Organizer ($47.00) wins
$250K Empire Classic over star-studded field
By Rab Hagin
For
his first stakes victory, Majesty Stud's homebred ORGANIZER
beat three graded winners -- a dual classic-winning Eclipse
champion and three-time millionaire, a newly-turned millionaire,
plus the winner of the previous two renewals of New York
Showcase Day's Empire Classic -- and he did it in a decisive
non-photo-finish. As the 22.50-to-1 seventh choice among
eight starters, the four-year-old picked a dramatic way
to break into the stakes-winning ranks.
Virtually dismissed as the 22.50-to-1 seventh
choice among eight starters in what was widely considered
the most talented Empire Classic Handicap field in years,
Organizer was always close to contention even during the
erratic early running of Saturday's 2006 Classic at a
one-turn mile and an eighth. The opening quarter was a
cautious 24.69 as the jockeys aboard the main contenders
seemed to be looking for who might take the lead, which
12-to-1 sixth choice Run Red Run finally assumed with
five-time stakes winner and Grade 2-placed Naughty New
Yorker (3.10-to-1 second choice) in close pursuit. The
second quarter accelerated to a contentious 22.77, with
those two still showing the way, but then the closers
started to close, led by the three-wide rally of Organizer,
who gained a half-length lead by mid-stretch. In the final
furlong, the Majesty Stud homebred held off 7.60-to-1
fourth choice Carminooch, who was coming off a stakes-winning
Aqueduct effort eight months earlier, plus top-weighted
1.50-to-1 favorite West Virginia, who had hit the gate
and stumbled but still placed third to become the 18th
New York-bred millionaire.
"I always thought he was a horse that
didn't do his best on the lead," revealed winning
jockey Eibar Coa, who has now ridden Organizer in six
races and three victories, starting with the colt's stalking
7-1/2-length maiden win going seven furlongs at Belmont
in June of 2005. "His last few races have been good,
and he tries. My plan was to put him behind the speed
today. He's going to give you everything he's got; you
just have to do right by him."
Winning
trainer Dominic Galluscio agreed: "Everything worked
out today. I thought if he could come off the pace, he
would fire a better shot. Getting off the pace was a big
factor. We had a couple of tough beats this year with
this horse; this saved the year for us. (Eibar) Coa was
the man for the job today. We usually give (Organizer)
the winters off, so we might run him one more time."
Organizer's first stakes victory increased
his earnings by $150,000 to $392,771 and improved his
never-worse-than-fourth record 4 - 8 - 2 in 16 starts
for the Majesty Stud of Digby Barrios of Ridgefield, Connecticut,
which also qualified for the maximum $10,000 breeder award.
Organizer's record also includes second-place efforts
in the 2005 Empire Classic and Belmont's 2006 Ormsby Stakes
and Evan Shipman Handicap plus third-place efforts in
his two latest previous outings, Saratoga's Noble Nashua
Stakes and Belmont's General Douglas MacArthur Handicap.
Owner-breeder Barrios likewise bred (and raced in partnership)
Organizer's New York-bred-and-based sire, Raffie's
Majesty, who stands at Howard Kaskel's Sugar
Maple Farm in Poughquag and whose winners also include
New York Stallion Cab Calloway Stakes winner Bo Bo's Vice
($249,549). Organizer, who is a half-brother to stakes-placed
winner Dauntless Hero, is the third offspring and third
of four winners produced from Treasure Always, who is
a half-sister to multiple stakes winner and Grade 1-placed
Acceptable ($713,020) and to 2005 Oklahoma Derby winner
Military Major ($150,400 through 2005). Treasure Always
had been purchased for $65,000 by Arch Bloodstock at Keeneland's
2000 November sale while carrying a future winning New
York-bred filly also bred by Majesty Stud.
The second-and-third-place finishers in
the Empire Classic, Carminooch ($296,835) and West Virginia
($1,007,338), are both sons of New York stallion Tomorrows
Cat conditioned by two-time Eclipse Award-winning
trainer Todd Pletcher. Finishing fourth under second-highest
weight was Eclipse Champion Funny Cide ($3,455,603). Trainer
Pletcher indicated that West Virginia might have lost
his chance at the beginning: "It looked like the break
(hitting the gate at the start) might have cost West Virginia,"
Pletcher observed. "He tried hard. Carminooch ran a big
race off the layoff, too."
