Johnny Jones, David Greathouse, consignor Smoot Fahlgren, Kerry Cauthen, Dan Kenny

The Four Star Sales team awaits your inspection at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky, Saratoga, and Keeneland September.

ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD

Last Christmas I received a note from Keeneland’s Director of Sales Geoffrey Russell informing me that I had sold the sales graduate of the week.

“Congratulations on pinhooking such a nice horse. Sorry it wasn’t profitable!”, he wrote, taking damning with faint praise to a new level. The steed in question is Paradise Dancer who has gone on to earn some $600,000 after being purchased by me as a weanling for $l0,000. I felt like Jesse James robbing a train after finding a Langfuhr offspring for such a paltry sum.

I sold half to a partner and we entered the colt in Keeneland’s September yearling sale, anticipating a healthy resale profit, particularly after he aced his veterinary exams. It soon became apparent, however, that my enthusiasm for Langfuhr was unmatched by the Keeneland audience. By now this camp included my partner who said he wanted out. Sell him without reserve he said.

To my eye the only sin committed by the Langfuhr colt was he didn’t grow much since we bought him. We let him go for a ridiculous price of $7,000 to a buyer from Florida.

A cheerier bit of news showed up yesterday in the current Blood Horse. It seems that we landed in exalted company, ranked fourth among consignors selling graded stakes winners from 200l-05 under the Dan Kenny Bloodstock banner. Since we blended DKI into Four Star Sales in 2002, our finish was based on the 2001 season. Must have been a good year. But it doesn’t necessarily mean we made any money. It is entirely possible to breed and raise a good horse and still lose money.

That’s why we need to constantly press the case for broodmare awards. It can keep a horse farmer afloat who produced a good horse for the market yet made no direct profit.

HERE IS THE LATEST

Last weekend produced some of the usual good results. Christmas Ship won an allowance at Pleasanton. She is a stakes-placed half-sister to Tricky Trevor, a winner of over $700,000 which we bought as well for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer and partners. Christmas Ship’s earnings are nearing $l00,000. We bought the siblings for a total of $l47,000 and they have grossed $800,000. Each was purchased at OBS March from the consignment of Mike O’Farrell’s Ocala Stud. If everyone did business with the clarity that Mike brings to the job our lives would be easier.

Hollywood Park was the scene of another good Hollendorfer winner in Ransom Captive.
We purchased her dam a couple years ago (Cap Rouge) for a modest price in foal to Woodman. Hollendorfer feels that Ransom Captive is on a path to stakes status and will race next at Del Mar.

We bought the 2yo filly Broadway Hennessy in Florida this winter and she broke Golden Gate’s track record first time out. She was then l-to-5 favorite to win the Juan Gonzales Memorial at Pleasanton but she had to settle for second after a spirited dual on the lead.

Archer’s Gal won again at Woodbine and has surpassed $400,000 in lifetime earnings. We bought her dam, Dance A Go Go for $l2,500.

Juvee Hall finished second in the Supernatural Stakes at Hastings. We bought her sire (Arkansas Derby winner Graeme Hall) and dam (Feel The Pride). There is a great feeling of accomplishment when you can purchase a major stakes-winner for $200,000 and a mare for $20,000 that generate seven figure profits for the client you represent.

SMILING IRISH EYES

I first met Bob Costigan on the backstretch of Hastings Park. He had a 3-year-old filly in training there and sought my opinion about sending her to Woodbine to see if she would prefer turf racing to the Hastings five furlongs dirt oval.

Since she was by Regal Classic out of a mare by Assert it was an easy to confirm his judgment that Inish Glora might fancy the lawn. I was thinking $50,000 claimer while Bob had higher aspirations.

Under the tutelage of old school trainer Mac Benson Inish Glora flourished immediately.
From modest beginnings in Vancouver she eventually reached the summit and was crowned Canada’s champion turf mare two years straight.

While all this was going on Bob asked me if I could find a telephone number for trainer David Carroll, a fellow Irishman who was stabled at Churchill Downs. It seems the pair had been school chums back in Ireland at Gormanston College. They had not spoken in 25 years.

