For the second consecutive weekend, trainer ANGUS BUNTAIN won a Woodbine stakes race as HUNT MASTER’s gritty win in the $100,000 Overskate Stakes on Oct. 27 became the trainer’s second-ever added-money winner. Owned by Susan Rasmussen’s Openwood Farm, the gelding was also the second stakes winner last weekend at Woodbine from a small stable as Robyn Brohman’s Taquanyah won the Eternal Search Stakes for trainer Saul McHugh on Saturday.
Hunt Master, a five-year-old son of Champion Older Horse in Canada Hunters Bay, came into the Overskate, a 7 1/2 furlong inner turf stakes race for Ontario-sired three-year-olds and upward, off four starts this year at the optional claiming level. He had not won this year but had two wins in 2023 including a score on the inner turf. Previously stakes-placed earlier in his career, Hunt Master had a rider change to Jeff Alderson, who had ridden him once before and finished second.
A free-running bay, Hunt Master was quickly on the pace at odds of almost 6-to-1, traveling easily in 23.84, 47.87 and 1:11.13 while favoured Awesome Bourbon tracked. Into the stretch, Hunt Master was still dogged by Awesome Bourbon while the plucky gelding Society’s Thunder began to rumble up the rail. But Hunt Master was resilient and he held on to win by a neck in 1:29.10.
Society’s Thunder was second with Awesome Bourbon another neck back in third.
“He’s a real trojan,” said Rasmussen, who has been around horses since she was born. “I have his dam [Lady Marchfield] and she is in foal to Shaman Ghost.”
Rasmussen bred Hunt Master with Lanny McDonald and Linda Barron. The septuagenarian opened the Caledon farm in 1978 and was heavily involved in the Caledon Hunt Club initially.
This was the first stakes win for Rasmussen since her mare Hobnobsnob won the 2013 Victoriana Stakes. And Hunt Master is a third-generation Rasmussen runner as his third dam Pirate Brat, left in Rasmussen’s barn in the 1990s due to an unpaid barn bill, began the owner’s racing business. Pirate Brat produced nine winners including Dancing Leaves (Kiridashi), dam of Hobnonsbob. Dancing Leaves also produced Lady Marchfield, a one-time winner by Marchfield who has two other foals to race, both maidens.
Hunt Master is now five for 24 with $320,532 in earnings.
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LAST WEEK trainer KEVIN ATTARD sent out eight winners in four racing days and this week he heads out to Del Mar to saddle Moira and Full Count Felicia in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf. Attard has a variety of horses in his large stable including American-owned, horses coming off long layoffs, horses trying to reboot their careers, etc.
One of his interesting winners came on Sunday when Ontario-bred LOOSE WIRE, owned by American Mike Repole, won for the third time in four races in an optional claiming event. The four-year-old colt by Street Sense was bred by Sam-Son Farm and he won the 1 1/16 mile race on Tapeta in a fast 1:41.82.
Loose Wire won two of two in 2023 and this was only his second outing of this year. The colt cost $925,000 as a yearling in 2022 and he is from the mare Dance With Doves.
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It was a rough week for Canadian horses shipping out of town. MESSIER, a three-time Grade 3 winner, was eased up due to bleeding in the Forty Niner Stakes (G3) at Belmont at Aqueduct on Saturday. The five-year-old had not raced in six months and was coming off a second knee surgery and colic surgery. Tom Ryan of SF Bloodstock reported after the race on social media platform X that Messier would be retired. The son of Empire Maker, also bred by Sam-Son Farms, won four races and over $593,000.
Last year’s Canadian Champion two-year-old male, MY BOY PRINCE, the leading candidate for Champion three-year-old male for 2024, ran out of gas after setting a sizzling pace in the Grade 3 Bryan Station Stakes at one mile on turf at Keeneland on Saturday. Gary Barber’s grey went 22.49, 44.95 and 1:09 under Jose Ortiz, had a three-length lead but stopped in the stretch run and ended up ninth, beaten 6 3/4 lengths.
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