Noda has big plans for First Line

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – In his first year training horses, Orlando Noda made his mark reviving the career of T Loves a Fight, a stakes-winning horse who bottomed out at the $10,000 claiming level.

On Saturday, when he again runs T Loves a Fight in a stakes at Aqueduct, Noda hopes to make his mark with a different horse. To say Noda has high hopes for the 3-year-old first-time starter First Line, who debuts in Saturday’s third, would be understating it.

“I see this horse winning by a minimum of three lengths and I see him being a Kentucky Derby contender,” Noda said Thursday outside his Belmont Park barn.

First Line is a gelding by First Samurai – the Hopeful and Champagne winner in 2005 – out of the Street Cry mare Street Line. First Line’s fourth dam produced the champion filly Serena’s Song. Noda, who along with his brother Jonathan race under Noda Brothers LLC, purchased First Line privately last fall. Jonathan Noda works as finance manager in Miami.

First Line shows a robust work tab including a bullet move from the pole on Dec. 21 and another from the gate on Jan. 5, both over the Belmont Park training track.

“To me, he’s the most sound horse I’ve ever ridden,” said Orlando Noda, who gets on many of his own horses in the morning. “He’s worked in a minute flat and he hasn’t been asked yet. I do believe my next superstar is going to be First Line.”

Noda, 30, said his father, Jose Noda-Fernandez, owned and trained horses including the multiple stakes-placed runner Very Very Stella.

Orlando Noda said he worked at Jimmy Crupi’s New Castle Farm and at the Ocala, Fla. farm run by Randy Hartley and Dean De Renzo, getting on young horses in the early stages their training. Noda also worked for Mark Casse, most recently as a groom in 2017.

“I wanted to learn the process they were doing from the bottom up,” Noda said. “I took a little bit from everyone and now we’re here at the track.”

It was last March when he began training on his own with his first horse being one he bred, G.T. Sonia.

In May, Noda claimed T Loves a Fight for $10,000 from Brad Cox. When he was trained by Mike Hushion, T Loves a Fight won the Mike Lee Stakes for New York-bred 3-year-olds. By the time, Noda got him, To Loves a Fight had fallen to the lower-level claiming ranks and switched barns several times.

Noda tried T Loves a Fight in a $40,000 claiming race and he finished fourth. On June 13, Noda dropped T Loves a Fight in for $12,500 claiming and he won and then won twice more. In October, he won an open-company allowance race, and in his last three starts, all in stakes, he has finished second once and third twice.

Noda said he claimed T Loves a Fight, now 6, based on his looks and his back class. In 11 starts for Noda, T Loves a Fight has four wins, a second, and three thirds. Two starts back, he was second to My Boy Tate, whom he faces again on Saturday.

Noda said T Loves a Fight seems to thrive on the action.

“He just comes back better and better,” Noda said. “Look at the numbers.”

For Noda, the numbers in 2019 were 11 wins from 63 starts. He is confident and passionate and looking for even more success in 2020.

“This is a thrill, you have to enjoy it. I don’t see it as a job. I don’t mind getting up at 4 o’clock and we’re here every day,” he said. “It’s a passion. Even if you have the workers that have the passion for the horses it’ll show, too. They’re not just here for a paycheck at the end of the day.”