For the better part of five decades, Tom Durant has been searching for the type of horse that could carry him to the top of the game–namely, the Kentucky Derby.
With his homebred 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' D'code (Speightstown), who makes his two-turn debut in his second career start in Friday's GIII Southwest Stakes, Durant is hoping that he has found such a star.
An auto dealer from Texas, Durant got his start in the horse business when a customer talked him into buying a Quarter Horse broodmare. He purchased Glory Be Good with a foal at her side for $100,000.
“I had never dreamed of paying that much for a horse,” Durant recalled. “But then four months later I sold her filly for $125,000 and I thought, 'Wow, this is too easy.'”
In the years since, Durant has experienced his fair share of ups and downs in horse racing and he is well aware of the fact that breeding and racing horses is anything but easy.
After getting his start in the Quarter Horse business, Durant switched over to Thoroughbreds 30 years ago. He began racing and breeding in Texas and New Mexico, but in more recent years expanded his operation by breeding in Kentucky, purchasing primarily at 2-year-old sales and racing throughout the country. His stable's top performers include 2001 GII Bashford Manor Stakes winner Lunar Bounty (Migrating Moon), 2008 GIII Phoenix Stakes victor Sing Baby Sing (Unbridled's Song) and 2019 GIII West Virginia Governor's Stakes winner Silver Dust (Tapit).
These days, Durant keeps between 12 and 15 horses in training with H. Ray Ashford, Jr. While he maintains only a handful of broodmares, most of whom raced in his silks, it was from this small but select band that his latest stable star emerged.
Durant purchased Dos Vinos as a yearling for $230,000 and the daughter of Twirling Candy raced to three wins and a fourth-place finish in the 2020 GII Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes.
“She didn't want to go long, but she was very fast and that's the reason why I kept her to breed her,” explained Durant.
Dos Vinos has passed on that natural brilliance to her progeny.
The mare's first foal turned heads at the 2024 OBS March Sale and sold to Katsumi Yoshida for $850,000. Named Rossiniana, the Not This Time colt is now building a resume in Japan, where he has already secured three victories.
Like Rossiniana, D'code was sent to Dean DeRenzo and Randy Hartley before going through the ring as a juvenile. But Durant was so high on the son of Speightstown, and felt enough seller's remorse over the first foal out of Dos Vinos, that he set the reserve at just under a million dollars.
“Sometimes going to the sale, you can find out more about the horse,” Durant said. “Then based off what I think about them, I put a reserve on them. If they make the reserve, okay, if they don't I keep them and race them.”
Durant was more than happy to buy D'code back for $775,000, especially after seeing what he could do in his first start. Debuting on Dec. 14 at Oaklawn Park, the colt ran off to an 8 1/4-length win, becoming a TDN Rising Star and stopping the clock in 1:09.57, the fastest six furlongs for a 2-year-old in Oaklawn history.
“I wasn't expecting what I got,” Durant admitted. “To see a horse that can run that fast, that easy, on his first time out is almost unheard of. To run a 99 Beyer, that's just unbelievable and the jockey just kind of hand rode him. He didn't have to do anything.”
Last week, D'code's connections were thrown a curveball when severe weather forced the postponement of the GIII Southwest Stakes, but the delay was secondary to the training days lost to frozen track conditions.
“We had him trained up and ready to run last Saturday and everything would have been perfect, but that didn't happen,” said Durant. “Last week we were trying to do a little bit of training in the barn, just to take the edge off, and hopefully this week we're getting enough time on the track to where he can relax and run two turns.”
D'code as a 2-year-old at the 2025 OBS March Sale | Brandon Arroyo TBX.Horse
Durant will soon find out if his speedy sophomore can step up to the next level. With Luis Saez aboard, D'code has drawn post position two for the mile and a sixteenth Southwest.
Also on Friday's card at Oaklawn Park, Durant will be represented by Super Cruise (Uncle Mo), a 4-year-old colt who won his most recent start in an Oaklawn allowance on Jan. 3 and will make his stakes debut in the General MacArthur Overnight Stakes.
“He had some minor injuries going into last year that we had to back off him and now that we're bringing him back, he's coming back very strong,” Durant reported.
Fellow Ashford trainee Big Tech (Practical Joke) will have his third attempt at breaking his maiden earlier in the card. Durant said the 3-year-old did not get an ideal trip in his last start on Jan. 2.
“The announcer even said that the horse was in a stranglehold, so I really don't know what he is capable of doing but hopefully we'll find out,” he noted.
As is so often the case in horse racing, the highs are accompanied by a fair share of lows. Durant lost D'code's dam Dos Vinos to a case of founder last year after she foaled a Not This Time full-sister to Rossiniana that has been named Sweet Angie.
“We finally found a nurse mare that would accept her and now she's doing quite well,” Durant reported, before adding that the mare also left behind a filly by Audible who is currently in training at Hartley/DeRenzo Thoroughbreds.
Durant said both fillies may join his broodmare band one day if they can perform on the track, growing his current roster of just two mares.
Durant has been on the Derby trail before, most recently with Run Classic (Runhappy) who contested the GII Louisiana Derby in 2021, but getting a horse to the starting gate on the first Saturday in May has remained elusive.
“It's hard to get a horse there,” he said. “That's the reason why we've raced so little with D'code. We're trying to have him in his best form if we do make it on the Derby trail.”
After over forty years in the game, Durant said he believes this homebred might be the horse he's been waiting for.
“I've spent a lot of money trying to find a horse like him and I found one in my own backyard.”
The post “I Found One In My Own Backyard,” Tom Durant Takes On Derby Trail with D’Code appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.
