Have a comment or question about this week's update? Send an e-mail to davidh@texasthoroughbred.com. Read past updates in the Executive Director's Update archive.
2009 FASIG-TIPTON TEXAS MIXED SALE ON TAP DECEMBER 14 STARTING AT NOON
The 2009 Fasig-Tipton Texas Mixed Sale will be held in a one-day format starting at noon in the Texas Thoroughbred Sales Pavilion on Monday, December 14. There were originally 105 lots, but Legacy Bloodstock, as agent for Spendthrift Farm LLC, has added six mares and a Smarty Jones weanling to its consignment. Other major agency consignors include Diamond D Ranch, 4M Ranch, Inside Move, JEH Stallion Station, Lane’s End Texas and Stoneview Farm.
The auction begins the first phase of Jeanne Ann Stasny’s complete dispersal of her Blossom Racing Stable LLC holdings with the sale of 10 mares, five weanlings, three yearlings and the stallion Menhal being handled under the Double R Consignment as agent.
The sale also includes mares in foal to several other prominent Texas stallions including Chief Three Sox, Early Flyer, Truluck, Uncle Abbie, Wimbledon and perennial leader Valid Expectations. Texas-sired weanlings in the sale include offspring by Chief Three Sox, the late Serazzo and two fillies by Valid Expectations including a sister to the stakes-winning Valid Message. Yearlings by Texas sires include fillies by Dove Hunt, Heckle, Macabe, Menhal, Serazzo and two colts by Valid Expectations.
The known “outs” at the time of writing are Hip Nos. 43, 49, 69, 88 and 103.
CALHOUN SADDLES 4 STAKES WINNERS ON TEXAS CHAMPIONS DAY IN HOUSTON
Trainer Bret Calhoun turned 2009 Texas Champions Day at Sam Houston Race Park into a showcase of his training talent as he saddled the winners of four of the eight stakes on December 5, including both winners of the two Texas-bred 2-year-old stakes on the 10-race card at 6-1 odds. First, Bill Jordan and Jerry Durant’s homebred TTA Sales Futurity winner Tin Top Cat took the $50,000 Bara Lass. In the nightcap, Clarence Scharbauer’s homebred Coyote Legend rallied to win the $50,000 Groovy.
Calhoun saddled Chief of Affairs and Gold Coyote for a 1-2 finish in the $50,000 Spirit of Texas. Chief of Affairs, bred by TTA president Dr. Jacquelyn Rich and sold for $25,000 in the 2008 Fasig-Tipton Texas 2-Year-Olds In-Training Sale, accounted for his first added-money win for owners Larry Hirsch and Wayne Sanders and he did so by handily beating his odds-on multiple stakes-winning stablemate. Bubbler, who stayed unbeaten after three starts for Du-Zee Stables by winning the $100,000 Gallery Furniture Distaff, provided Calhoun with his other score in the only open stakes of the evening.
Trainer Steve Asmussen accounted for two of the Champions Day stakes teaming with jockey Shaun Bridgemohan to post a mild surprise with his own Slick Kitty in the $50,000 San Jacinto and coming back to win the $50,000 Yellow Rose with Will Farish’s odds-on homebred Valid Code, who recorded her fourth win in five career starts while beating 2008 Texas Horse of the Year Stealth Cat.
The $100,000 Star of Texas produced a 9-1 surprise winner in Crook’s Bodgit, owned and trained by Ingrid Mason. Byron Crook bred the winner of 9 races from 28 starts for earnings of $212,099 after having been sold at the 2006 Fasig-Tipton Texas Yearling Sales for $1,000. The $50,000 Richard King Stakes went to Azam and Claudia Mirza’s 8-1 Claudia’s Forum, a $10,000 graduate of the 2007 Fasig-Tipton Texas juvenile sale who is much improved since coming under Michelle Lovell’s care. The Open Forum runner held off the determined stretch run of Scrappy Roo, winner of the 2007 John B. Connally Turf Handicap and previously unbeaten in five starts on Sam Houston’s lush turf course. Scrappy Roo has come back strong from a serious injury suffered in mid-2008.
SUREBET COVERS TEXAS CHAMPIONS DAY WITH LIVE STREAM ON WEBSITE
If you weren’t able to be at Sam Houston Race Park for the Texas Champions Day program or didn’t get to see the races on TVG, you can still catch many of the highlights thanks to SureBet magazine’s online coverage of several of the races. Greg Thompson and former Houston Chronicle racing writer Martha Claussen served as co-hosts. You can view the show by accessing www.inthegate.net.
Thank you Greg and Martha for your interest in Texas racing and for a job well done.
