A Second Track to the Twin Spires
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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2020 BODEXPRESS UPSETS THE CLARK THIS SIDE UP: A SECOND Bodexpress (Bodemeister) has had an unconventional career, TRACK TO THE TWIN SPIRES running in the GI Florida Derby, GI Kentucky Derby and GI Preakness S. last year--and throwing his rider at the start of the latter--as a maiden. Placing in a trio of stakes since then, the bay finally earned his black-type badge Friday at the highest level with an 11-1 upset in Churchill=s GI Clark H. Away alertly, Bodexpress pressed from second early as 155-1 shot Phantom Currency (Goldencents) clocked opening splits of :23.39 and :47.94. Headed by Mr. Freeze (To Honor and Serve) to his inside, Bodexpress maintained his position through three- quarters in 1:12.77. Mr. Freeze took over from Phantom Currency approaching the far turn and Bodexpress ranged up on his outside with favored Code of Honor (Noble Mission {GB}) splitting horses outside of him. Coastal Defense (Curlin) joined the assault to Mr. Freeze's inside and Owendale (Into Mischief) rallied outside of Code of Honor, but Bodexpress was going strongest of all and forged clear in the final sixteenth to score. Cont. p6 Churchill Downs | Horsephotos by Chris McGrath IN TDN EUROPE TODAY They keep telling us not to get ahead of ourselves, with all the DUBAWI STARS AT FOAL SALE FRIDAY promising news on vaccines. But however tough the winter still Dubawi provided three of four highest-priced lots at the to come, we can surely now glimpse some kind of light at the Tattersalls December Foal Sale on Friday. end of the tunnel. And perhaps it's not too ambitious even to Click or tap here to go straight to TDN Europe. start envisaging times and places when we might finally be able to pause, and look around, and savor anew those rituals of teeming color and vitality we now understand to be so integral to human fulfilment. Like, maybe--whisper it--the first Saturday in May? Never mind whether that sacrosanct date should ever have been dragged into the Covid backwash. Granted a following wind, we hope to have the immemorial landmark back where it should be on the 2021 horizon. And, in contemplating the six-month odyssey ahead, we could not set a more logical course than from the Twin Spires themselves. True, a reconnaissance on Thanksgiving weekend has in recent times tended not to yield the kind of dividends that first established the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. through the 1920s. By 1930, a race that established the competence of a maturing 2-year-old to go two turns round Churchill was volunteering the GI Kentucky Derby winner for a third time in four years. In the Breeders' Cup era, however, the prospect of a juvenile championship (and the associated stud baubles) has diverted much traffic. Cont. p3 PUBLISHER & CEO Sue Morris Finley @suefinley [email protected] SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Gary King @garykingTDN [email protected] EDITORIAL [email protected] Editor-in-Chief Jessica Martini @JessMartiniTDN Managing Editor Saturday, November 28, 2020 Alan Carasso @EquinealTDN Senior Editor Steve Sherack @SteveSherackTDN Racing Editor Brian DiDonato @BDiDonatoTDN Deputy Editor Christie DeBernardis @CDeBernardisTDN Associate Editors Christina Bossinakis @CBossTDN Joe Bianca @JBiancaTDN News and Features Editor In Memoriam: Ben Massam (1988-2019) ADVERTISING [email protected] Director of Advertising Alycia Borer Advertising Manager Lia Best Advertising Designer Amanda Crelin Advertising Assistant/Dir. Of Distribution Rachel McCaffrey Advertising Assistants Amie Newcomb Kristen Lomasson Valerie Alloy from Columbus, OH celebrates her one-year anniversary with Goren (More Than Ready - Tensas Punch, by War Front): "His first hunter pace, he earned the blue Photographer/Photo Editor ribbon for a near-perfect 4 mile-per-hour natural walk. Whether blazing paths on the Sarah K. Andrew @SarahKAndrew trail or in the hunt field, crossing water or mud, ambling across ditches or up swales, [email protected] Goren’s got it! He lights up in the arena when the jump course is up and on full display. Social Media Strategist Whoa Goren! Next year he will step those long beautiful legs into the hunter show ring.” Justina Severni Click here to support horses like Goren at New Vocations. | Photo courtesy New Vocations Associate Producer Katie Ritz MRS. DANVERS ROMPS IN THE COMELY 9 Director of Customer Service Mrs. Danvers (Tapit) demolished the field Friday in Aqueduct’s Vicki Forbes GIII Comely S. [email protected] Marketing Manager TODAY’S GRADED STAKES Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen ET Race Click for TV 12:48p Discovery S.-GIII, AQU TJCIS PPs FS2/MSG+ Director of IT & Accounting Ray Villa 4:13p Long Island S.