew up on a training farm in New Jersey, Seitz has embraced newer technologies in racehorse selection, and he said that he uses all of the Lambert group’s tools, such as cardio scans, mechanical evaluations, wind test, and genetics, which “they are quite deep into right now,” Seitz noted.

As a result of this purchase and others, Seitz had several 2-year-olds to train, and he said the decision to put Flashy Dresser into a sale of 2-year-olds in training “was a difficult decision, but we needed to sell some. He had worked well at Keeneland and was clearly a nice colt with ability.”

Out of the Two Punch mare Saltnvinegar, Flashy Dresser worked very well at Fasig-Tipton’s sale of 2-year-olds in training at Timonium in Maryland. He worked a quarter-mile in :22 2/5 with an above-average stride length of 24.16 feet and earned a DataTrack International BreezeFig of 57. It appeared that Seitz would have a handsome payday for his work with the colt.

A post-breeze radiograph, however, showed a chip in a knee, and Seitz bought the colt back for $80,000.

The owner-trainer said that he had Larry Bramlage take out the chip, “gave the colt a couple of months off after the surgery,” and resumed training without incident, “just like Dr. Bramlage said he would after the surgery.”

The colt progressed well through his winter training, and on March 4, the handsome chestnut colt won his début by 6 3/4 lengths at Gulfstream Park, going six furlongs on dirt, and won the Rushaway, going a mile and a sixteenth on Polytrack, only 20 days later. Flashy Dresser now has earnings of $73,065.

The colt has the potential to become the best racer that Seitz has conditioned, and the ever-humble owner gave the colt most of the credit. He said: “I’ve learned that a good horse will do what it’s capable of if you can keep them comfortable and happy.”

Seitz has obviously managed to do that with Flashy Dresser, who has progressed so well in his first two races. Like the colt, Seitz also is happy in his work. He said that “after getting out of the service, I worked as a hot walker and a groom, with the desire to train, but it was too migratory a life with three small children,” and therefore he and his family moved to Lexington and established Brookdale.

There, Seitz stood such important stallions as Deputy Minister, Crafty Prospector, Silver Deputy, The Minstrel, and Forest Wildcat, among others. In addition to standing stallions, Seitz built up a successful breeding and consignment operation that made him one of the most respected horsemen in the Bluegrass.

A bit more than seven years ago, Seitz moved his tack to the racetrack, where his early passion for the sport had developed and where success is finding him once more.

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secret circle taking next step up

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bob baffert, claiborne farm, eddington, secret circle

The following post appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

Secret Circle was freakishly fast as a juvenile, when he won the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Sprint, but this season trainer Bob Baffert has conditioned the bay son of Eddington to stretch out and race around two turns. A more relaxed approach to racing paid off most effectively this weekend when Secret Circle came home the winner of the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park.

Now the colt will be pointed for the Arkansas Derby and potentially the Triple Crown.

The leading racer for his sire, Secret Circle was bred in Kentucky by Willmott Stables, which also campaigned his sire, the Unbridled stallion Eddington, winner of the G1 Pimlico Special and placed third in the Preakness, Travers, Wood Memorial, and Donn Handicap.

One of the handsomest sons of Unbridled, the big, chestnut Eddington went to stud at Claiborne Farm, where Unbridled spent the latter part of his stud career, and from his early crops, Eddington has produced a large portion of runners (165, 55 percent) and winners (111, 37 percent). Claiborne’s Bernie Sams noted that “Eddington gets a lot of warriors, and they’re sound.”

Eddington gets stock that look racy and can perform well at 2-year-old sales, and at the first select sale of juveniles in training this year, his colt out of Gottah Penny brought $150,000 at Barretts on March 5 from West Point Thoroughbreds.

The stallion’s racers also earned enough money to place him eighth among third-crop sires last year, and Eddington currently ranks 22nd on the 2012 general sire list. In contrast to his classic-winning sire, however, Eddington had hit a wall when it came to getting the star performer until Secret Circle, who is his sire’s first stakes winner.

