Hawthorne: Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners purchases No Surrender

No Surrender, a striking 3-year-old maiden winner of the third race here March 28, has been purchased by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and will be sent later this week to trainer Todd Pletcher’s string at Churchill Downs.

No Surrender, bought at auction as a weanling for $15,000 by trainer Mike Reavis – who co-owned him with Pat Greco at the time of his sale this week – raced once as a 2-year-old, finishing fifth at odds of 7-2 in a 4 1/2-furlong maiden race June 2 at Arlington. Reavis said the horse had shown talent all along but ran into various minor issues last summer. Reavis had No Surrender gelded and halted his training until this winter, and No Surrender returned breathing fire. He settled beautifully in a two-turn maiden-special-weight race, which he won by 6 1/2 lengths before galloping out far ahead of five overmatched rivals.

“We’re looking at about every race there is for prospects that we believe possess graded-stakes-caliber potential,” said Aron Wellman, president of Eclipse Thoroughbred. “Going through the results Friday, that was a performance that was impossible to ignore.”

Wellman said the hope is for No Surrender, by Into Mischief and out of a Mr. Prospector mare, to run in an allowance race on the Kentucky Derby program.