Good fortune smiled on both of them after that reunion. Bob had added an Arch filly named Arravale to his small band of runners and she became not only champion filly in Canada but also Horse of the Year. Imagine two champions in a stable with no more than a handful of runners!

Carroll meanwhile showed that he’s no slouch with his deft handling of Denis of Cork to finish third in the Kentucky Derby and second in the Belmont.

“Bob was the smart one,” said David. “I’d be reading nothing but the Irish Field instead of my school books. It was grand to see him again after all those years.”

ROBIN HOOD DOES GOOD WITH A BOW; SO DOES MY HORSE

Harry Aleo died with his boots on a few days ago. My first encounter with Harry took place at a yearling sale conducted at Seattle’s now defunct Longacres. He owned a good horse named Minutes Away who had won the Bay Meadows Derby the year before.
A half-brother to Minutes Away was catalogued to sell at Longacres.

I was on a similar mission to try to buy the horse for Louisiana oilman John Franks. We were really rolling at the time, winning stakes on a regular basis with horses bought who had already begun a career or at the yearling and juvenile sales.

The horse we were both after was by first-year sire Night Mover. He had been a brilliant sprinter/miler in California for trainer Bobby Frankel. Franks was prepared to go to $40,000 for the horse and I thought that was ample until Harry showed up with trainer Greg Gilchrist in tow. This now figured to be a little tougher assignment.

For one thing, the Night Mover colt was a physical marvel, as good a looker as you’d find at Keeneland let alone a regional sale in Washington state.

Harry and I were the only serious bidders and he bid $40,000. In the heat of battle I answered with $45,000. He countered at $47,000. Sensing weakness, I hit it again and got the horse for $50,000.

There was just one more detail. Franks firmly reminded me that he had only authorized bidding up to $40,000. He declined to buy the horse.

I was undaunted because I really loved this colt. My Santa Barbara Stable partners were happy to have the horse. We named him Ricehart, an election year pun. Donna Rice and Gary Hart were an item that summer, as befits a colt by Night Mover out of Happy Vixen.

Ricehart made the partners even happier when he won his second start at Santa Anita in l.09. That prompted a $200,000 offer to buy the colt. This time I outsmarted myself by looking in the condition book where I spotted a non-winners of two on the turf at a flat mile.

“Let’s not sell yet,” I counseled. “ He’ll win that turf race and we will get more money.” Said I.

It was a great plan up to the moment when Ricehard bowed a tendon. A couple of months later we took him to a mixed sale at Del Mar. Word spread of the colt’s extreme good looks and every teenage girl in San Diego County wanted to buy him for a show horse.

A cowboy from Oklahoma bought him for $23,000, huge money for a bowed horse, and took him back to Remington Park. A little bit late, perhaps, but he vindicated my faith in him by reeling off win after win. He had set several track records on the turf and won 10 races before he bowed again. Then he won seven more races.

SAY, COULD YOU LEND ME A COUPLE GRAND, I WANT TO BUY GRENZEN

Yearling sales get underway soon. Here’s a few tales that illustrate some hits and misses I have experienced in the auction ring.

My first venture to Keeneland came in l976 with $l0,000 in credit to buy a man a filly to race. I was still pretty new at this and tended to mark down pedigrees of horses that I knew and admired from the race track.

Bold Who had been a betting favorite of mine at Fair Grounds. He was a tough, impetuous horse who had plenty of speed and learned to carry it two turns. In short, he gave you all he had and won l8 races. Young Joey Dorignac trained Bold Who for his father who owned a giant grocery store in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie.

Late in the sale I discovered a half-sister to Bold Who. Physically, they could not have been more different-Bold Who was dark, almost black and loaded with muscle and bone-and his sis was a smallish sort who was feminine and light boned. She was by Grenfall, a son of Graustark and champion Primonetta. I knew enough about pedigrees by then to think there was enough blood to take a chance on.

