Feed aggregator

Lemon Muffin, a former D. Wayne Lukas trainee, will face 2025 Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint (G1) winner Splendora in the $200,000 D. Wayne Lukas Stakes (G2) at Santa Anita Park Feb. 7.

Letters to the Editor for the Feb. 5 edition of BloodHorse Daily.

The fifth-crop sire, acquired by the Korea Thoroughbred Breeders Association, had been in Korea less than two months.

John Kasbar announced Feb. 4 the return of third-crop sire Sweetontheladies to Florida. The multiple stakes winner and graded stakes performer will stand at Solera Farm near Williston, Fla., for the upcoming 2026 breeding season.

This wasn't the plan. Jon Green, the general manager of D.J. Stable, and trainer Mark Casse were ready to give 3-year-old filly champion Nitrogen (Medaglia d'Oro) a nice break after her second-place finish in the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff. But just 67 days after her last race, she will go in Saturday's GIII Bayakoa Stakes at Oaklawn, where she is the 4-5 morning-line favorite.

Why? Because Nitrogen was telling Casse that she had had enough of taking it easy.

“The game plan, initially, was that when she was done with her championship campaign in 2025, we were going to give her two to three months off,” Green said. “Not only did she hit the board in every single one of the nine races she ran in last year, but she shipped around a lot to Florida, Kentucky, New York, back to Kentucky, and then all the way out to Del Mar for the Breeders' Cup.

“Our full intention was to give her time off, let her relax and regroup for her 4-year-old campaign,” he said. “Like everything else in life, man plans and God laughs, and in this case Nitrogen had the last laugh. She is such a professional and loves training and loves what she's doing. We basically gave her three, three-and-a-half weeks off. Then Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse called me and he said, 'I know the game plan was to give her time off. She doesn't want it. She wants to train and is sound and is doing well.' He said that his concern was that if he didn't train her, mentally, she might get a little sour on us and that's not what you want to do, especially with a filly.

“So we put her back in light training because she didn't lose a lot of fitness and she picked it up very quickly,” said Green. “Our original intention was to focus on the Mar. 7 [GII] Azeri [Stakes] as a stepping stone to the [Apr. 11] [GI] Apple Blossom [Handicap], but she's ready to run. Is she 100 percent tuned up all the way for the Bayakoa? No. But she's probably 80 percent there and we feel like rather than give her another five weeks off, we would run her in this race.”

Though he said his filly will be only 80 percent for the race, Green has no problem predicting that this will be the start of a big year for Nitrogen.

“I'm not concerned about whether she'll take a step forward because I genuinely think she ranks atop that division right now,” he said. “Now, she has to fulfill her destiny.”

Green added that the plan is to run in the Azeri, as well. After the Apple Blossom, he's not sure what path his Eclipse Award winner will be taking.

Jon and Len Green after Nitorgen's Alabama win | Sarah Andrew

“We're trying to take it the way Bill Parcells used to look at the NFL schedule back when it was 16 games,” Green said. “He would say there are four quarters to the season and I'm going to look at it one quarter at a time. That's really the way we are managing Nitrogen. We'll look at it every three or four months and try to work backwards from a signature race. For this quarter, it's the Apple Blossom.”

D.J. Stable has never been afraid to sell a mare when she has reached peak value. Green said that the idea was discussed, but ultimately Nitrogen was just one they couldn't send to auction.

“We did look at it from a business standpoint so far as whether we should cash in on her,” Green said. “We also had to take in the fact that my father [Len] is almost 90-years-old. Not that this is his last hurrah. But when you have a homebred like this and you want to keep the family, it's difficult to entertain offers.

“We did, however, sell Tiffany Case, her mother, in foal to Not This Time,” he said. “She topped the January Sale for $3.2 million, so I feel like we cashed in on the family and we still have Nitrogen and Nitrogen's half-sister, a Gun Runner 2-year-old named Sniper that we're going to keep and race as well. We're fundamentally treating this as a business. We sold off some of the assets that we had because of Nitrogen's great year and her Eclipse win. But for right now, we are really enjoying campaigning the big mare.”

