Multiple graded stakes winner Bucchero will relocate to Ironhorse Stallions (in the former Questroyal North) for 2025. Serita Hult Photo.

Coming off a breakout year that saw his son, Grade 1 winner Book’em Danno, stamp his sire as New York’s leading stallion, Bucchero will stand the 2025 season for Ironhorse Stallions at Questroyal North the former Sez Who Farm in Stillwater.

After five successful seasons in Florida, where he covered 471 mares, Bucchero stood the 2024 season at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds in Saratoga Springs under a one-year agreement.

“We have tremendous respect for the McMahon family and their history in New York and both parties wanted to see how Bucchero would fit with McMahon’s in-house stallions,” said Bucchero’s managing partner, Harlan Malter. “With Bucchero, Central Banker and Solomini, the top three stallions in New York in 2024, it made sense to let the McMahons focus on their homegrown stallions and our group focus exclusively on Bucchero.”

Bucchero will be the first stallion to stand under the Ironhorse Stallions banner, a fitting full-circle moment, as it was the syndicate of Ironhorse Racing Stable who purchased him as a 2-year-old. Ironhorse campaigned Bucchero through his 31-race career and ultimately was the driving force to stand him at stud upon his retirement.

“All of the partners involved in Bucchero have been his biggest supporters from Day 1 and it has been a privilege to be so heavily involved in both his racing and stallion career,” Malter said. “It is the logical next step to see where Bucchero can take us. As I said when he ran at Royal Ascot, ‘every time we have asked him to step up to the next level, he has delivered,’ and now he has done it in the breeding shed.”

Ironhorse Racing Stable and the stallion’s co-owners have actively supported Bucchero in both the auction ring and breeding shed. Ironhorse purchased multiple stakes winner and recent graded-placed Beauty of the Sea and stakes winner Mattingly at the OBS 2-year-ilds in training sales and co-owner Greg Kilka was the breeder of Book’em Danno.

The leading sire by earnings in New York in 2024 ($4,539,822 through Sunday), Bucchero has accomplished this feat without a single New York-bred runner. He is the rare regional sire to see his runners have immediate success in open company and on all surfaces.

Along with Grade 1 winner and millionaire Book’em Danno, the Grade 2-placed Buccherino and Grade 3-placed Beauty of the Sea, some 13 of Bucchero’s black-type horses have come in open stakes, with his most recent stakes performer Bucaro running a close second in the Ontario Display at Woodbine on synthetic after becoming a stakes winner in his prior outing.

Bucchero is currently the leading stallion in America on synthetic with more than $1.2 million of his $4.5 million in 2024 earnings coming across the increasingly relevant surface.

While showing his ability to produce top-level horses on turf and dirt in addition to synthetic, Bucchero has also produced incredibly consistent runners. To date, Bucchero starters (1,259) have run in the top three an astounding 49% of the time, tops among all U.S. stallions with more than 1000 starts.

“With the lucrative breeder awards offered in New York, the combination of Bucchero’s ITM stats, surface versatility and ability to produce open-company horses, we firmly believe that breeders will be richly rewarded by breeding to Bucchero,” Malter said. “We are all-in on New York, both breeding and racing.

“Starting Ironhorse Stallions will give us the ability to not only support New York breeders as a partner in producing the best possible New York-bred and -sired runners, but from a selfish side, we will be big buyers of New York-sired Buccheros and expect Ironhorse Racing Stable to focus the majority of its stable in New York. We have put together a great team and will be hitting the ground running working hand in hand with New York breeders as partners in the success of New York-bred racing.”

Lifelong horseman John Dowd will join Ironhorse Stallions as head of operations and bloodstock to go along with a growing team of experienced professionals in New York and Florida.

Malter addressed the question of why Ironhorse Stallions and why now?

“Our mantra is ‘we want to make racehorses to sell, not sales horses to race.’ We feel that Bucchero is a perfect foundation stallion for this philosophy and we hope New York breeders will join us in this goal. My sports background was as a baseball player and the classic Field of Dreams quote comes to mind in this endeavor: ‘If you build it, he will come.’ With the rich breeders program in New York, the huge commitment to a new Belmont and the amazing energy that Saratoga has rekindled, ‘they have built it, and we have come!’ ”

Bucchero will stand for $10,000 in 2025 with a “New York, New York” discount of $2,500 to any mare who will have a 2025 foal in New York or any prior breeder to Bucchero.