I bid my $l0,000 but surrendered when another bidder went $ll,000. The successful buyer turned out to be Dr. Jack Woolsey, a veterinarian from Santa Rosa, CA. We met and became friends and I thought little of it until the filly, now named Grenzen, began burning up the track in California. She won numerous graded stakes, was second in the Kentucky Oaks and the Ashland and was sold for a huge figure to Walter Haefner’s Moyglare Stud. Grenzen’s first foal was $2 million earner Twilight Agenda. She and her daughters went on to produce one of the most abundant families in the stud book.

Naturally my client, when Grenzen began to run, said why didn’t I bid more. Now you tell me.

Every cloud has its silver lining. Dr. Woolsey later introduced me to Bob and Barbara Walter who hired me to help market their Vine Hill Ranch stock from time to time.
We sold a daughter of their home stallion Slewvescent for more than $l million and she won the Grade I Queen Elizabeth S. at Keeneland. Her name was Tout Charmant.

Fast forward two decades and you can tell that I had learned how to buy a good yearling for the right price.

A flamboyant fellow appeared on the scene and we contracted with him to purchase running and breeding stock at the highest levels. One day at Keeneland, after purchasing a number of horses the man was ready to go back to his hotel for Happy Hour. He’d had a few cocktails already and resisted my idea of buying one more horse, a filly by Thunder Gulch. This time I insisted and we stood in the back of the pavilion to bidTwit. We stood next to Mack Miller and Smiser West who bred the filly.

Evidently their reserve price was $l00,000 because that was our winning bid. Mr. West turned to Mr. Miller with a disconsolate look on his face. “Gee, I thought we’d get more than that, didn’t you,” said Mr. West to Mr. Miller who agreed.

“You mean you kept me here for another hour to buy a cheap horse”, my guy said. He had other advisors bending his ear and I began to suspect that our selections were being badmouthed.

Be that as it may, the filly began doing business as Tweedside and she went on to become a Grade I winner of some $600,000. Her 3-year-old colt by Storm Cat debuted on the weekend and finished second at Belmont as if he has a future. Name is Mosaic.

What tipped me off on this one, you may ask? Elementary, my dear reader. I had dealt with this family about l0 years earlier. A different client sent me to Kentucky to try to purchase a mare by Roberto. We had topped the inaugural Barretts Sale with a Roberto colt and he was looking to parlay.

I found him Twitchet who had out a couple of modest stakes-placed runners up till then.

She had another foal who had just picked up black type as a 4-year-old. The mare was empty and had a Forty Niner colt by her side. Hidaway Farm wanted $250,000 or maybe $300,000 for the package, I can’t recall. What I can recall is that Twitchet’s foals tended to be late developers and equally adept on dirt or turf.

For some reason my client decided to pass on Twitchet. Too bad. Her then 4-year-old was Evanescent who won three graded stakes as a 6-year-old and finished second in the Grade I Arlington Million. He earned almost $l million

The Forty Niner colt was stakes-winner Tactical Advantage. Now you can see why I wouldn’t let Tweedside get away. Persistence paid off.

A few years earlier I was part of a four man delegation to purchase well-bred fillies to race in Western Canada and eventually become broodmares there.

My was to analyze pedigrees and share racing knowledge gleaned from my experiences at US tracks since the others rarely left their British Columbia outpost.

I worked winters at Fair Grounds in those days and became enamored with a filly named Pink Platinum, a robust grey Quadrangle filly trained by Jere Smith. She raced for Archie Lofton on the New Orleans, Hot Springs, Louisville, Chicago circuit. Pink Platinum loved to race on the lead and was a wire-to-wire stakes winner. She won l8 races.

On my advice, we bought a half-sister to Pink Platinum for $30,000 which was our limit.
As was the case with Grenzen, the siblings in no way resembled each other. Our filly was from the first crop of speedster Torsion, a Never Bend horse standing at brand new Airdrie Stud. She was small and dark and looked fast. Named Never Wood, she won her first three starts, including three stakes. As a broodmare she producted Ohio Derby winner Private School who made $770,000.

