Aqueduct Racetrack Notes 03/09

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Aqueduct Racetrack Notes

Soontobeking secures first stakes victory in $125K Gander; Colloquial possible for Listed Lafayette
Bernieandtherose lands career-best 75 BSF for Maddie May victory
Donegal Momentum points to G1 Maker’s Mark Mile

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Our Blue Streaks Stable, SGV Thoroughbreds and trainer George Weaver’s Soontobeking rallied fiercely to get his nose down and win Saturday’s $125,000 Gander, a one-turn mile for sophomore New York-breds, at Aqueduct Racetrack.

“He came out of the race well. He looks good and is happy,” said Weaver.

It was a decently-long awaited victory for the King for a Day bay, who had previously placed five times inside of seven previous stakes attempts. One of the off-the-board efforts was a rapidly closing fourth under Hall of Famer Javier Castellano in the $500,000 NYSSS Great White Way where his rail rally was shut off by a rival. On Saturday, with Eric Cancel up, it was smooth sailing up the inside en route to a nose score over the now multiple stakes-placed National Identity.

“You’re always happy to win. That was the goal, to win, and he always shows up and tries, so it was a deserving victory for the horse,” said Weaver. “Eric knows this horse very well and has been on him more than anybody. So I’m just happy for him to be able to win with Eric, they’re a good team together.”

Soontobeking, bred by Our Blue Streaks Stable and SGV Thoroughbreds, bobbled and was bumped at the start, traveling 6th-of-8 early before his eventual photo finish score in a final time of 1:41.26. Weaver said a possible next start is the 6 1/2-furlong $200,000 NYSSS Times Square on April 13 here.

“That makes the most sense. If he’s doing well, he will run there,” said Weaver.

Finishing fourth in the Gander was Bona Venture Stables’ Swift Magic. The Good Samaritan gelding, bred by Jeffrey Cohn, stepped up in class off a fourth-out graduation versus state-breds in January here. He rounded out the superfecta behind the classy trio of Soontobeking, National Identity and Grade 3-winner Mo Plex.

“We’re happy with this horse as well. We’re looking forward to him getting better as the year goes on. He’s an improving horse, we weren’t disappointed with that at all,” Weaver said.

Weaver also commented on Harrell Ventures and Starlight Racing’s intriguing sophomore colt Colloquial. The Vekoma chestnut earned a 106 Beyer Speed Figure for a dominant second-out graduation sprinting 6 1/2 furlongs on February 7 at Aqueduct. His other start was a rallying nose defeat to Mentee in a five-furlong track record-setting effort in his June debut here.

Colloquial worked a half-mile in 49.49 seconds on Saturday at Palm Beach Downs, which Weaver said went well, adding a possible next start is the seven-furlong Listed $400,000 Lafayette on April 4 at Keeneland, while also nominating elsewhere.

“The horse has trained well,” said Weaver. “Right now, we are thinking the Lafayette would be a good spot for him, but I’m going to keep him nominated to everything and we’ll go from there.”

Of nominating to longer races, Weaver said, “Yes, we will keep him nominated to everything.”

Bred in Kentucky by Michael Orem and J.B. Orem, Colloquial, out of the Bernardini mare Terminology, was a $240,000 purchase at the 2023 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

***

Bernieandtherose lands career-best 75 BSF for Maddie May victory

Robert Rosenthal and Bradford Bernstein’s New York homebred Bernieandtherose was awarded a career-best 75 Beyer Speed Figure for her 3 1/4-length triumph in Saturday’s $125,000 Maddie May, a one-turn mile for New York-bred sophomore fillies, at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Trained by Domenick Schettino, the Accelerate chestnut doubled up on stakes scores after a determined half-length victory in the seven-furlong East View against fellow state-breds on February 8 at the Big A.

In the Maddie May, regular pilot Katie Davis lost an iron exiting the gate but quickly recovered to guide the filly to the front to apply pressure to pacesetter Howling Wind. Bernieandtherose overtook the lead at the three-quarters call and widened her advantage throughout the latter stages, crossing the wire well in front in a final time of 1:41.35, just a tick slower than the 1:41.26 ran by Soontobeking when winning the Gander five races later.

Schettino said a well-executed ride, along with some recent dental work, helped Bernieandtherose flourish Saturday.

“She came back great today,” Schettino said. “I was very happy with the ride. She broke well, Katie had her positioned properly. It really couldn’t have gone any more perfectly. We did her teeth a couple weeks ago, just some baby stuff and took the caps out. It helped her.”

