Taking Stock: from Retired Bleeder to Grade I Winner
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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2018 TAKING STOCK: FROM HIS BODY, NOT HIS SPIRIT, BROKEN IN SPILL, ESPINOZA VOWS TO RETURN FOR RETIRED BLEEDER TO BREEDERS' CUP by Bill Finley Wednesday was a big day for Victor Espinoza. For the first time GRADE I WINNER since July 22 he was able to get a haircut, shave and change his clothes. For the jockey who was briefly paralyzed in a training accident at Del Mar, it was a meaningful step forward toward once again living a normal life. He was able to clean up because the doctors removed the neck brace he had been wearing since the spill. "I looked like I was homeless," he said. "My hair is so long and so is my beard. With the brace and because I was on a blood thinner, I couldn't shave or cut my hair. I'm excited that I can look normal again. For six weeks, I wore the same thing every day. It's hard to take on and off shirts. I had a short sleeve shirt with buttons and that's it. I wore it every day. Almost two months wearing the same thing and every day I looked in mirror and I looked worse and worse." Cont. p7 (Click here) IN TDN EUROPE TODAY Glorious Empire | Sarah K. Andrew NOLAN A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS Better known for his national hunt consignments Peter Nolan is bringing a strong draft of yearlings to Tattersalls by Sid Fernando Ireland’s Ascot Sale next week. Click or tap here to go straight "Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses to TDN Europe. yearning to breathe free," wrote the poet Emma Lazarus. Those words from a sonnet were later inscribed on the Statue of Liberty and are synonymous with the ethos of the United States of America. They are applicable to racing here as well. The U.S. is still the only major racing country that allows race-day Lasix, a diuretic that helps control exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH), or bleeding in the lungs and airways. As a result, bleeders from abroad frequently find second opportunities here, and one of them, Glorious Empire (Ire) (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}), recently won the Gl Sword Dancer S. at Saratoga after a circuitous journey from Europe to Hong Kong and back to Europe and then, finally, to the U.S. It was the 7-year-old gelding's first win at the highest level, and the race was also the first Grade l win for owner Matt Schera and trainer James "Chuck" Lawrence ll. Cont. p3 Among the truly exceptional mares in Arrogate’s first book are Grade 1 Winners: SIGHTSEEK (G1) SONGBIRD (G1) FLUTE (G1) COFFEE CLIQUE (G1) ARTEMIS AGROTERA (G1) BY THE MOON (G1) SHE BE WILD (G1) FUNNY MOON (G1) LADY OF FIFTY (G1) CENTRE COURT (G1) PLUM PRETTY (G1) PAULASSILVERLINING (G1) as well as the dams of Grade 1 Winners: POWER BROKER (G1) CLOSE HATCHES (G1) WEEP NO MORE (G1) SUNSET GLOW (G1) ZAZU (G1) EMOLLIENT (G1) FORCE THE PASS (G1) WAVELL AVENUE (G1) RIA ANTONIA (G1) IOTAPA (G1) JOKING (G1) NEW YEAR’S DAY (G1) SAILOR’S VALENTINE (G1) WICKED STRONG (G1) VICTORY TO VICTORY (G1) DANCING RAGS (G1) DENMAN’S CALL (G1) MIZDIRECTION (G1) MANI BHAVAN (G1) DEAREST TRICKSKI (G1) LA CORONEL (G1) SHANGHAI BOBBY (G1) HANSEN (G1) HEART TO HEART (G1) LGB, LLC 2018 / Photo: Mathea Kelley Juddmonte www.arrogate.com PUBLISHER & CEO Sue Morris Finley @suefinley [email protected] V.P., INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS Gary King @garykingTDN [email protected] EDITORIAL [email protected] Editor-in-Chief Jessica Martini @JessMartiniTDN Managing Editor Alan Carasso @EquinealTDN Friday, September 7, 2018 Senior Editor Steve Sherack @SteveSherackTDN Racing Editor Brian DiDonato @BDiDonatoTDN News and Features Editor Ben Massam @BMassamTDN Associate Editors Christie DeBernardis @CDeBernardisTDN Joe Bianca @JBiancaTDN ADVERTISING [email protected] Director of Advertising Alycia Borer Advertising Manager Lia Best Advertising Designer Amanda Crelin Advertising Assistants Alexa Reisfield Amie Morosco Advertising Assistant/Dir. of Distribution Rachel McCaffrey Photo Editor Sarah K. Andrew @SarahKAndrew [email protected] Sketching and Emma Doyle exercise on the beach before racing Thursday at the 150th Social Media Strategist Justina Severni Laytown Strand Races in Co. Meath, Ireland. | Patrick McCann/Racing Post Director of Customer Service Vicki Forbes [email protected] LADY AURELIA TO SELL AT FASIG NOVEMBER 9 Marketing Manager ‘TDN Rising Star' Lady Aurelia (Scat Daddy), who twice conquered Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen Royal