It will be a busy Saturday at Oaklawn for the Casse-D.J. team, which will also send out 2025 GI Arkansas Derby winner Sandman (Tapit). He'll go in a $126,000 allowance race run at a mile-and-a-sixteenth. Unlike Nitrogen, he did not have the strongest of finishes to his season. After a fifth-place effort in the GII Jim Dandy at Saratoga in late July, the colt turned in a ninth-place showing when trying the grass for the first time in the GIII DK Horse Nashville Derby Invitational Stakes at Kentucky Downs in late August.

“We ran him in the Jim Dandy and he ran a very tepid fifth place,” Green said. “In the Jim Dandy, we tried to put the blinkers on him to induce him to be a little closer to the lead and that didn't necessarily come to fruition. We tried him on the turf because the family had succeeded on the grass before and we thought maybe his going almost a mile-and-a-half would be a good distance for him, and he never really picked up his feet. At that time, he was telling us, 'I need a break.' He had been campaigning at a top level, really, from the moment we bought him. He never got a chance to get a mental break. We opted to pull the plug on him after the Kentucky Downs race and then did a minor surgery on an ankle.”

Green said that he is also hearing good reports from Casse regarding Sandman's comeback.

“Just like with Nitrogen, he's been moving forward by leaps and bounds,” he said. “We did not anticipate running him in February. We thought it might be a little later, maybe once at Oaklawn, once at Churchill, and then have a tough campaign for him going forward. The special ones, the ones with talent, they leap over your expectations. That's why we have Sandman in this race. He's ready to go.”

The post Back Sooner Than Expected, Champion Nitrogen Will Kick Off Year In Saturday’s Bayakoa At Oaklawn appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

D'code (Speightstown), a jaw-dropping 8 1/4-length debut winner sprinting at Oaklawn Park Dec. 14, will make his highly anticipated two-turn debut in Friday's postponed $1-million GIII Southwest S. in Hot Springs.

The Tom Durant homebred and 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' earned a field-best 99 Beyer Speed Figure while defeating 10 rivals that day. He recorded the fastest six-furlong time in Oaklawn history for a 2-year-old stopping the clock in 1:09.57.

D'code exits from post two with Luis Saez at the controls in the 1 1/16-mile affair, good for 20-10-6-4-2 points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby.

“It's a tall order, but the horse really seems to be doing good,” trainer H. Ray Ashford Jr. said. “He acts like he can run that far. Getting the right fractions, obviously, will help a lot, too. I would think he will be forwardly placed. That looks like his running style. There are unknowns, but we think he's good enough to try.”

With 5-2 morning-line favorite and GII Los Alamitos Futurity winner Litmus Test (Nyquist) instead awaiting the GII San Felipe S. at Santa Anita Mar. 7, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert will still be represented by 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' Buetane (Tiz the Law). The runner-up in last summer's GI Spendthrift Farm Hopeful S. and the GII San Vicente S. Jan. 10 was scratched out of last weekend's GIII Holy Bull S. at Gulfstream Park in favor of this spot, his first attempt around two turns.

“Going two turns, we'll see what he does,” Baffert said. “He's doing really well. He's worked well. We'll see how he fits in with those.”

Liberty National (Maxfield), named a 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' following an impressive maiden win around two turns at second asking at Churchill Downs Nov. 29, could be coming in under the radar for Ken McPeek. The $525,000 Keeneland September graduate was a better-than-it-looked second as the favorite in the Gun Runner S. at Fair Grounds last time Dec. 20.

“If you watch the gallop out on the Gun Runner, he's three (lengths) in front another sixteenth past the wire,” McPeek said. “He was probably five lengths the best horse.”

Florida-bred Strategic Risk (Noble Bird) won his last two starts by a combined 13 1/2 lengths for Hall of Famer Mark Casse, including the local prep Smarty Jones S. Jan. 3.

