Jean Cruguet Archives - Thoroughbred U

November 2, 2015November 2, 2015

Firsts, Favorites, Famous and Fun

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Breeders’ Cup 2015 was held for the 1st time ever in Lexington, KY at Keeneland this past week. The track featured a Prelude to the Cup on Thursday with 9 live races followed with 2 more days of graded stakes races with 4 Breeders’ Cup races on Friday and 9 BC races on Saturday. The dates spanned October 29th thru 31st of 2015. I was present for all 3 days. The events were wonderful!

For the Prelude to the Cup the weather was gorgeous. I walked the grounds and marveled at the sea of purple that had taken over and all of the new and temporary structures. It was a quiet event and a good day for mingling with my friends, old and new. All the photos above except for the program and lanyard collection were taken that day.

The BC Juvenile Turf was the 6th race on the 30th but the 1st BC race of the series. Hit It a Bomb, #14, won the race. He is seen above as is the 7th place finisher, Manhattan Dan, in his coat.

Race 7 was the Las Vegas BC Dirt Mile. Liam’s Map shown in the top picture above won. Two of my personal favorites ran this race as well. Mr. Z, #4, I met and petted following my birthday, earlier this year. I shouted out my love to him from the rail pre-race and I got his attention. #8, wearing pink, is 4th place finisher Wicked Strong. He was the barn friend of Twitter’s favorite horse, Juba. Wicked Strong has now retired to stud at Spendthrift Farm in Lexington, KY.

Catch a Glimpse, #4 above, won the 8th race. This was the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf. Last year’s winner was Take Charge Brandi. I petted her too this past summer at D. Wayne Lukas’ barn at Churchill Downs. She is for sale at the Keeneland November Sale that starts today. I hope she has a long happy life as a broodmare.

Friday’s BC races wrapped with race 9, the Longines BC Distaff. Stopchargingmaria won. She is wearing #4 in the picture above. She is trained by Todd Pletcher and has had an amazing year winning multiple grades stakes. This was her third Grade 1 stakes win in a career of 16 starts. There was one more stakes race that day as the sunset.

On the final day of the BC the 1st BC race was race 3, the 14 Hands Winery Juvenile Fillies race. This race was won by Songbird, #10 above. I fell in love with Rachel’s Valentina, # 9 in the above photo, who placed 2nd in this race, when she won both of her only other races at Saratoga this summer.

Race 4 was the Twin Spires BC Turf Sprint. This race was won by Mongolian Saturday. The rail made it hard to see him wearing #14 in the photo above. His connections were dressed out and seated in the loge box behind me during the BC Classic. They were having fun with a selfie stick in the middle photo. Lady Shipman placed 2nd. She was a pretty girl as seen from the Enclosure, a temporary spot near the walking ring.

Wavell Avenue wearing orange #7 managed to fight her way up from middle of the pack, as seen above at the turn, to 1st place. She was ridden by Joel Rosario. Race 5 was the TwinSpires Filly and Mare Sprint.

In the 6th race, the BC Filly and Mare Turf, a local favorite won. #11 Stephanie’s Kitten is owned by Sarah and Ken Ramsey, Keeneland’s leading owner award winners. This is the third BC win for Stephanie’s Kitten. She is seen in the paddock area and winning her race above.

A new track record was set by Runhappy when he won the TwinSpires BC Sprint. This was race 7. He is shown about to cross the finish in the green #5 above. Runhappy won a graded stakes race at Keeneland the same month for opening weekend of the Fall meet.

Tepin was a fast filly that beat out the males to win the BC Mile. She is seen taking the title above, in race 8. She won a grade 1 stakes race at Keeneland on the opening weekend of this last Fall meet at Keeneland too!

Nyquist, #13, barely beat Swipe, #12, to win the the 9th race. This race was the Sentient Jet BC Juvenile. Neither horse had the lead from the start, in fact they were plenty behind but Nyquist held out his nose to win. Look how close they are in the photo above!

Found is the beautiful Irish filly that beat her male counterparts to win the Longines BC Turf. She is definitely an international champion. Race 10 had a $3 million dollar purse. She is one lucky and talented filly. See her two paddock pics above.

Then, in Race 10, the BC Mile, I’m pretty sure we all know who our star is, above. That is American Pharoah. I gave him his very own BC story in my post Grand Slam? Yes, Ma’am!

Plenty of celebrities were on hand to witness history in the making as well. I got photos of Jean Cruguet (top right), Seattle Slew’s Triple Crown jockey, and Ritchie Sambora (middle left), the rocker from Bon Jovi. I also saw Bobby Flay, famed chef and caught word that Kate Upton, a model, was there too. My parents recognized Kenny Mayne, from Dancing with the Stars (top left).

Finally, I just want all of you to know that there were no break downs and all the horses, their connections and the fans really had a lot of fun at the Breeders’ Cup. I will always remember my time at BC 2015. I have literally thousands of pictures and so much to share but this is a blog post, not a novel. Keep following for an upcoming post on my Kentucky Horse Park visit from yesterday.

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October 17, 2015October 18, 2015

Money on my Mind

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It is day 2 of a long Keeneland weekend for me, 10/17/15. I am having a great time as usual. I met up with Jean Cruguet, Triple Crown winning jockey, here this morning to talk about an upcoming project. Cruguet rode Seattle Slew in all 3 legs of the series! It is almost race time now and our handicapper has another tip to share with us.

