Grannys Connection and Javier Castellano cruise to the finish in Friday’s Union Avenue at Saratoga. NYRA Photo.
By Joe Clancy
It’s 2:54 Friday afternoon. At Saratoga Race Course, fans light cigars, balance empanadas on a plate, slurp Modelo’s, decipher form and ponder whether they can cut through The Porch lunch tables on the way to the clubhouse.
Behind them, in front of an old screen door with a NO ENTRY sign near the Carmen Barrera Horsemen’s Lounge, Tom Morley frets through the last few moments before the Union Avenue Stakes. The trainer’s filly Grannys Connection is 2-5 in a field of five contesting the $125,000 stakes for New York-breds and Morley looks stressed.
The gates open. A server shuffles past with a tray of dirty dishes. Morley leans left, then right, then a little forward, eyes up and on a television hanging from the ceiling. A man in billowy white shirt and navy short stands right in front of him. Morley slides right. A minute and 11 seconds later, he lets out a long, slow breath and smiles.
“I love this filly so much. She just . . . she just . . . ahh . . .” he says as she gallops out past him and the rows of tables full of Saratoga lunch customers. “To win a stake up here with any horse is great, but it’s special with her. She has to overcome a lot of physical problems. They’re all minor, but when they’re this fast it just scares you every time they go out there.”
If she heard any of that, Grannys Connection would tell Morley to relax. She had it all the way.
The 4-year-old daughter of Connect won her fifth race, and first stakes, to go with two seconds in seven starts while earning $68,750 for Orpen Horses, Jack Towell Jr. and Alan Griffin. Bred by Paul Pompa Jr., Grannys Connection set fast fractions and made them stand up while winning by 1 1/2 lengths over Kant Hurry Love with Bank On Anna third after 6 furlongs in 1:11.09.
The Union Avenue win avenged a nose loss to Kant Hurry Love in the Dancin Renee Stakes at Belmont Park June 25. That day, Grannys Connection also set the pace but got caught in the final stride. The loss came after four consecutive daylight wins, by a combined 27 1/4 lengths, as the bay filly ran through her conditions to earn the stakes try.
“The last time I don’t think she saw the winner until two strides before the finish,” Morley said. “She’s never had to run all the way to the line. She’s normally winning under wraps and that filly is a very nice filly too. She was getting to us at the line.”
Friday was different. From the inside post, Grannys Connection and Javier Castellano broke a quarter-step behind the rest before breezing through along the rail to take the lead. She led Kant Hurry Love by 2 lengths just before the first quarter-mile split of :21.89 and stayed comfortable through a half in :44.81. Kant Hurry Love tried to rally off the turn as Castellano glanced over his right shoulder and Grannys Connection hit the stretch in the four path. The winner switched leads early in the stretch, responded to Castellano and saw out the victory as the first three didn’t change order. Vallelujah made up ground late to grab fourth.
Aboard for the first time, Castellano said Grannys Connection came with instructions.
“The trainer told me to be very careful because the first jump for her is not too fast, but then she can take off – you ask her, she’s going to be gone,” the jockey said with a smooch sound for emphasis. “I just had to be careful. The first jump, from the one hole, you want to come out of there. You don’t want to be back there and have somebody take your path away. Then you are behind horses and some horses get rank.”
Nobody took her path, and Grannys Kitchen didn’t get rank. She erased a half-length early deficit without working and took control.
“I let her go, I didn’t send her, she just took herself,” Castellano said. “She did it easy in a good way. I didn’t want to struggle with her and I didn’t want to send her either. Just go with the flow with her. The way she did it was very nice.”
Grannys Connection cost $57,000 as a 2-year-old at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s March 2-year-old sale in 2021 but didn’t make her debut until December 2022. Second there, she started the four-race winning streak in her next start and continues to improve.
Morley will continue to fret, however, and credited his staff (especially exercise rider Niko Ordonez Vilchis) with the filly’s development.
“Feet, little niggly things, you’ve just got to watch them with her and you can’t train her hard because she’s so fast,” he said. “Niko rides her every single day and does such a good job on her. He does owe me like $300 though because every time I tell him I want her to go in :50 (for a half-mile) or it will cost him, she goes faster. She never works in :50.”
Grannys Connection is the first foal out of winning Old Fashioned Granny’s Drink, who is out of the multiple stakes winner and $177,730-earner Cintarosa. Granny’s Drink is also the dam of Dixie Lullaby, an unraced Kentucky-bred 3-year-old full sister to Grannys Connection who sold for $42,000 at the 2021. Keeneland January horses of all ages sale.
Granny’s Drink, who sold in foal to Connect for $25,000 at the 2021 Keeneland January sale, is also the dam of a yearling colt by Vekoma and a weanling filly by Blame born Feb. 18.
