2010 Retrospective and Profiles of New York Champions

Friday, April 15th, 2011

by Sarah Mace

2010 was a banner year for New York-bred achievements on the racetrack. New York-breds won 100 stakes races in North America, including 34 open contests and a whopping 15 graded stakes. Three horses – Franny Freud by New York sire Freud, Haynesfield (who passed the million dollar mark in earnings in 2010) and Rightly So, by New York sire Read the Footnotes – made New York proud with Grade 1 victories here in the US. Abroad, A Shin Forward – bred by New York Breeder of the Year Vivien Malloy/Edition Farm – became a Grade 1 winner in Japan, and earned $2.3 million. Three-time Grade 3-winner Get Serious also became a millionaire last year. And fans won’t soon forget the Fourth of July Weekend 2010, when New York-bred stars swept the holiday weekend graded stakes at Belmont Park: the Grade 2 Suburban on Saturday, Grade 1 Prioress on Sunday and Grade 3 Bed o’ Roses Handicap on Monday.

On the national stage New York sent five of its own to the Breeders’ Cup, including Rightly So, installed as morning line favorite for the $1,000,000 Grade 1 Filly and Mare Sprint, and Silver Timber, post time favorite for $1,000,000 Grade 2 Turf Sprint. At year-end, Rightly So was voted a 2010 Eclipse Finalist in the Female Sprinter division.

Long-time New York stallions Freud and Read the Footnotes had home-grown Grade 1-winning offspring in 2010, while the progeny of the newer faces in the stallion barns made their own headlines. Congaree’s Jeranimo was a Grade 2 winner in 2010, and both his and Posse’s progeny won Grade 3 events. Repent’s Crown of Thorns was a multiple Grade 1 runner-up, and his Diva Delite was a Grade 3 winner. Finally, some of New York’s most accomplished race-mares and producers had sensational trips through the sales ring, led by Rightly So’s dam Fit Right In, who brought over a million dollars at Keeneland November.

Brief profiles of 2010 New York Divisional Champions and other honorees follow below.

Horses and People Profiled Below:

Breeder of the Year: Edition Farm/Vivien Malloy
Horse of the Year and Champion Older Male: Haynesfield

Champion Two-Year-Old Male: Bug Juice
Champion Two-Year-Old Filly: Final Mesa
Champion Three-Year-Old Male: Friend Or Foe
Champion Three-Year-Old Filly and Female Sprinter: Franny Freud
Champion Older Male: Haynesfield
Champion Older Female: Rightly So
Champion Turf Male: Get Serious
Champion Turf Female: Khancord Kid
Champion Male Sprinter: Silver Timber
Champion Steeplechaser: Sunshine Numbers
Broodmare of the Year: Fit Right In
Jockey of the Year: Ramon Dominguez
Trainer of the Year: Linda Rice

Edition Farm/Vivien Malloy: Breeder of the Year

Vivien Malloy has been breeding thoroughbreds successfully for three decades on her two farms, Edition Farm in Waccabuc, where she lives, and Edition Farm North, a 180-acre farm in Hyde Park, which will be celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year. She has bred stakes-winners Mine Tonight, Minetonightsfirst, Bayou Blurr, Mistah, Then She Laughs, Kiss the Pro and Cliffie. In 2007 the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA) named Mrs. Malloy New York State Breeder of the Year.

A Shin Forward burst on the scene for Edition Farm in 2010. Already an accomplished runner on the turf in Japan, Edition-bred A Shin Forward broke through the million dollar earnings threshold in the final days of 2009. This was, however, only a taste of things to come. In 2010 A Shin Forward became Grade 1 winner, won a Grade 3 race and placed in a total of five stakes. The son of Forest Wildcat ended his nine-start five-year-old campaign with a record of 2-1-2 and earned more than $2.3 million.

Mrs. Malloy serves on the NYTB Board of Directors and currently is the organization’s Secretary/Treasurer. In accepting the award, she pledged a portion of Edition Farm’s purse earnings to Old Friends Cabin Creek in memory of her husband Harry, who passed away last year, and daughter Debby, who was tragically killed in a riding accident earlier this year.

