By Bill Heller
What a day on the grass for New York-breds at Saratoga Sunday! First, Gary Barber’s speedster Mi Bago found the guts under Jose Ortiz to re-rally and dead heat with favored Zulu Kingdom and Flavien Prat in the $225,000 Grade 3 Kelso Stakes, though it took forever to post the results of the photo finish.
Just an hour later, Roger Cimbora Jr.’s homebred Twenty Six Black dominated seven rivals by 2 ¾ lengths under Manny Franco in the $200,000 Harvey Pack Stakes, named for the legendary host of “Inside Racing.”
Two open Saratoga stakes, two New York-bred winners. Both New York-bred stars have earnings of nearly $800,000.
“It’s great,” Cimbora said. “It just shows how far New York racing has come. For the longest time, New York-breds never really got respect. Now you have to respect them because the program has come so far. Everybody thinks, Kentucky, Kentucky, Kentucky. The gap has greatly closed and you can’t overlook New York-breds anymore.”
Jeffry (that’s right, no ‘e’) Morris, who founded Highclere Farm in Lexington, Kentucky in 1980, bred Mi Bago, a four-year-old gelded son of Vekoma out of the Indian Charlie mare Wabanaki. He was sold for $62,000 in February 2023 and is trained by Hall of Famer Mark Casse.
In 1992, Morris purchased Raise a Holme for $21,000 on behalf of his son, Carson. Raise a Holme won just under $175,000 in 50 starts and produced two stakes winners, including $269,869 earner Lapuma, who was eventually sold for $600,000 in 2006. “You always have these delusions of some kind of a dynasty,” Morris said.
The dynasty never happened, but he’s having a lot of fun with Mi Bago, one of the few horses in the country who has victories on dirt, synthetic and turf. Mi Bago won his debut on dirt at Colonial Downs and four of his next six starts, including three stakes. In the Grade 1 American Turf at Churchill Downs in 2025, he finished a front-running fourth, losing by only a length and three-quarters to Zulu Kingdom. Mi Bago was a front-running fifth behind Zulu Kingdom in the Grade 2 Hall of Fame Stakes at Saratoga last year, though Zulu Kingdom was disqualified from first and placed fourth.
This year, after winning an allowance race at Gulfstream Park, he finished eighth in back-to-back stakes, the Grade 2 Frank E. Kilroe Stakes at Santa Anita and the $349,00 Opening Verse at Churchill Downs. Casse thought a drop into New York-bred company would be beneficial, and Mi Bago responded with a 4 ¼-length victory in the Kingston Stakes at Saratoga on June 3rd with Jose Ortiz aboard for the very first time.
“Jose Ortiz is absolutely the best jockey in America right now,” Morris said.
He sure looked the part Sunday on Mi Bago. Sent off at 9-1 odds in the field of 10, Mi Bago got away with soft fractions of :24, :48 2/5 and 1:12 while leading narrowly in the one-mile stakes. Then Zulu Kingdom shook loose and charged up as if he’d fly past Mi Bago. “I thought we were going to lose,” said Morris, who watched the race on TV from Kentucky.
Zulu Kingdom stuck a head in front but, eyeballing his challenger the whole way, Mi Bago fought back on the inside. They reached the finish line together. “Those horses were just digging in,” Morris said. “I thought he got the bob.”
Casse wasn’t sure: “I was watching the replay, and it was winner, loser, winner, loser, winner, loser.”
The wait for the results was torturous. Then the toteboard posted the results: 1 (Zulu Kingdom), 8 (Mi Bago). Ortiz began to take off his tack. A second later “Dead Heat” was added to the toteboard. “Normally, it’s the thrill of victory to the agony of defeat,” Casse said. “I went from the agony of defeat to the thrill of victory. I’m happy, I was saying out there, `I’ll take half of it. I’m not greedy.’”
He was proud of his horse: “He’s an overachiever. You wish all horses were as tough as he is.”
Mi Bago had secured his first graded stakes victory, making him six-for-14 on turf. Overall, he has eight wins and one second in 18 starts, with earnings of $790,275. “Obviously, he’s been a funny kind of a horse,” Morris said. “He’s almost never been second or third. He either wins or he quits.”
Mi Bago isn’t Morris’s first New York-bred stakes winner. His Gucci Factor, owned by Castleton Lyons and trained by the late Christophe Clement, also won the Kingston Stakes in 2019 under the same jockey: Jose Ortiz.
Asked how many times his first name has been misspelled, Morris had a long laugh then said, “The federal government hasn’t figured it out, more times than not.”
Morris hopes Mi Bago will next start in the $750,000 Grade 1 Fourstardave at Saratoga on August 8th. The race is a “Win and You’re in” for the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Keeneland. Morris said, “Maybe he’s got one more in him.”
An hour after the palpitating Kelso Stakes, Twenty Six Black delivered a powerful performance, rallying from sixth to win the Harvey Park Stakes going away in a sharp final time of 1:00.49 for the 5 ½ furlongs. Horacio De Paz trains the six-year-old gelding by War Dancer out of Brazo de Oro by First Dude. “I love him,” De Paz said. “He’s such a consistent horse.”
He’s very much appreciated by Cimbora, who grew up on Long Island and relocated to Tampa Bay, where he is the general manager of an underground pipe-cleaning company that serves the Southeast.
Cimbora’s interest in horses actually came from visiting his parents’ friends who had win pictures from Roosevelt Raceway. “I said ‘that’s kind of neat.’ It kind of stuck in my mind. That’s where it started. When I moved down to Florida, we had a couple of pleasure horses. The vet we used had Thoroughbreds and was a small-time breeder. We got to be friends. Initially, I partnered with him in 2001.”
Cimbora then decided to go on his own and raced horses at Calder and Gulfstream Park: “Honestly, when they started talking about decoupling, at that point, I said, `I’m out.’ I made the decision to move everything to New York.”
The victory makes Twenty Six Black’s turf-only record eight-for-20 with five seconds and two thirds, good for earnings of $797,310. He’s only finished worse than fourth once, when he was fifth in a division of the 2023 New York Stallion Stakes Series at Saratoga.
Sent off the 8-5 favorite in a field of eight Sunday, Twenty Six Black improved his record at Saratoga to three victories, three seconds and one third in nine starts. He was second in his career debut at Saratoga on July 27th, 2022, and second in last year’s Grade 2 Troy Stakes there by a length and a half to Bring Theband Home, whom Twenty Six Black trounced in the Harvey Pack Stakes after Bring Theband Home set an incredibly hot, contested pace, running a half-mile in :43.54.
“I knew there was a lot of speed in the race,” Franco said. “That pace was good for the way my horse runs. I was a little bit worried and concerned with the way the track is but, at the same time, I rode my horse the way he likes. I didn’t change anything.”
He would like to change the order of finish in this year’s $300,000 Troy Stakes on August 9th, likely Twenty Six Black’s next start. “Probably,” De Paz said. “We’ll just keep him here at Saratoga. He likes it here, so we might as well keep trying those races.”
Asked what it’s like to win a stakes at Saratoga with a homebred, Cimbora said, “It’s what you hope for. It’s what you dream about. It’s where you want to be. I can’t tell you how unbelievably lucky I feel.”