Winner of two stakes last year and a pair of graded stakes this spring, Secret Circle is not keeping his ability a secret. With five victories and a second from six starts, Secret Circle races for Karl Watson, Mike Pegram, and Paul Weitman, who purchased the powerful bay for $165,000 at the 2011 OBS March sale of select 2-year-olds in training.

Secret Circle debuted at Del Mar last summer, winning a five and a half-furlong maiden special by 7 1/4 lengths in 1:03 2/5. The colt came back to win a six-furlong stakes at Santa Anita by 5 1/4 lengths in 1:08 1/5.

So, when Secret Circle came to the BC Juvenile Sprint, there was no doubt the colt had feet that flew, and he came home the winner by a length in 1:10 2/5 after early fractions of :20 4/5, :44 2/5, and :56 4/5.

Being unbeaten at 2, racing only at sprint distances, did not make the colt a classic contender. So Baffert began a program to move Secret Circle forward. The colt has worked a distance less than six furlongs only twice since November, and one of those was at five furlongs. Furthermore, the trainer and his riders have been working with Secret Circle in efforts to get him to relax and finish because nobody wins a Derby after going a quarter in :20 and change.

An aid to their efforts is the fact that the colt’s pedigree suggests the classics are within the realm of possibility. Not only is Eddington a G1 winner by the great classic sire Unbridled but also is out of a mare by champion Chief’s Crown, and Secret Circle is out of a stakes-winning Dixieland Band mare bred by Will Farish.

Racing for Thomas Willmott, the Dixieland Band filly Ragtime Hope won two stakes and placed in four others in three seasons of racing. She had been a $50,000 Keeneland September yearling in 2003 and earned $127,715. After retirement, the owner sold her to his brother, Peter Willmott, who raced Eddington, and she joined the Willmott broodmare band at Longfield Farm outside Louisville.

The mare has since been married to Eddington. Her first foal is Eddington Limit, who sold for $90,000 at the OBS March sale in 2010 and has earned $74,968 from two wins in nine starts, and her second is Secret Circle. The mare was barren for 2010, has an Eddington yearling colt, and is due to the stallion for 2012. Ragtime Hope is booked to Arch.

racing must make a choice

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politics and racing, racinos, structure of racing

There aren’t any easy answers left to improving racing, and the ones that remain require careful thought and evaluation if our sport has a chance to prosper. Judging from the recent and recurring misappropriation of racing’s funds from racinos, the flush of success from racino income is about to end or at least be greatly diminished because  the state governments involved see all the money as theirs. That is the state’s legal right without prohibitions to prevent the government from taking such income.

And so far as I’ve been able to determine, only the legislation in Louisiana is written so well that the money from slots and casinos is likely to remain with racing as the enabling legislation described.

As a result, the politicians in New York are already simpering round the pot, trying to scrape money away from racing. This has happened already in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey.

For a searing look into the issue, consider this post from CanGamble, which details the assault on racino money in Ontario, where the racetracks are doing better than the casinos and are being made to pay for it.

Typically, the shills for the casino industry hide their identities on racing websites and whine about how “other businesses” are being made to prop up racing. In Canada, however, the reverse is true. If the current plan is approved, their racetracks are being robbed for getting better results than the stand-alone casinos.

One way or the other, the free mix of expanded gambling in the hands of politicians will prove a problem and a liability for our sport, and it is not so simply because politicians are greedy. They want the most money they can get from the easiest sources (those that offend the fewest people), and racing has long been one of the politicians’ favorite marks.

If racing is to survive and prosper as it should, our sport absolutely has to have the proper structure and a fully empowered leadership to address issues such as this for the betterment of the entire sport.

storm cat line faces challenges in the classics

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creative cause, giant's causeway, storm cat, teuflesberg, trinniberg

The following article was first posted earlier this week at Paulick Report.

