![]() ![]() Under deft handling from Eric Cancel, John Terranova’s five year old charge is just now beginning to develope. Nerud and G1 Forego that maturity has made him a better racehorse. While no one is confusing Killybegs Captain with a Lite the Fuse, or a Smoke Glacken, a Cherokee Run or some notable winners of this dash but he is one the rise, signaling that recently with show finishes in both the G2 John A. It may only be a Grade 3 and $250,00 is slightly less than twice of what juvenile maidens race for at Kentucky Downs, but this Maryland fixture is always competitive and it takes a good horse to win it. Laurel Park’s De Francis Dash Never Fails to Fire Fingers crossed now to the big one and the Breeders’ Cup,” where waters promise to get a lot deeper thanks to major elders Midnight Bisou and Elate.īut for now, Doyle, trainer and co-owner Jones, along with his wife Cindy and Ray Francis, should sit back and enjoy the moment their filly earned for them in a big way. The Grade 1 Cotillion, like the PA Derby, was a Breeders’ Cup ‘Win and You’re In’ event. She deserves to be at these Grade 1 races.”Īs do you, Ms. She’s come out here today and really proved how good she is. “When she came upside of Guarana, she matched her, put her head down, and she was game-on all the way to the wire. When we were coming around the home turn… she really exploded. I just let her naturally take me around the outside. “I had to go to Plan B and C,” said Doyle, thinking, “there’s so much speed in here I’m not going to rush her off her feet… I let her creep into the race in her own time. As the racetrackers say, she was a freight train passing a hobo. Even with Guarana, enjoying a perfect trip and making a solid turn-move at the lead, it was apparent that the #3 horse would get there. Her move approaching the far turn was nothing less than electric. Street Band defied those norms yesterday. Turn of foot is a term normally reserved for turf racing, when horses sprint late, not early. It’s now California here we come.ĭoyle made the defeat of formerly unbeaten multiple Grade 1-winning Guarana look easy, but with plenty of help from her Jerry Jones-trained partner. Street Band, also knocking on the door but never able to break through this season against the season’s best, did so yesterday at Parx. Sophie Doyle: Hands, Timing, and a First Grade 1Īnd not a bad, much improved filly, either. “Right before the quarter-pole I just asked her to go and she ran off. “I was kind of reeling in and out of there. I tried to cover her up a little bit around the turn, riding close to the fence. “She was on the outside and I was worried she was going to be a little bit rank. And always thinking, like yesterday, on Significant Form. Velazquez simply stays out of the way, always in sync,always in rhythm, horse and rider as one. Johnny does it differently, like Bailey but unlike his mentor who insisted on making his own room. He’s more like JD, as Bailey was once known, because they have/had a knack for finding the sweet spot in every race.īailey, like Velazquez, made trouble free rides, somehow always managing to save ground and invariably get through on the fence, so much so that the wise guys would complain that the other riders gave Bailey a “rail pass” to victory. JR, as he is also known, is different from his mentor, Angel Cordero Jr., without whom “he wouldn’t be here,” Velazquez once said. It is appropriate that these two riders share this milestone in racing history because they share the same attributes on horseback, talents that separated them from most of the riders that came before and after. “Johnny” Velazquez from his peers, putting him in rarified air that of a race riding G.O.A.T.įrom the 1991 Ohio Derby to Saturday’s Grade 3 Pebbles, 660 graded career wins is an astounding number, equal to only the great Jerry Bailey. It is a span of 28 years, from Private Man to Significant Form, with 658 graded stakes winners in between that separates John R. These horses get so much care… I spend so much time with them, more time than I spend with my kids,” said Joseph ruefully, fighting back the tears in a humbling, emotion-filled moment. When I see my kids smile that’s the only thing in life that compares to these horses. “The only thing I can describe to this feeling is my kids. ![]() “People give racing a bad rap but this is the greatest game,” an emotional Saffie said thereafter. ![]()
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