Haynesfield: Horse of the Year and Champion Older Male

Competing at the highest levels in 2010, Turtle Bird Stable’s Haynesfield won three of six starts in 2010 and banked $749,300. After tuning up for his four-year-old campaign with a decisive victory in a $100,000 conditioned allowance/optional claiming race for state-breds at Belmont in June, trainer Steve Asmussen sent the son of Speightstown straight into deep water. Running in the $300,000 Grade 2 Suburban at Belmont Park on the Fourth of July weekend, Haynesfield faced down the presence of I Want Revenge, 2009 scratched Derby favorite, before going on to a 2 ¾-length victory.

Unplaced in the Grade 1 Whitney after getting rattled in front of a full Saratoga grandstand and breaking through the gate, the chestnut rebounded with his greatest triumph in his next start, running away with the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup under Ramon Dominguez. In his final race of the year, Haynesfield came within a head of winning the Grade 1 Hill ‘n’ Dale Cigar Mile Handicap. This is the second year in a row that Haynesfield has walked off with New York Horse of the Year Honors, in addition to capturing the Divisional Championship for his age group.

Bred by Barry Weisbord in partnership with Margaret Santulli and foaled at Marlene Brody’s Gallagher’s Stud, Haynesfield is out of the 2009 New York Champion Broodmare and black type-winner Nothing Special. An Ontario-bred daughter of the late Canadian-based sire and stakes-winner

Tejabo Nothing Special was campaigned by Haynesfield’s co-breeder Barry Weisbord. Haynesfield was sold first to Maverick Racing for $100,000 at Keeneland’s 2007 September yearling sale and, ironically, turned into a negative pinhook when purchased by Vision Racing for $20,000 at Keeneland’s April sale of two-year-olds.

Bug Juice: Champion Two-Year-Old Male

Bug Juice, campaigned by Neal R. Galvin’s Our Blue Streaks Stable and trained by Bruce Levine, left his mark by sweeping last year’s lucrative Finger Lakes New York-bred juvenile stakes series by a combined and overwhelming 17 lengths. After wiring the $138,975 Aspirant in September by seven lengths, the bay gelded son of Mingun laid on a repeat performance in October with a ten-length runaway victory in the $282,925 New York Breeders’ Futurity. Bug Juice, who broke his maiden at Saratoga at second asking (also by open lengths), concluded his five-race juvenile campaign with a record of 3-0-1 and earnings of $290,740.

Bug Juice was bred by Milfer Farm, where he was foaled. His dam is Twilight Empress, a winning daughter of Twilight Agenda by Devil’s Bag. Galvin purchased Bug Juice as a weanling for $2,700 at the 2008 New York Fall Mixed sale.

Final Mesa: Champion Two-Year-Old Filly

Owned and trained by Wesley Ward, Final Mesa was the only two-year-old New York-bred filly to garner two stakes victories in 2010. Considered by Ward at one point as a candidate for Royal Ascot, Final Mesa was nothing short of brilliant in her first three career starts. After winning her Keeneland debut on Polytrack by 7 ½ lengths in April, the bay daughter of Sky Mesa went on to capture two stakes by more than a combined twelve lengths. In May she proved her form on a conventional dirt track, taking the 4 ½-furlong Polly Drummond Stakes Delaware Park by 4 ¾ lengths. In her next race, in June at Woodbine, she stretched out to five furlongs, again on Polytrack, and dominated the My Dear Stakes field by 7 ¾ lengths. Final Mesa ended 2010 with a record three wins from four starts and banked $142,377.

Bred by Carmine Telesca and John Guerrera, Final Mesa was foaled, raised and prepped for sale at Michael Lischin’s Dutchess Views Farm. Given an A++ Werk Nick Rating, she was purchased by Wesley Ward at the 2009 Saratoga Preferred Yearling Sale for $72,000. Final Mesa is out of the unraced Smart Style mare Final Style, dam of graded winner and New York Stallion Uncle Camie, who currently stands at Silver Nails Farm.

Friend Or Foe: Champion Three-Year-Old Male

Friend Or Foe, one of Chester and Mary Broman’s two homebred 2010 New York Champions, delivered a command performance in the marquee event on Belmont’s New York Showcase Day, defeating older rivals in the $200,000 Empire Classic. Friend Or Foe won the 1 1/8-mile race by five lengths leading every step of the way and breaking the stakes record by more than a full second.