The Southwest was originally scheduled for Jan. 31, but Oaklawn moved its Jan. 30, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 programs to this week following a winter storm that closed the track for training for nine days.

Kentucky Derby points (20-10-6-4-2) will also be on the line in Friday's rescheduled Listed $200,000 Withers S. at Aqueduct, headed by the Chad Brown-trained duo of Ottinho (Quality Road) and Schoolyardsuperman (Practical Joke).

The post D’code Heads Straight to the Big Leagues in Rescheduled Southwest appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) canceled live racing on Saturday and Sunday at Aqueduct Racetrack due to arctic temperatures that will range from 23 degrees to as low as six degrees in Ozone Park and extremely low wind chill values forecast to impact the New York metropolitan area throughout the weekend, the track said in a press release on Thursday afternoon.

NYRA is working with the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (NYTHA) and New York Thoroughbred Breeders, Inc. (NYTB), to schedule and apply for added race days from the New York State Gaming Commission.

The East View Stakes and Damon Runyon Stakes, originally scheduled for Saturday, will be brought back Saturday, Feb. 14 with entries to be taken Sunday, Feb. 8.

Overnight races scheduled for Saturday and Sunday will be offered Feb. 19-20 as described in the updated Aqueduct winter condition book, which can be accessed here.

Aqueduct Racetrack will remain open for simulcast operations throughout the weekend.

Charles Town Races has also canceled its live program on Saturday due to the cold blast.

The post NYRA Puts Weekend Racing At Aqueduct On Ice appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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.

Winter weather continued to wreak havoc on the live racing schedule with Laurel Park forced to cancel its Saturday card due to frigid temperatures and windy conditions expected to impact the Mid-Atlantic region. Winter weather also forced Laurel to cancel its race cards last Friday and Saturday.

Live racing was expected to continue as scheduled at the Maryland track Thursday and Friday, with first post time of 12 p.m.

The post Weather Woes Continue as Laurel Cancels Saturday Racing appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Super Corredora, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2025, faces Explora in the Las Virgenes Stakes. The two top sophomore fillies ran 1-2, respectively, in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1).

With the Southwest Stakes (G3) set for Feb. 6, it's only fitting that the winner of last year's edition also returns this weekend at Oaklawn Park. Speed King is set to make his 4-year-old debut in the Feb. 5 Fifth Season Stakes. 

Mount Bona, a winner of her past three starts for Paul Messara and Leah Gavranich, topped the Inglis Digital February (Early) Online Sale Feb. 4, when selling for AU$240,000 to Beaufort Bloodstock.

Blue Diamond Stud has reported the arrival of the first foal by its homebred classic heroine and three-time group 1 winner Nashwa. The 2022 Prix de Diane (G1) winner produced a colt by Dubawi.

Slated as the 4-5 morning line favorite, Nitrogen faces six in the Bayakoa Stakes to begin her 4-year-old campaign.

Walter Robertson Jr., president of Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, announced Feb. 4 the inauguration of a new strategic plan for the organization.

The cancellation comes one day after the track had announced it's Feb. 4-5 cards would begin at 1 p.m. EST, rather than the normal 5:55 p.m. start time.

The Jockey Club announced Feb. 4 that the 2026 edition of the Fact Book is available. It is a statistical and informational guide to Thoroughbred breeding, racing, and auction sales in North America.

The first day of racing at Churchill Downs in advance of the Kentucky Derby April 25 will be moved to the afternoon after being held at night since 2011. Additionally, a Sunday card will be added to Derby Week April 26.

Mike Curry, of America's Best Racing, sees Intrepido as the pick for the Robert B. Lewis Stakes (G3) Feb. 7 at Santa Anita Park while Robusta could pull the upset.

In late December, trainer Butch Reid had a tough decision to make. Should he run his promising now-3-year-old Mailata in the Jerome Stakes Jan. 3 at Aqueduct Racetrack or the Dec. 30 Parx Future Stars Stakes at his home base of Parx Racing?