WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 2021 TAKING STOCK: UNIFIED, PA RAIDS THAT YIELDED >SIGNIFICANT CONTRABAND' NOW TERMED AS MOHAYMEN, GORMLEY >NOTHING OF SUBSTANCE' by T.D. Thornton One month after initially stating at a Pennsylvania Horse ARE ONES TO WATCH Racing Commission (PHRC) meeting that May backstretch raids at Parx yielded a "significant amount of contraband" and "items that have no business on the backside," Tom Chuckas, the director of Thoroughbred horse racing for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, gave a Tuesday update that now describes the yield from those searches in markedly less sensationalistic terms. "In the last months, enforcement action was taken both at Penn National and at Parx," Chuckas told commissioners at the June 29 PHRC meeting during his monthly briefing. AThat enforcement action consisted ofYvehicle searches, barn searches, vet trailer searches. In addition, we did out-of-competition testing both at Penn National and at Parx, and the preliminary results from these investigative enforcement actions is very, very minor infractions. Nothing of substance." Cont. p6 Unified | Photos by Z by Sid Fernando IN TDN EUROPE TODAY I noted on Steve Byk's "At the Races" radio show last SHEIKHA HISSA TO CARRY ON AT SHADWELL Sheikha Hissa will continue her late father’s legacy with Wednesday that some stallions that enter stud for between Shadwell. Click or tap here to go straight to TDN Europe. $10,000 and $20,000 occasionally punch above their weight and find lasting success. The in-your-face examples of this are Into Mischief, Tapit and War Front, three of the best and most expensive horses at stud, but others that have fit the profile through the years include Distorted Humor, Candy Ride (Arg), Elusive Quality, Munnings and Twirling Candy. Twirling Candy, a son of Candy Ride, was recently profiled in this space along with other Kentucky-based sons of the Argentine import, including freshman sire Unified, who was represented by his first black-type winner Saturday when Behave Virginia won the listed Debutante S. at Churchill Downs. A Grade ll winner at three and a Grade lll winner at four who was also Grade l-placed, Unified began his career for $10,000 like his sire and stands alongside him at Lane's End. So far, he's represented by only the one winner, but she's a good one and trainer Kenny McPeek, who has a way with fillies, has an eye on the Glll Pocahontas S., the Gl Darley Alcibiades S. and the Gl Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. 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 Senior Contributing Editor Wednesday, June 30, 2021 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 Project Manager Rachel McCaffrey Advertising Assistants Amie Newcomb Kristen Lomasson Photographer/Photo Editor Sarah K. Andrew @SarahKAndrew [email protected] All in a day's work. In Versailles, KY, Oscar the teaser stallion watches over Wen-Mick Social Media Strategist Farm at sunset. | Sarah Andrew Justina Severni Associate Producer Katie Ritz DISCREET CAT MARE TOPS KEE DIGITAL SALE 6 Director of Customer Service Graded stakes-placed 4-year-old Lady Glamour (Discreet Cat), Vicki Forbes offered in foal to Not This Time, topped Keeneland's June Digital [email protected] Sale Tuesday at $115,000. Marketing Manager Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen Chief Financial Officer NY SEEKS TO REFORM JOCKEY APPEALS 6 Ray Villa The New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) unanimously [email protected] advanced a rule proposal Tuesday that seeks to end the resource-draining [email protected] practice of jockeys appealing riding infractions during big-money race meets WORLDWIDE INFORMATION like at Saratoga, then withdrawing those protests once the meet is over. International Editor 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 9 • THETDN.COM WEDNESDAY • JUNE 30, 2021 Cont. from p1 Unified's Behave Virginia | Horsephotos Gormley, a Grade l winner at two and three, and Mohaymen, an undefeated multiple Grade ll winner at two and a multiple Grade ll winner at three who cost his connections $2.2 million as a yearling, are two others in the news that entered stud relatively inexpensively. Standing at Shadwell, Mohaymen is a Tapit half-brother to Grade l winner New Year's Day, the sire of champion Maximum Security. He has five winners to date, including a maiden special winner at Laurel on Saturday. Mohaymen has stood for a $7,500 fee, and so far just the Scat Daddy