As race fans in Manitoba count down the days to the opening of the 65th season of live racing at Assiniboia Downs on Monday, May 23rd, many also have an eye on Japan.
An eye on Japan? That’s because the greatest Manitoba-bred horse ever, Escape Clause (by Going Commando out of Danger Pay), is now producing babies at one of the biggest horse breeding operations in the world ‒ Northern Farm on Hokkaido Island ‒ and she’s already given birth to two foals, a colt last year and a filly recently, both sired by the stallion Duramente, who won the Japanese Derby in record time.
Fans had so much fun revelling in (and boasting about) Escape Clause’s exploits at 14 tracks in North America from 2016-2019 in which she earned more than $1 million racing against some of the best fillies and mares on the continent, they’re hoping for more eventful chapters in her post-racing life as a broodmare.
Three years ago, the Thoroughbred Daily News called her “the Assiniboia Assassin” for demolishing a field of grade 3 mares at Santa Anita in the La Canada Stakes and she was dubbed “the darling of Del Mar” after her victory in the Kathryn Crosby Stakes at Del Mar. And at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas a mere nose separated her from victory in the Apple Blossom Handicap (Gr. 1) won by the best mare on the continent, Midnight Bisou, who would go on to finish second in the $20 million Saudi Cup.
“Manitoba? Where’s that?” her trainer, Don Schnell, found himself answering in many interviews. Modestly bred in Russell, MB, 350 kilometres west of Winnipeg, by Cam Ziprick and Arnason Farms, she was owned by Schnell, construction company magnate Barry Arnason and True North partners.
Even the mare’s many trailer trips ‒ with her trainer Schnell at the wheel of the conveying truck ‒ proved eventful. Someone shot a paint gun blast at her trailer window along a California freeway and parts of her trip from Minnesota to Belmont Park in New York were so bumpy, Schnell’s truck lost two wheel covers and he bumped his head on his truck roof. All of this may have compromised her performance in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes at Belmont, in which she finished fourth.
Her connections almost raced her in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff but hesitated when faced with a $100,000 payment to make her eligible, plus a $40,000 entry fee. Ironically, the winner of the Distaff turned out to be Blue Prize, a horse Escape Clause had beaten in the Delaware Handicap (Gr. 2).
Oh, what might have been! Instead, they put her on the auction block in the Fasig-Tipton November Sale in Lexington in 2019 where Katsumi Yoshida, owner of Northern Farm, bid her up to $300,000 U.S.
So will her foals now give fans and her breeders a reason to crow? A hopeful sign is that Japanese businessman Tetsuhide Kunimoto, whose mare Shonan Pandora won the Japan Cup in 2015, had enough faith in the colt’s breeding to buy her first foal for almost $1 million at an auction in Japan last fall. And horseplayers don’t have to be reminded that Japanese horses are red hot these days: two Japanese horses won Breeders’ Cup races, four of seven rich Saudi Cup Day Thoroughbred races were won by Japanese horses, and a whopping five of seven Thoroughbred races on Dubai World Cup Day went to Japanese-breds.
Can you blame some Escape Clause fans then for entertaining the fantasy that her colt could actually wind up in the Kentucky Derby next year? Japan gets to enter one horse in the Derby each year based on the achievements of a three-year-old in Derby prep races in Japan.
That colt is yet unnamed and is heading into training for his two-year-old debut. A spokesperson at Northern Farm, Noriko Takahashi, said the colt “is doing good, seems obedient and is easy to handle.”
Escape Clause gave birth to her second foal, a filly, on Feb. 22. The sire of both foals, Japanese Derby winner Duramente, unfortunately died of severe colitis last August.
While the Escape Clause saga is the most significant in Manitoba breeding history, there was another time when more than a little bragging was going on. That was when Goldencents won the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile in 2013 and 2014. His father, Into Mischief, is now one of the most revered stallions, but one of his first couplings ‒ that produced Goldencents ‒ was with Golden Works, a mare bred by the late great “as seen on TV” Winnipeg entrepreneur and K-Tel founder, Phil Kives.