A limited amount of lifetime breeding rights will be available along with co-breeds to specifically approved mares. Information about Ironhorse Stallions and Bucchero can be found at ihstallions.com along with Bucchero’s dedicated and continually updated page at BuccheroStallion.com.

For bookings or inspection, contact Harlan Malter at 27B-UCC-HERO (272-822-4376) or info@ihstallions.com.

Chewing Gum and Umberto Rispoli (outside) outgame Beer Can Man in the Grade 2, $250,000 Joe Hernandez Stakes January 1, 2022 at Santa Anita Park. The son of Candy Ride will stand his first season in 2025 at Rockridge Stud in Hudson. Benoit Photo

Chewing Gum, winner of the Grade 2 Joe Hernandez Stakes in 2022 at Santa Anita Park, will stand his first season in 2025 at Rockridge Stud in Hudson.

The 9-year-old son of Candy Ride out of the stakes-placed Forestry mare Shared Heart will stand privately for a partnership that includes prominent New York owners Wachtel Stable and Pantofel Stable.

Chewing Gum is the only son of successful sire of sires Candy Ride standing in New York. A limited number of shares will be offered to approved breeders and Chewing Gum will be available for inspection in a few weeks.

“We are planning to purchase mares to support Chewing Gum and help him get started,” said Wachtel Stable’s Adam Wachtel. “Chewing Gum is a big, beautiful horse that was able to win sprinting and at middle distances on turf and on dirt against top competition. I think that New York breeders will love him.”

Chewing Cup, a Grade 2 winner who competed in 12 graded stakes events during his career, heads to Rockridge Stud for the 2025 season. Susie Raisher/NYRA Photo.

Chewing Gum broke his maiden at Kentucky Downs for his breeders Gerard and Alain Wertheimer. Fourth in the Grade 3 Fred W. Hooper Stakes on dirt at Gulfstream Park early the following year, he followed that up with a second-place finish in the Grade 3 Belmont Invitational Turf Stakes later that fall. The following season, he finished second to Casa Creed in the Grade 1 Jaipur Stakes at Belmont Park, running a career high 99 Beyer Speed Figure. In early 2022, he won the Joe Hernandez Stakes over Beer Can Man.

Chewing Gum posted a record of 5-5-9 in 35 starts with earnings of $662,426.

Chewing Gum joins the Rockridge stallion roster for 2025 that also includes Americanrevolution, Disco Partner, Mind Control, Slumber, Tourist and War Dancer.

Six-time leading New York sire Freud stood his final season in 2024. Susie Raisher Photo.

By Evan Hammonds

A lot has changed in the breeding and racing landscape in New York since the turn of the century. One constant, however, has been the long shadow of Freud, a full brother to three-time national leading sire Giant’s Causeway, who has stood at Sequel Stallions since 2002.

His reign among the New York leading sires will continue for a few seasons yet, but the grand old man has covered his last mare. The 26-year-old son of Storm Cat has earned his retirement.

“As the years have gone by, he’s bred fewer and fewer mares, but he still thinks every horse that comes into the breeding shed is for him,” said Sequel Stallions’ Becky Thomas. “He bred a dozen mares (in 2024) and I think all but one is in foal. His fertility is great—he is a consummate professional in the breeding shed—but he’s old.

“He’s been great,” Thomas continued. “I call our farm ‘the farm that Freud built.’ He continues to be that horse. So many stallions are euthanized before his age, but knock wood, he’s in great health.”

Represented as recently as Aug. 25 with Showcase Day stakes winner Dakota Gold (out of Dakota Kid, by Lemon Drop Kid), Freud is the sire of 74 black-type stakes winners, 18 of which stepped out to win at the graded stakes level. He has sired 1,495 foals from 21 crops, and his runners have earned more than $73 million. That’s quite an accomplishment for a “regional sire.”

Freud earned his first title as leading sire in New York by progeny earnings in 2008. Subsequent titles arrived in 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Freud, along with Giant’s Causeway, is out of the Rahy mare Mariah’s Storm. Bred by Orpendale (an arm of the Coolmore operation), Freud arrived Feb. 22, 1998, a year behind Giant’s Causeway. Giant’s Causeway, a group 1 winner at 2, became the legendary “Iron Horse” at 3 with a run of five group 1 victories from June 20 to Sept. 9, 2000. After a runner-up effort in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (G1), he shipped to Churchill Downs and battled Tiznow, dropping a neck decision in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1). An international success as a sire, and sire of sires, while standing in both Ireland (his first season) and the U.S., he died in April 2018 at the age of 21. At the time of his passing, Giant’s Causeway was the sire of 178 stakes winners (104 graded/group winners). By September 2024, that number swelled to 196 stakes winners.