Bernieandtherose has now won four consecutive races, dating to a second-out graduation by 7 3/4 lengths on November 3 here and a 6 1/4-length optional claiming romp on November 24 ahead of her stakes scores. The next potential target for the talented filly could be the nine-furlong Grade 3, $200,000 Gazelle on April 5 here, a 100-50-25-15-10 qualifier for the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks.

“That’s probably what we’ll look at and entertain,” Schettino said. “I’m not sure yet, but that’s a possibility. I don’t think she’ll have any problems with the two turns. She’s bred for it and it’s in her wheelhouse.”

Bernieandtherose and her 4-year-old Take Charge Indy half-sister Bernietakescharge have been the gifts that keep on giving for their connections, having won seven of their last eight combined starts. The latter was last seen trouncing the open-company Heavenly Prize Invitational on February 22 here, drawing off to the 6 1/4-length victory in pacesetting fashion under regular rider Romero Maragh.

Bernietakescharge, who finished third in last year’s Maddie May, has won three of her last four starts, and could be pointed to either a return to state-bred company in the one-mile $125,000 Biogio’s Rose on April 6 or the open-company nine-furlong Listed $150,000 Top Flight on April 12.

“We’re just going to nominate to both, see what they look like and go from there,” Schettino said.

Bernieandtherose and Bernietakescharge are both out of the Freud mare Berning Rose, a stakes-winner for the same connections. The two fillies have earned a combined $586,330 and have nine victories and three stakes between them.

***

Donegal Momentum points to G1 Maker’s Mark Mile

Donegal Racing’s Donegal Momentum made a triumphant return to the races, posting a half-length win in his seasonal debut on March 6 at Fair Grounds Race Course.

Trained by Tom Morley, the 4-year-old Uncle Mo colt captured the one-mile Gio Ponti here in October before traveling to Del Mar and finishing a close third in a key renewal of the nine-furlong Grade 1 Hollywood Derby on November 30 to close out his sophomore campaign.

Donegal Momentum returned in a salty optional-claimer on Thursday and handled the two-turn turf mile with aplomb under Hall of Famer Javier Castellano.

“One of the hardest things to do in racing is to be a good 3-year-old and that first run back against older horses, it’s a different ballgame,” Morley said. “They’re bigger and stronger horses – the horses he ran against the other day were 5-and-6-years-old and had won plenty of races. To come back and defeat a group like that – I know it’s only a third-level allowance – but there were horses in there that had been running in graded stakes all winter. They had conditioning and recency over him. I was delighted to see him come back and win as well as he did. In my view, he’ll improve five lengths for the race, and we’re hopefully set up for a good year ahead.”

Donegal Momentum touted his class with a prominent effort in the Hollywood Derby when one-length back of the victorious Formidable Man and a neck in arrears of runner-up King of Gosford. The Michael McCarthy-trained Formidable Man won the Grade 1 Frank E. Kilroe Mile last week at Santa Anita while King of Gosford exited the Hollywood Derby to capture the Grade 2 Mathis Mile.

“We had a go at seeing if he would get nine furlongs and went to California to do that as we felt that the ground might have gone against him in New York,” Morley said. “Formidable Man came back to win the Kilroe at the weekend and Mike McCarthy said to me before the Derby that, ‘I’m only scared of your horse really. I think this is the best turf horse I’ve had in my barn.’ That was an indication that we were running in what was an above average Hollywood Derby, in my opinion.”

Donegal Momentum subsequently enjoyed some downtime at Barry Berkelhammer’s AbraCadabra Farms in Ocala, Florida, before preparing for his return at Fair Grounds.

Morley said Donegal Momentum has exited his win in good order and will return to New York to train towards the Grade 1, $650,000 Maker’s Mark Mile on April 11 at Keeneland as he embarks on a campaign that could include the Spa’s Grade 3, $300,000 Poker on June 5 as part of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival and the Grade 1 Fourstardave later this summer at Saratoga Race Course.

“I think his ceiling is a mile and a sixteenth. I think he gets a mile well on grass,” Morley said. “However, there’s a very real possibility that at some point he will run in a seven-furlong graded stakes in New York on the dirt.”