Unraced at two, Friend Or Foe began his career with a bang for trainer John Kimmel, winning his first three starts and capping the series with an authoritative victory in a highly competitive renewal of the Mike Lee Stakes at Belmont in June. Although he did not visit the winner’s circle again before the Empire Classic, he competed against some of the best horses in the country at Saratoga, finishing fourth in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy and running a troubled sixth in the Grade 1 Travers.

Friend Or Foe was sired by Grade 1 Florida Derby winner Friends Lake (A.P. Indy), also bred and campaigned by the Bromans and currently standing in Saudi Arabia. His dam, Unbridled Star by Unbridled, is a stakes-placed winner, his second dam is Grade 2-placed, and third dam, Taisez Vous, is a multiple Grade 1 winner of $372,185. Chester Broman purchased Unbridled Star for $115,000 at the 2002 Keeneland November Sale.

Franny Freud: Champion Three-Year-Old Filly and Champion Female Sprinter

Three-year-old Franny Freud, bred by 2009 New York Breeder of the Year Tony Grey, and owned by a partnership of Paul Pompa, Jr., Grey’s Winter Park Partners and Stephen Yarbrough, turned her New York sire Freud into a household name in 2010, becoming a Grade 1 winner, winning stakes races on Polytrack, dirt and turf and earning $390,000.

The versatile bay filly accomplished everything asked of her by trainer John Terranova in 2010. Beginning her sophomore campaign with a close runner-up finish in Santa Anita’s Grade 2 Santa Ynez, she would never lose another race. Traveling from California to Kentucky, she got her first graded stakes win in Keeneland’s Grade 2 Beaumont. Returning to New York, Franny Freud easily won two divisions of the New York Stallion Stakes Series by more than a combined 13 lengths – one run on the dirt and the other against males on the turf. Franny Freud’s greatest triumph was her confident victory in the Grade 1 Prioress at Belmont on the Fourth of July. Two days before Saratoga’s Grade 1 Test Stakes, for which she was installed as 5-to-2 favorite on the morning line, Franny Freud’s many fans were disappointed to hear that she had suffered a career-ending ligament injury and would have to be retired.

But Franny Freud had one final coup to deliver. At her next stop, the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November Sale, she was purchased as a broodmare prospect by Katsumi Yoshida for $560,600. Franny Freud is out of the winning D’Accord mare Frankly Fran, who is a half-sister to two stakes winners and producer of two more winners. Foaled at Sequel Stallions, Franny Freud is the top earner and first Grade 1-winning offspring of her sire Freud, who stands at Sequel Stallions at Keane Stud.

Get Serious: Champion Turf Male

Monmouth-based Get Serious, owned in partnership by James M. Dinan, Jacques J. Moore, and John Forbes’ Phantom House Farm, became a millionaire in 2010 at the age of six. The son of City Zip, trained by part-owner John Forbes, was virtually unstoppable on the Monmouth green last year, winning four out of five starts, headlined by three Grade 3 victories. After winning the Monmouth Stakes in June and the Oceanport Stakes in August, he passed the seven-figure earnings threshold in his last start of the year, his second consecutive victory in the $200,000 Red Bank Stakes in which he broke his own course record. Get Serious’ only off-the-board finish last year was an extremely solid effort in the 1 3/8-mile Grade 1 United Nations. His 5-4-0-0 record on the year netted $459,500 in purse earnings.

Get Serious was bred by Morgan’s Ford Farm and foaled at Marlene Brody’s Gallagher’s Stud. He is the fifth winner out of New York-bred winner Java Gal, a Java Gold mare purchased by Morgan’s Ford Farm for $25,000 at Keeneland’s 1999 November sale. Forbes purchased Get Serious for $130,000 when he sold as the top-priced New York-bred at Fasig-Tipton Midlantic’s 2005 October yearling sale.

Khancord Kid: Champion Turf Female

The season highlight for Chester and Mary Broman’s three-year-old homebred filly Khancord Kid came early in the year: a thrilling half-length victory in the 1 1/8 mile $150,000 Grade 3 Herecomesthebride Stakes over the Gulfstream Park turf course in March. Trained by John Kimmel, Khancord Kid had two wins from seven starts in 2010 and earned $138,980.

