SV Photography
(Updated 1/13/14)
by Sarah Mace
Sanford Bacon’s multiple stakes-winning homebred Risky Rachel (Limehouse) won her first start after more than 14 months away from the races on Saturday afternoon when she took Tampa Bay Downs’ featured $50,000 Minaret Stakes going away. The victory was bittersweet for Bacon whose champion homebred mare Dancin Renee, the dam of Risky Rachel, had to be euthanized on Friday night aged 22 following a long battle with laminitis.
Laid off ever since a tendon injury in December 2012, Risky Rachel, now seven, came into the Minaret boasting a sharp-looking work tab, culminating in two bullet moves for trainer Manny Coronel at Gulfstream Park: a four-furlong breeze on December 18 (:46 1/5) and a work at five furlongs on December 29 (:59 2/5), which was the best of sixty to go the distance that morning.
After breaking from her inside post, Risky Rachel scooted up the fence into second, three lengths behind freewheeling frontrunner and co-favorite Cor Cor (Smoke Glacken). Advancing on the pacesetter in the far turn and drawing up on nearly even terms by the quarter pole, Risky Rachel kicked away in the stretch to win by 3 1/4 lengths going away. After chasing blistering early fractions (22.13, 44.93), she completed the six furlongs over the fast going in 1:10.95.
Winning jockey Daniel Centeno said, “She was super sharp today, like her people said she would be. The setup couldn’t have been better, and I was able to get her to relax behind (Cor Cor). I asked her for run going into the turn and from the 3/8-mile pole on, she was just eating up ground on the leader. We hit the front in the stretch and she was going on her own to the wire. She is a special lady and I would love to ride her back.”
Sanford Bacon said, “She’s been off a long time, but we knew it was just a question of when [jockey Daniel Centeno] asked, would she answer. And you saw the answer.”
Bacon also talked about his decision to bring Risky Rachel back to the races after her injury. “After Rachel got hurt, everybody said ‘She is a broodmare now,’ and I was offered $400,000 for her.”
Continued Bacon, “I decided she was going to get stem-cell therapy, and people said ‘You’re crazy. Stem cell doesn’t work, and it’s going to cost you $30,000 or $40,000. You’re throwing your money away. I said ‘It’s not my money, it’s her money.’ She made it on the track, and she wants to be a racehorse.”
The Minaret was Risky Rachel’s fifth career stakes victory and first stakes win in open company. In 2011 Risky Rachel won the Iroquois for trainer James Bond. Moving to Manny Coronel’s barn the following year, she won stakes at all three racetracks on the NYRA circuit: the Broadway at Aqueduct in March, the Put the Powder To It at Belmont next out in May and the Union Avenue at Saratoga.
Risky Rachel, who has earned $412,250 and compiled a record of 8-4-1 from 18 starts was foaled at Mill Creek Farm in Stillwater.
Risky Rachel’s dam Dancin Renee (Distinctive Pro), who retired to Old Friends in September 2012 after producing five winners, won seven stakes races, including the Grade 3 Honorable Miss at Saratoga ($490,258).
In 1997 Dancin Renee was voted New York Horse of the Year, Champion Sprinter and Champion Older Female. Dancin Renee is also a half-sister Bacon-bred New York legend Say Florida Sandy, two-time Horse of the Year (2000, 2001) and sire. Their dam, campaigned by Bacon, was two-time New York Champion Broodmare Lolli Lucka Lolli.
“Dancin Renee, who was named after my mother-in-law, a Ziegfeld girl, meant everything to us,” said Bacon, who wears a bracelet on his left wrist made of Dancin Renee’s hair. She will be buried at Old Friends.
Click here to read press release from Old Friends.
Absolute fantastic win today. She is extraordinary and as the announcer said “classy.”
It is great to have Risky Rachel back. Congratulations to her owner and trainer.