Finlandia nails Ticonderoga for second
stakes win in 9 weeks
By Rab Hagin
Never
unplaced at a mile and an eighth on turf, Nyala Farm's
homebred FINLANDIA
was favored at 3.30-to-1 among 10 wagering interests and
11 starters in Showcase Day's nine-furlong Ticonderoga
Handicap for fillies and mares on grass and rewarded her
backers by nailing victory in her final three strides.
Nine weeks and two starts earlier, the four-year-old filly
had scored her first stakes victory in Saratoga's $113,100
Yaddo Stakes at a mile and an eighth on turf with jockey
Kent Desormeaux on board for the second time in competition.
Placing second in that event and in the Ticonderoga as
the 4-to-1 third choice was Sabellina (now $415,090),
who had won the 2004 Yaddo as well as Belmont's 2006 Mount
Vernon Handicap in June, in which Finlandia had placed
a close second. Those two now seem to be more closely-matched
than ever, leaving a 4-1/2-length gap back to third-place
finisher and 2005 Ticonderoga (off-the-turf) winner Rahys'
Appeal ($277,009), who went off as the 4.10-to-1 fourth
choice as half of an entry. It was Finlandia's first on-the-board
finish over a yielding turf course.
"Kent (Desormeaux) said she absolutely
laid it down for him," reported winning trainer Thomas
Bush, who one race earlier on the card had sent out Hudson
Handicap winner Gold and Roses and also trains 2005 Ticonderoga
winner Rahys' Appeal. "She gave everything she had.
That was a very solid performance. We might try to get
one more start out of her. She's going to winter in South
Carolina."
The Ticonderoga victory boosted Finlandia's
earnings by $90,000 to $314,655 for her co-owners-and-breeders,
the Nyala Farm of Ruth Bedford of Greens Farms, Connecticut
and Kathleen O'Connell of Easton, Connecticut -- also
qualifiers for a $9,000 breeder award. It was the second
of three winning rides in Showcase Day stakes for Desormeaux,
who has now ridden Finlandia in four outings and two stakes
victories and has never race-ridden the dark bay filly
when she has done anything less than place a narrowly-beaten
second. Finlandia had broken her maiden by five lengths
going a one-turn main track mile at Belmont in June of
2005, and her Ticonderoga effort improved her overall
record to 5 - 4 - 3 in 16 starts, which includes three
stakes-placed performances.
Finlandia is the second of three winners
produced from O'Connell-Nyala Farm's New York homebred
It's a Gherkin, who won three times on turf at Belmont
-- twice in restricted allowance races. Her three-year-old
half-brother, Banrock, also races for Nyala Farm under
trainer Bush's care and has two turf wins in 2006, including
a restricted N1X tally at Belmont in June. Dam It's a
Gherkin, who is by deceased New York sire Ends Well, is
a full sister to two stakes-placed winners, including
New York-bred Bien Sucre ($124,206), who is the dam of
stakes winner Dulce de Leche ($150,026) and Saratoga open
allowance winner Le Bourget ($183,967).
Certifiably Crazy certifies his class
in game Mohawk victory
By Rab Hagin
Always
professional and rarely off the board without a legitimate
excuse, Double S Stable's CERTIFIABLY
CRAZY scored his third 2006 stakes victory and
fourth career stakes win -- all at a mile and an eighth
on turf -- as the top-weighted 1.55-to-1 favorite in Showcase
Day's Mohawk Handicap. Although the $150,000 event was
open to three-year-olds and up, only older campaigners
-- most of them veterans of other NYRA 2006 grass stakes
-- showed up, with six-year-old Certifiably Crazy having
the highest career earnings of all 10 starters and the
most heart at the wire.
