Corsi’s story is a testament to the labour, hard work, and many sacrifices we make when a dream goes awry. In this case, the dream was the Queen’s Plate.
Glenn Sikura knows Corsi’s story to the core. He understands the dark bay colt’s timeline as a complicated puzzle where a racing dream begins, ends, and somehow finds a new life, albeit without hope of resurrecting that initial dream.
The labour and hard work that made Corsi a racehorse began before his hooves hit the ground. The dream started six years ago, in November 2016 at the Keeneland Breeding stock sale with Hip 1152 ‒ Beth’s Bling, a stakes-placed mare who was in foal to Honor Code with the future Corsi.
Honor Code had entered stud duties that same year, and Sikura believed he had every element of a successful sire ‒ race record, pedigree, as well as physicality. To date, Honor Code has sired several graded stakes winners such as Honor A.P. who secured the 2020 Gr I Santa Anita Derby over Authentic (who went on to win the Kentucky Derby, Breeders Cup Classic and be named Horse of the Year). There’s also Max Player, who captured last year’s Gr I Jockey Club Gold Cup stakes and Gr II Suburban.
Grandsire A.P Indy also led Sikura to purchase the dam. Owning progeny from the sire before in the likes of Serenading, a Sovereign Award winner and graded stakes-winning daughter of A.P. Indy out of Daijin, Sikura was keen to find another of his progeny to fill those racing plates.
There was also something to be said about Beth’s Bling sire, City Zip. The sire’s name is notably attached to successful progeny such as Catch A Glimpse, Snapper Sinclair, and Collected. While not an exhaustive examination of the family lineage, it would be safe to say Beth’s Bling was carrying a colt with a rich racing pedigree, from both sides of her family tree.
Anxious to bid on her, Sikura secured Hip 1152 for $120,000.
Corsi was foaled on April 26, 2017, at Hill ‘N’ Dale farm, nestled in the quiet country landscape of King City. It is home to several broodmares in foal, yearlings, and Wilbur, the protective donkey. Upon stepping into the barn, you are met by a set of plaques, a tidy collage of foal photos outlined by each foaling year. Corsi has claimed his place among the many foal pics of the 2017 edition ‒ a simple yet wonderful memory captured in time.
To race or to sell?
Hill ‘N’ Dale is a well-established breeding and commercial sales operation that has been around for six decades. Sikura runs the operation north of the border and is keenly aware that he can’t keep and race every horse that is bred through the operation.
“The unfortunate reality when you own a commercial operation is that you need to sell to keep the bills paid,” said Sikura, who would have reluctantly parted ways with Corsi for $80,000. The dark bay colt was shipped south for the 2018 Keeneland sale, but he did not capture the imagination of buyers to attain that reserve price.
As a result, Corsi found himself back in Canada and in the hands of Sikura and partners Stephen Crooks, Mario Serrani, and Showay Chen. Two of those, Crooks and Serrani, have been in Sikura’s life for a better part of four decades and have partnered on several racehorses before Corsi. While some of their starters, such as Ojiisan and Villaine’s Passion, have been mildly successful, they haven’t come near to capturing the honour and glory of winning the prestigious Queen’s Plate.
Corsi was set to change that trajectory.
“I am used to the trials and tribulations that come with horse ownership, but my pals were just learning the horse business. Colics, pneumonias, dystocias and such were the norm and then along came a horse that was going to take us to the Queen’s Plate,” said Sikura.
Racing debut at Woodbine
In 2019, Corsi travelled to Woodbine to be conditioned by Hall of Fame trainer Josie Carroll. On September 15, he broke his maiden first time out, going six furlongs over the Tapeta track. A month later, he won impressively, going seven-and-a-half furlongs over the inner turf course. Without a doubt, his two-year-old campaign was a pure joy for his connections to witness. Corsi was the leading earner from Honor Code’s first crop of two-year-olds with two wins in two starts for earnings of $99,720 (CDN).
As Woodbine’s season wrapped up, Corsi was shipped south to Florida. The team avoided the temptation to run in a few stakes, feeling they needed to do the right thing by the horse and hopefully be rewarded during his three-year-old campaign.
On February 20, 2020, the Queen’s Plate Winterbook was released, outlining a hefty list of Thoroughbreds nominated to the Canadian Triple Crown (CTC). In 2020, the list featured 92 three-year-olds, with Corsi ranked in the top 10. His stablemate, Curlin’s Voyage, owned by Hill ‘n’ Dale Equine Holdings (Sikura’s brother, John G.), was ranked within the top five and would go off as the favourite after winning the Canadian Oaks. Corsi’s other stablemates, Mighty Heart and Belichick, were ranked below the colt in the standings.
While his team continued to dream big with the Plate in mind, Corsi returned to Woodbine in late March and prepared for his three-year-old campaign.
Fate intervenes
On April 6, 2020, the fate of Corsi’s racing career would change forever. After finishing a routine gallop, Corsi was plowed into by a fractious horse, knocking him and his rider to the ground. Corsi suffered a devastating blow to his right shoulder that day.
Corsi was stall rested at his barn on the backstretch and seen by an on-site vet before being shipped out for x-rays. After several days, the bay colt was hand walked, but a noticeable limp had replaced the grand step in his gait. In addition, they noticed the muscles (supraspinatus and infraspinatus) encapsulating his right shoulder had begun to atrophy. Nerve and muscle damage meant months of rehab work, all while not knowing whether he would even see the racetrack again, let alone be sound.
On May 14, Corsi was shipped to McKee-Pownall Equine Services in King City for further assessment and to begin rehab work. At McKee, veterinary assistant Marianne De Gannes-Ortepi took Corsi under her wing.