Donegal Momentum, out of the stakes-placed Malibu Moon mare Moon Dash, made his first three starts on dirt, including a pair of efforts against elders here that included an 8 1/4-length maiden romp sprinting six furlongs in May and a half-length defeat traveling a one-turn mile in June that registered a career-best 93 Beyer Speed Figure. He was a distant fourth in the Grade 2 Amsterdam in July at Saratoga before switching to turf and winning an optional-claiming event there ahead of his Gio Ponti score.

“He’s got a lovely pedigree and if he was to go to stud, a graded win on the dirt would be a big play on his resume. It’s something Jerry [Crawford] and I have discussed multiple times,” Morley said.

Donegal Momentum, a $375,000 purchase at the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, has banked $285,250 through a 7-4-1-1 record.

Steven Rocco and Adelphi Racing Club’s maiden One Nine Hundred has performed more than admirably in a pair of sprint starts thus far at the Big A.

He missed by a head after breaking a step slow and landing third on debut sprinting six furlongs on January 11 and followed with a scintillating runner-up effort traveling 6 1/2-furlongs on February 7, setting splits of 22.89 seconds and 46.61 before being overtaken by the highly-regarded Colloquial, who scored by seven lengths in a final time of 1:16.89 and earned a 106 Beyer.

“It’s tough to lose a maiden in February running a 92 Beyer and not only lose but get thumped to be perfectly honest,” said Morley, with a laugh. “I have my reservations about the 6 1/2-furlongs and he still wouldn’t have won at six, but it wouldn’t have been such a gaping margin if it had been a six-furlong race. He’s a super-talented colt and very fast.”

The Dialed In bay was purchased by Rocco for $240,000 at the OBS March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training where the colt worked in 10 seconds flat.



Morley ably described One Nine Hundred with a single word.

“Speedball,” Morley said. “He has long legs for a sprinter but he’s a short-coupled horse. He’s very upright through his hind leg. He’s just a very fast horse. He showed that at the 2-year-old sale where he worked very quickly and well.

“He was going to be a precocious horse,” Morley added. “He would have been ready for the second maiden at Saratoga before he got a very minor issue that required 60 days off. He worked in Saratoga with Flavien Prat and Flavien was very impressed with him and sadly he came out with a little niggle.”

One Nine Hundred has worked a pair of half-miles over the Belmont Park dirt training track since his tussle with Colloquial, including a bullet 48.40 in company on February 24 and a solo 48.66 Saturday.

“He loves to train,” Morley said. “He worked solo [Saturday] at Belmont because I worked him 10 days ago in company and he was very aggressive and worked a lot faster than I wanted to see him go, but he was doing it so easily that it didn’t concern me too much. He’s got two races under his belt. He’s a professional now.

“He’s a naturally fast horse and his work [Saturday] in 48 and 3 was fantastic,” Morley added. “He went off a very measured first quarter-mile in 25 seconds and came home in 23 and 3. He got a little blown around in the wind between the quarter-pole and the eighth-pole, but when William [Solares] asked him to finish his work – and that’s important with these horses – he really picked up in the last three-sixteenths of the work and I thought he was very impressive.”

Although nominated to Saturday’s local $125,000 Jimmy Winkfield, Morley said he preferred not to test the colt versus winners and instead supplemented well-bred filly Paula’s a Star to the six-furlong sprint for sophomores.

One Nine Hundred, out of the Curlin mare Hedonism, is a half-brother to stakes-winner Real Macho. His third dam is dual Grade 3-winner Rabiadella.

Morley noted that Patricia Moseley’s Kentucky homebred Curbstone, a last-out fourth in the one-mile Listed Stymie here on March 1, is pointing to the 10-furlong Listed $150,000 Excelsior on April 5 here.

The 6-year-old Street Sense gelding was off-the-board in last year’s Excelsior at nine furlongs, but Morley believes that the addition of another eighth of a mile will benefit his charge.

“That was a super run in the Stymie at a trip that is far too short,” Morley said. “He’s in great order and I’m looking forward to seeing him run in the Excelsior because it’s up to 10 furlongs this year and those true marathon races are where you see the very best of him.”

Curbstone made a pair of nine-furlong starts here ahead of the Stymie, finishing second in the Listed Queens County in December ahead of a rallying neck allowance win in January. Both those efforts earned 88 Beyers.

“He’s getting stronger, I think. This horse has improved in the last year again,” Morley said.

Curbstone, a half-brother to multiple graded stakes-winner Proctor’s Ledge, has banked $436,670 through a 27-6-6-0 record with five of those wins coming at the Big A.