ASMUSSEN ECLIPSES HIS OWN SINGLE-SEASON RECORD WITH 623 WINS IN 2010
Trainer Steve Asmussen eclipsed his own single-season record for wins when Heiligbrodt Racing Stable’s Poppin won at Woodbine last Sunday giving Asmussen win No. 623, one more than the record set in 2008. Earlier this year, Asmussen became the fifth trainer to surpass 5,000 wins in a career. Through December 6, Asmussen is credited with 5,163 wins from 24,425 starts for earnings of $153,360,192.
Fast furlongs...The final round of bidding on 2010 breeding seasons to stallions whose owners have made them available for the annual TTA Online Stallion Season Auction will end next Thursday, December 17, at 5pm CST...Table games were approved for installation at Charles Town Races and Slots in a special election on December 5 in Jefferson County, WV...Three Pennsylvania stakes, the Pennsylvania Derby (G2) and Fitz Cotillion (G2) at Philadelphia Park, and the Presque Isle Downs Masters Stakes (G3), have been stripped of their graded status for 2009 because the state’s racing commission did not follow drug-testing protocol required to maintain grading...54-year-old jockey Tim Doocy, one of the leading riders at Lone Star in the track’s first few years of operation, sustained fractures to an ankle, knee and hand in a head-on collision last Monday during training hours at Oaklawn Park...Jockey Corey Nakatani, a fixture on the major Southern California circuit for many years, is shifting his tack to ride regularly at Oaklawn Park in 2010...The Association of Racing Commissioners International has adopted a model rule setting the minimum scale of weights for veteran riders at 118 pounds and the Jockeys’ Guild will push for the rule in each racing jurisdiction, but the ARCI, Jockeys’ Guild and National HBPA are at odds over model rules governing jockey mount fees...Santa Anita officials dropped six graded stakes from the schedule for the meet opening December 26 and also reduced the prestigious Santa Anita Handicap from a million-dollar stakes to a $750,000 value...Mountaineer Park will be shut down in January and February, but the West Virginia track will still operate 210 days in 2010 in accordance with statutory provisions...Philadelphia Park will suspend live racing from December 13-17 while casino operations are relocated from the track grandstand to the huge new Parx Casino...July 4 has been set as the new date for the Queen’s Plate, first leg of the Canadian Triple Crown at Woodbine, where the 1 ¼-mile stakes has traditionally been offered in the latter part of June...Congratulations to H & H Ranch and trainer John Locke on Texas-bred Southern Vintage’s win in the $60,000 Sam’s Town Stakes at Delta Downs last Friday night...Also, congratulations to former TTA president Hugh Fitzsimons’ et al on the third-place finish of Texas-bred Oak Motte in the $750,000 Delta Jackpot also run last Friday evening in the slop...Carl Moore Management’s 10-year-old donut-loving King of Speed gained a bit of notoriety by making his 100th career start and winning for the 23rd time recently at Fair Grounds...The National Thoroughbred Racing Association is projecting a 25% decline in its operating budget for this year...A $200,000 stakes for fillies and mares at Fair Grounds over 1 1/16 miles has been christened the New Orleans Ladies, which may serve as the 2010 coming out party for Rachel Alexandra...TTA director Bill Clifton’s Tizway finished 13th in the 16-horse Japan Cup after being unable to outrun eventual winner Espoir City in the early stages of the 1 1/8-mile stakes...Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Kip Deville, a $20,000 Fasig-Tipton Texas Sales graduate, is in a desperate battle for his life battling laminitis...Lava Man, the claimer turned millionaire stakes winner, is set to return to the races in Hollywood Park’s Native Diver Handicap this Saturday after a 17-month absence during which time he underwent stem cell treatments to address multiple physical problems...Former Dell executive Ro Parra’s involvement in racing under his burgeoning Millennium Farms’ banner was the subject of a Thoroughbred Daily News feature entitled “The Millennium of Ro” this week...TTA members Tom and Sandy McKenna, who operate their 1,200-acre McKenna Thoroughbreds near Taiban, NM, are the subjects of a Southwest Section feature in the December 12 issue of Blood-Horse...The Cherokee Nation, owners of Will Rogers Downs, have added Blue Ribbon Downs to their Oklahoma track holdings after buying the property from the Choctaw Nation...TTA election ballots must be received by mail by the close of business on Tuesday, December 15, and they will be counted the next day in the TTA Board Room with any interested members invited to observe the vote counting...Lynn Reardon’s next book signing of “Beyond the Homestretch” is this Saturday afternoon from 4 to 6pm at the Tack Shop of Austin, 3435 Greystone Drive, in Austin.