Farm offers buyback option for Momentum foals

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Breeders who send mares to Momentum for the 2006 breeding season will be given an opportunity to sell the yearling back to the farm in 2008 for $15,000 without obligation, stallion owner Paul Reddam and Vessels Stallion Farm announced this week.

Momentum, who entered stud in 2005, will stand at Vessels in Bonsall for $5,000 in 2006. The promotion is designed to increase Momentum's book of mares, which Reddam said numbered 58 in 2005.

"In August of 2008, if you don't like your foal for any reason, or you want to cash out, we will buy the horse for $15,000," Reddam said. "It's actually great insurance for a California breeder. If you like the foal, you can race, or sell it in an upcoming yearling sale. If you need the money, or didn't like the way it turned out, we'll buy it back. This is going to attract the working man's broodmare. This would be an attempt to get 100 mares."

Momentum, 7, is by Nureyev out of the Foolish Pleasure mare Imprudent Love. Momentum raced in England and the United States, winning 4 of 17 starts and $664,817. He won two stakes, including the 2001 Native Diver Handicap at Hollywood Park. Momentum had his best season as a 4-year-old in 2002, earning $526,888. Although he was 0 for 7, Momentum ran second in the Pacific Classic and Hollywood Gold Cup, losing both in close finishes.

Momentum was being pointed for the Breeders' Cup Classic in 2002 when he was taken out of training because of a tendon injury.

"Momentum was one of my favorite horses," Reddam said. "With a little luck, his career would have turned out differently."

Fall in Love might fulfill her dam's promise

A decade after the career of Emerald Express ended prematurely, trainer Jean Pierre-Dupuis still wonders how good she could have been.

The California-bred filly started just four times and won twice, but suffered a bowed tendon in the Grade 1 Milady Breeders' Cup Handicap in 1995. She did not start again.

The promise that Emerald Express showed appears to have been passed to her daughter, Fall in Love, a starter in Sunday's $447,000 Hollywood Starlet Stakes at Hollywood Park.

The Starlet, the year's final Grade 1 race for 2-year-old fillies, drew 11 runners, including two California-breds. The exciting Meetmeinthe-woods, a General Meeting filly owned by Reddam who won her debut Nov. 27, is the other statebred in the Starlet.

Fall in Love races for Diane Keith, who campaigned Emerald Express. Fall in Love is by top California sire In Excess. The mating of In Excess and Emerald Express produced the winner Expression.

Emerald Express earned $49,750 in her brief career.

"She was really good," Dupuis said. "She never had a shot. She ran four times in her life. It was crazy."

Dupuis, based at Hollywood Park, said that Fall in Love is a mild-mannered filly. Fall in Love has started twice, winning a maiden race at 5 1/2 furlongs at Santa Anita on Nov. 3 and an optional claimer at 6 1/2 furlongs on Nov. 27. Both races were against statebreds. In the latter race, she was heavily favored. Ridden by Tony Farina, she stalked the pace for the first half-mile and drew off through the stretch to win by four lengths.

The Starlet will be Fall in Love's first start at 1 1/16 miles.

"It looks like she'll stay in the morning," Dupuis said. "She's very relaxed. She's a dream."

At the least, Dupuis is hoping that Fall in Love can finish in the first three and earn a coveted stakes placing in a Grade 1 race.

"If she can get black type, it will be good," he said.