A daughter of Lemon Drop Kid foaled at the Bromans’ Chestertown Farm, Khancord Kid is out of Confidently, who also produced another six-figure earner, New York-bred Cosmo Pirate ($139,400) by Smarty Jones. Chester Broman purchased confidently, an unraced daughter of Storm Cat, at Keeneland’s 2000 January sale for $1 million.

Silver Timber: Male Sprinter

The male sprinting crown this year went to turf sprint specialist Silver Timber. Campaigned by Michael Dubb and High Grade Racing Stable and trained by Chad Brown, the grey gelded son of Prime Timber had a spectacular seven-year-old campaign. Winner of four of his seven starts, Silver Timber had his picture taken after Keeneland’s Grade 3 Shakertown Stakes, Churchill’s Grade 3 Turf Sprint Stakes, in which he set a new course record, Monmouth’s Wolf Hill Stakes and Keeneland’s Grade 3 Woodford Stakes. He also ran second in the $105,000 John McSorley Stakes at Monmouth Park. Betting favorite at 3-to-1 for the $1,000,000 Grade 2 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, Silver Timber finished fifth, but only 2 ¾ lengths behind the winner after bobbling at the start and running into traffic. His earnings for the year totaled $296,211.

Bred by Sez Who Thoroughbreds, Silver Timber was purchased by Linda Rice as a two-year-old for $110,000 at OBS April. His dam, multiple-winner River Princess (Alwuhush), has also produced New York-bred Cracovia (Action this Day), who is Grade 3-placed in Peru, and black type-placed Inrightclassitime (Straight Man). River Princess was purchased by New Dawn Stud at the 2000 Keeneland November Breeding Stock sale for $30,000.

Rightly So: Champion Older Female

Zayat Stables’ Grade 1-winning sprinter Rightly So, a daughter of New York sire Read the Footnotes,  never finished off the board during her four-year-old campaign, running in five stakes at all three NYRA tracks. Her last career start, when she won the Grade 1 Ballerina at Saratoga by four lengths and earned a lifetime high Beyer Speed Figure of 100, capped a 2010 run which also included a victory in the Grade 3 Bed o’ Roses, a second place finish in the Grade 2 Vagrancy and in the restricted Indistinctly stakes, and a show finish in the Broadway. Trained by Tony Dutrow, dark brown filly earned $278,500 for the year.

The morning line favorite for Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, Rightly So was scratched by veterinarians at noon on race day (a move which mystified her trainer). Two days later, Rightly So shone in the auction ring. Offered as a racing or broodmare prospect, she sold to Patinack Farm for $600,000.

Bred by Sequel 2003 and foaled at Sequel Stallions NY, Rightly So was originally purchased by Zayat Stables as an OBS Calder two-year-old in 2008 for $220,000. Rightly So’s dam Fit Right is 2010 New York Broodmare of the Year (see profile below). Her sire Read the Footnotes stands for Sequel Stallions at Keane Stud.

Champion Steeplechase Horse: Sunshine Numbers

courtesy of Don Clippinger

Sunshine Numbers repeated as the New York-bred champion steeplechase horse in 2010. Bred by Dresden Farms and now owned by Camden, South Carolina, resident Sue Sensor, the Polish Numbers gelding won his first title in 2009 with two victories in six starts, and he improved in 2010 with three wins in five starts.

Trained by former steeplechase jockey Arch Kingsley Jr. and ridden in all his 2010 races by Bernie Dalton, Sunshine Numbers runs his best when he can dictate the pace. After closing out 2009 with an impressive victory in the $20,000 Hobkirk Hill, a starter allowance at Camden, he started his eight-year-old season in 2010 with a big step up the ladder, into the $75,000 Carolina First Carolina Cup Stakes (Gr. 2), also at Camden, on March 27. He never made the lead and finished fourth.

Kingsley then sent Sunshine Numbers to Georgia for the Atlanta Steeplechase meet on April 24. Sunshine shone on the front end and won the afternoon’s feature, the $30,000 RBC Wealth Management Georgia Cup, an allowance race, by 1 1/2 lengths over a good field.

Tried again in a graded steeplechase stakes, the $50,000 Marcellus Frost Hurdle Stakes (G3) at the Iroquois Steeplechase in Nashville on May 8, Sunshine Numbers never saw the front end and finished fifth.