Ascot for trainer Wesley Ward and owners Stonestreet Stables and Peter Leidel, will sell at Fasig-Tipton's November sale, Director of Information Technology Ray Villa it was announced Thursday. Hill ‘n’ Dale will consign. [email protected] Bookkeeper Terry May TVG TO ADD SPORTS BETTING PROGRAMMING [email protected] 11 TVG, which broadcasts horse races to some 40 million United States WORLDWIDE INFORMATION homes on two networks, announced Sep. 6 that the 10:00 a.m. to International Editor 1:00 p.m. Eastern slot Sundays will now be filled by both a syndicated Kelsey Riley @kelseynrileyTDN [email protected] show and exclusive TVG-produced content that aims to blend sports European Editor wagering, fantasy gaming, and horse betting. 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 | 732-747-8955 (fax) www.TheTDN.com TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 3 OF 14 • THETDN.COM FRIDAY • SEPTEMBER 7, 2018 Ed Walker said the Sius asked him whether he'd take the horse back and try him again in the U.K. "At the time, we just assumed it was an environmental problem, with the climate and everything in Hong Kong. Some horses don't acclimatize and Europe and Hong Kong adapt," Walker said. Glorious Empire--as he was again known as- By Holy Roman Emperor (Ire) from Humble and Proud (Ire), by -was given plenty of time to readjust to life in Britain again, but Pivotal (GB), Glorious Empire first bled in Hong Kong after he Walker said he noticed some personality changes. was sold to trainer Caspar Fownes and the powerful Siu family "Caspar's a great trainer, so we just felt it was an from Ed Walker's yard in the U.K., where he'd won four of six environmental thing and we might get through his problems. We trained him on Lasix and we managed everything and he starts at six, seven, and eight furlongs at ages 2 and 3 and was was working the house down, and we were very excited about "progressing nicely," according to Walker. The trainer said he it, but he was slightly scarred mentally and was very, very keen was a big, "gorgeous, and massively talented" horse with and on edge, worrying about life a bit." "untapped potential" who'd been brought along slowly and A year and two months after being repatriated, Walker gently with a view to the future. confidently entered him in the Bunbury Cup, a valuable "It's a pretty sad story, really, from my point of view," Walker seven-furlong handicap at Newmarket, in July of 2016. said. "The guy who sold him to the Sius is still a great client and a Unfortunately, Glorious Empire was pulled up during the friend of mine, and he felt it was good business to sell to the running after another bout of bleeding. Sius, which introduced me to the Sius, who are now my biggest "I just said to the Sius, 'I'm afraid there's nothing else I can do owners--so every cloud has a silver lining--but at the time I was from here. The only chance he's got for a future as a racehorse suicidal at him leaving the yard." is in the States,'" Walker said, because of the permitted use of Glorious Empire last ran for Walker in mid-August of 2014. race-day Lasix. Renamed Quaternion Eagle in Hong Kong, the gelding made his Walker started Glorious Empire one more time, this time in debut for Fownes at Sha Tin in April of 2015, in a 12-runner Canada, in the listed Ontario Jockey Club S. at six furlongs on the sprint at 1200 meters that he won by a neck. all-weather at Woodbine in September, two months after the Bunbury Cup, and the gelding finished fifth of seven. Walker Trouble Lurking then transferred him to the care of his New York-based friend, In December of 2014, long before his Hong Kong debut, Tom Morley, who took over the training of the Siu gelding and Quaternion Eagle had bled from both nostrils in a barrier trial. raced him three more times before the end of the year. His best Hong Kong has a strict policy against bleeders and an even effort was a third as the longest shot on the board in an allowance optional claimer on turf at Aqueduct. Cont. p4 stricter zero tolerance for race-day medications, so when the gelding bled from both nostrils on his second start in the territory, in May of 2015, he was retired. "He had a really bad, really bad double hemorrhage," Fownes recalled. "We have in Hong Kong, basically, a two-strike penalty and there's automatic retirement. They changed that to three [strikes] but there's not many that go on with it. Normally, when they bleed a second time, the vets recommend that they be retired. We don't have Lasix over here. We're not allowed to work our horses or race on Lasix as they do in the States.