OCEANPORT, New Jersey – At the Fasig-Tipton summer yearling sale of 2021, Jim Bernhard bought his wife, Dana Bernhard, a $350,000 birthday present, a bay colt by Candy Ride out of Beyond Grace, by Uncle Mo. It was the first Thoroughbred that the couple, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, had owned. After being broken and starting early training, the colt, Geaux Rocket Ride, was sent to trainer Richard Mandella in California. Mandella, 72, won the 2002 Haskell Stakes with Dixie Union. He hadn’t been back until Saturday, when he watched Geaux Rocket Ride, the Bernhard’s first horse, turn back a bid from Kentucky Derby winner Mage and capture the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell by 1 3/4 lengths.   “He’s the gift that keeps on giving,” John Bernard said.  Mike Smith, winning his fourth Haskell, gave Geaux Rocket Ride a great trip. It helped, too, that he was sitting on an extremely live mount. Breaking from the rail, Smith was able to guide Geaux Rocket Ride about three paths off the fence and into a clean stalking trip into the first turn as 61-1 shot Awesome Strong was gunned to the lead from post 2. Arabian Knight, who left from post 8, initially tried to go with Awesome Strong, giving Smith plenty of room to choose his path.   :: Bet with the Best! Get Free DRF PPs and Cashback when you wager. Join DRF Bets. “I was able to edge out three wide in the clear. He took a breather and I thought, ‘Oh, he’s going to run today,’ ” Smith said,  Geaux Rocket Ride really ran. Launching his bid about the three-furlong marker around the far turn, the colt leapt into the fray, collaring and passing Arabian Knight before seeing off Mage, who had loomed a winner at the three-sixteenths pole. Mage, racing for the first time in two months and short on workouts while preparing for his first start since his third-place Preakness finish, at least approached his Kentucky Derby-winning form while finishing two lengths clear of Arabian Knight. Arabian Knight, the 11-10 favorite, had two lengths on Extra Anejo, who came out of the gate surprisingly flat and bid mildly around the far turn in his stakes debut. Blue Grass Stakes winner Tapit Trice was fifth, two lengths behind Extra Anejo, and was followed by Howgreatisnate, Salute the Stars (headstrong in the early and middle stages), and an exhausted Awesome Strong.   Badly overlooked in the wagering, Geaux Rocket Ride paid $27.40. He was timed in 1:49.52 for 1 1/8 miles over a fast main track, the third-slowest Haskell in the last 10 years but still .47 seconds faster than Grade 1 winner Proxy ran winning the Monmouth Cup earlier here Saturday.   Geaux Rocket Ride, bred by OXO Equine, was 6-1 debuting Jan. 29 in a Santa Anita maiden race. Unusually intelligent and laid back, the colt had shown little true flash in morning training and was a 6-1 shot first time out. But he rocketed out of the gate, went to the lead, and won by almost six lengths.  “Never saw anything like that in the morning,” Mandella said.    Mandella thought so highly of the colt that he went from the sprint debut straight into the Grade 2 San Felipe over 1 1/16 miles on March 4, when Geaux Rocket Ride got tag-teamed by several Tim Yakteen-trained horses and ran a gallant second behind one of them, Practical Move.   Geaux Rocket Ride had the makings of a Derby horse and could have punched his ticket to Louisville in the Santa Anita Derby. Instead, he was scratched the morning of the race.  “We took his temp at 9:30 the day of the [Santa Anita] Derby, and it was 103 and change. There wasn’t anything you could do,” Mandella said.  “You go to Plan B and start over.”  Plan B was a freshening and a return to action March 4 in the $100,000 Affirmed Stakes at Santa Anita, which Geaux Rocket Ride won decisively, if less than brilliantly. Mandella thought there was more there. Three weeks ago, he settled on Smith as the colt’s new rider. Smith worked Geaux Rocket Ride several times at Santa Anita, the horse breezing with increasing aplomb, and climbed aboard for a peak performance Saturday.   “When you have a horse that has a brilliant mind, it’s just so much easier,” Smith said. “You work together. He just moves when you tell him to move. Left, right, back, forward -- he does everything you tell him.”  “We had him in our barn in Louisiana before we sent him off to get broken, and he was the smartest horse in the barn,” said Dana Bernhard.  Geaux Rocket Ride has plenty of speed, but he rates kindly. Switched off Saturday, he immediately leapt into action when Smith asked for run before the three-furlong marker. The quick move forced Javier Castellano on Mage to ask his colt to go. Mage, stalking mid-pack between horses much of the trip, was in the bridle and into the race to a much greater extent than he’d been in the Preakness, where he regressed two weeks after his peak performance winning the Derby.   “I liked the way he did things every single step of the way today,” Castellano said. “I saw Mike Smith had so much horse, so that’s why I tried kind of a premature, early move. He tried to go by that horse, but [Geaux Rocket Ride] rebroke. We were second-best today.”  Ramiro Restrepo, a part owner of Mage, and assistant trainer Gustavo Delgado Jr. were thrilled with Mage’s performance. Based since the Preakness at the Training Center in Lexington, Kentucky, Mage missed one planned workout and came back from his short layoff lacking total race fitness. Connections have said for weeks that the Travers Stakes at Saratoga was their main summer goal, and Mage ships directly from Monmouth to Saratoga.   Castellano has a difficult choice ahead of him since he also rode Arcangelo, another intended Travers starter, to win the Belmont Stakes.   “Somebody is going to get mad at me,” Castellano laughed.  Arabian Knight lost for the first time in three starts while racing for the first time in more than five months, his chances compromised by Awesome Strong’s opening quarter mile in a fast 22.80 seconds. Arabian Knight wasn’t far off that fraction and led through a half mile in 47.11. Three quarters went in 1:11.64 and Arabian Knight fought back before tiring.   “They sent that horse and my horse got aggressive,” said John Velazquez, who rode Arabian Knight. “I tried to settle the best I could, but now I’m having to work not to go head and head with him. It definitely changed things. It was a good third.”  Extra Anejo, making his stakes debut, was expected to race forwardly but came out flat-footed, failed to show pace, and raced from well behind the leaders. The stall door next to him popped open before the start, agitating Extra Anejo, who shifted his weight into an awkward position that left him unprepared, jockey Tyler Gaffalione said.  On a gorgeous Jersey Shore afternoon, attendance for Monmouth’s biggest day was 35,286. Total handel on the 14-race card was $21,359,580.   While Monmouth steps out of the spotlight starting Sunday, Geaux Rocket Ride is stepping into it. Mandella wouldn’t commit to a next race for Geaux Rocket Ride but did rule out the Travers. The colt flies back to California on Tuesday along with Arabian Knight. The Bernhards, after that birthday gift, kept buying equine holdings, including the famed Pin Oak Stud. They race as Pin Oak and now have 77 horses in their stable. The first remains the best, and Geaux Rocket Ride probably would have taken them to the Derby if not for his untimely illness.  “He had us dreaming pretty high,” Mandella said. “He still does.”  The Haskell was a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race and Geaux Rocket Ride now has automatic fees-paid entry into the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The 1 1/4-mile Classic is at Mandella’s home track this year, Santa Anita. With just four starts, a Grade 1 win, an improving pattern, and a patient Hall of Fame trainer calling the shots, everyone can keep dreaming.  “A mile and a quarter shouldn’t be a problem,” Smith said. “That was a mile and an eighth today, and he sure wasn’t stopping.”  :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? 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