“She took spectacular care of this horse,” said Marianne spent countless hours with him in rehab and was and still is completely enamoured with him. He holds the place on her screen saver.”
Marianne De Gannes-Ortepi’s ‘Corsi Screensaver’.
Corsi’s rehab work with Marianne was extensive, and included acupuncture and pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF) on his shoulder. After four or five months at McKee, it was time to put the tack back on. Brian Morgan hopped on the colt, and it appeared that Corsi was rideable again. “Everything we did we started okay, and then there would be setbacks. We started with the riding and he would go a little bit lame on us so, we had to stop.”
Corsi was sent to the University of Guelph where the diagnostic work undertaken by Nathalie Cote confirmed there was no damage to the bone.
In early December the team decided to send Corsi to Kesmarc rehab center in Versailles, Kentucky, where they could add yet another modality – swimming and an aquaciser – to his rehab regime. Corsi also spent time on the Equiciser (different from the aquaciser), was hand-walked and turned out to strengthen and condition the muscles that had atrophied over the shoulder.
After another four months had passed, Corsi was ready again to be tried under tack. His return to training renewed his connections’ hopes of seeing him back on the track. On April 14, 2021, Corsi was trailered up the road to Margaux where he continued training on a full racetrack. After a few successful breezes, he returned to Carroll’s barn at Woodbine on July 29.
The harsh reality of the game
At this point, Mighty Heart had already secured the first two legs of the CTC, the Queen’s Plate and the Prince of Wales. He was denied the third leg, the Breeders’ Stakes by his stablemate, Belichick. Mighty Heart went on to be voted Champion three-year-old colt and Canada’s Horse of the Year.
Spending his entire three-year-old year in a series of rehab treatments, Corsi missed his chance to take on his stablemates in every leg of the CTC.
For Sikura, Corsi’s situation is especially heartbreaking because it affected the outcome of his career as well as the career of his dam, Beth’s Bling.
“There is an element of business to this. So if that horse was a champion or even a stakes winner, you look at the mare now, her first foal being a stakes winner, it changes the outlook. Every time you are selling a foal you’ve got that to fall back on.”
On October 17, 2021, Corsi returned to racing. He finished eighth in an allowance race going six-and-a-half furlongs. “He looked like he was back to some form of himself, but the jockey that was on him said, ‘I’m not sure he is striding out…he feels sound, but I’m not sure he is fully extending himself.” A month later, he was asked once again at the same distance to showcase whether the spark was still there. He finished tenth.
Conferring with trainer and jockey, Sikura knew he wasn’t the same horse as before. “He could still run, but he wasn’t the same Corsi that dominated in his first two starts, and his other owners and I weren’t going to run him for a claiming tag.”
A new chapter in Barbados
Sikura and his partners felt like they owed Corsi a different course in life, but they didn’t envision their former Queen’s Plate hopeful would find his next residence in Barbados.
However, that is how things have unfolded for the five-year-old son of Honor Code. Marianne from McKee put Sikura in touch with Sean Hall, a local trainer and breeder on the island.
A former jockey turned trainer, Hall trained Rambrino, who won the 1996 Barbados Gold Cup with Chris Griffith aboard. Hall also conditioned horses at Woodbine from 1998 to 2009. As a trainer and breeder, his name is attached to stakes winner, Wisdomisgold. He also bred graded stakes champ, Pyrite Mountain. Hall currently trains horses at the local Bajan track, the Garrison Savannah.
Speaking with his friend Marianne, Corsi has been on Hall’s radar for the last few years as a possible stallion prospect.
“I had been looking at him for a long time. We have some partners here who are looking to get some nice stock, broodmares, and get a nice colt that could be the leading force of the operation when things start rolling,” said Hall.
Not long after Corsi’s last race at Woodbine, Sikura and Hall worked out a deal that would see the horse become a permanent snowbird in the West Indies. Patrick Husbands, a friend of Hall’s and a well-known Barbadian jockey, caught wind of this news and messaged him about Corsi:
‘This horse, if he was given the chance, he would have won the Queen’s Plate if he didn’t get hurt.’
“It kind of jumped me a bit because when Patrick Husbands messages you with news like that, it makes you think, ‘this horse could have been the real deal,’” said Hall.
While Queen’s Plate dreams are in the rearview mirror, so too is the Canadian landscape for Corsi. After his last start he was shipped to Ocala, Florida, where he spent a month in quarantine and also began light training. Corsi will be flown from Miami to Barbados on February 4. He is set to arrive with several potential broodmare prospects purchased from several outfits at Woodbine.
Hall, who does laser therapy and takes his horses to the sea, will continue to work on Corsi’s shoulder and make sure he remains fit to race. The plan is to have Corsi make his Barbadian racing debut at the Garrison at some point this year. However, his new team leader has made it very clear that if the horse doesn’t like the racing scene, he will be retired and head to the breeding shed.
In one way, this story has ended for Sikura and his partners, but in another light, it has taken flight, and a new journey is about to begin for Corsi.
“The dream never dies, just the dreamer. Our plan is to find a way to get back into Queen’s Plate contention with our partnership and we are fortunate to have a broodmare band that has been bred to some of Kentucky’s finest stallions: Tapit, Curlin, Quality Road, Munnings, etc.”
Even with a wealth of experience in the industry, the ‘what ifs’ still plague Sikura’s thoughts. What if he didn’t train during that set on April 6? What if he’d taken an extra turn in the shed that morning and the loose horse missed him by metres, or missed him entirely?
Nothing is certain in horse racing … but the show must go on.
