Nyquist Archives - Page 3 of 3

January 9, 2016January 14, 2016

A Tepin Time

Share This:

With just a few days/steps in time, this year is off to a fantastic start! I had a great response to my post I wrote on New Year’s Eve and there are so many good things going on in the Thoroughbred racing industry. I am so thrilled that today brings the return to racing for California Chrome at Santa Anita. At this same track and this same day, Mrs. Penny Chenery will present the Secretariat Vox Populi Award to the connections of American Pharoah. We have had several new Thoroughbred babies born in the last week. The January Keeneland sale starts Monday and I made it out to the barns to see some of those horses today. Also, the finalist for the Eclipse Awards were announced on January 6th and on the 16th the winners will be announced. Shew, there is just so much to enjoy. Speaking of enjoyment, I’m pretty happy to see that Tepin is up for an Eclipse Award and I hope she wins!

The 45th annual Eclipse Awards will be presented to the winners of 17 horse and human categories including 6 media categories, Horseplayer of the Year and a lifetime achievement/award of merit winner. The awards dinner will be held at Gulfsteam Park. The 6 media winners have been chosen. They are; Jennie Rees, Mary Simon, Tim Sullivan, NBC Sports, Scott Serio and Brad and John Hennegan. The Horseplayer of the Year Award goes to John O’Neill. Leonard Lavin takes the Eclipse Award of Merit. The other 17 categories are up for grabs! Here are the nominees:

Horse of the Year: American Pharoah, Runhappy, Beholder
2 Year Old Filly: Rachel’s Valentina, Songbird, Catch a Glimpse
2 Year Old Male: Airoforce, Nyquist, Mohaymen
3 Year Old Filly: Found, Stellar Wind, I’m a Chatterbox
3 Year Old Male: Dortmund, Runhappy, American Pharoah
Female Sprinter: Lady Shipman, LeVerdad, Wavell Avenue
Male Sprinter: Rockfall, Private Zone, Runhappy
Female Turf Horse: Found, Stephanie’s Kitten, Tepin
Male Turf Horse: The Pizza Man, Big Blue Kitten, Cold Horn
Older Dirt Female: Sheer Drama, Beholder, Stopchargingmaria
Older Dirt Male: Honor Code, Liam’s Map, Tonalist
Steeplechase Horse: Dawalan, Demonstrative, Bob Le Beau
Jockey: Victor Espinoza, Irad Ortiz, Jr., Javier Castellano
Apprentice Jockey: Angel Cruz, Eric Cancel, Tyler Gaffalione
Trainer: Bob Baffert, Todd Pletcher, Chris Brown
Owner: Zayat Stables, Kenneth and Sarah Ramsey, Midwest Thoroughbreds, Inc.
Breeder: Zayat Stables, Kenneth and Sarah Ramsey, Darley

I can’ t blog on forever so I picked the Female Turf Horse category. I am crazy about all 3 entries, heck I love all these Thoroughbreds. I had the pleasure of watching Tepin, Stephanie’s Kitten and Found on the last day of the Breeders’ Cup this past year. Read on to see the pictures I took and a small bio on each horse.

Found is a lovely Irish filly. She was born in March of 2012. Her sire is Galileo and her dam is Red Evie, both are Irish as well. She won 1st place in the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Turf. This is the first time a 3 year old filly has won this race. She has not raced since but she has had 11 career starts in which she won 4 times, placed 5 times and showed 1 time. Found has over $2 million dollars in earnings and is ranked 9th in earnings for 2015. Her jockey is Ryan L. Moore. Found is trained by Aidan O’ Brien and owned by Michael B. Tabor, Mrs. John Magnier and Derrick Smith. Her breeders were Roncon, Wynatt and Chelston. She is up for 3 Year Old Filly too! Last I read, she should race again in 2016.

Stephanie’s Kitten was foaled in March of 2009. She is the progeny of Kitten’s Joy and Unfold the Rose. Stephanie’s Kitten is now at Northern Farm in Japan. She was formerly Kentucky bred and owned by Ken and Sarah Ramsey. She won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf in 2015. This horse had Irad Ortiz, Jr, for her jockey and was trained by Chad C. Brown. She was 2nd in the same BC race in 2014 and won the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf in 2011. She ranked 8th in earnings in 2015. She has earned over $4 million dollars. Stephanie’s Kitten has had 25 career starts. She won 11 times, was second 4 times and came in third 4 times. I hope she has a happy life as a broodmare in Japan and perhaps she can someday retire back home in Kentucky.