If you love betting on races and know what you’re watching; if you love reading pedigrees and can making sense of the connective tissue in active families you can buy a good horse. Better yet, let me buy it for you.

A PENNSYLVANIA YANKEE IN QUEEN ELIZABETH’S COURT

Royal Ascot races last week evoked memories of our visit a decade ago. Chief among them was the smashing victory by Dubai Millenium in the G 1 Prince of Wales stakes.
The betting opened on the Darley at 4-6 early in the week but the herd mentality of many racegoers took a turn that was almost comical in its stupidity. By post time the wagering had taken a huge shift with the Aga Khan’s Sinndar moved into favoritism in the four horse field, with Dubai Millenium downgraded to 6-4 second choice.

The reason? Jerry Bailey had been named to ride Dubai Millenium and thousands of punters, swayed by the racing press, got the curious impression that presence of the American champion was somehow less than a good thing.

Bailey put the brilliant son of Seeking The Gold on an easy lead almost from the start and came home as if out for a canter in Hyde Park.

One sensed that he was in the presence of greatness in Dubai Millenium. His early demise was a heartbreaking loss for the Maktoum family.

Also memorable that week was our chat up with the Queen Mother who was celebrating her 99th birthday if I recall. A member of our party asked a Lady In Waiting if we could speak with the Queen Mother as she entered the walking ring. I was sure that security would round us up but, lo and behold, the Queen Mum tooled over in her golf cart and granted an audience that must have lasted l0 minutes. She chatted about her trips to Woodbine and touted us on the winner of the next race.

My English friends doubt the veracity of my tale but there were witnesses.

The trip ended on a more somber note. We had been cashing bets all week and there was no more room left in my pants pockets to put the Dubai Millenium loot. So I began to deposit pounds in the jacket of my morning suit.

That suit was returned to its Bond Street rental office at 7 a.m. on our way to Gatwick and a flight home. A champagne hangover led to fuzzy thinking and we were already at Gatwick when I noticed that some 2000 pounds was missing.

I called the rental company at once, explaining that I had left some of my profits in the jacket of the suit. “Backed some winners, did you,” he said, sounding like Col. Pickering to my Henry Higgins. “You’d be one of the few.”

Right then I knew I could kiss my bankroll goodbye. All the way home I felt like a “bloomin’ arse”.

HALO OUT THERE

They used to say in Las Vegas casinos that, if you wanted to gamble, they would send a cab to pick you up. If you wanted to play with a system, they would send a limo.

Breeding Thoroughbreds is the greatest gambling device played outdoors. Systems abound. Me, I’m sticking with trial and error, betting real money (including some of mine) and keenly following results on the racetrack. Diligence can point the way to intuition and common sense. All that and some luck can then help you succeed

We had a hand in shaping the pedigree of last week’s Tremont at Belmont, won by Dagnabit (Freud-Cool Ghoul, by Silver Ghost). A decade ago I purchased the G 1 winner Single Blade. We could hardly contain our glee at finding a top racemare with the best conformation you could desire for $50,000. Soon thereafter her son Comeonmom won the Remsen.

Comeonmom was by Jolie’s Halo so we thought that might be a place to start looking for her next mating. Silver Ghost was going well in those days and, as a son of Mr. Prospector and a Halo mare, he fit the bill on two counts. He stood for a $l5,000 fee which fit our price range. And he was a bit on the small side and figured to benefit from the leg and bone Single Blade brought to the mating in abundance.

The resultant Silver Ghost filly brought $l35,000 at Keeneland September. She was a modest racemare but Cool Ghoul showed immediate dividends when sent to Freud for her first mating. She foaled a New York-bred stakes placed horse and followed up with Dagnabit who was aided in the Tremont when odds-on Mr. Mistoffelles had a devil of a time at the break.

By now it should be obvious that Halo interacted well with this tribe. We bred Single Blade back to Southern Halo and she produced a powerful colt who took after the dam’s robust conformation. Unfortunately he also inherited Halo’s willful temperament which prevented him from fulfilling his potential. That’s the polite version. His handlers found him often dangerous to train with his obstreperous demeanor.