For the Mohawk's first six furlongs, it
looked like "deja vu all over again" to quote
another notable New Yorker, as 3.45-to-1 second choice
Retribution opened up a huge lead on the yielding turf
just like he had done while winning Belmont's $110,600
Ashley T. Cole Handicap 34 days earlier. This time, Certifiably
Crazy and jockey Cornelio Velasquez kept Retribution within
closer hailing distance, and as the front-runner's margin
dwindled the Double S Stable's standard-bearer led the
closing pursuers, overtaking the pace-setter just before
reaching the eighth-mile pole. Coming up fast on the outside
was 9.30-to-1 fifth choice Classic Fran carrying seven
pounds less weight than Certifiably Crazy and returning
from a four-month layoff following consecutive turf wins
in April, May, and June, but Velasquez's mount dug in
and prevailed. The effort boosted Certifiably Crazy's
earnings by $90,000 to $605,655 and improved his exceptionally-consistent
record to 8 - 12 - 3 in 30 starts, which also includes
seven stakes-placed efforts -- among them runner-up performances
in a Grade 2 and two Grade 3 events -- plus a first-out
8-3/4-length Calder main track juvenile win.
Certifiably Crazy had placed a close second
in the 2004 Mohawk but had not participated in the event's
2005 running, aiming instead for Belmont's Grade 3 Knickerbocker
Handicap a week later, which he had missed winning by
a hard-fought neck. Campaigned in various partnerships
and now individually by the Double S Stable of Joseph
Sweedler of Westport, Connecticut, the dark bay gelding
was voted New York Thoroughbred Breeders (NYTB) Champion
Turf Male for 2005. The 2006 Mohawk provided jockey Velasquez,
who has now ridden Certifiably Crazy in 15 races and five
victories, with his third winning ride on the Showcase
Day card.
Winning trainer Richard Schosberg, who in
1994 and 1996 had sent out mile and a sixteenth Mohawk
winner My Mogul, confirmed his strategy was to stalk the
pace more closely than in the Cole: "Our plan was
to stay a little bit closer this time. I think the turf
was quite a bit softer this time than it was last time
(in the Ashley T. Cole). Cornelio (Velasquez) rode a perfect
race. He could have gone after (Retribution) at the three-eighths
pole, but he sat, waited and saved all the ground. I think
that made the difference. What I want to know is when
did they move the wire so far down the stretch? I watched
this race on five different TVs because I couldn't watch.
When the horse (Retribution) opens up 15 (lengths), I
go to the next TV and it would be 20 (actually, Retribution's
margin was never more than about nine lengths). We wanted
to get the (NYTB) turf championship again with him. This
was the key: We had to win this race to do it. I think
what we will do is give him a race in Florida before the
end of the year."
Bred by Duane and Roger Kilbride of Kankakee,
Illinois and foaled at Dr. Jonathan Davis's Milfer
Farm in Unadilla, Certifiably Crazy was a $2,700 sales
yearling at Keeneland in September of 2001 -- selling
12 days after 9/11. He is the first of three winners produced
from Royal Trips, a Summer Squall mare that raced for
Duane Kilbride and is a half-sister to three stakes-placed
winners, including graded-placed Dynatar ($149,225) and
Emley's Hill ($122,133).
Gold and Roses adds glitter to sprint
record with Hudson victory
By Rab Hagin
An
eight-to-nine-furlong stakes winner four times in 2005-2006,
Henry Gregory's homebred GOLD
AND ROSES enhanced his new-found career as a sprinter
with an outside closing move in Showcase Day's six-furlong
Hudson Handicap for three-year-olds and up, edging 2006
Grade 2 winner and 1.30-to-1 favorite Sharp Humor by a
neck. The four-year-old gelding was co-topweighted along
with three-year-old Sharp Humor (although the latter was
top-weighted by scale) among seven starters, but a head-to-head
speed duel between the favorite and 12.20-to-1 fifth choice
Introspect -- runner-up in the 2005 Hudson -- might have
softened up the former. Gold and Roses faced formidable
challenges of his own as the 1.65-to-1 second choice,
becoming something of a stalker by necessity at a sprint
distance and having to advance four-wide on the turn in
order to get into contention. The dark bay's fourth-to-first
rally in the final quarter-mile increased his earnings
by $75,000 to $678,254 and improved his now six-time stakes-winning
record to 8 - 9 - 3 in 25 starts, which also includes
nine stakes-placed efforts.
