WINTER WATCH: BC's Phil Hall On a Roll; Contreras Stakes; Truth Hurts

Hastings Racecourse trainer PHIL HALL has won 4 races this season including an allowance/optional claiming event at Turf Paradise on Jan. 26 with the Kentucky bred mare Yes Please. Owned by Canadian James Calihoo, Yes Please has won twice at the Turf Paradise meeting and she won 7 races at Hastings in 2018 and 2019. Hall, whose father Robert was a co-owner and early trainer of the great Canadian horse George Royal, won 59 races in 2019, more than he ever has. Hall won his third straight Leading Trainer Award at the BC CTHS Awards for 2019.

Another leading trainer from Canada, GREG TRACY, who races in Alberta, has won 3 races in 2020 at Sunland and Sam Houston.

Scroll to continue with content

BILL THARRENOS won his 2nd race of 2020 when PEACE CONTROL, an Ontario bred filly by Kentucky Bear, won at Gulfstream Park on Jan,. 24 and was claimed.

STEVEN CHIRCOP won his first race of 2020 on the weekend when DULCIBELLE won at Penn National for owner David Walters. The German-bred mare won the $5,000 claiming race by three lengths. Chircop has two wins at Penn National this winter with the first coming in late December.

***

ROWDY YATES, owned by L and N Racing Stable and ridden by Luis Contreras, won the Riley Allison Derby at Sunland Park on Jan. 26 – SUNLAND PARK PHOTO

LUIS CONTRERAS, one of Woodbine’s leading riders, enjoys his winter ‘ride-cation’ at his former home base of Sunland Park every year. This past weekend, Contreras and trainer Steve Asmussen won their fourth Riley Allison Derby, this year with ROWDY YATES. The Riley Allison leads to the Mine That Bird Stakes and then the Sunland Derby, the latter which is a Kentucky Derby points race.

It was Asmussen who essentially started Contreras at Woodbine, switching his tack from New Mexico to Canada in 2009 when Asmussen set up a stable at the Toronto track. In the last decade, Contreras has solidified a position as a leading rider at Woodbine.

Rowdy Yates, an Oklahoma-bred son of Morning Line – Spring Station by Yes It’s True won the one-mile Riley Allison in 1:37.29, finding a hole to dart through after encountering some traffic trouble. His owners, the Levinson family, own the Canadian-bred Tone Broke, winner of the Prince of Wales and Breeders’ Stakes in 2019 and contender for Champion 3-Year-Old Male.

***

The late Bill Graham’s Ontario-bred horses continue to win prominently and make news throughout North America. On Jan. 26, FLYING CURLIN won a maiden allowance for owners Gary Barber and John Oxley and trainer Mark Casse at Aqueduct. This gelding is out of Leaveminthedust, dam of the late Leavem in Malibu and Danzig Moon and it was his first race in more than a year.

Coming up this Saturday at Aqueduct, the Graham-bred TRUTH HURTS is expected to compete in the Busanda Stakes and is said to be pointed to the Canadian classics in the summer.

edited from NYRA media:

TRUTH HURTS, a canadian-bred filly foaled at Windhaven in Caledon, is undefeated – NYRA PHOTO

Chad Summers and J Stables’ undefeated Truth Hurts will make her stakes debut in the $100,000 Busanda on Sunday at the Big A, a key stepping stone towards the Kentucky Oaks.

The talented Ontario-bred Summers trainee will also be nominated to the Canadian Triple Crown, which features the $500,000 Woodbine Oaks on June 6 and the $1 million Queen’s Plate on June 27. Holy Helena, in 2017, was the last filly to win the Woodbine Oaks and go on to defeat the boys in the Queen’s Plate, first leg of the Canadian Triple Crown.

“She will be Canadian Triple Crown nominated,” said Summers. “It seems like fillies have done really well lately in the Queen’s Plate up there.”

Wonder Gadot (2018) and Lexie Lou (2014) are among the 37 fillies to have won the Queen’s Plate in 161 runnings.

The Tonalist – Witty Gal, by Distorted Humor bay was purchased for $35,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

“The day we bought her it was pouring down rain and yearlings tend to be jumping around in that weather, but this filly walked out and couldn’t care less,” said Summers. “She had a presence about her. She was on the small side and I think that’s why we were able to get her at that price.

“She got started out with Randy Bradshaw in Ocala and then moved over to Susan Montanye, who broke Mind Your Biscuits for me,” said Summers, in reference to his multiple Grade 1-winning New York-bred now standing stud in Japan. “We took her to the Two-Year-Olds In Training Sale at Timonium to gauge the interest and she worked in 10 and 3, which was the same time Mind Your Biscuits worked. We liked her too much and took her out of the sale and trained her for a little while.”

Truth Hurts trained up at Belmont and through the summer at Saratoga before Summers stopped on the filly.

“She was doing well but she hit the wall at Saratoga,” said Summers. “With her pedigree, we thought she’d be better in route races so we sent her to the farm for 45 days and she came back a different horse. She’s trained forwardly ever since and hasn’t missed a beat.”

Truth Hurts was sent to post at 11-1 in her December 8 debut at the Big A and rallied to a half-length score in a 6 1/2-furlong sprint, earning a 66 Beyer Speed Figure. With Luis Rodriquez Castro up, Truth Hurts overcame brushing the gate and won a rousing stretch battle with the David Duggan-trained favorite Halo City.

“She was a little green turning for home and she was a little distracted, but Luis did a great job with her,” said Summers. “The big thing is she has a will to win and to fight horses. Every time she breezed, she always won the breeze. Once you get her into a fight, we thought she would respond. The Duggan horse was in front of her by three lengths at the eighth pole, and she was able to reel her in.”

She followed up with a smart two-length score when stretched out to a mile in a January 5 Aqueduct allowance, besting stakes-placed foes Autonomous, a well-bred Chad Brown-trainee, and likely Busanda rival Quality Heat. Her Beyer Figure was 68.

“She ran against two stakes-placed horses and it was a great race experience for her to drop in between horses and re-rally,” said Summers. “She put Autonomous away and really galloped out strong at the end.”

Summers said he is looking forward to Sunday’s nine-furlong test for his undefeated filly.

“The Busanda has been circled on our calendar since she came back and the first start worked well as a step to getting her to a mile,” said Summers. “It’s still only the third start of her career. Going a mile and an eighth is a difficult thing to do for 3-year-old fillies, but we think we’ll be ready for the distance.”