Hold The Salsa bounces back in Great White Way

By Melissa Bauer-Herzog

Those who love hunch bets based on food scored big at Aqueduct Sunday afternoon when Hold Me Back’s son Hold The Salsa just edged out It’s Gravy in the final strides of the Great White Way division of the New York Stallion Series.

Hold The Salsa has won half of his six career starts and he’s made those wins count with the Great White Way his second stakes win in his last three starts. Making another trip to New York from his breeder, owner and trainer Richard Lugovich’s base at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland, Hold The Salsa was looking to bounce back from a loss in the Sleepy Hollow Stakes. He finished fourth in the Sleepy Hollow behind a trio that included future Grade 2 Remsen winner Brooklyn Strong and Notebook Stakes winner Eagle Orb.

The Great White Way went much differently than that race for Hold The Salsa, who made a huge move coming into the turn of the 7-furlong restricted stakes. In less than a furlong, the 2-year-old switched from being a mid-pack runner to just behind leaders by the top of the Aqueduct stretch.

Hold The Salsa finally got his hard-fought lead in the final sixteenth but had to dig even deeper with It’s Gravy making a late charge. The wire came just in time for Hold The Salsa, who held off It’s Gravy by a neck to give those hunch bettors a $56.50 exacta with Market Alert running third.

“When he’s good, he takes me there,” said jockey Junior Alvarado. “By the five-sixteenths, I was very happy with where he was and the way he was traveling. I knew he was going to have a little something left at the end. He showed up today.”

Lugovich is extremely familiar with Hold The Salsa’s family with the colt being a third generation Lugovich-bred. He said the future may see Hold The Salsa trying new things, noting his pedigree calls for a different division of racing.

“It’s interesting because if you look at his breeding, he’s probably a mile-and-a-quarter horse on the grass,” he said. “He’s only a 2-year-old, so he could see that eventually. I’ll see what we can do with him next year and see how he comes up. I’m in no rush with him.”

The owner-breeder-trainer purchased Hold The Salsa’s third dam Northern Nymph for $2,700 at the 1997 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic December mixed sale in foal to Four Seasons, with that foal becoming Hold The Salsa’s second dam Northern Sprite. That mare saw a page upgrade before she even hit the track when her half-brother Jestakick placed in multiple stakes to give Northern Nymph a stakes horse.

After time at the track that saw her make one start, Northern Sprite went on to join her dam in the broodmare band at Northway Farm and foaled Northern Mambo in 2009. While that mare never raced, Northern Mambo followed in her dam and granddam’s footsteps by foaling Hold The Salsa at the same farm.

“We’re just over the Saratoga line, close to Joe McMahon’s. He’s a good friend of mine,” Lugovich said earlier this year. “We’ve had some good horses come off the farm. Copper Chalice (a maiden winner June 5 at Belmont), that’s my son’s horse. Mambonick, he finished fourth going a mile on the grass (Sept. 26 at Belmont). They were all born there.”

The Great White Way provided multiple updates for Northern Mambo’s yearling filly by Freud – the sire of second placed It’s Gravy. Northern Mambo didn’t have a foal this year and was bred to Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Karakontie for a 2021 foal.

Source URL: https://www.nytbreeders.org/news/2020/12/06/hold-the-salsa-bounces-back-in-great-white-way/

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Laobanonaprayer leads 1-2 sweep for sire in NYSS Fifth Avenue

By Tom Law

Trainer Daniel Velazquez showed up at Belmont Park for Empire Showcase Day confident with two live runners, but freely admitted some doubt whether he’d walk away with two stakes victories.

Laobanonaprayer and Brooklyn Strong delivered for the Mid-Atlantic-based horseman, winning the Maid of the Mist and Sleepy Hollow, respectively. Velazquez returned to New York the first weekend of December with the same pair, confident again but surely not feeling history would repeat. Right? Well, maybe not so fast.

“I knew we came prepared,” Velazquez said after Laobanonaprayer completed the back half of a weekend stakes double on the NYRA circuit in Sunday’s Fifth Avenue division of the New York Stallion Series.

Brooklyn Strong came equally prepared by Velazquez out of his Delaware Park string Saturday, winning the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes at 7-1. Laobanonaprayer was a bit more expected and she won the $250,000 Fifth Avenue at even-money over 10 other 2-year-old fillies sired by New York-based nominated stallions.

Laobanonaprayer gave her sire, the former New York-based Laoban, a 1-2 sweep as she defeated Jill’s a Hot Mess by 8 lengths. Ridden by Kendrick Carmouche, Laobanonaprayer ran the 7 furlongs in 1:24.95 to improve to 2-1-1 from four starts and boosted her earnings to $232,400.

“I was questioning the distance but I knew she could handle it,” said Velazquez, who also owns the filly bred in New York by Christina Deronda. “She can actually go a mile and an eighth.”

Carmouche, who clinched the Aqueduct fall meet riding title with the victory a day after winning his first Grade 1 stakes in the Cigar Mile aboard True Timber, felt confident every step of the 7 furlongs.

“I got the best position,” he said. “The best thing to do was to just watch everything go on to the inside of me and go from there. Everything set up perfect. I just had to be patient and let my horse run on.”

Foaled at Deronda’s Moonstar Farm in Hopewell Junction and sold as a weanling for $17,000 through the Moonstar consignment at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga fall mixed sale, Laobanonaprayer caught her future trainer’s eye at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale in late June.

Velazquez landed the filly for $15,000, admittedly after “she kind of fell into our lap.” She runs in her trainer’s name and colors but he’s partners on the filly with Larry Rush and Mark Schwartz, who also owns Brooklyn Strong.

Next the trio figure to aim even higher with the filly out of the Raffie’s Majesty mare Raffie’s Chance.

“It’s fun to compete in these stakes, but we’ve got to test her against open company,” he said. “I want her to come home healthy and I’ll talk to the partners and really just see. Kendrick said she felt loaded and ready.”

Laobanonaprayer is the fourth foal out of the New York-bred Raffie’s Majesty mare Raffie’s Chance. Her first two foals – Devilry (by Into Mischief) and C U in the Circle (by Freud) – are winners and she’s the dam of a yearling filly by Algorithms and a weanling colt born May 2 by Central Banker. Deronda is the breeder of the weanling and yearling, along with Raffie’s Chance’s 3-year-old gelding by Normandy Invasion named K P Day currently in training in Southern California.

Source URL: https://www.nytbreeders.org/news/2020/12/06/laobanonaprayer-leads-1-2-sweep-for-sire-in-nyss-fifth-avenue/

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