Promising juvenile Final Arrow keeps Gladd barn rolling

Trainer Andy Gladd has been on such a roll this year that he sent out a 41-1 shot for a half-length win in a deep field in last month’s Kip Deville at Remington Park. Final Arrow paid $85.

Gladd, who has won seven races from 41 starts at Remington, is on pace to eclipse his best year as a trainer, which came in 2012. He won 36 races that year and his trainees earned $418,168. So far in 2017, the Gladd stable has won 33 races and earned $357,790.

“It’s been super,” said Gladd, a 52-year-old native of Tahlequah, Okla.

Gladd has a 30-horse stable at Remington, with Final Arrow one of the barn’s top young prospects. He took the lead in the Kip Deville, a six-furlong race for 2-year-olds, through a half-mile in 44.20 seconds, and kept on to cover the distance in 1:10.30.

“He gutted it out, and what was tremendous was by the time he was getting back toward the test barn, he was really bouncing,” Gladd said. “He’s stayed on his feed. Never backed out of his feed after running a race like that. We’re just lucky to get him.”

Final Arrow was a private purchase by T and M Precision Services. In his first start for his new connections, he won a $25,000 maiden-claiming race by 8 1/2 lengths at Remington Park. He came back one start later to upset the Kip Deville.

“They called me about him, we watched him, we liked him, and we bought him,” Gladd said. “He went to training really well on this track. The good Lord was with us. He just turned out to be better than everybody expected.”

Gladd said Final Arrow could return in the Clever Trevor Stakes, a seven-furlong race Nov. 3 at Remington. Gladd said another spot is a division of the Texas Stallion Stakes, which will be run Nov. 4 at Retama Park.

Gladd said he is hopeful Final Arrow will be effective over more distance, in part because of how he galloped out following the Kip Deville. The horse was the first stakes winner for the young stallion Crossbow, by Bernardini. Final Arrow’s dam, Final Trick, won a division of the Texas Stallion Stakes at 2.

“On the gallop-out, he kept going away from them,” said Gladd. “He loves to train.”

Gladd has a couple of other runners in the barn targeting upcoming stakes. Go Apple Jack is being pointed for the Oklahoma Classics Filly and Mare Sprint and Pipefighter is on deck for the Oklahoma Classics Sprint. The races are Oct. 20 at Remington.

Gladd hails from a racing family, as his father, Paul, trained, as did several of his uncles. Andy, however, went down a different career path.

“I said I would never train horses,” Gladd said. “I’ve been in construction all my life. My dad got sick with cancer. I started going and helping him. He passed away and the next thing I knew I had 30 horses in the barn.”

That was 2008. Andy Gladd made the decision to train, and saddled his first winner in March of that year at Will Rogers Downs. He now keeps a circuit of Will Rogers, Lone Star Park, and Remington. Gladd also is active at Fair Meadows, and this summer he was the track’s leading trainer with a 19-for-56 record.