TOP UP

It’s May! And the rain has been coming down and will be drizzling for the day it seems. That should help the Woodbine main track which was yielding slow times on Saturday but was playing fairly, albeit looking a bit loose.

Today, the Lady Angela Stakes celebrates a top Canadian broodmare and JUSTIN STEIN rides his last race

 

**FUN FACT  The races at Woodbine are being won by virtually everyone and anyone as far as owners, trainers and riders.

The last two days of winning trainers reads:

Bonnie Eshelman, Nick Nosowenko, Reade Baker, Norm McKnight, Katerina Vassilieva,Robertino Diodoro, Rachel Halden, Robert Tiller, Mark Casse, Barb Minshall, Nick Gonzalez, Justn Nixon, Blair Miller, Mark Fournier Ross Armata, Marko Mesic and Julie Belhumeur

Oh, and the only one of those who won more than one race was McKnight who took 3.

There is a little something for everyone in the Woodbine races.

Check out the race picks on a separate post.

 

 

STRUT THE COURSE OWNS IT

Lexie Lou fades

The much anticipated allowance race battle between Horse of the Year LEXIE LOU (2014) and champion STRUT THE COURSE did not materialize at Woodbine on Saturday but it was neat to see Strut the Course power away from well off the pace to win her season opener.

John Unger’s homebred mare had plenty of bad luck in 2015 and then lost the Champion Turf Female Sovereign award by 2 voting points.

Still, she had a big season and appears to be sitting on another big campaign.

Trailing by as much as 7-8 lengths at one point, the Strut the Stage mare was guided outside by Luis Contreras. meanwhile, Lexie Lou was in a pace battle with Moon Rainbow, the up and coming Sam-Son Farms filly and simply faded out of the picture by the turn for home.

The winner went off by 2 1/2 lengths in 1:44.85 for 1 1/16 miles, a very good time on a surface was was playing slowly.

STRUT THE COURSE earned a 90 Beyer Figure.

And there is the rub: LEXIE LOU has been comfortable in the mid 80s in Beyer Figures and really had not been able to go to the next level since winning the Queen’s Plate (other than the 2nd to California Chrome). She had an eye injury that has led to layoffs but certainly her future will be up in the air.

STRUT THE COURSE’S 90 Beyer Figure was NOT the biggest Beyer Figure of the day – however..

The top Beyer Figure of Saturday went to the classy 8-year-old OCCASIONAL VIEW who won for $32,000 off the claim bu SGR Racing, C MacEachern and Mark Fournier, who trains. The Silver Deputy gelding has seen a few owners and trainers in his day and it was only 2 years ago he was a Grade 3 stakes winner at Keeenland. He was 1 for 3 in 2015 and spent the winter with Fournier.

In this race at 6 furlongs, he stayed off the tough pace battle between Homebre Natural, Chief Chato, who was sent very hard to the lead and French Quarter and then reeled in the latter who ran a brace race to get clear.

The time of 1:10.72 was good for a 92 Beyer Figure.

More Saturday –

RACE 1 – BUCKDEN HOUSE rallied wide in her 1nd start of the season won win this $20,000 claming race for no-winners of 2. The Paynes Bay filly is owned by Twin Bullets Stable and trained by Blair Miller. Omar Moreno rode the Eugene Melnyk bred gal who was dropping from $40,000 to $20,000.

RACE 3 – Another off the pace winner was ANOTHER BID who was under a nice hold by jockey Jeff Alderson as they stalked the busy pace battle and then rallied for a 3rd career win. This was a $10,000 claiming race and the winner is owned by S A Racing and trained by Ross Armata.

RACE 4- Class plunger RUBY ALESANDRA led all the way from the rail post to win this maiden $10,00 claiming race for owner and breeder Fred Bahr and trainer Marko Mesic. Sheena Ryan sat quietly on the daughter of Where’s the Ring – Hello Ruby, by Doneraile Court and let her zip away to her maiden win.