Gold and Roses' victory in the $125,000
Hudson followed his third-place effort in Monmouth's $140,000
Icecapade Stakes at six furlongs by 47 days and his six-length
victory in Saratoga's 6-1/2-furlong John Morrissey Stakes
for New York-breds by 72 days. The gelding's new stakes-sprinting
era had begun with a runner-up performance behind Grade
1 winner Commentator in Belmont's 6-1/2-furlong overnight
Mugatea Stakes for New York-breds on July 12. Gold and
Roses' only previous six-furlong victory had come in a
seven-length maiden-breaking effort on Aqueduct's inner
track in January of 2005. The Hudson provided the second
of three winning rides in Showcase Day stakes for jockey
Garrett Gomez, who had ridden Gold and Roses in the Morrissey
and Mugatea.
Winning trainer Thomas Bush, who in Belmont's
next race would send out Finlandia to victory in the Ticonderoga,
implied that the Hudson was Gold and Roses' biggest victory
to date, considering some of the competition: "That
was a big win for this horse. It looked like he broke
a little bit flat-footed; it seemed to work out okay,
though. The pace was pretty fast, and Garret (Gomez) put
him in the perfect spot. He really dug in through the
stretch."
Owned by Henry Gregory and bred by his owner's
son, Seth Gregory of Saratoga Springs (a former assistant
to trainer Mark Henning), Gold and Roses is by the late
New York-based sire Gold Token, whose seventh stakes winner,
Gold Like U, won Saratoga's Union Avenue Stakes on August
21. He is a half-brother to New York-bred stakes-placed
seven-time winning filly Won Dozen Roses ($145,127), being
out of New York-bred Aqueduct allowance winner Won Perfect
Rose, who is a full sister to stakes winner Art Fair ($112,036).
3yo filly No Reason beats older foes sprinting
with 9th-to-1st Iroquois win
By Rab Hagin
Forty-seven
days after scoring her third 2006 stakes victory in Finger
Lakes' New York Oaks at a mile and a sixteenth, Winter
Park Partners' three-year-old NO
REASON notched her fourth black-type score while
facing older fillies and mares for the first time in Showcase
Day's seven-furlong Iroquois Handicap. The versatile bay
went off as the 3.30-to-1 second choice among 11 starters
and advanced from ninth-to-first with a four-wide rally
on Belmont's big turn, closing on the outside and switching
to her left lead right before the wire and stumbling afterwards,
but there were no later mishap reports. It was her third
outing and second stakes victory at Belmont under jockey
Garret Gomez, who had three stakes-winning rides on the
Showcase Day card, including two in partnership with No
Reason's trainer, Scott Blasi.
"She is a dead-honest New York-bred,"
confirmed Blasi's assistant, Toby Sheets. "Seven
furlongs (New York Stallion Park Avenue on April 30) and
up to a mile (New York Stallion Cupecoy's Joy on June
4) is probably her best distance, but she's won two turns
going a mile and a sixteenth (New York Oaks), too. The
pace helped us a lot. We'll see how she comes out of it
and go from there."
Also second among nine in Aqueduct's six-furlong
New York Stallion Fifth Avenue Stakes as a 2005 two-year-old,
No Reason increased her earnings by $75,000 to $313,841
for her Iroquois victory, improving her run-well-or-run-badly
record to six wins and two seconds in 13 starts. Except
for a couple of unproductive turf routing experiments
in stakes (one graded) this past summer, all of the filly's
unplaced performances have been in conjunction with bumpy
or troubled trips -- most of those difficulties occurring
at or near the starts of those races.
No Reason was bred by Becky Thomas and Lewis
Lakin of Lakland
North, LLC in Hudson and was purchased for $50,000
by her owner, the Winter Park Partners of Anthony Grey
of Winter Park, Florida, at Fasig-Tipton Florida's 2005
March 1 sale of select two-year-olds in training at Calder.
She is the second named offspring and second New York-bred
winner produced from two-time winner Tammany Hall, whom
Lakland had purchased for $21,000 at Keeneland's 2000
November sale when that mare was carrying her first foal
and first winner. Tammany Hall, whose dam is multiple
stakes winner Tammi's Pal, had been claimed as a four-year-old
in 1999 while winning her final career start and a year
later was purchased at Keeneland by Lakland.
