Another good week for Kenwood Racing on the track, in the breeding shed and with our newest two year old groups…

Awesome Challenge took a big step forward with a very game 2nd at Gulfstream Park on March 25th. Caught up in a 3 horse speed battle for most of the race, she never quit. She was passed in deep stretch by a horse sitting just off the pace, who clearly benefited from the battle in front of her, but still fought to the end to finish ahead of both horses she'd been battling with and the rest of the field. This is a nice filly who is coming around well for us and should be a lot of fun all year long. After a poor debut for us with a big excuse behind the gate on January 28^th and a well beaten if decent 3rd on February 18th at Gulfstream, this race shows she’s really coming around. Hopefully she’ll run once more at Gulfstream before we ship to Monmouth Park at the end of April. She should fit very well up north off this good effort.

In terms of racing results, Kenwood is having a very fine start to the year, with 7 in-the-money finishes from 11 starts at the prime winter Gulfstream Park meet (Dec. 6^th – April 3^rd) and 10 in-the-money finishes from 15 starts overall so far in 2016, Our last 7 starters have hit the board; in fact, the last time a Kenwood horse was worse than 3^rd was back on February 4^th. Gulfstream is a very tough place to race in the winter and while we’ve obviously had a limited number of starters, it’s hard to do much better there than we have so far this season.

Tom Petty is right...waiting is the hardest part, but in this game patience is usually rewarded and we think it will be next Wednesday (3/30) as Three Arch Bay gets in just the right spot in the 3^rd race. Recall she was in a similar spot twice this winter and racing was cancelled due to weather, we entered her three times this week and races didn’t go, but finally it looks like she’s in the right race, right distance, just a 6 horse field with several early speed types in there to set up her late run. After three straight thirds, this is a perfect race for her to break through with a win. Fingers crossed!

More good news on March 25th, as Exchanging Fire has been pronounced IN foal on the first cover to Jump Start on an early March 8^th cover date.  That would give her an early February baby next season.

The response to our first two co-owner groups for 2016 was excellent as groups #28 & 29 both over filled in just 72 hours. The four horses we purchased at OBS March are all doing well with the usual 30 days of R&R on the farm before heading to the track to begin training. Three horses are at Daydream Farm in Hamburg, Pa. and the other one is at T-Square Stud in Ocala, Fl. We thank our co-owners for their support. Now it’s on to OBS April in just three weeks.

For those who didn’t notice, Unspoken Quality was dead last 3-23 in his first race for his new owners since being claimed from us (see chart ). He was over 40 to 1 off a good 2^nd for us when claimed, not the spot we’d have run him in. He’s a nice, solid, hard trying horse, we ran him in the right spots, made money with him, and feel he was claimed at the right time.