Tepin was also born in March but in 2011. She is the Kentucky bred daughter of Bernstein and Life Happened. Tepin was owned by Robert E. Masterson when she won the BC Mile in 2015. She is second in earnings for 2015. She has gross earnings of over $2 million dollars. During her career she has 7 wins, placed 3 times and showed once in 15 starts. I saw her win on October 3rd this past year at Keeneland in the Grade 1, First Lady Stakes. She has not raced since the BC win but she had a nice workout at Palm Meadows Training Center yesterday. Julien R. Leparoux is her jockey. Machmer Hall is Tepin’s breeder and she is trained by Mark E. Casse. I’m hoping she has a nice 2016 career and I’d like to see this Eclipse Award granted to her. I thinks it is Tepin’s time! Click the link for Disney’s Mary Poppins song, “Step In Time”.

Step In Time

I like all the choices for Female Turf Horse as well as the other award candidates. I am looking forward to the reveal on the 16th. I hope some of you have a great time live at Santa Anita today and I wish others will join me at the Keeneland Sales starting on 1/11/16 but already bustling in the barns, see below. I will share with you all about the auction. Have a great weekend!

Share This:

November 2, 2015November 2, 2015

Firsts, Favorites, Famous and Fun

Share This:

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.

Share This:

September 25, 2015September 28, 2015

Freelance Friday

Share This:

TGIF! I have been one busy equestrian fan since the last post. I have never gone a week without blogging, so I am not going to miss my chance now, but it was not for lacking material this week. Since my last post I went to live racing at Churchill Downs, attended Keeneland’s September Yearling Sales again and went to the 1st of Taylor Made Farm’s California Chrome Fan Day!

Churchill Downs had just one night for Downs After Dark this September meet. I went this past Saturday, 9/19/15. I placed some of my best bets ever just going by names that I liked, mostly anything with a cat or kitten in its own name or pedigree. Starship Zeus came in 1st in the 7th race, bringing me the most money. He was sired by Bluegrass Cat. I also found Posture, who ran for Motley Crew Stables in race 2. He made me money with a nice win. I chose him because I love the rock band, Motley Crue. I enjoy night racing, the cooler summer temperatures, the sunset the lighting and the live bands make it a little extra special.

The sale at Keeneland was a good time as usual. This September Yearling sale is rather long. It began on September 14th and I went that day. It concludes tomorrow, 9/26/15. I was just there again on Wednesday, 9/23. The crowds were a lot smaller than the first day but there were still many great Thoroughbreds for sale. 280 horses were sold Wednesday, to be exact. I sat in the sales pavilion, rather stunned, as a buyer for Bridlewood Farm had bought hip #3056 for $300,000, while communicating as a person in the pavilion to a person on the other end of his cell phone. In some strange miscommunication the buyer rejected his offer of 300K which put the horse back into auction right on the spot and thus the same buyer had to pay an additional 30K for the debacle as other bidders wildly sprung into action. I must say that the auctioneer warned him. This $330,000 bay filly by Blame and 1/2 sister to Nyquist was the top seller of the day.

Today, I made it to Taylor Made Farm in Kentucky for California Chrome Fan Day! I met and petted several horses including; Graydar, Old Fashioned, Eskendereya, Astrology, Northern Afleet and California Chrome. Chrome got a little more than a petting, I gave him a quick smooch! Duncan Taylor, president, did most of the talking. I was impressed with the stories he told of hard work, a tight knit family, Christian values and a love of people and horses that he accredited to Taylor Made’s success. I was pleased when he recited the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. He is the patron saint of animals and it comforted me to know that the farm’s animals here are loved by their owners. I thought that Pope Francis would have liked to have experienced this moment if traveling to the Horse Capital of the World was part of his United States visit. I would have be thrilled to have seen the Pope this week. I am going back to see Chrome again this Sunday and I will give you a full Fan Day story following that. Have a great weekend and enjoy a few Chrome photos!

Share This: