I have not been able to do one of these articles in some\ntime, but I figured after the Equinics was as good a time as any to give an\nupdate on the state of my barn. To this point I have logged just about three years\u2019\nworth of game play with the current year being my most successful. I have reached\nsome great milestones this year including my first ever G1 winner(s), a couple of\ncolts on the derby path, along with some Equinics entries. Outside of that this\nyear has been especially kind to me in terms of stakes races and up where I am\ncurrently sporting a record of 159-28-20-17 (17.6% Win, 40.9% ITM).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Equinics Results<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being my first year ever as part of the Equinics I was super\nexcited. I had a level of confidence in my entries that I do not think I ever had\ngoing into any race this year. That should have been my first indication that I\nmay be in over my head. While the\nEquinics was a great and fun experience it turned out to be an utter disaster\nfor me personally. I had a total of four horses go this past Sunday with the\nbest of the bunch finishing 7th<\/sup>. To make the day worse I had three\nother non-Equinics graded horses go that day all of which flopped giving me a\nbig old graded goose egg for the day. In terms of big letdowns in the game,\nSunday was by far the worst one for me. I do not want to give the wrong impression,\ndespite the big letdown I am still as enthusiastic as ever about the game and\nin all truth was happy that both my residencies ESR and Hoosier thought enough\nof my crops to get a total of 4 horses into the Equinics starting gate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Graded Winners<\/p>\n\n\n\n As previously mentioned this year has been very kind to me.\nI have had a slew of talented 3 and 4 year-olds. On the flip side I have been really slow with\n2 year olds this season mainly because I got a late start in running most of\nthem. Without further adieu here are my most talented: <\/p>\n\n\n\n OCTANE ENFORCER (INTO MISCHEIF x STREET CRY)<\/p>\n\n\n\n (9-5-1-2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n She will go down as my first ever G1 winner and kind of\nsurprised me in doing so. Coming out of her stakes win back in February I\nremember being extremely unsure about how good she was, but as in most cases\nfigured I would throw shit against a wall and hope it sticks. Stick it did, as she\nwould go on to win the California Oaks then finish 2nd<\/sup> in the\nBluegrass Oaks. Her last race came in the G1 Sister Hen on an off track and she\nfinished 7th<\/sup> but my confidence in her at this point is unwavering.\nShe\u2019s set to come back in a bout a week\u2019s time to run in the G1 Birmingham\nStakes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n STARKIST (SEA THE STARS x MONTJEU)<\/p>\n\n\n\n (9-5-1-0)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember posting her in chat earlier in the year and multiple people asking me what the hell I was thinking running her at 6 furlongs. Admittedly I am not the best with turfers and do not have a great knowledgebase on turf pedigrees. When others suggested to stretch her to routes I obliged without hesitation and I will be damned they were right! Her first two runs at a mile she romped the competition winning the G3 Si\u2019 Senorita and the G1 Irish 1000 Guineas. She was one of my Equinics runners this past weekend and the one I had the most hope for. While she did finish the best out of my bunch it was not saying much.As you may expect I came away disappointed but determined to get her back to the winner\u2019s circle. She\u2019s set up to run in the G2 Irish Lassie and will get an opportunity to stretch her legs further going 9F. <\/p>\n\n\n\n FIERCELY FROSTED (FROSTED x DYNAFORMER)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Record (9-4-2-0)<\/p>\n\n\n\n After his G2 Fountain of Ute victory I was so high on this\nhorse and thought he was a shoe in to make the Bluegrass Derby. Again, my\nconfidence should have been a red flag to temper my expectations but it wasn\u2019t\nand I watched in dismay as he faded from 4th<\/sup> to 10th<\/sup> in\nthe Florida Derby missing an opportunity to get into the Bluegrass Derby. Since\nthat heartbreaking day in March, he\u2019s gone on to run three more times finishing\n2nd<\/sup> in the G2 Captain Hook, 10th<\/sup> in the G1 New Yorker, and\nhe gave turf a try in a decent effort at the Upper California Derby finishing 5th<\/sup>.\nHis next run is going to be on turf in the G3 The Cant Breeder\u2019s Cup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n TWIRLING ENFORCER (TWIRLING CANDY x A.P. INDY)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Record (6-3-2-0)<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s a quick off the blocks type of horse and if he doesn\u2019t\nget the lead early he\u2019s not really keen on passing anyone. That seemed to be\nthe story in the Equinics where he was beat out of the shoot by another horse\nand faded badly to finish 11th<\/sup>. Outside of that performance he has\nbeen a wonderful surprise earing G2 honors in the Trial by Night Stakes. Not\nsure what the plan is for him yet going forward but as lightly raced as he is\nto this point I will probably get him going in a few competitive spots before\nyear\u2019s end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n HEART OF THE NILE (PIONEEROF THE NILE x HARD SPUN)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Record (8-4-0-1)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes you can just tell in a horse\u2019s first race that\nthey are special. In her debut race she opened up 7 lengths on the field and\nran away with ease at 7 furlongs. I had never seen a horse do that in a sprint before\nleading me to believe she was destined for some form of greatness. She proved\nme right in the G2 Manhattan wiring the field with a 103 speed fig. I gave her\na bump up to G1 company most recently and she got smoked finishing 8th<\/sup>\nby 4. No immediate plan for her right now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n AWESOME ALLURE (AWESOME AGAIN x SEEKING THE GOLD)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Record (18-7-1-2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I made the switch to turf exclusively for her back in late\n2019 and she has been a better horse for it since rattling off five wins in the\nlast year. The most important of those 5 wins include a victory in the G3 Board Game Distaff. She\nwas another who got a bid into the Equinics but didn\u2019t quite fire the way I had\nhoped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n KNIGHT OF CAMELOT (CAMELOT x ZABEEL)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Record(19-6-2-2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most recent in the stable to earn graded honors he took\ndown the G3 Norway Cup about 2 weeks ago. However, he did come up hurt out of\nthe race which has not been a good indicator of future success for my horses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n GARGANTUAN GRAY (GRAYDAR x BIG BROWN)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Record (18-5-5-2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n She has been a really fun horse to watch develop over the\nlast couple years. She\u2019s one of those gritty types of horses who has never\nreally disappointed me with her effort. She won the G3 Blackhawk Cup back in\nJune and has not run since. I am still looking for the ideal spot for her to\nhopefully build some momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MICRO MANIAC (MICROMANAGE x STORM BIRD)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Record (11-5-1-2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n She has been a great addition to the stable. I bred her with\nintent of running locals but she has already surpassed those expectations winning\nthe G3 Leopard Stakes. However, she has been blown out in her last two graded\nruns which includes her Equinics performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n End of an Era<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next two horses were my first ever graded winners and sadly\nI believe the time has come where graded races just are not in the cards anymore.\nThat doesn\u2019t mean they can\u2019t be productive and earn me BPs, but the glory days\nseem to be well past them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n TURN EM\u2019 LOOSE (CARAVAGGIO x WRITTEN TYCOON)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Record (19-6-0-3)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had hope coming into this year when he started the year\noff with an impressive stakes win. However, 5 attempts at graded company and a\ndiminishing performance has only shown me that his days of closing deep stretch\nagainst the cream of the crop are long behind him. I\u2019m hoping I can run him in\nallowance events and earn some BPs. Maybe he will find his legs again for one\nmore run but it doesn\u2019t look good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n ESPIRI (IRONICUS x CHARM SPIRIT)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Record(19-6-2-2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n A gift horse from the late great Oldmoonfarms. When I first\nstarted Oldmoonfarms was one of the first people to reach out and help. He and\nBizalls got me started by flooding me with a plethora of horses to keep me busy\nwhich included this guy. I remember the day ESPIRI broke his maiden I had received\na PM from Oldmoonfarms expressing just as much excitement as I had about ESPIRI\nwinning his first race. Of course ESPIRI went on to become my second graded\nwinner (otherwise this story would be pointless) when he won the G3 Movie Cup. After\nthat he came up injured in his next graded attempt and was never the same as he\nstruggled to find the money in lesser competition. He will continue to run at\nthe allowance level till the age of 5 but like his stablemate above I do not\nsee a resurgence to graded in his future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With four months remaining in the year I am hoping to add a\nfew more names to this list but I will end it here for the time being. In\nclosing, the game is still just as much fun today as it was when I first joined\nand had no clue what I was doing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have not been able to do one of these articles in some time, but I figured after the Equinics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52968"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52977,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52968\/revisions\/52977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}