“Little Brother” Freud, racing for Susan Magnier and Michael Tabor and trainer Aidan O’Brien, was given the same opportunities as Giant’s Causeway but was less effective on the track. He ran in a pair of group 1 races at 2, finishing fifth both times, and at 3 won once and placed third at Royal Ascot in the Cork & Orrery Stakes (G2).

By Coolmore’s standards, Freud wasn’t cut out to stand at Ireland or at Ashford Stud, their Kentucky facility. Thomas was able to negotiate with Coolmore’s Paul Shanahan to stand Freud. “The New York breeding program was ‘something new and interesting for Coolmore to try,” according to Thomas.

Standing for $5,000, Freud got 32 foals in his first crop, 2003, and they proved they could run from the get-go. He had nine juvenile winners and from the first crop, 19 of 27 starters would earn at least one victory, and three would become stakes winners. He had five stakes winners in his second crop that comprised 55 named foals.

“New York was just getting ‘operational’ at that time,” Thomas said. “Freud becoming Freud was great fun. There were not near as many stallions in New York back then and he had his pick of the litter.

“Most of the people at the time did not go to Kentucky. They bred to New York stallions and did everything in New York.”

To read the rest of this feature, click here to access the October digital edition of New York Breeder magazine.

Top New York sire and multiple Grade 2 winner Mission Impazible retired from stud duty and will take up residence at Old Friends in Kentucky. Barbara Livingston Photo.

Multiple Grade 2 winner and leading New York sire Mission Impazible has been pensioned and retired to Old Friends in Georgetown, Kentucky.

The 17-year-old son of Unbridled’s Song stood his entire career at Sequel Stallions New York in Hudson, including the 2024 season for a private fee.

Bred by Summer Wind Farm, Mission Impazible was purchased by Twin Creeks Racing Stables for $200,000 at the 2008 Keeneland September yearling sale. Trained by Todd Pletcher, Mission Impazible won three of 21 starts and earned $1,284,949. He won or placed in nine graded stakes including victories in the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby in 2010 and Grade 2 New Orleans Handicap in 2011. Mission Impazible finished second in the Grade 1 Donn and Stephen Foster Handicaps.

Retired to Sequel Stallions New York, Mission Impazible quickly emerged onto the breeding scene when his first-crop son, Silver Mission, won Belmont Park’s historic Tremont Stakes by more than 6 lengths in a time that equaled Hall of Fame member Buckpasser’s clocking.

Mission Impazible’s second crop included his speedy daughter Pure Silver, winner of Saratoga Race Course’s Grade 2 Adirondack Stakes by 9 1/2 lengths under top weight as a 2-year-old. The next two crops also produced North American black-type stakes winners led by hard-hitting Espresso Shot, the earner of $516,625 who won stakes at 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Mission Impazible was the leading Northeastern first-, second-, third-, fourth-, fifth and sixth-crop sire from 2016 to 2021, respectively. He sired the earners of almost $15 million to date.

“Mission Impazible made his mark as both an accomplished racehorse and well-respected sire,” Sequel Stallions New York said in a statement. “We wish him the best during his retirement.”

Champion, dual classic winner and former leading New York sire Big Brown arrived at Old Friends for retirement last week. Susie Raisher Photo.

Champion, dual classic winner and pensioned former leading New York sire Big Brown arrived at Old Friends in Georgetown, Kentucky, last week for his retirement.

The 19-year-old son of Boundary arrived at the Thoroughbred retirement operation Friday courtesy of Andy Cohen, managing partner of the Big Brown syndicate. Big Brown, who most recently stood at Irish Hill & Dutchess Views Stallions in Stillwater, becomes the fifth Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner to retire to Old Friends. He joins Silver Charm, War Emblem, Charismatic and I’ll Have Another.

“We are excited beyond measure to welcome Big Brown as an honored member of the Old Friends family,” said John Nicholson, president and chief executive officer of Old Friends. “We are deeply grateful to Andy Cohen and all of Big Brown’s connections for choosing to share this great horse with racing fans everywhere. I know his legions of fans will love having the chance to visit him throughout the year. Big Brown will be an awesome ambassador, not only for Old Friends, but for the sport of Thoroughbred Racing.”

