Captain Bombastic bounces back in NYSS Times Square
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Team Hanley’s Captain Bombastic wins second stakes in last three starts in Times Square division of New York Stallion Series at Saratoga. NYRA Photo.
By Melissa Bauer-Herzog
Twenty-eight days after finishing fourth in the G1 H. Allen Jerkens Stakes, Captain Bombastic made his way back to the winner’s circle with an eye-catching effort in the Times Square division of the New York Stallion Stakes Friday at Saratoga Race Course.
Bumped at the break, the 3-year-old Forty Tales colt quickly got his feet back under him and joined a three-way battle for the lead early in the 6 ½-furlong restricted stakes. Captain Bombastic quickly saw one of his rivals drop back but Dream Bigger wasn’t going to let him have the win that easy. The pair clocked a first quarter in :21.80 as they opened up multiple lengths on the rest of the field to run the half in :44.10.
Captain Bombastic held a slight edge entering the stretch while Dream Bigger yielded. Given just a few reminders in the stretch by Luis Saez, Captain Bombastic continued pulling away to win as the race favorite by 5 1/4 lengths over Dream Bigger, who was 2 1/4 lengths ahead of Chowda.
“I was very concerned (about the pace battle),” trainer Jeremiah Englehart said. “In the paddock, Luis sounded like he wanted to be aggressive and it really wasn’t my plan. Luis was aggressive and it ended up being the winning move because he took the race to (Dream Bigger) and he knew what kind of horse he had under him. It worked out well.”
While Saez had planned on letting his mount sit behind horses, it all changed when Captain Bombastic’s stablemate Ariesberg was squeezed at the start in the rough break. With the race working out differently than Saez expected, he decided to gun for the lead.
“It was a battle,” he said. “I knew I had horse and I was thinking to sit second or third behind the speed but when I saw Ariesberg didn’t break that well and I was there, I took it. When I came to the three-eighths, Jose (Ortiz) started putting pressure on me but my horse was responding. When we came to the stretch, he went to the lead and took off. He was much the best.”
Trained by Englehart for Team Hanley, Captain Bombastic has won four of his eight starts and only finished off the board once in a career that includes three stakes victories.
Purchased last year by Bradley Thoroughbreds from Sequel Bloodstock for $80,000, the colt was bred by Chester and Mary Broman out of their homebred New York-bred Stolen Star.
Captain Bombastic is a half-brother to the Bromans’ multiple graded stakes winning New York-bred Highway Star and three other winners with his dam producing five winners from six foals.
Stolen Star was purchased in utero by the Bromans when they bought her dam from the Keeneland November breeding stock sale in 2002 for $115,000. Stolen Star is also a half-sister to their homebred stallion Friend or Foe in addition to stakes winning Star Gazing and the dam of stakes winner Surge Of Pride.
From a family full of stakes horses, Captain Bombastic’s fourth dam is dual-Grade 1 winner and successful broodmare Taisez Vous.
Stolen Star visited Malibu Moon in 2018 for a New York-bred yearling filly and foaled a New York-bred Good Magic colt in March.
Endnotes:- [Image]: https://www.nytbreeders.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/CaptainBombasticNYTB.jpg
Source URL: https://www.nytbreeders.org/news/2020/08/28/captain-bombastic-bounces-back-in-nyss-times-square/
Funny Guy hopes to deliver punch line in Forego
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Funny Guy returns to open company for Saturday’s Grade 1 Forego at Saratoga. NYRA Photo.
By Paul Halloran
The field assembled for Saturday’s Grade 1 Forego Stakes at Saratoga Race Course is no joke, but that has not deterred the connections of New York-bred Funny Guy from trying to get the last laugh.
Coming off convincing wins in the Commentator Stakes and John Morrissey Handicap, both restricted to New York-breds, Funny Guy will meet open company for only the second time in his career, having run sixth in the Oklahoma Derby in his final race of 2019.
As it turned out, trainer John Terranova could not have found a much tougher spot. The Forego features 11 horses who have collectively made 95 starts in graded stakes, compiling 19 wins, 22 seconds and 11 thirds. You can make a cogent argument that this is the most competitive stakes race of the meet thus far.
“It certainly is a classy, deep field,” said Terranova, who has four wins at Saratoga this year, including the Tale of the Cat Stakes with Stan the Man. “He has to come with his ‘A’ game and keep moving forward.”
Based on the morning line, NYRA oddsmaker David Aragona must think Funny Guy, who has earned $505,145 in 12 career starts, has more than a puncher’s chance, installing him as the 9-2 third choice.
“Maybe he is the ‘now’ horse and some of the others may be off form,” Terranova said. “We don’t even know what his top is.”