Chief's Lake romps to 3rd consecutive
overwhelming win in Sleepy Hollow
By Rab Hagin
Just eight days after winning a six-furlong restricted
N1X allowance by 7-3/4 lengths at Belmont and four weeks
after breaking his maiden by three lengths while going
5-1/2 furlongs at the Big Sandy, Vinery Stables' CHIEF'S
LAKE captured Showcase Day's prestigious one-mile
Sleepy Hollow Stakes by four lengths under wraps. The
late-foaled (April 28, 2004) two-year-old was the youngest
of five April-foaled juveniles in the one-turn Sleepy
Hollow, and he broke from the outside post under top weight
while stretching out a quarter-mile in distance over his
longest previous effort -- but still was odds-on (.70-to-1).
Chief's Lake took command from front-running fourth choice
Solid Strike (7.50-to-1) right after passing the quarter-pole
and drew clear thereafter, pushing his earnings by $60,000
into six figures at $115,735 and improving his record
to three wins and a close second in five starts. He was
the first of three Showcase Day stakes winners ridden
by jockey Garrett Gomez and the first of two trained by
Scott Blasi -- both ridden by Gomez, whose previous race
aboard Chief's Lake had been in the dark bay gelding's
September 23 maiden victory.
Blasi's assistant, Toby Sheets, indicated
that blinkers -- added to the equipment of Chief's Lake
for a close runner-up effort in the gelding's second career
start on August 23 at Saratoga -- had produced significant
improvement: "We've put blinkers on him, and that's
really helped him out a lot. I didn't think Solid Strike
would be on the lead, but as it turned out, it worked
perfectly for us. I never thought Chief's Lake really
needed to have the lead. He's sat off horses in the mornings
and finished well. We'll see how he comes out of the race
and then decide what's next."
Chief's Lake had been purchased for $60,000
at Fasig-Tipton's 2005 Saratoga preferred sale of New
York-bred yearlings by the internationally-prominent Vinery
Stables of Dr. Tom Simon, a German-born and Spanish-based
lawyer who had acquired Vinery in Kentucky in 2000 and
shortly thereafter added a Florida division. The swift
two-year-old was bred by Eaton and Thorne, Inc., which
operates out of Thornedale Farm in Millbrook, and is the
second winner produced from Lake Princess, whom Eaton
and Thorne had purchased for $75,000 at Keeneland's 2001
January sale when she was carrying her first foal and
first winner. Lake Princess, who placed second and third
in three starts, is a half-sister to the winning dam of
two stakes winners, including a Group 1 winner in South
Africa, and her dam (maternal granddam of Chief's Lake)
is graded winner Eloquent ($167,833).
Grand Merger merges tenacity and stamina
to capture Maid of the Mist By Rab Hagin
Although
owning the most impressive previous victory at the Maid
of the Mist one-mile distance, Chester and Mary Broman's
homebred GRAND
MERGER was the 10.70-to-1 fourth choice among
seven New York-bred juvenile fillies contesting that Showcase
Day stakes, in which she scored her second win in 36 days.
Ridden by Hall of Fame jockey Kent Desormeaux, who had
been aboard for her 11-3/4-length maiden-breaking effort
on September 15, the classically-bred filly trailed the
field after the opening quarter-mile but began picking
off her competition leaving the backstretch. She rallied
inside along the turn and then engaged the three tiring
rivals that remained ahead of her approaching the upper
stretch, overtaking them within less than an eighth of
a mile and edging away from late challengers My Kitty
(12-to-1) and Laurentide Ice (3.30-to-1) in the final
furlong. The full sister to millionaire and popular third-crop
sire Stephen Got Even definitely runs like she wants to
go a route and has the pedigree to confirm it, according
to her trainer, John Kimmel.
"She's bred to run long," acknowledged
Kimmel. "We didn't even bother with her in any sprints.