-GIII, AQU TJCIS PPs FS2/MSG+ [email protected] 4:57p Golden Rod S.-GII, CD TJCIS PPs FS2/MSG+ [email protected] 5:30p Jimmy Durante S.-GIII, DMR TJCIS PPs TVG 5:56p Kentucky Jockey Club S.-GII, CD TJCIS PPs FS2/MSG+ WORLDWIDE INFORMATION 6:30p Seabiscuit H.-GII, DMR TJCIS PPs TVG International Editor 7:30p Hollywood Derby-GI, DMR TJCIS PPs TVG Kelsey Riley @kelseynrileyTDN [email protected] European Editor Emma Berry [email protected] Associate International Editor Heather Anderson @HLAndersonTDN Newmarket Bureau, Cafe Racing Sean Cronin & Tom Frary [email protected] 60 Broad Street, Suite 100 Red Bank, NJ 07701 732-747-8060 | www.TheTDN.com TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 3 OF 13 • THETDN.COM SATURDAY • NOVEMBER 28, 2020 Cont. from p1 Although Saturday's field does include three taking in both races, coming here as an alternative is typically the work either of a horse that needs time; or of a horseman who takes time. In the old days, mind you, even the slower-maturing juvenile was given a foundation on the track. Reigh Count took seven attempts to break his maiden and, prematurely sold to John D. Hertz, ended up announcing his Derby candidacy in the 1927 running. He had already given a scare to his new barnmate, Anita Peabody, in a famous running of the Futurity at Belmont. His deference, in narrowly yielding, she later rewarded with the audiences that produced two of only three foals she delivered before her death. (They proceeded to make 200 starts between them). His Kentucky Derby success set up Reigh Count not only as the dominant American Thoroughbred of 1928, but for an audacious migration the following year, when he won the Coronation Cup at Epsom and finished second in the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot. Rumoured to have turned down a seven-figure bid for a horse he bought for $12,500, Hertz remarked: "I think a fellow who would pay $1 million for a horse ought to have his head examined. And the fellow who turned it down must be absolutely unbalanced." Plus ca changeY Cont. p4 Seth Hancock | Horsephotos The biggest catalogue update in the entire sale! Your route to the Breeders’ Cup! T A T A T T E R G S N A I L L L L S E S D E E C L E A DECEMBER1 M S B E E R R A M “It would be no surprise if she ended up as the stable’s top three-year-old prospect by the end of the season.” Santa Barbara “Could be the best out of the family, I won on both her siblings. She’s top of my ratings.” Seamie Heffernan, Jockey of Santa Barbara IN FOAL TO SPRINTING SENSATION & 4X GR.1 WINNER BLUE POINT HALF SISTER TO 2020 BREEDERS’ CUP MILE WINNER ORDER OF AUSTRALIA HALF SISTER TO CHAMPION RACEMARE AND 2019 BREEDERS’ CUP WINNER IRIDESSA +44 (0)7836 671571 (UK mobile) | [email protected] | @tedvoute www.voutesales.com TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 13 • THETDN.COM SATURDAY • NOVEMBER 28, 2020 This Side Up cont. Tagg, who spurned an automatic berth in the GI Breeders' Cup As it was, Hertz retired the horse to Stoner Creek--the farm he Juvenile last year to come here with Tiz The Law (Constitution). had established on land recommended by Arthur B. Hancock Things didn't work out on the day, in a messy race on the slop, Sr.--where he sired Count Fleet. but then one of the principal purposes of a patient education is Stoner Creek was where Gus Koch acquired the lore he would learning to cope with adversity. Sure enough, that proved to be eventually devote to three decades in the service of Hancock's Tiz The Law's only defeat until the Derby was finally staged in grandson Seth Hancock at Claiborne. In fact, he was giving up a September; and very possibly he might have won that, too, on Sunday afternoon to nurse the 31-year-old Count Fleet through its customary date. a bout of colic when a bunch of girls drove up from Lexington to The next generation has a clear leader now in Brad Cox, whose see the Triple Crown winner-- barn has become so powerful one of whom, Theresa, would that he can take a twin-track provide him with 10 children approach to the race that who have meanwhile defines his native city. With the maintained their surname as a Breeders' Cup laurels already Bluegrass byword for diligence secured, here he introduces two and integrity. maiden winners to stakes Times change, but horses company. don't, and nor, accordingly, does Mind you, for a horse just the essence of horsemanship. getting started, Swill (Munnings) But the habits and strategies of has been talked about for quite horsemen do evolve. Since 1931, a while already: not least since only three Kentucky Derby he was nearly brought down at winners have emerged from the Saratoga in the summer, Kentucky Jockey Club S.: coasting past the rest in the Swill | Coady Cannonade (1973-74) and Super gallop-out.