Ocala Dream scores in Spectacular Bid for late sire Effinex

By Melissa Bauer-Herzog

After breaking his maiden on the Belmont Park turf last month, Ocala Dream was quick to add a stakes victory to his resume Saturday with a victory in the $150,000 Spectacular Bid division of the New York Stallion Stakes.

The chestnut son of the late Effinex broke among the leaders in the 7-furlong restricted turf stakes and immediately gave himself an advantage. Ocala Dream settled among a trio a few lengths behind the leading Dreamer’s Disease and The King Cheek as they set opening fractions of :22.82 and :45.61 for the first half-mile. Jockey Junior Alvarado had Ocala Dream well in hand as they joined the leaders late in the turn with the colt going four wide to take command into the stretch.

Ocala Dream had to hold off 52-1 shot Barrage in the stretch but he started pulling away from that rival in the final sixteenth. The margin was cut down by a late-closing Step Dancer, a son of War Dancer who was a length behind him at the line. Barrage, another son of War Dancer, settled for third. Ocala Dream won in 1:21.20 for his second win from three starts this year. He’s finished on the board in three of his five starts.

“It’s always a big edge when you have a horse who breaks out of the gate very good,” Alvarado said. “It helps you to get the position you want. He broke alertly and put himself in a good spot, I just had to guide him turning for home. Once I got him in the clear, he knew what to do after that. I kept after him just a little bit to get the job done. He wasn’t the favorite but he was much the best today.”

Racing for Thomas Albrecht, Vincent Fusaro and James Klein, Ocala Dream boosted his bankroll to $137,600. Bred by Mahwinney, Liberman, Beglin and Coutsodontis and foaled at Sequel Stallions New York in Hudson, Ocala Dream gave the late Effinex his first stakes winner.

Going through the ring last year as a 2-year-old, the colt was purchased for $50,000 at the OBS March sale racing co-owner Thomas Albrecht from the Daylight Farm Racing & Sales consignment.

“We bought him in Ocala last year just when COVID hit,” Albrecht said. “We didn’t even think the sale was going to happen when we were down there. Everything was getting cancelled. But we bought him, we have a good bloodstock agent in Conor Foley of Oracle Bloodstock. They do a fantastic job and so does [trainer] Tom Morley and his staff. We’re really pleased. We’re looking forward to the $150,000 Cab Calloway [July 28 at Saratoga Race Course].”

Ocala Dream is a second-generation New York-bred with Kentucky-bred granddam Smoke N Shadows spending her five-race career on the NYRA circuit. The mare then joined the New York breeding pool and produced Ocala Dream’s dam Eleni’s Daughter as her sixth foal.

The Freud daughter won one of her two starts and was retired after that maiden-breaking run for Jay Liberman. She has stayed in New York after her racing days were over and has three winners from four to race.

The mare also has an unnamed Florida-bred 2-year-old Mission Impazible filly who is a full sister to the winning 4-year-old gelding Operative.

Source URL: https://www.nytbreeders.org/news/2021/06/19/ocala-dream-scores-in-spectacular-bid-for-late-sire-effinex/

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Freud filly Sport Model hangs tough in NYSS Cupecoy’s Joy

By Tom Law

Sport Model couldn’t catch a break in her first two starts.

The 3-year-old daughter of Freud caught a sloppy track on the dirt in late February and finished 11th in a field of 12 New York-bred maidens. Two months later in her turf debut against 11 others at 5-2 odds, Sport Model clipped heels, lost her rider and caused a three-horse pile-up in a state-bred maiden claimer.

Since then, including Saturday’s Cupecoy’s Joy division of the New York Stallion Stakes at Belmont Park, Sport Model has done everything right. She won a 6-furlong state-bred turf maiden for a $40,000 tag May 7 and came back Saturday to win the $150,000 Cupecoy’s Joy to add another highlight bullet to her sire’s flush resume.

Sport Model edged Funwhileitlasted by a half-length in the 7-furlong Cupecoy’s Joy under Luis Saez for trainer Christophe Clement and owners Reeves Thoroughbred Racing. Shaker Shack, the pacesetter hounded most of the trip by the eventual winner, held second by 1 ½ lengths over Shesadirtydancer with the 5-2 favorite Ava’s Grace ninth of 10. Sport Model won over the firm Widener Turf Course in 1:21.16.

“Luis gave her a great ride,” Clement said. “He was always very comfortable and she was the best horse today, which is nice.”

Saez, aboard Sport Model for the first time after Eric Cancel, Junior Alvarado and Trevor McCarthy rode the filly in her first three starts, also came away impressed.

“She’s progressing,” he said. “She was very good today. I needed the pony going out because she’s so strong. I knew I had a lot of horse and when we got to the top of the stretch, she just took off. She was battling. When she felt the pressure coming, she gave me another gear.”

Sport Model and Saze set up shop just off the pace of Shaker Shack in the early stages and were just a half-length back through the opening quarter-mile in :23.22. Ava’s Grace, making her turf debut off a second in the Grade 3 Fantasy Stakes in early April at Oaklawn Park, Sport Model’s stablemate Proper Grammar and Big Time Lady, chased the top two up the backstretch while Shaker Shack made the bend and ran past the half in :46.15 with a 1-length lead.

Sport Model took over after the field turned for home and opened up a 2-length lead past 6 furlongs in 1:09.29. Saez stayed busy on Sport Model in deep stretch while Funwhileitlasted, a daughter of War Dancer who shipped in from Monmouth Park for Kent Sweezey, ran on well to finish second.

“I liked both fillies going in, but obviously one was very disappointing and the other ran very well,” Clement said of the winner and last-place finisher Proper Grammar.

Bred by Mr. and Mrs. James P. Curran and Dr. and Mrs. John McDermott and foaled at Emerald Isle Farm in Hebron, Sport Model is the fourth foal out of the winning Rockport Harbor mare Just Say Hey.

Jonathan Thorne purchased the filly as a weanling for $70,000 at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga fall mixed sale, not long after Just Say Hey’s second foal, the Twirling Candy filly Twirling Devon, won her debut and finished second in the Barbara Shinpoch Stakes at Emerald Downs. Thorne resold the Sport Model through his Thorndale Farm consignment for $100,000 to Dean and Patti Reeves’ Reeves Thoroughbred Racing at the 2019 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-bred yearling sale.

Just Say Hey, who won three of 17 starts with three seconds and $46,784, was purchased in foal to Wicked Strong by Christopher Shelli, agent, for $14,000 at the 2016 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. She later produced her third foal and a filly by that sire, the New York-bred Boston Girl. Just Say Hey is also the dam of a 2-year-old Mohaymen filly named Sterling Mistress.

Sport Model is the second stakes winner in 2021 and 68th overall for Freud, a 23-year-old son of Storm Cat who stands for $5,000 at Sequel Stallions New York in Hudson. A multiple leader on New York’s general sires list, Freud came into Saturday ranked third with $866,361 in progeny earnings. He’ll be represented in 2021 by a crop of 46 2-year-olds, including one that has already started in Market Dynamics.

Source URL: https://www.nytbreeders.org/news/2021/06/19/freud-filly-sport-model-hangs-tough-in-nyss-cupecoys-joy/

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