RACE 5- Interesting field of maiden allowance fillies and mares with a few well-bred gals from big stables. It was MOTOWN LADY who threaded the needle and tipped out to charge to victory in this competitive event under a crafty ride by Simon Husbands. The filly is by Uncle Mo, the hottest young sire anywhere and she is owned by James Perron racing Stable. The filly is trained by Julie Belhumeur. This gal had been 5th to eventual Grade 1 winner Weep No More 2 starts aog so 9 to 1 was a bit of a gift on the filly.

Race 6- SONGS AND LAUGHTER went to the lead and kept on going at 4 to 5 for owner and breeder Rolph Davis and trainer Robert Tiller. This Singing Saint Ontario bred by Just Humor Me by Distorted Humor was making his 2nd start of the season following a 2nd place finisher to Conquest Cavalry on Apr. 16. Eurico da Silva rode the gelding who is now 2 for 5 after this win in an Ontario sired allowance race with a 71 Beyer Figure, 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:18.05

Race 7 – The very pretty CONSTANTINO rallied from far back to win his season debut for the 3rd consecutive year. The Ontario bred for Manfred and Penny Conrad  raced just 4 times last year and he had not been out since August. Still, he won big with an 87 Beyer Figure, 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:17.53

Race 9 – TAKE BACK YA POILS ran a winning race in her season debut when 2nd by a head to Secretariat Humor. She came back in this non-wieners of 1 ‘other than’ event and roared from jus behind the wild pace maker Miss Mandate to win for the 3rd time in her 12th career race.

This is a $20,000 yearling purchase who is owned by Mike Ambler and Greg Lang and the daughter of Where’s the Ring was bred by Paul O’Brien.

Her Beyer Figure for 1:45.91 was 79.

Oh, and the $58,000 purse of this race ballooned to $79,803 for the Ontario-bred ‘Poils’ – she collected $52,740.

Not bad to be an Ontario-sired horse!

Race 10 – Jesse Campbell got his 2nd winner of the day as he rode TEVEZ with confidence and the 10-year-old charged off the wild pace battle to win for the 15th time in his career. Owned by Wilf Jones and trained by Justin Nixon., the old timer had a bad start in his season opener and was dropping to just $6,250 for this 72nd career race.

Wagering on the card was a hefty $3.9 million

REMEMBER THAT DEAD RAIL ON OPENING DAY of the Woodbine meeting – it continues to produce winners..From a decent debut outing at Woodbine  to this  weekend at Belmont Park, CONQUEST SEE YA won a maiden allowance at 6 furlongs on the grass in 1:07.52…

 

 

 

NBC KENTUCKY DERBY COVERAGE

 

Here are the Derby point leaders.

THOROUGHBLOG has been eyeing the workouts and gallops all week on the wonderful LIVE CAM coverage from Churchill Downs.

The horses that have made the best impression to yours truly…

OUTWORK, BRODY’S CAUSE, MOHAYMEN and SUDDENBREAKINGNEWS

More from this corner as Derby week gets into high gear tomorrow.
1 Gun Runner Steve Asmussen 151 $849,200
2 Nyquist Doug O’Neill 130 $3,289,000
3 Exaggerator Keith Desormeaux 126 $1,628,000
4 Outwork Todd Pletcher 120 $660,000
5 Brody’s Cause Dale Romans 114 $1,100,000
6 Creator Steve Asmussen 110 $690,000
7 Lani Mikio Matsunaga 100 $1,300,119
8 Mor Spirit Bob Baffert 84 $616,800
9 Mohaymen Kiaran McLaughlin 80 $807,750
10 Danzing Candy Cliff Sise Jr. 60 $290,000
11 Destin Todd Pletcher 51 $338,000
12 Suddenbreakingnews Donnie Von Hemel 50 $637,000
13 $+ Oscar Nominated Mike Maker 50 $321,360
14 Shagaf Chad Brown 50 $270,000