horse Caravaggio--who began his career at Coolmore in Ireland for the equivalent of about $40,000 before moving this year to Coolmore America--has more winners, with eight. Three Chimneys-based Horse of the Year Gun Runner, another son of Candy Ride, also has five winners, but he covered mares in his first year for $70,000 and was the second-most expensive horse to enter stud in 2018, behind only the late Arrogate (Unbridled's Song) at $75,000. Stallions like Mohaymen that begin for less than $10,000 tend to have a harder struggle to succeed than those between $10,000 and $20,000, but some active success stories to do so include Claiborne's Flatter, a son of A.P. Indy who started for $5,000 and Hill >n' Dale's Maclean's Music, a son of Distorted Humor who began for $6,500. Speaking of cheap fees, Spendthrift's Gormley is by the farm's recently deceased A.P. Indy horse Malibu Moon, who was a foundation stallion for B. Wayne Hughes and the sire of Gl Kentucky Derby winner Orb. Malibu Moon initially stood for $3,000 at Country Life in Maryland. Cont. p4 TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 9 • THETDN.COM WEDNESDAY • JUNE 30, 2021 Taking Stock cont. Gormley started for $10,000, and, like Unified and Mohaymen, had a winner on Saturday, in a maiden special at Belmont. He has four winners to date. Gormley | Horsephotos Stud fee, of course, is a reflection of mare quality, and in broad terms a stallion's short- and long-term success is dependent on good books of mares that complement the horse by physique, race record and pedigree. You never know until it happens which stallions have the ability to upgrade their mares, but one early sign is a relatively inexpensive horse hitting with quality maiden special and stakes winners, and this is notable because it happens infrequently. Sometimes, these types of horses will also telegraph a year or two earlier what's about to come with expensive yearlings or juveniles far above what's expected on stud fee. Gormley, for instance, had juveniles sell this year for $550,000, $450,000, and $425,000. The highest priced of these is Headline Report, who won an April maiden special at Keeneland for owner Breeze Easy and trainer Wesley Ward and just registered a bullet five-furlong breeze at Keeneland on Monday. Ward must like Gormley, because he also owns and trains the 2-year-old filly Guajira, who won a $50,000 maiden claimer at Churchill in May. And Guajira, in contrast to Headline Report, was a $3,000 yearling, showing that Gormley can hit from both ends of the spectrum. Unified had two juveniles bring $530,000 and $400,000, and last year had a yearling make $450,000, though that colt has since died. His stakes winner Behave Virginia was successfully pinhooked from a $30,000 weanling to a $115,000 yearling and is now the winner of both her starts. Mohaymen didn't have the big-priced 2-year-olds, but he did have five that made six figures, and his 25 juveniles to sell averaged $70,600, which is certainly respectable for his stud fee. Cont. p5 TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 5 OF 9 • THETDN.COM WEDNESDAY • JUNE 30, 2021 Taking Stock cont. was carrying the future black-type winner. She was one of Expensive horses get the best mares, and their success is 15 mares he purchased at the sale through agent Bruno almost always anticipated because of mare quality. Those that DeBerdt, and another was the More Than Ready mare Quick don't meet expectations with their first crops--and, let's face it, Thinker for $45,000. That mare is the dam of the Gormley most don't--go down the drain fairly quickly, because their winner Think Blue, who he also bred. And Think Blue was an subsequent crops are almost always produced from even cheaper yearling than Ward's Guajira, selling for $1,500. lesser-quality mares. In other words, for most stallions it's easier When the cheap horses win, the more expensive ones start to to find success with the first of their first four crops, and look better, don't they? first-crop success means that a stallion will be rewarded with Khalid Mishref Alkahtani obviously likes young stallions in the better mares in his fifth crop as breeders patronize him after a $10,000 to $20,000 range, because he also bought the Paddy successful first year of 2-year-olds, thereby giving him the ability O'Prado mare My Miss Kallie for $37,000 carrying a foal from to survive the vagaries of the commercial marketplace and the second crop of Taylor Made's Not This Time (Giant's extend his career.