Campaigned by a partnership that included Cohen, IEAH Stables and the late Paul Pompa Jr., Big Brown won seven of eight starts including the 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness. He also won the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational and Grade 1 Florida Derby for trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. He retired in late 2008 with earnings of $3,614,500 and earned the Eclipse Award for champion 3-year-old male.

“It doesn’t seem that long ago when we would visit Big Brown in the middle of the night and just hang out with him,” Cohen said. “He was like a puppy and especially loved it when the young children would come over to pet him. As sweet as he was, when he got on the racetrack he knew it was time to go to work. I remember after his race at Gulfstream Park, Kent Desormeaux said ‘he is the fastest horse I’ve ever ridden and the rest is history.’

“After visiting Old Friends and getting to know John Nicholson and Michael Blowen, I couldn’t be more comfortable knowing Big Brown will get the love and care he deserves at Old Friends where the horse is the boss.”

Big Brown settles in at Old Friends in Georgetown, Kentucky. Photo courtesy of Old Friends.

Big Brown started his stallion career in 2009 at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Kentucky. He stood there, along with Southern Hemisphere seasons in Australia from 2010 to 2014, until 2015. Cohen’s Sunrise Stables and Gary Tolchin’s Golden Goose Enterprises obtained a majority interest in Big Brown in 2015 and announced he would relocate to New York for the 2015 season.

Big Brown started his New York stud career at Dutchess Views Farm in Pine Plains before relocating to Irish Hill & Dutchess Views for the 2018 season.

Big Brown topped the New York general sire list with more than $2.7 million in progeny earnings in 2020. He finished second on the same list – with more than $3.2 million in progeny earnings – in 2021 and ranked among the top 10 stallions in the Empire State until he was pensioned in 2024.

Big Brown currently ranks seventh on the New York sire list, with progeny earnings of more than $1 million, including $246,900 earned by the late stakes winner The Big Torpedo. Big Brown also sired Grade 1 winner and $1,987,505-earner Dortmund, Grade 2 winners Somelikeithotbrown, Kiss to Remember and Coach Inge and Grade 3 winners Send It In, Nancy, Darwin, Dawnie Perfect and Big Wildcat. He’s the sire of 13 crops, including 19 current 2-year-olds and 18 yearlings, 30 blacktype winners and the earners of more than $37.4 million.

Old Friends will host “Big Brown’s Barn Bash” Friday, October 18. The event will feature fun activities and a chance to meet Big Brown. Additional information will be provided soon.

War Dancer, New York’s leading turf sire, will return to Rockridge Stud in Hudson for the 2025 season. Photo courtesy Sugar Plum Farm.

War Dancer, New York’s leading turf sire since 2022 and atop that list again this year, will return to stand the 2025 season at Rockridge Stud in Hudson.

The 14-year-old son of War Front started his stud career at Rockridge in 2017. He stood there for two seasons before moving to Irish Hill & Dutchess Views Stallions prior to the 2019 season.

“We are thrilled to once again partner with Rockridge in standing War Dancer, who has proven himself as a top turf sire,” said Robin Malatino, managing partner of War Dancer LLC. “With the introduction of Tapeta at Belmont, he can only improve on his already great stallion career.”

War Dancer leads the New York turf sire list by winners (21) and progeny earnings ($1,345,404) through Wednesday. Led by multiple 2024 winner and $204,500-earner Twenty Six Black, War Dancer also ranks fourth overall on New York’s general sire list with progeny earnings of $1,965,464. He’s also the sire of Grade 3 winner and $595,063-earner Dancing Buck and stakes winners Step Dancer, Mz Big Bucks and Warsaichi and Grade 3-placed $315,973-earner Surprise Boss.

“The War Dancer Team supports their stallion at every level and we are looking forward to contributing to War Dancer’s continued success,” said Rockridge’s Lere Visagie.

War Dancer and Rockridge also announced an exciting program that will provide breeders the opportunity to participate in War Dancer’s success. Limited share availability in the newly formed “War Dancer Legacy Club” is now being offered to select breeders. For more information, contact Belinda Thomas (802) 430-9959 or Erin Robinson (859) 421-7531.

War Dancer joins the Rockridge roster that also includes Americanrevolution, Disco Partner, Mind Control, Slumber and Tourist.

First-time starter Misseliofwar wins Friday at Aqueduct to give Fog of War his first winner. NYRA Photo.

Misseliofwar won his debut during the opening day card of the Belmont at the Big A meeting Friday to give Grade 1-winning freshman sire Fog of War his first winner.