The tipster says, “Race 6, (horse) #3, Great Minds, ran well here in the Spring but may not have enjoyed the speed, favoring a turf course in upstate New York in July. Al Stall (trainer) is very good with horses coming off a 61 to 180 day layoff.” Great Minds is a 4 year old gelding, bred in Kentucky at Claiborne Farms. He has had 12 career starts. He raced at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky on April 17th, 2015. His last race was at Saratoga this July. Today at 3:51 PM EST he will race on the turf and once again he is at Keeneland. His jockey is Miguel Mena. Mena is from Lima, Peru. He is a multiple graded stakes winning jockey and won the Breeders’ Cup Las Vegas Marathon Stakes last year. Great Minds’ trainer is Albert Stall, Jr. He has also won multiple graded stakes and has 2 Breeders’ Cup wins. One was the Classic in 2010 with Blame. Great Minds is owned by Vince Wilfork. He has 14 career starts. Four of those are 2015 races.

Enjoy the tip! Thank you for following and sharing.

Update: Great Minds finished fifth. He ran most of the race as last in the group. Then he came around wide and with an increased speed at the races end but it was too little too late.

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August 15, 2015August 15, 2015

Jockumentary John

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From the dirt on the tracks to the red carpet, our super star jockeys are about to appear in a Triple Crown jockumentary. I am one lucky girl and I was real excited that I had the accidental pleasure of meeting John Rousseau, producer, writer and director of “Heart, Hope & Glory-Masters of the Triple Crown”.

Earlier this week, I was hanging out and enjoying an evening off from work when I spotted a man in a Saratoga shirt. I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask him when he was there last. It was pretty recently and then he showed me his nice bridle style Seattle Slew bracelet, a gift from Jean Cruguet himself. Wow! I had to hear his story so I whipped out my Thoroughbred U business card and started grilling the man. As it turns out, this man is working on an amazing film on the last 3 living Triple Crown winning jockeys, prior to this year’s big win by Victor Espinoza with American Pharoah. Even nicer, part of the proceeds will got to fund the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund.

The movie will feature Ron Turcotte, Jean Cruguet and Steve Cauthen. This is the first time that these famous jockeys have gathered together to tell their stories on camera. The film is set to be released in Lexington, KY this September prior to the Keeneland September Sale. The studio is GoldMark Media Ventures managed by GoldMark Farm owner Paul Bulmahn. There is already a movie trailer, a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a website. Heart, Hope & Glory

The PDJF was founded in 2006. It is a nonprofit public charity that benefits jockeys that have suffered debilitating on-track injuries. Currently, about 60 jockeys are being helped by this fund. Here is the link to read about the charity and/or donate to the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund

Ron Turcotte is the amazing retired jockey for many horses including the 1973 Triple Crown Winner, Secretariat. Turcotte was born in Canada in 1941. He is featured in another documentary, “Secretariat’s Jockey, Ron Turcotte”, that had its world premier in Louisville, KY during the Kentucky Derby festivities in 2013. That film was directed by Phil Comeau. Turcotte was the 1st jockey to win 5 out of 6 consecutive Triple Crown races. He was the only one to do this until just this year when Espinoza matched him. Mr. Turcotte has been inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame and he received the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award. Secretariat was born in 1970 and grabbed the Triple Crown in 1973, after a 25 year drought of no Triple Crown victories. He was just our 9th Triple Crown champ ever. Secretariat has an amazing fan following and he earned it, collecting wins and awards in abundance. He is ranked 2nd on the list of top 100 U.S. Race Horses of the 20th Century. Man O War is ranked 1st. Secretariat made records in all legs of the Triple Crown and holds the fastest times to this day. In his retirement, he became the Leading Broodmare Sire in North America. He died in 1989 and was buried at Claiborne Farm in Paris, KY.

Jean Cruguet was born in France in 1939. He won the Triple Crown in 1977 riding Seattle Slew. Cruguet got his start in Europe but he moved to the United States in 1965 and only briefly raced in Europe again in 1972. He has a long list of achievements and honors. He has retired a few times since 1980 and is currently living in Kentucky. Back in June he rode American Pharoah around the barn area at Churchill Downs. This is probably the only time a Triple Crown winning horse has been mounted by two Triple Crown winning jockeys. Seattle Slew was born in 1974 and he is the only horse to ever win the Triple Crown undefeated in all races of his prior career. He went on to win the Belmont too and retired winning 14 of 17 career starts. He was our 10th Triple Crown horse and is ranked 9th of the Top 100 U.S. Race Horses. He had a nice stud career at Spendthrift Farm and Three Chimneys Farm and was buried at Hill N Dale Farm in 2002. He was a Leading Sire in North America as well as a Leading North American Broodmare Sire.

Right here, in Kentucky, in 1960, Steve Cauthen was born. He rode Affirmed in the 1978 Triple Crown sweep. Cauthen raced in the United Kingdom for many years and has racked up big wins in not only the United States but Great Britain, France, Germany, Ireland and Italy. He is a National Museum Racing Hall of Famer. So was his horse Affirmed. This Thoroughbred was inducted in 1980. He won our 11th Triple Crown and is ranked 12th on the Top 100 Race Horses. Affirmed later raced against Seattle Slew twice and was beat both times. These are the only times two Triple Crown winners have competed against one another. He was the sire to many stakes winners and champions. Affirmed earned many awards and titles and was buried at Jonabell Farm in 2001.

It was a pleasure to meet John Rousseau and to hear his stories and see the pictures on his phone. I love the passion he has for Thoroughbred horse racing and his special perspective on the human athletes of the industry. I can’t wait to see his jockumentary. I hope this makes him very successful and raises a lot of money for the PDJF. I think this will be a very special project to shed some light on many great racing stories of the past while the jockeys are still here to share those tales themselves. I love racing and all the interesting characters involved. Have a great weekend everyone and keep your eyes and ears peeled. You never know what opportunity knocks next! Oh, and my lovely dirt pics above are from my surprise backside invite to Churchill Downs for early morning breezing. That’s some nice dirt!

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