Freud also carries Halo through his illustrious daughter Glorious Song. You can imagine our distress at the results of sending Single Blade twice to Street Cry on a complimentary season open to G 1 winners. She foaled a beautiful colt who happened to be riddled with OCD lesions and yet to race. Single Blade died of colic while in foal to Street Cry.

Street Cry’s sire Machiavellian was bred on the same pattern as Silver Ghost (Mr. Prospector out of a mare by Halo). Oh, what might have been!

No genius was necessary to produce such results. But we like to think that keen observation of the facts at hand were enough to produce the desired results in this family.

A footnote on Single Blade: she produced ll consecutive January foals on one cover. Surely that’s a record.

Ted Turfman and Friends

We recently received word of the death of Mr. Ed Fricke, retired chairman of the Journalism Depart at Loyola U. in New Orleans. Fricke had an inordinate influence on the careers of myself and two confreres at Loyola. That’s because he had a second job as publicity director for Fair Grounds Racetrack. Fricke was known to host a class or two at the track when his schedule got tight.

A 3-year-old named On The Virg was considered Derby material earlier this year and that got me thinking. Wasn’t that the name of a weekly column written by none other than Eclipse Award winner Ron Virgets? He livened up the pages of Daily Racing Form and has since gone on to become a beloved denizen of the Crescent City. Ron had to swim for his life when Hurricane Katrina hit.

Mac McBride inherited the sports editor position from Virgets and then passed it on to yours truly when he graduated. He spent some years at Daily Racing Form also before landing the cushiest job in racing, humming along with Bing Crosby every day where the Turf Meets The Surf at Del Mar. He also heads up the publicity staff there

Fricke called me with a job offer after graduation to cover racing, golf, boxing, ABA basketball and whatever else might come along. All this and $l00 a week! Where do I sign up? The Fair Grounds press box was the major attraction. In those days I could drink $l00 a week in free beer and sandwiches at the track, all the while in the best seat in the house atop the ancient and revered grandstand.

The daily that I wrote for dubbed me with the nom de plume Ted Turfman for my graded handicap at the track. My initiation was a little rough. The guys in the racing office liked to announce that some poor soul was found drowned in nearby Bayou St. John. His pockets were empty except for a copy of my selections. That sort of stuff and a lot more toughened my hide enough to learn the ropes.

Migration to the DRF followed with triple the salary and a chance to travel to exotic places and cover racing exclusively.

That Loyola school paper only had about a half dozen male students. What were the odds that 40 years later we three would still be playing the ponies?

Charlie Hatton, the best writer the Form ever had, said it best. “You get stuck on the flypaper of turf journalism.”

Time, Time, Time Is On My Side

Two of our recent recruits recently broke track records. We found Broadway Hennessy at the February Calder sale. All I can say is that the chestnut Hennessy filly reminded me a great deal of another standout chestnut filly, Harmony Lodge who went on to Grade I status after being plucked from the same sale for $l.65 million.

Broadway Hennessy really looked like Harmony Lodge when she shattered the track record at Golden Gate Fields in her first start. She won by 6 l/2 lengths for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer.

Home For Harlan won by l0 lengths when he set a new 6 l/2 furlongs mark at Woodbine.
The handsome 3-year-old is another crack runner from the first crop of Harlan’s Holiday

Track records are nothing new for our outfit. The most meaningful came in the l989 Palos Verdes at Santa Anita when Sunny Blossom vanquished arch-rival Olympic Prospect in l.07.l Gary Stevens never uncocked his stick that day and his eyes light up when he recalls the event two decades later.

Our best piece of horse trading was probably Slyly Gifted, bought for $35,000 after his first start. He won the Longacres Derby and the Canadian Derby, both in record time.

Long ago we bought a filly named Lil Ol’ Gal who set the world record for 3 l/2 furlongs
at Northlands Park in Canada. We bought her again later for John Franks and she won a big stakes at Woodbine.

There are a few more over the years but you get the picture. We may be wearing bifocals but the eye for a good horse functions well as ever.