Irish Freedom!

Dear Partners and Friends, 

For those of you who didn't catch it live, IRISH FREEDOM didn't just WIN his comeback race last night at Del Mar, he was magnificent!!!

If you haven't seen the race, see below and be prepared to be dazzled. IRISH broke poorly (last) and had to be used hard five wide as he made his way to the leaders. IRISH continued to race widely around the first two turns and down the backstretch being asked to improve his position the whole time. Despite the rough start IRISH had caught up with all but the front runner as they approached the turn for home and then he inhaled the leader and drew off with nothing but hand urging.

Courtesy of Dr. Amesur, here are the Equibase figures for IRISH's race. IRISH ran faster on Equibase than any triple crown winner this year! 

3yo colts:
IRISH FREEDOM 110
Always dreaming 104
Cloud computing 103
Tapwrit 106
Girvin 107
Irap 112 (Indiana Derby)
Irish war cry 110
We have said all year this was a very weak crop of three year olds and now we have our proof. Make no mistake, IRISH WAS our Triple Crown Horse and he could have made some noise but for injury and illness. This is no time to spend crying in our beers. We will be thankful IRISH is back and we will make a plan to showcase this outstanding horse!!!

BALLAGH ROCKS AND PUCA

We had other runners this weekend with good if not great results. We had a torrential downpour prior to PUCA's race but because the horses were already in the paddock when the rain came, NYRA left the race on turf. On firmer turf PUCA would have been tough to beat. On dirt (if they had taken it off), she would have been a big favorite. But we got the worst of it from the weather gods and she spent close to an hour nervously pacing her stall before hating the racing surface. 

ROCKS' race was interesting. At a flat mile it was the two mile and a quarter stamina horses that got first and second as they were able to plow through the heavy going without getting exhausted. ROCKS hung tough with those and ran a 101 Beyer which is close to his best. The milers (and ROCKS beat some excellent ones) didn't have the endurance for the heavy going and ROCKS put them away decisively. 
Hard to learn much from either race.

NOW FOR MORE EXCITING NEWS

We came away with a terrific AFLEET ALEX colt out of an UNBRIDLED'S SONG mare at the New York Bred Sale. This colt received terrific marks from our inspection team and is just gorgeous to look at. He is a May 17 foal so you can imagine how much room there is for improvement over his already impressive frame. This boy's mama was a very good race horse in her own right and has already produced some impressive offspring. We are now done buying here in New York.

TALLY: Three colts (Street Boss, Distorted Humor, Afleet Alex) and three fillies (Malibu Moon, Bernardini and Ghostzapper). Double the number of horses we have ever acquired at this point on the calendar. Now we will attack Keeneland with a vengeance and pick up some more Derby prospects.