Fog of War, an 8-year-old son of War Front, stands for $3,500 at Hidden Lake Farm in Stillwater. He’s the sire of 35 named foals in his first crop and Misseliofwar was his ninth starter.

Bred by and foaled at Hidden Lake Farm in Stillwater and owned by Birbal’s Racing Stable, Misseliofwar upset the finale at 29-1 under Dylan Davis for trainer Emron Ibrahim. Prem Birbal purchased Misseliofwar for $1,500 at this OBS June sale.

Fog of War sold for $400,000 at the 2017 Keeneland September yearling sale. Campaigned by Peter Brant and trainer Chad Brown, Fog of War won two of seven starts and earned $204,250. He won his debut going 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf at Saratoga Race Course before winning the Grade 1 Summer Stakes at Woodbine. He also placed in the 2019 Manila Stakes in his second start as a 3-year-old in 2019.

Fog of War entered stud in 2021 as the property of Brant’s White Birch Farm Inc. and Three C Stables LLC.

Bred by Orpendale, Chelston and Wynatt, Fog of War is out of the Group 3-winning Irish-bred Galileo mare Say. She’s the dam of two full brothers to Fog of War – Invader, a $500,000 Keeneland September yearling who won the John Battaglia Memorial Stakes, and Naval Intelligence (exported to Hong Kong and renamed Gold Chest), a stakes-winner in Great Britain and Handicap winner in Hong Kong.

Fog of War’s second dam, Riskaverse, is a multiple Grade 1 winner of $2,182,429. A stakes winner and Grade 1-placed at 2, she captured the Grade 1 Flower Bowl Invitational twice, Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup and won or placed in 10 other graded events. The daughter of Dynaformer sold for $5 million as a racing or broodmare prospect at the 2005 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November mixed sale.

Carlos Manresa at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sales grounds. Susie Raisher photo.

From the windows of his childhood home in Ocala, FL, Carlos Manresa could see J.J. Pletcher’s training facility, and in the mornings, he would look out the back windows to see young Thoroughbreds training.

“It’s a very vivid memory that I shared with my dad, which is really special,” said Manresa, sitting outside the Sequel New York consignment on Saratoga’s Fasig-Tipton sales grounds last week. “He’d wake me up, we’d go downstairs, and he’d say, ‘Look at the horses. Look at the horses.’ But it was always from a distance.”

Now the director of operations for Sequel, Manresa grew up on a small Quarter Horse farm, but despite the proximity, he grew up thinking that the Thoroughbred world was inaccessible.

With no intention of working full-time in the horse industry, Manresa attended Florida State University, where he studied political science and international affairs, and where he met Mckenzie Montgomery, the daughter of Becky Thomas, who owns Sequel. Their friendship led Carlos to summer jobs at the Sequel facility in Florida.

“I cleaned stalls, I bathed horses, I mowed lawns,” he said. “And I had a lot of fun, not just with the horses, but with the people. It’s such a different environment from interning in an office.”

From FSU, Manresa headed to Stetson University to study law, graduating in 2017 with a Juris Doctor degree, getting admitted to the Florida Bar Association, and taking a job as a defense attorney at a firm that represented doctors in medical malpractice suits.

Manresa laughed at the difference between how he started his professional life and what he does now before acknowledging that those lawyer skills can come in handy in managing a horse farm.

“It’s an analytical way of looking at things,” he explained. “A lot of time in the horse business, you can make decisions based on emotions or on relationships, and that can be beneficial. But you also have to be able to step back and say, ‘All right, let’s take myself out of this. Let’s take this relationship out of this, let’s take how I feel about this out of this, and let’s look at the data and be as analytical as possible.’”

“That’s especially important in the seller’s market,”  he went on. “You may have a relationship with a stallion or a stallion prospect, and you might think the horse is going to be great, but maybe you need to take a step back and look at it from an investment standpoint.”

Manresa’s relationship with Montgomery had developed into a romance, and after a couple of years of practicing law, he approached Thomas about a job.

“She was very kind,” recalled Manresa, laughing. “She said that she could teach me the business, but I don’t think she had it in her mind that I was thinking about a full-time venture, not just something during my free time. I think she was surprised when I called her and told that I’d quit my job.”

Thomas jumped in to prompt her son-in-law.

“Tell her about when you told your mother,” she said.

Manresa laughed.

“It was Thanksgiving,” he said. “My mom is a high school principal, and she’s been an educator her whole life, so education is really important to her and my father, and to our whole family.

