A busy and exciting week ends another good month for Kenwood Racing!  Overall for August, our runners made a total of 17 starts with three wins, four seconds and two thirds. The stable was profitable for August and is cash flow positive for 2015 to date, with a big September on tap. Our thanks go out to all our partners and our 70+ co-owners for their support.

JW Racer lived up to his name and started our week off right, by racing to an impressive maiden win, in his career debut at Delaware Park on August 26th. Braking a ¼ step slowly, he was in front in a couple of strides,  just ahead of another horse, in a fast pace in the early going. When he was hooked at the head of the stretch by two runners, he got the acid test and responded gamely, when jockey Gabriel Saez asked him for his best, drawing away in the stretch to win by over two lengths, going away at the wire while under wraps.  Congratulations to all the Kenwood partners and the 15 co-owners of sold out group 22, with a very special shout out to co-owners Lorraine & Mike Mann, who named him for their grandchildren, and Ray Ryan, who waited many years to be able to become a thoroughbred owner and is a winner with his very first starter. After starting out as probably our least promising horse early on, JW Racer had shown real improvement in each of his last few workouts. These are babies who need time to develop, and we give them just that. The ones who work the fastest in the beginning (or at the sales where we purchase them) rarely end up to be the best horses. Congratulations to trainer Steve DiMauro, who this year for us so far with our two year crop has had two starters, and two wins first time out (JW Racer and Title Fight). Note this is a trainer who some very mis-leading ‘stats’ said was not good with two year olds (see our Blog post from last month). 

On August 27th at Penn National, Big Apple Brit turned in a rare off race, when a dull 6th with no real excuse. This horse is incredibly consistent, so he's entitled to one bad day. A few hours later, also at Penn National, Fuego Mi Amor ran the best race of her young career, a flying 2nd in a bottom level maiden race, after appearing hopelessly beaten turning for home. She was 4 lengths back inside the 16th pole, but took off in the final strides just as the leader began to stop suddenly, the result being a photo finish so close it took 10 minutes to determine the winner. Hard race to lose, but a big effort that sets her up for a win next time.

August 28th was another busy and exciting night at Penn National, with two horses running in back to back races. First up was Boardwalk Run, who as usual was well back early, commenced a very nice run on the far turn and ended up a closing 3^rd, just 1 length behind the winner. The pace was exceptionally slow, which helped the front horses and hampered her closing kick, but as usual she tried hard and ran well. This filly has a win, two seconds and four thirds in 8 starts for us this year and has earned just under $25,000 so far. She is not our best horse, but another of the hard trying runners who have been making money for us all year long at Penn. The next race featured This Quay Home, who had finished an excellent 2^nd last time out for us in her Penn debut, after several very poor efforts at other tracks and a brief freshening at the farm. This time she briefly broke through the gate before the start, then was caught between horses, made a decent run into second turning for home, and flattened out to finish 4^th. It wasn’t the race we were hoping for, but the rider said she hit her head at the start and had rough trip. We think she’ll run better next time.

 In our final start for the week and the month, Proven Warrior ran hard and well at Monmouth Park on August 29th, but had to settle for 4^th, beaten just 1&1/4 lengths for the win. He broke a step slowly, but made the lead quickly enough, battled hard all the way to the wire, never quit, and just couldn’t quite hold on. Hard not to at least hit the board, when beaten by such a small margin for the win, but he tried hard, ran well, and came back sound, which is all you can ask for. He’ll either run again in mid-Sept at Monmouth, or ship to Keeneland to trainer (and old friend) Chuck Peery for a race opening day October 2^nd. Chuck trained him there before to two impressive wins, so it’s an interesting option.

September should be another busy month with more of our two year olds expected to start and our older runners all geared up for various races. We are hoping Long May You Run can come up with a top performance in the Banjo Picker Stakes on September 5^th, and that we'll see the debuts of Awesome Papa Al, Sky Ace, Mackinaw Pharoah, and possibly Three Arch Bay and Hardrainsgonnafall. Maybe one or two of them will run as well as JW Racer did in his impressive winning debut this week at Delaware Park

Finally, a brief note for those who saw American Pharoah get upset at Saratoga in the Travers Stakes on Saturday… While we were cheering madly (as most people were) for him to win, most savvy horsemen, ourselves included, felt he was likely to get beat here. Not only is Saratoga known as “the graveyard of favorites”, Secretariat, Man of War and many, many, MANY other champions have lost here as huge favorites, but Pharoah was clearly a tired horse today. He ran with incredible courage and just missed holding on by ¾ of a length after a tough battle for most of the race, but as jockey Victor Espinoza candidly said in the interview afterwards, you could see he was sweating in the paddock for the first time and never had the push button acceleration he’d shown in all his previous starts. What this proves once again is THEY ARE RACEHORSES, NOT RACECARS!  You don’t just push the button and say go! Like all athletes, even the very best horses have their good and bad days. Pharoah’s ‘bad’ day was 2^nd beaten ¾ of a length (to a horse who he had trounced three times previously but who was bred to love the distance and was improving in every start), but no horse runs the same race every time.