She's not a real big, robust filly; she's a little on
the light side, so we spaced her races. She's got tremendous
stamina. Kent (Desormeaux) played it off the break and
gave her a chance to settle, and she ran them down. I
guess there is no doubt that she can go a mile and an
eighth. I don't know if we will tackle the Demoiselle
(Grade 2, $200,000-guaranteed, for two-year-old fillies
going a mile and an eighth at Aqueduct's "HolidayFest"
Saturday, November 25) or not. We'll see how she comes
out of this."
Fast enough to work a furlong in 10-4/5
seconds before going through Keeneland's sales ring as
a $475,000 "reserve not attained" two-year-old
last April, Grand Merger increased her earnings by $60,000
to $90,432 in three starts for the Bromans, who own Chestertown
Farm in Chestertown and reside in West Babylon. Her debut
had been an unplaced effort on Saratoga turf, and her
maiden-breaking second start at Belmont had come in a
sloppy track off-the-turf contest.
In addition to being a full sister to Grade
1 winner Stephen Got Even ($1,019,200), Grand Merger also
is a sister to New York-bred Grade 2-placed stakes winner
Indy Glory ($283,422) and a half-sister to New York-bred
stakes-placed winner Immersed in Gold. The Bromans, honored
as NYTB 2004 Breeders of the Year as well as outstanding
New York breeders for 2003 as named by the Thoroughbred
Owners and Breeders Association, won the 2002 Maid of
the Mist with Beautiful America. They had purchased the
winning and Grade 1-placed dam of Grand Merger and Stephen
Got Even and Indy Glory -- the Cox's Ridge mare Immerse
-- for $350,000 at Keeneland's 1997 November sale when
she was carrying Indy Glory.
Latitude Forty lands first stakes victory
in hard-fought Terreavigne By Rab Hagin
Thirteen days after a front-running three-length
victory going a mile and a sixteenth on firm Belmont turf
at the restricted N1X allowance level, Dee Zee Stable's
homebred LATITUDE
FORTY proved she could come off the pace on yielding
turf, capturing Belmont's Terreavigne Stakes for New York-bred
three-year-old fillies. The mile and a sixteenth Terreavigne
was the nightcap on Belmont's 10-race Showcase Day card,
offered as a "niche" event for sophomore fillies
whose connections preferred them to gain seasoning against
their own crop before facing older stakes company in the
always-contentious state-bred distaff turf ranks. Neither
of the Showcase Day's grass events for three-year-olds
and up, the Ticonderoga (for fillies and mares) and Mohawk
Handicaps, hosted three-year-old participants. The Terreavigne's
competitive nine-filly field boasted three previous stakes
winners.
Those three included recent turf stakes
winners Rewrite, the 1.25-to-1 favorite, and co-topweight
Homerette, who somehow managed to slip off as the 8.60-to-1
fifth choice. Latitude Forty, sent off as the 6.20-to-1
third choice, raced close up and in the middle of the
tightly-bunched group of tactically-moving contenders
before coming wide into the stretch and advancing from
fifth-to-first within five-sixteenths of a mile, scoring
her first stakes victory by a head over Homerette. The
dark bay filly's effort provided Hall of Fame jockey Kent
Desormeaux with his third stakes-winning ride on the Showcase
Day card -- two on turf -- and pushed her earnings into
six figures at $100,592 while improving her record to
3 - 1 - 2 in eight starts.
Campaigned by the Dee Zee Stable of breeders
Paul Hoffman and Donene Honnold (with offices on East
49th Street in Manhattan) and trained by John Hertler,
Latitude Forty had blossomed in her fifth start and turf
debut at Belmont in June, breaking her maiden by 2-1/4
lengths. Given a 51-day break, she had returned to place
a close third in Saratoga's restricted Irish Linnet Stakes
at a mile and a sixteenth on grass behind the subsequent
second-place and third-place Terreavigne finishers --
Homerette and Whateverwillbwillb -- after overcoming a
horrendous start.
Latitude Forty is the 10th winner and fifth
six-figure-earner -- but first stakes winner -- produced
from New York-bred stakes-placed winner Planchette, whose
female family has been in the Empire State for decades,
considering that Planchette is a half-sister to 1981 Aspirant
Stakes winner Actor's Aroma. Planchette has been owned
by Hoffman and Honnold for virtually her entire broodmare
career and apparently returned to New York about five
years ago.
