Stable notes for the week of May 15th, 2016

Back with more stable notes after a brief break during a very busy sales season.

Let’s start with a great opening weekend, at our summer home base of Monmouth Park. Over 20 Kenwood partners and co-owners enjoyed opening day on Saturday May 14th from our two finish line Clubhouse boxes (this year we added a 2^nd box to accommodate all our new co-owners) and a parterre suite. It was a beautiful day and the racing was fun, but for Kenwood the best was yet to come the following day, when a large crowd came out to see our first horse of the meet run Sunday. We were treated to a truly thrilling race, as Awesome Challenge started the season off on the right hoof with a win by the shortest possible nose, after a head to head duel. Sent off a surprising 7 to 5 favorite, she engaged the leader and strong 2^nd choice early. The two favorites separated themselves from the rest of the field on the far turn and were heads apart the entire length of the stretch. The runner up was bearing out and brushed our horse several times in the run to the wire, had we lost the head bob the other filly might well have been disqualified, but Awesome Challenge made a final lunge right at the wire to prevail by the shortest possible nose.

A profitable group #26 ended with both of their horses winning races and making money. Congratulations to all the happy co-owners!

We are pleased to announce the dates for four educational seminars this season. We first offered these seminars two years ago at the suggestion of people at our annual meeting and there was a fantastic response. All of them were oversubscribed last year, and we expect these will be as well. Here’s the schedule:

All seminars will begin promptly at 10am and last for 90-120 minutes. These will be informal events, combining a PowerPoint presentation with conversation in a casual setting and are totally free of charge. Light food and drink will be served. Friends and guests are welcome, but space will be limited and priority given to current Kenwood partners & co-owners.

Sonny’s Pharoah was 4^th in her 2016 debut on May 5th at Penn National, ran evenly, never far back, but made no big move either. Trainer Mark Salvaggio said she was a bit nervous in the warm-up (normal for 5 months off), we think the race under her should help, it was not a horrible return but honestly we’d been expecting better.

Also on May 5^th, Three Arch Bay was a closing 3^rd at Penn National, just up from last in the final just to hit the board, well back of the top two. On April 16^th, this hard trying filly finally broke her maiden after four straight third place finishes. She’s been on the board in every one of her 6 starts for 2016 so far.

Long May You Run was 6^th in his 2016 debut on April 29^th, also at Penn National, but it was a really good effort against a super competitive field. Sent off over 20 to 1, he led almost the entire race before tiring in the final yards to be beaten just over 2 lengths for the win. He needed the race and looks primed for a win next time.

Scuba Sue was 5^th on April 29^th at Laurel Park, beaten less than three lengths after a horrible trip that saw her bumped and left at the start and in tight in the stretch. She never quit and with a better trip is sitting on a big race next time.

Huamantla was 6^th on April 22^nd at Penn National, in her 2016 debut, but she too ran well in what was a prep on the dirt for a turf horse. Hoping for a good year with her this season.

On April 14^th, Title Fight was a dull 5^th at Penn National, this off of two straight good efforts (2^nd and 3^rd) at Penn. We decided a very brief rest might freshen him up and sent him to the farm; went back in training three weeks later looking good and expected to run in early June.

Our premier two year olds from a successful March OBS sale, Win Money My Honey and To Honor Stephanie both arrived at Monmouth Park on May 2^nd and have both trained forwardly since. Looking forward to their debuts this summer.

We followed up our March sale success, with the purchase of five two year olds at OBS in April and announced three groups, numbers 30, 31 & 32.

Group #30 features three two year old colts, including a High Cotton colt, High Five Cotton, who had the co-fastest work time, 9.4 of the entire sale. We don’t focus as much on times at these sales, but rather on HOW the horse moved, and he did it easily. It’s very rare indeed to be able to buy one of the best and fastest moving horses at the sale at an affordable price, let alone for $35,000. He’ll be trained by Steve DiMauro at Monmouth Park, and as a Florida-bred is eligible for the Florida stallion stakes series this summer-fall . We also bought a colt, Wandagonenotastray, by a promising young 2nd crop sire, Gone Astray, out of a very nice female family, and a colt, Lead Investor, by the highly-regarded 2nd crop sire Tizway, out of a Grade I stakes winning and graded stakes producing mare from an outstanding South American female family (many horses from Argentina have come to the U.S. and been great champions here).

Group #31 is a single horse offering of a filly by the very hot young sire Eskendereya named Pink Cashmere, who was bred and named by the world famous international model Esther de Jong. You can see a great 5 minute video that profiles Esther and this filly. We consider it a special opportunity to have a horse with this kind of potential in our barn, who in addition to everything else is a New Jersey bred eligible for substantial bonus money when she races at Monmouth Park and The Meadowlands. She’ll be trained by Steve DiMauro and will be based at Monmouth Park, where she hopefully will make her debut this summer.

Group #32 is also a single horse offering of a powerful filly, Authentic Kitten, by one of the premier sires in North America, Kitten’s Joy, who stands for a $100,000 stud fee and has been the leading sire in North America. Kitten’s Joy is the sire of over 60 stakes winners and his foals have been particularly good at classic distances on both turf and dirt. This filly’s young dam is a sister to three stakes winners including Brother Derek, who won the Santa Anita Derby and over $1,600,000 in his career. We bought this horse on the final day of a long four day sale with 1000 horses offered. We loved her and expected to pay more, but when she failed to reach her $50,000 reserve, we went to the seller and purchased her post sale for just $45,000. She’ll be trained by Steve DiMauro at Monmouth Park, where she’ll hopefully make her debut this summer.

Groups 31 & 32 both were closed and overfilled with 16 new co-owners in less than 2 weeks. Group 30 is overfilled as well, but we’re going to leave it open for a couple more people to participate.

Kenwood continues to have a fine year with our runners to date with 16% wins and 60% in-the-money for 2016. The summer season is just beginning and the best is yet to come!