Haulin Ice carries award-winning momentum in Downthedustyroad

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Joe Benight and Eugenia Thompson-Benight are already winners going into the $150,000 Downthedustyroad on Saturday at Oaklawn Park no matter how Haulin Ice or Q’s Your Mama run in the six-furlong stakes for fillies and mares bred in Arkansas.

“We’ll be rooting for both of them, for sure,” Eugenia Thompson-Benight said.

The Benights bred both horses and co-own Q’s Your Mama. They will be honored later this month when Haulin Ice takes home the 2024 Arkansas-bred of the year award during the Arkansas Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Horsemen’s Association banquet on March 28.

Haulin Ice is part of a field of nine for the Downthedustyroad. She spent some of last year racing for the Benights while in the care of trainer Lindsay Schultz, but now is owned by the partnership of C2 Racing Stable, Paul Braverman, Miller Racing, and Timothy Pinch and is trained by Saffie Joseph Jr.

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“We sold her at the end of the Oaklawn meet last year,” Joe Benight said. “Sometimes you have to make a business decision to stay in this business.”

“This is what we do in our retirement,” Thompson-Benight said.

A few races following the sale, Haulin Ice won the Azalea at Joseph’s base of Gulfstream Park.

“Part of the reason to sell was that we knew she would have a lot more opportunity to see what she could do against better horses,” Benight said. “Owning the mare, you have to do things like that.”

Haulin Ice enters the Downthedustyroad off a troubled fifth-place finish in the Grade 2 Inside Information at Gulfstream.

“She kind of lost all chance when she broke badly,” Joseph said. “So, back to Arkansas, back to where she was bred, and where she runs so well.”

Haulin Ice is 4 for 6 at Oaklawn, among her wins a stakes-quality allowance over open foes in December.

The Benights said Haulin Ice was raised at their Sheridan, Ark., farm, which is about 50 miles east of Oaklawn. She is by Coal Front and out of the Half Ours mare She’s Smoke.

“She’s by far and away the best horse we’ve bred,” said Benight, who with his wife has five broodmares. “I kind of study pedigrees. I’ve been in this business for 35 years. [Coal Front] had a lot of Seattle Slew in his breeding, and we just decided to try that. We bred two mares to him last year and the other [offspring] is in the race, Q’s Your Mama.”

She’s Smoke was unraced.

“She was probably the fastest horse I’ve ever had,” Benight said. “We just couldn’t get her to the races, just different things.”

She’s Smoke has passed the speed gene to Haulin Ice, who breaks from the rail under Francisco Arrieta.

“She quick,” Joseph said.

She’s Smoke delivered a colt by multiple Grade 3 winner Yorkton about two weeks ago, the Benights said, and she will be bred back to Laurie’s Rocket. Haulin Ice has a full sister, She’s So Coal, who is 2 and is being prepared to race for the Benights.

Haulin Ice was named by Benight.

“I was at the grocery store and they were loading one of those ice machines, you know bags of ice, and the guy, on the back of his shirt, he had ‘Haulin Ice,’ ” Benight said.

“We thought it was very clever,” Thompson-Benight said.

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