Terranova and owners Gatsas Stables, Randy Hill and Swick Stable would like to find out Saturday. In order to do so, Funny Guy – a son of Big Brown out of the Distorted Humor mare Heavenly Humor bred by Hibiscus Stable – will have to be better than multiple graded stakes winners Whitmore, Firenze Fire and Mind Control, 2018 Champagne winner Complexity, Lexingtonian, who missed by a nose in the Bing Crosby at Del Mar after being scratched at the gate in the A.G. Vanderbilt, and Win Win Win, who hit the board in two Kentucky Derby preps in 2019.
“He’s a very smart colt and he has trained amazing,” said Terranova, who won the Forego in 2000 with 50-1 Shadow Caster, also for Gatsas, for whom he campaigned Gander, a New York-bred who ran in two Breeders’ Cup Classics. “His first two races this year were fantastic. He certainly deserves a shot.”
A shot to leave them all crying.
Cross Border tackles Sword Dancer
Three Diamond Farms’ Cross Border also faces a stiff challenge Saturday when he takes on seven foes in the Grade 1 Sword Dancer. The English Channel progeny, who was bred in New York by Berkshire Stud and B. D. Gibbs, is the 3-1 second choice as he seeks his second stakes win of the meet.
The Mike Maker trainee finished second in the Grade 2 Bowling Green Aug. 1, but was moved up when Sadler’s Joy was disqualified for interfering with him and Channel Maker. Those three will be joined in the Sword Dancer by Highland Sky, promoted from third to second in the same DQ, United Nations winner Aquaphobia, Bowling Green pacesetter Marzo, Qatar Derby champ Pedro Cara and Corelli, who was third in the United Nations.
After taking nine starts to break his maiden at Woodbine, Cross Border didn’t tackle stakes company until his 19th career start, when he was off the board in the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont in 2019. He set the pace and finished fifth in this year’s Grade 1 Manhattan, and picked up his first stakes win in the Lubash for New York-breds at Saratoga July 1.
Endnotes:- [Image]: https://www.nytbreeders.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/FunnyGuyMorrissey.jpg
Source URL: https://www.nytbreeders.org/news/2020/08/28/funny-guy-hopes-to-deliver-punch-line-in-forego/
Multiple NY-bred Champion Perfect Arc Dies at Age 28
By Reg Lansberry
Perfect Arc, a Grade-1 winner and multiple graded stakes winner and New York-bred champion, died on August 26 at the place of her birth, owner-breeder Frank Stella’s Delehanty Stock Farm in Amenia, New York. The daughter of Brown Arc, a son of 1977 and 1978 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe victor Alleged, was 28.
Recalling the finest horse he has bred and raced in more than four decades in the Empire State, Stella said he “Bred Perfect Arc on a whim,” due to “a mad set of circumstances.” Those circumstances resulted in his standing her sire at Delehanty for one season. Brown Arc was a full brother to 1988 Prix du Jockey-Club (Fr-G1) (French Derby) winner Hours After.
Perfect Arc was foaled March 7, 1992, out of the Argentine mare Podeica (Petronisi-Indian Order, by Ovid), co-owned by Stella and the late Paul K. Sorren (Brazil Stable). Podeica won the 1987 Polla de Potrancas (Arg-G1) (Argentine One Thousand Guineas), defeating 1998 Racing Hall of Fame inductee Bayakoa (Arg). Podeica was a winner in allowance company in the U.S. when an injury forced her retirement.
Trained by Angel Penna, Jr., and co-owned and raced by Stella and Sorren, Perfect Arc competed from ages two through four. She was retired after her four-year-old season with ten victories in 13 career starts (six of them stakes wins) and purse earnings of $668,230. Her finest season came at age three in 1995 when she compiled a perfect 7-for-7 record, all on turf. With John Velazquez in the irons, Perfect Arc captured the 1995 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes (G1) at Keeneland Race Course, defeating Auriette (Ire) by two lengths on good turf in 1:49 4/5. She also triumphed in the Rare Perfume Handicap (G2) at Belmont Park and Diana Handicap (G3) at Saratoga Race Course.
Perfect Arc’s glittering campaign resulted in multiple honors including 1995 New York-bred Horse of the Year, champion three-year-old filly, and champion turf female.
In 1996, Perfect Arc won two of four starts, all on turf. She added another graded stakes victory to her resume by taking down the Noble Damsel Handicap (G3) at Belmont Park and finished second to champion Possibly Perfect in the Beverly D. Stakes (G1) at Arlington International Racecourse. She was named 1996 N.Y. champion turf female at year’s end.
Retired to Delehanty to begin her career as a broodmare, Perfect Arc produced three winners from seven runners. Prominently, she is the granddam of seven-year-old mare Starship Jubilee (Indy Wind—Perfectly Wild, by Forest Wildcat), a Grade-1 winner, reigning Horse of the Year in Canada and that country’s three-time champion turf female (2017-1019). To date, Starship Jubilee has earned in excess of $1.6 million. All eight of Perfectly Wild’s runners to date have been winners.
Perfect Arc was buried at the farm.
Source URL: https://www.nytbreeders.org/news/2020/08/28/multiple-ny-bred-champion-perfect-arc-dies-at-age-28/
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