For the better part of two decades, Storm Cat and his offspring have been among the most commercial horses in the world. With racehorses like 1994 Preakness and Belmont winner Tabasco Cat, 1993 Hollywood Starlet and 1994 Kentucky Oaks winner Sardula, 1995 Hopeful winner Hennessy, and magnificent Sharp Cat, a Grade 1 winner at 2, 3, and 4, Storm Cat broke away as the premium commercial sire of top-class racehorses.

And before long, Storm Cat’s sons became the hottest prospects for stud in America. They began to show indications of ability as sires just as Giant’s Causeway won a G1 at 2 in 1999, then added five more victories at the top level the following year.

The early demand for sons of Storm Cat, added to the fine looks and high class of Giant’s Causeway, made him as attractive a stallion prospect as any who went to stud in Europe, and he was quickly whisked away to stand in Kentucky for 2002 after a single season in Ireland, where Giant’s Causeway sired three classic winners from his first crop.

Looking at the record with several years’ hindsight, however, the Storm Cat branch of Northern Dancer has had a rough time with the U.S. classics, and there had not been a Storm Cat classic winner here since Tabasco Cat’s twin successes in 1994 till last year’s Preakness, when Shackleford (by Forestry) held on gamely to win from Kentucky Derby victor Animal Kingdom.

Part of the reason for the line’s scarcity of success is purely the difficulty of winning a classic. But in addition to that, there is a serious dichotomy in the Storm Cat stock. Many of them want no part of 10 furlongs. Strong, fast, and game though they are, a sizable majority of the Storm Cats are truly milers, and the classics find them out.

And the most classic of the Storm Cats is clearly Giant’s Causeway, who has produced high-class winners on both sides of the Atlantic, on turf and dirt, and at distances up to 12 furlongs. As a result, Giant’s Causeway’s son Creative Cause now appears the best prospect to give the Storm Cat line a classic victory this year. Owner Heinz Steinmann’s impressive gray colt won the G2 San Felipe at Santa Anita over the weekend, and he is the likely favorite for the G1 Santa Anita Derby.

Steinmann bought Creative Cause for $135,000 at the 2010 Keeneland September yearling sale and has won $719,000 with the improving colt. A G1 winner in the Norfolk Stakes last year, Creative Cause was also second and third at that level in the Del Mar Futurity and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

The latter race put him third behind divisional leaders Hansen and Union Rags. Now all three have shown good form this season and should help to make this a most competitive classic season.

One of the talented 3-year-olds who seems likely to focus his racing on distances up to a mile is another colt from the Storm Cat line. Trinniberg won the G3 Swale Stakes at Gulfstream on Saturday. The quick-moving bay set early fractions of :22 3/5 and :45 and motored home by six lengths in 1:21 3/5.

Trinniberg would be a danger to become the first $1,000 yearling from the recent bloodstock depression to win a G1, except that he sold for $1,500 at the Fasig-Tipton October yearling sale in 2010. The brawny colt also resold at last year’s OBS April sale of 2-year-olds in training for $21,000.

Trinniberg is from the first crop of the Johannesburg stallion Teuflesberg, who now stands in Florida at Journeyman Stud. Second in the G1 Hopeful and the G2 Nashua last season, Trinniberg is the first graded stakes winner for his sire.

Teuflesberg and leading freshman sire Scat Daddy are both sires of graded winners, and both are sons of Johannesburg, who was an international champion at 2. Johannesburg was the best son of Hennessy, one of the best-looking and most precocious sons of Storm Cat. All showed their best form at distances up to a mile or a shadow beyond and are typically horses of great substance and power.