“When I broke the news that I’d quit my job, she just broke down in tears. ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ she said. You have to remember that this industry was incredibly foreign to my family, and she thought that my life was going to be a hardship. She was thinking that I had the whole world ahead of me and instead, I was choosing something that would be a struggle.”

A few years on, she’s not only gotten used to her son’s career change, but she’s embraced it.

“I’ve invited her to grade 1 races with our graduates, and now she watches races with her friends and says, ‘That horse? My son is part of that horse’s story.’”

Tiz the Law at the Sequel New York Fasig-Tipton Saratoga consignment as a yearling. Susie Raisher photo.

Manresa is part of the story of Laoban, the late stallion that got his start at Sequel New York. The Wine Steward, who was twice consigned by Sequel, selling as a yearling for $70,000 and as a two-year-old for $340,000, and who has gone on to earn $467,000 and place in multiple stakes races. He’s part of the story of Tiz the Law, the 2020 Travers winner and Kentucky Derby runner-up that was consigned by Sequel as a yearling and sold for $110,000, and who retired with earnings of $2.7 million.

Most recently, he’s part of the story of Ferocious, who romped in his first start this summer at Saratoga and who sold for $1.3 million from Sequel’s consignment at this year’s OBS March Sale.

Manresa is involved with pretty much every element of the Sequel operation, from the breeding farm in Hudson, NY to the training facility in Florida, where he is based when he’s not at sales.

“Even if we don’t show up on the buyer sheet at a sale,” he said, “we were there. We’ve seen every horse. We have notes on every horse. We’re taking account of what the horses look like and who purchased them, and we use that information to see how it matches up with our own interpretation of the market. The market is constantly changing, and we’re just trying to analyze it and keep up with it.”

Sequel has 15 horses in its consignment for the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred sale on Sunday and Monday, Aug. 11 and 12. And as soon as the horses are shipped out when the sale is over, Manresa will go back to what he calls “the search,” his favorite part of the job.

“That’s the most exciting thing,” he said. “The second that the two-year-old sales are over, I’m champing at the bit to get to the yearling sales. I’m waiting for the July catalog to come out. I’m looking at digital sales online. There’s always a search for the next one.”

That “next one” might be a weanling. It might be a stallion. It might be a broodmare.

“Because we participate in the industry in such a broad way, I don’t have to narrow my focus so much, which is really great for an addict like myself,” he said, with a trace of a sheepish grin.

Throughout his careers, Manresa has been a man who relies on and trusts data and analysis. But it wasn’t data and analysis that brought him to the job of his dreams; any objective examination of the choice to leave law and work at Sequel would have resulted in his remaining a practicing attorney. But as he looks at horses and manages the Sequel consignment, the little boy who looked out his window with wonder at the Thoroughbreds is still present, and even Manresa has to concede that the decision that he made with his heart has turned out pretty good.

“It’s been absolutely amazing,” he said. “It’s an incredible ride.”

New York-bred 2-year-old Tojo’s Mojo gives Name Changer his first winner Sunday at Laurel Park. Jim McCue/Maryland Jockey Club Photo.

New York-based freshman stallion and graded stakes winner Name Changer sired his first winner Sunday when Tojo’s Mojo won the first race at Laurel Park.

Bred in New York by Majestic View Farms Intl. and owned by Joanne Geruso, Tojo’s Mojo delivered in his second start in the $47,000 maiden special weight going 5 furlongs. The 3-5 favorite, Tojo’s Mojo won by 3 lengths under Jorge Ruiz for trainer John Salzman Jr.

Name Changer, an 11-year-old son of Uncle Mo out of the stakes-winning Northern Afleet mare Cash’s Girl, stands for $2,500 at Peter Kazamias’ Kaz Hill Farm in Middletown.

Name Changer, who stands for $2,500 at Kaz Hill Farm in Middletown, sired his first winner Sunday. Susie Raisher Photo.

Name Changer won eight of 24 starts with two seconds and eight thirds for $567,080 in earnings. Bred and raced by Richard Santulli’s Colts Neck Stables and trained during his career by Alan Goldberg and his successor with Colts Neck’s runners, Jorge Duarte Jr..

Name Changer won the Grade 3 Monmouth Cup Stakes in 2018 at Monmouth Park and finished third in the Grade 2 West Virginia Derby in 2016 at Mountaineer Park.

Name Changer won two other stakes during his career – the 2016 Richard W. Small at Laurel Park and 2018 Queens County at Aqueduct, and placed in five other stakes.