Kingsley then put Sunshine Numbers on a path back to the Hobkirk Hill, which is limited to horses that started in a 2010 claiming race. Sunshine Numbers wheeled over the Aiken, South Carolina, course to win a $15,000 claimer on October 30, and he came back to take the Hobkirk Hill two weeks later by a length.

The steeplechase option certainly has brightened the career of Sunshine Numbers, who is out of the Dahar mare Saturday Sunshine. Initially raced by Dresden, he won his first career start at Finger Lakes racetrack in late 2004 but did not win again until June 2006, after he had been claimed for $20,000. He had one other victory before his steeplechase career began in earnest in 2008, following a private sale to Sensor. His 2010 purse total of $44,750 was the best of his career.

Fit Right In: Broodmare of the Year:

New York-bred Fit Right In by Out of Place, who was eight-years-old in 2010, is the dam of New York-bred Grade 1-winner Rightly So, 2010 New York Champion Older Female. The mare was bred by Becky Thomas in partnership with Lewis Lakin, who purchased Fit Right In’s dam, Gaye’s Blossom by Thirty Six Red, for $29,000 at the 2002 Keeneland January sale the year she produced Fit Right In. Unraced due to injury, Fit Right In became one what Thomas described as one of the “original New York mares for our farm in New York [Sequel Stallions NY].”

The year Fit Right in produced her first foal Rightly So, by Sequel Stallion Read the Footnotes, Thomas and Lakin dissolved their partnership. Thomas and her new partner Dennis Narlinger (as JMJ Racing) then purchased Fit Right In at the 2006 New York Breeders Sales Company October sale for a mere $3,000 in foal to Freud with New York-bred winner Conflicted ($48,191). Fit Right In did not have a foal in 2008, but her 2009 filly by Closing Argument topped the tenth session of the 2010 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, selling for $155,000. Fit Right In’s 2010 foal is a full sister to Rightly So, and she was bred last spring to two-time Horse of the Year Curlin.

The racing success of Rightly So and auction success of Rightly So and Fit Right In’s other offspring turned Fit Right In into one of the hottest prospects of the 2010 Keeneland November Breeding Stock sale. In the heady second session she commanded the fifth highest price for a broodmare, selling to Katsumi Yoshida for $1,050,000. “It was a home run,” Thomas said after the sale. “She has a Grade I winner in her first foal. She’s an eight-year-old mare, so she still has her whole life. She is stunningly beautiful and her babies are stunningly beautiful.”

Ramon Dominguez: Jockey of the Year

For the second straight year, Jockey Ramon Dominguez, a 34-year-old native of Venezuela, was the top-earning New York-bred jockey in 2010. Of course, this year New York had to share the privilege of honoring its top rider with the nation after Dominguez won the 2010 Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey.

Dominguez compiled a record of 135-91-77 aboard 527 New York-bred mounts in 2010 and amassed $5,015,475 in purse earnings. Probably the most noteworthy of Dominguez’ 2010 New York-bred victories was Haynesfield’s triumph in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup, but he also won stakes aboard Bandbox, Cuff Me, Eminent Tale, Exclusive Scheme, In Te Domine, Sky Music, Meese Rocks and Wicked Diva.

Stakes races aside, Ramon Dominguez is a year-round mainstay for owners and trainers of New York-breds. His milestone 4,000th victory came aboard New York-bred Fortyninegeorgest., a four-year-old bay gelding by Ecton Park, on an ordinary weekday at Aqueduct last spring in an open $7,500 claiming race for non-winners of two lifetime. Working out the win in the six-furlong contest from off the pace with expert timing and strategy, the “Grade 1” ride exemplified all the qualities, in a relatively humble context, that characterize Dominguez’ achievements at every level of competition. [VIDEO]

Linda Rice: Trainer of the Year

Linda Rice, like Haynesfield and Dominguez, was also a repeat NYTB honoree for in 2010, carrying off her second title as leading trainer of New York-breds.

After starting 300 state-breds, the Rice barn put together a record of 53-49-44 and earned $1,914,416 in New York-bred purses. All four of Rice’s state-bred stakes-winners last year were turf horses. Ahvee’s Destiny, Canadian Ballet, and Lady Rizzi won turf sprint stakes and In Te Domine won at distances from seven furlongs to 1 1/8 miles.

Posted in: NYTB