Cauthen seeking Royal Ascot return with Holding the Line
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Steve Cauthen rode his way into the history books while still a teenager on 1978 Triple Crown winner Affirmed, then went on to a highly successful career riding in Europe, winning multiple classics among other major events.
Now in another phase of his involvement in the Thoroughbred world, Cauthen owns Holding the Line, a juvenile getting ready to take his own trip across the pond with an eye on next month’s renowned Royal Ascot meeting.
Holding the Line, an Irish-bred but Kentucky-based juvenile trained by Wesley Ward, will run in the $100,000 Royal Palm Juvenile on Saturday at Gulfstream Park. That race, along with its sister event, the $100,000 Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies, are five-furlong turf stakes that will provide their respective winners automatic berths into one of six stakes during next month’s Royal Ascot meeting, as well as a $25,000 equine travel stipend for shipping from the United States to England. These are the first U.S. automatic qualifiers of their kind.
Cauthen, working with bloodstock agent Ben McElroy, purchased Holding the Line for $71,979 out of last year’s Tattersalls October yearling sale.
“He’s a horse purchased over in England,” said Ward, the most successful American trainer in the history of Royal Ascot. “Steve picked him out with the hopes he himself can get back to Royal Ascot. They had him there last year commentating.”
The colt is from the first crop of Soldier’s Call, who himself won the 2018 Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot. He went on to win multiple group stakes later in the year and was third in the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp against older horses. The following year, his multiple Group 1 placings included a return trip to Royal Ascot to run third in the King’s Stand.
Holding the Line is out of the unraced Tiger Hill mare Street Kitty, whose runners are led by Group 2 winner multiple Group 1-placed Sir Busker. It is the extended family of Eclipse Award champion turf mare Golden Apples. Holding the Line will be making his debut in the Royal Palm, and Ward said that was due to the lack of opportunities on turf, the surface the colt’s pedigree is obviously geared toward, for 2-year-olds at Keeneland in the spring.
“He’s a beautiful colt,” Ward said. “He improved in his workouts at Palm Meadows when he was down in Florida on the grass. He’s bred top and bottom for the turf, so I’m anxious to get him on there.”
According to Equibase statistics, Cauthen is 11-2-1-2 as an owner in his own name, after dabbling in partnerships about a decade ago. He has not yet campaigned a stakes horse.
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