Their kinsman Giant’s Causeway differs by tending to sire horses with more stretch and sometimes a bit less body mass, and a fortuitous combination of those and other traits allow some of the better Giant’s Causeway racers to succeed at the classic distances.

appleton legacy shines on

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arthur appleton, bridlewood farm, doubles partner, eden's moon, george isaacs, north of eden, serena's sister

The following post first appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

The legacy of Arthur Appleton’s breeding operation shone brightly on both coasts this weekend as Eden’s Moon (by Malibu Moon) won the Grade 1 Las Virgenes at Santa Anita and Doubles Partner (Rock Hard Ten) was victor in the G3 Canadian Turf Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

In addition to the pair of graded stakes winners bred by Appleton’s operation, Bridlewood Farm bred, raised, and sold the major winner Southern Image, who is the sire of Calibrachoa, winner of the G3 Tom Fool Handicap at Aqueduct on Saturday.

A successful businessman, inventor, philanthropist, and owner-breeder of Thoroughbreds, Appleton also planned to leave an enduring impact on the sport from his efforts at breeding and racing. To this end, “Everything was set up years ago to keep the farm running smoothly” after Appleton’s death in January 2008, according to Bridlewood’s general manager George Isaacs.

A well-established part of the plan was to diversify Bridlewood’s activity, and in addition to breeding and raising its own racehorses, the farm also provides services to other breeders. Among those who board at Bridlewood is Jack Hammer, breeder and co-owner of Santa Anita Handicap winner Ron the Greek, who was raised, broken and trained at Bridlewood.

Another part of Appleton’s plan for the farm’s self-sufficiency was encouraging cash flow from the sale of horses bred at Bridlewood. Both Eden’s Moon and Doubles Partner were part of that sales program, and both come from families that have a history at the farm.

No family is better associated with Appleton’s breeding than North of Eden, the second dam of Eden’s Moon and a Northfields mare who produced four stakes winners. Three of those were G1 winners: champion turf horse Paradise Creek (Irish River), Forbidden Apple (Pleasant Colony), and Wild Event (Wild Again). Daughters of North of Eden have produced G1 winners David Junior and now Eden’s Moon.

The latter is the second foal out of the winning Giant’s Causeway mare Eden’s Causeway. Isaacs said, “In planning the mating for Eden’s Causeway, I liked the idea that Malibu Moon was a big, strapping horse. We wanted some size in the mare’s foal, and we offered that foal as a yearling (at the 2010 Keeneland September sale) because we’re a commercial operation. She was a well-conformed, correct horse, and Malibu Moon was on fire. But she didn’t get any vetting or repository action, and I told Craig (Bandoroff, whose Denali Stud consigned the horse for Bridlewood), ‘Let’s just scratch her because nobody’s on her.’”

Fortunately for Bridlewood, the operation had a Plan B. Isaacs said that meant “we needed to take her to the 2-year-old sales, and since we weren’t going to Palm Meadows (for Fasig-Tipton’s Florida Sale in March) with a sales consignment, I enlisted Niall Brennan to sell her there. Even though it looked like nobody was on her once again, Niall convinced me to run her through the ring,” and the filly was an RNA at $110,000.

Isaacs said, “I guess third time’s the charm; I rolled up my sleeves and took her to Timonium (for Fasig-Tipton’s Midlantic sale); she prepped really well, and she had literally the 2-year-old breeze of the day on the track after it had rained all night, and they had sealed the track.” Due to that impressive work, Isaacs said, “Bob’s people showed a lot of interest in her.” Isaacs was referring to trainer Bob Baffert, who purchased the filly as agent for owner Kaleem Shah on a bid of $390,000.

Now a winner in two of three starts, with a G1 victory and earnings of $192,600, Eden’s Moon is a rising star in a family that has produced premium racers generation after generation.

The same can be said of Bridlewood’s other graded winner on Saturday, the Rock Hard Ten horse Doubles Partner. A good-looking horse who brought $450,000 at Fasig-Tipton’s 2008 Saratoga select yearling sale from Maverick Racing, Doubles Partner has won five of his dozen starts, and the lightly raced horse has won a stakes each of the last three years.

The dam of Doubles Partner is Serena’s Sister, a full sister to champion filly Serena’s Song (Rahy). Appleton bought their dam, along with Serena’s Song as a weanling, then resold the champion as a yearling and the mare when her daughter became a major attraction.

In mating Serena’s Sister, Isaacs said “she is not a really big mare. She’s by Rahy but is probably a little smaller (15 hands) than you’d expect her to be.” As a result, he has tried to compensate and “always sent her to a big, strongly made stallion, and she has outproduced herself,” with two stakes winners to date and some very good sales horses, which indicates that their size, strength, and balance are very appealing.

With sales producers like this, the future of Appleton’s plan for Bridlewood seems secure, and the sport will be the winner for his contributions.

union rags is part of owner’s family history

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braxton and damian lynch, classic prospects, fountain of youth, phyllis wyeth, royal oak farm, union rags

The following post appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

Winning the Grade 1 Fountain of Youth by four lengths has cleared some of the smoke that arose after Union Rags lost his unbeaten record in last season’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. That narrow decision to then-unbeaten Hansen cost Union Rags the Eclipse Award as top 2-year-old colt, but the towering bay appears on track to reclaim dominance over his division.

Bred in Kentucky by owner Phyllis Wyeth, Union Rags was foaled at Royal Oak Farm, owned by Braxton and Damian Lynch. “Mrs. Wyeth mostly foals in Pennsylvania,” Braxton said, “but Tempo had something of a difficult foaling the year before, and she left the mare here at the farm with us.”

Braxton noted that the family behind Union Rags is one developed by “Mrs. Wyeth’s parents, and she really wanted a filly. It was a colt, however, and Union Rags was a really nice colt.

“So when we called to tell her it was a colt, my husband Damian said, ‘This is your Derby horse.’ And it sure looks like he’s right.”

Union Rags is also the last foal of his dam, the Gone West mare Tempo, because Wyeth pensioned the mare after she produced the colt rather than risk her welfare with further breeding. Part of the reason for Wyeth’s concern for Tempo is surely the sentimental tie that the now-20-year-old mare has with Wyeth’s family.

Tempo (by Gone West) descends from a line of bloodstock cultivated over the generations by Wyeth’s parents, James and Alice Mills, who had Hickory Tree Farm in Virginia. There they raised some outstanding racers, and they also campaigned such horses as leading sire Gone West, champion juvenile colt Devil’s Bag, and others.

Mrs. Mills purchased the fourth dam of Union Rags, the lovely High Hat filly Glad Rags, as a yearling for 6,800 guineas from Captain Tim Rogers. Glad Rags became the highweight 2-year-old filly in England in 1965, and the next year she won the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket.

Brought to the U.S., Glad Rags proved a broodmare of remarkable importance and durability for the Millses. She produced two stakes-winning fillies, Mirthful Flirt (Raise a Native) and Terpsichorist (Nijinsky), as well as the latter’s stakes-winning full brother Gorytus.

The foals out of Glad Rags were some of the prettiest horses I have seen, but Terpsichorist had a great deal of the scope and brawn of her great sire. She stood up quite well to 28 starts in two seasons, winning 11 and finishing second or third in another nine. She was very talented and game and tough.

The scopy chestnut Terpsichorist, moreover, is the one who comes next in the sequence leading to Union Rags. The hickory mare did not produce anything quite as talented and tough as herself, but she did have stakes winner Marry Me Do (Blushing Groom), as well as the stakes-placed Dancing Devlette (Devil’s Bag) and Thebes (Hansel).

Some of the mare’s other foals seemed to have a lot of ability, even though they didn’t earn black type. Tempo, Terpsichorist’s only foal by Gone West, was one of those. A winner in two of her three starts and second in the other, Tempo appeared to have untapped reserves of talent.

Then she became a broodmare, and her career as a producer seems littered with promising horses. They won and showed some talent, but there was a little something missing. When matched with the Dixieland Band horse Dixie Union, the puzzle worked out. The first mating produced Geefour, who is stakes-placed.

The second mating with Dixie Union produced Union Rags.

The big, flashy bay was born March 3, and Braxton recalled that he was “a really nice, big colt. Just a star from the day he was born.”