15 Whitmore Ron Moquett 44 $400,000
16 Tom’s Ready Dallas Stewart 44 $270,670
17 My Man Sam Chad Brown 40 $200,000 (Career: $251,200)
18 Majesto Gustavo Delgado 40 $190,000
19 Trojan Nation Paddy Gallagher 40 $190,000 (Career: $213,290)
20 Mo Tom Tom Amoss 32 $268,326

21 Fellowship Mark Casse 32 $206,590
22 Adventist Leah Gyarmati 32 $155,000
23 Laoban Eric Guillot 32 $142,000
24 Dazzling Gem Brad Cox 30 $150,000

 

PHIL KIVES.. IN HIS OWN WORDS

PHIL KIVES, entrepreneur and racing fan and owner/breeder, passed away last week at the age of 87. We remember those famous white and black silks of the founder of K-Tel records and certainly Manitoba’s most successful owner and breeder. As a single entity, his K-5 Stables won over 250 races and his stakes winner Body Works is the granddam of the Grade 1 winner and American stallion GOLDENCENTS.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/phil-kives-k-tel-winnipeg-obit-1.3556818

Phil Kives wrote this on his K-Tel website:
I grew up on a small farm in the southern part of Saskatchewan. I did not enjoy farming. We had very poor land out there. I looked around at how people were living and I thought, I’m going to have a tough time living on a farm for the rest of my life.

I used to trap on my way to school. I was trapping weasels, basically. That’s when I started my first business. I’d buy furs off the other kids in school and then I’d resell them, along with mine, to an auction in Regina. I’d make 50¢ a fur.

I saw an ad in the paper about selling cookware door-to-door. You learn quickly how to sell. You always ask a positive question so customers can only answer one way ? yes. You say, “You would like your wife to have this, wouldn’t you?” And he’ll say yes.

In 1959, I recall I made $29,000. So in 1960 I bought myself a big, white Cadillac convertible. I was flying high.

My first commercial was a live one, around five minutes long, probably the first infomercial in the world. It was the spring of 1962. I had a non-stick fry pan and I fried an egg. I went back into department stores to demonstrate the fry pan, and it took off big time.

I used to buy products from Seymour Popeil. That’s Ron Popeil’s father. Ron is a good salesman, but his dad made everything. He said to me, “Philip, you’re getting too big. I’m not selling you anything anymore.” So I went off on my own.

In the winter of 1966, we released the first record, 25 Country Hits. I didn’t look upon it as a long-term deal. I looked upon it as a one-time product. But after 25 Polka Greats, which sold around a million-and-a-half copies in the United States alone, I thought maybe we were on to something.

Record companies in those days didn’t know what compilation albums were. They had vast catalogues of music they didn’t know what to do with.

We grew into a big company, and it was very difficult for me to control it. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my life was having 13 relatives working for me.

We went bankrupt. We went into oil and gas and real estate. Then the bottom fell out of real estate in the United States.

I invested three or four million dollars of my own money and I started up fresh. I controlled the company the way I wanted to. We went back into the music business and back into the product business, and did well.

Some of my relatives left. They weren’t happy. We talk now, but for years we barely talked to each other.

The Miracle Brush was one of my favourite products. We sold 28 million of them in the early ’70s. It really worked.

I always say a good product makes a good ad. In the first line, I always tell the consumer what I’m selling. Tell them what you’ve got upfront. Don’t keep them guessing.

I tried to retire about five years ago. But in the last couple of years, the big thing has been downloading. I have this massive music catalogue. I came out of retirement to put a contract together with Apple. We were one of the first independent record companies that Apple put on iTunes for downloading.

I keep fit. Today, I feel strong enough to walk through a wall. All summer long I was bicycling a lot. Now in the wintertime, I go to the gym three or four times a week.

I’ve been racing horses for about 30 years. It’s just like business ? I want to win.

I got a product coming out called the Clever Cutter. I like the product. I use it myself. It’s a knife and a cutting board, all-in-one.

People out there, they either believe in me or they believe in the products. I’m not sure which it is.

Philip Kives

Oungre, Sask.

Born Feb. 12, 1929

Founder and CEO of K-Tel International; master of the hard sell