Elliott Walden knows what it takes to win the Belmont Stakes. During his training days, the WinStar Farm president and chief executive saddled Victory Gallop to win the 1998 Belmont Stakes. Victory Gallop ran down Triple Crown hopeful Real Quiet by a nose in one of the most dramatic finishes in the classic’s history.
Delay of Game, a Grade 3 winner and resident of Old Friends Equine Retirement in Georgetown, Ky., was euthanized Monday evening due to the infirmities of old age. He was 23.
The gelded son of Summer Squall had also suffered from equine protozoal myeloencephalitis, known as EPM, a neurological disease.
Bred in Kentucky by Marcia Gumberg, Delay of Game was purchased by owner John Peace for $80,000 out of the 1994 Keeneland September yearling sale an put into training with Patrick Enright, for whom the gelding won his debut start at Delaware Park by 8 ½ lengths.
Freshman sire Stay Thirsty was represented by his first winner in the U.S. when previously stakes-placed Thirstforlife, his first starter, came back in a $45,173 maiden special weight race for 2-year-olds at Churchill Downs on June 4 and won as much the best at odds of 1-10.
Freshman sire Hansen, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and champion juvenile male of 2011, sired his first winner when the 2-year-old gelding Hansen’s Victory took a $13,075 maiden race at Hastings Park on June 5.
Bred in Kentucky by 3480 Equine LLP and owned by a partnership headed by North American Thoroughbred Horse Company, Hansen’s Victory won the 3 1/2-furlong race by 1 3/4 lengths while making his second start. He was purchased as a yearling for $49,205 at the 2015 Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society’s British Columbia sale.
Maryland-based freshman sire Cal Nation was represented by his first winner on June 5 when Parade of Nations won a $40,000 maiden-claiming race at Pimlico when making his first start. The juvenile gelding won by 2 1/4 lengths over another son of Cal Nation, Earned It, while taking the 5-furlong event in the final time of 1:00.36. Out of the Leading the Parade mare Parade of Colors, Parade of Nations is a Maryland homebred for John E. Williamson III and is trained by Bernard Houghton.
Two of this year’s most exciting freshman sires will have representatives on a major stage this week, as Belmont cards a pair of juvenile stakes in the Tremont and the Astoria.
In Thursday’s Astoria for 2-year-old fillies, Bode’s Dream immediately steps into stakes company off a 3 3/4-length debut victory May 11 at Gulfstream Park. The filly was the first winner for classic-placed Grade 1 winner Bodemeister, a commercial leader of his class.
As a half-sister to two-time Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe heroine Treve, Trophee is already nearly priceless as a broodmare. But she will look to further burnish her credentials with a graded stakes victory of her own in the Grade 2 New York Stakes on Friday at Belmont Park.
Memories of his outstanding turf mare Wonder Again are everywhere for trainer Jimmy Toner at Belmont Park this week.
Not only did Toner saddle Time and Motion to win Wonder Again’s namesake stakes race on Sunday, he will saddle Recepta, from the same family that produced Wonder Again, in the Grade 1 Just a Game Stakes on the Belmont undercard on Saturday. Time and Motion and Recepta are both homebreds for the Phillips Racing of Darby Dan Farm owner John Phillips, who also owns Wonder Again.
On Friday, Belmont Park will card the Rags to Riches Invitational, named to honor the 2007 Belmont Stakes winner who became the first filly in more than a century to win America’s oldest and longest classic when she outdueled eventual two-time Horse of the Year Curlin for the victory.
Proud Citizen, a Grade 2 winner and sire of two Kentucky Oaks winners, was euthanized Saturday at Airdrie Stud in Midway, Ky. after a four-year battle with laminitis took a turn for the worse. He was 17.
The son of Gone West had resided at Airdrie Stud since beginning his stallion career in 2004. He stood for an advertised fee of $7,500 this year.
