Walsh's $5K investment has sprouted wings

Candidates for this year’s Breeders’ Cup were acquired at all levels of price points by the experts scrutinizing the thousands of young horses to pass through public auction each year, looking for the combination of qualities to make a future star. At one end of the spectrum are horses like Corniche, a $1.5 million purchase by Speedway Stables to lead the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s flagship spring sale of 2-year-olds in training. The colt has lived up to expectations attached to that sort of price tag, as an unbeaten Grade 1 winner and an early favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

And then there are horses like California Angel, wildly exceeding her modest expectations at the other end of the spectrum. Trainer George Leonard III found an angel in the rough when he advised owner Chris Walsh to acquire the filly at the OBS June sale of 2-year-olds in training and horses of racing age. They spent just $5,500 for the filly, small change at major-market Thoroughbred sales – especially against the $213,700 the filly has earned to date, with victories in both her starts on turf from three career outings. She most recently won the Grade 2, $200,000 Jessamine Stakes on Oct. 13 at Keeneland, paying her own way into the Grade 1, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf on Nov. 5 at Del Mar.

California Angel was the first graded stakes starter for Leonard, and she gave Walsh by far her biggest win to date as an owner.

“It is the top on the list,” Walsh said. “We’ve had some stakes winners before, but nothing like this. We’re so excited that George found her for us at a bargain-basement price. Unbelievable.”

California Angel is from the second crop of two-time Horse of the Year California Chrome, who was sold to stand at Arrow Stud in Japan beginning with 2020 season, before his first crop raced. She is the second graded stakes winner for her sire, joining Cilla, winner of the Grade 2 Prioress Stakes sprinting on dirt this year.

California Angel, who is out of the stakes-placed Tiz Wonderful mare Sea Mona, was bred in Kentucky by the Irish National Stud and was sold for $5,000 as a weanling at the 2019 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. She was consigned by Little Farm Equine to the OBS June sale, where she breezed a furlong in an ordinary 10 3/5 seconds during the preview show on the Ocala Training Center’s synthetic surface. Her pedigree had caught Indiana Grand-based trainer Leonard’s eye, and he liked her way of going.

“Her breeding, her athleticism, I like how she’s made,” Leonard said. “She’s very sleek and muscular, and she walks like an athlete. I liked everything about her.”

And so, California Angel joined Walsh’s stable, which numbers less than a half-dozen. The filly won her debut on turf at Kentucky Downs, then finished third in an allowance race on the Churchill Downs dirt, which Leonard used as a prep for the Jessamine. The filly uncorked a wicked late rally to win by a head, springing a $37.60 upset.

And thus, Walsh will now be represented alongside the likes of industry titans Godolphin, Shadwell, Coolmore, and others as a Breeders’ Cup owner.

“Just a small group,” Walsh said. “You know what? When you see somebody who just paid $600,000 for a baby, and you have a $5,550 baby, you think, ‘What do they know that we don’t know?’ But anyways, it’s luck.”