First stakes victory: Funny Cide (NYRA/Adam Coglianese)
Courtesy Airdrie
Upstart, one of the leaders of his division as a 2, 3 and 4-year-old, has been retired to Brereton and Elizabeth Jones’s Airdrie Stud. Racing in the colors of Mr. Ralph Evans and conditioned by trainer Rick Violette throughout his career, the Multiple-Graded Stakes winning son of Flatter retires with career earnings in excess of $1.7 million.
A 2-year old Saratoga debut winner at 5 ½ furlongs, Upstart ran his record to a perfect two-for-two with a win in Saratoga’s $200,000 6 ½ furlong Funny Cide Stakes. He followed that effort with a second-place finish in the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes – a race in which he earned a 102 Beyer Speed figure – before completing his juvenile campaign by placing in the Grade 1 Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita.
At 3, Upstart was widely viewed as the top Kentucky Derby prospect on the East Coast following a dominant 5-length score in Gulfstream’s Grade 2 Holy Bull Stakes over future Grade 1 winners Frosted and Keen Ice. The effort earned him a 105 Beyer. He once again crossed the wire first in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes, this time by 2 ¾ lengths, but was subsequently placed second by a controversial steward’s decision for interference in the stretch. He entered the 2015 Kentucky Derby off a second-place finish in the Grade 1 Florida Derby – good for a 108 Beyer Speed Figure – before adding a third place finish in that season’s Grade 1 Haskell Invitational.
As a 4-year- old in 2016, Upstart began the season with a victory in Oaklawn’s GIII $350,000 Razorback Handicap before completing it with back to back placings in the Grade I Metropolitan Mile and Grade 1 Whitney Handicap. The $130,000 yearling purchase concludes his career with $1,732,000 in earnings and will stand as a partnership between Airdrie Stud, WinStar Farm and Mr. Ralph Evans.
Said Airdrie’s Brereton Jones, “Upstart is an absolutely gorgeous son of a fantastic sire in Flatter. We think he’s the best two-year- old Flatter has ever had and love that he trained on to be a top 3- and 4- year-old. I’ll put his 102 Beyer as a two-year- old and 108 at 3 up against any first-crop sire in America and to be right there in 6 Grade 1’s from the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to the Whitney tells you what a top- class racehorse he was. He’ll get our full support at stud and we couldn’t be more excited or grateful to team with Mr. Evans and WinStar Farm in working to make him a great success.”
Upstart [who was bred by Mrs. Gerald A. Nielsen and foaled at her Sunnyfield Farm in Bedford] will stand his first year at stud for a fee of $10,000.
