My Boy Tate dominates Monday’s $50,000 Leon Reed Memorial at Finger Lakes. SV Photography.
By Tom Law
Michelle Nevin never worries about My Boy Tate’s attitude around the barn. Back in March, fresh off a victory in the Haynesfield Stakes at Aqueduct, Nevin marveled at the 7-year-old Boys At Tosconova gelding’s exacting personality.
“He is something else,” Nevin said after My Boy Tate ran his record to 2-for-4 on the season to that point. “He makes everybody in the barn work hard for it. He’s a wiry tough guy to be around. But when he runs, he really puts his effort out.”
My Boy Tate put the effort out again Monday at Finger Lakes, racing off a quick early pace and blowing by the leaders in the stretch to win the $50,000 Leon Reed Memorial Stakes. The 6-length victory over Lady’s Golden Guy ran My Boy Tate’s record to 4-for-9 with a pair of seconds. Harry Hernandez rode My Boy Tate, who made his Finger Lakes debut look easy.
Bet down to 1-5 in the field of seven, My Boy Tate and Hernandez raced third up the backstretch alongside P J Advantage while Lohengrin Two and Lady’s Golden Guy scrimmaged for the lead through the opening quarter mile in :22.40.
Lohengrin Two led by a head over the eventual runner-up after a half in :45.74 with My Boy Tate looming a threat turning for home. Lady’s Golden Guy took the lead once the field straightened away but the advantage didn’t last with My Boy Tate rolling past several paths off the fence. Hernandez took My Boy Tate in hand late and they crossed the finish in 1:10.33.
My Boy Tate improved to 11-for-28 with the victory and boosted his earnings to $687,788 for Nevin and co-owners Little Red Feather Racing. He came into the Leon Reed off a 5 3/4-length victory in an open-company allowance last Monday at Parx Racing. My Boy Tate finished second in back-to-back stakes appearances at Saratoga prior to that effort, first against state-breds in the John Morrissey Handicap and then in the restricted Tale of the Cat.
Foaled at Rockridge Stud in Hudson, My Boy Tate is the second foal out of the winning Sharp Humor mare Backslash, a mare Nevin used to gallop that she admitted back in 2019 “didn’t know what to do with so decided to just breed her.”
Backslash’s first foal, the Frost Giant gelding Linkappleyard, won three of nine starts for Nevin as breeder-owner-trainer, and the third, a now 6-year-old Bluegrass Cat horse Charlie McCoy, was 3-4-1 from 13 starts with earnings of $186,191 for Nevin and partners Little Red Feather and Kevin Bogart. Blackslash’s fourth foal, the 4-year-old Big Brown gelding Slash Gordon, won at first asking last March at Aqueduct before a fourth in the Times Square division of the New York Stallion Stakes last summer at Saratoga.
Nevin also bred Blackslash’s unraced 3-year-old Micromanage colt, named Michael Scott after the namesake of the lead character from the former NBC hit sitcom The Office. She also co-bred, with Godolphin, Blackslash’s 2-year-old Bernardini filly Velvet Sister who sold for $500,000 to Stonestreet Stables at this year’s Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale. Velvet Sister won her debut June 10 at Belmont Park then finished fourth in the Grade 3 Schuylerville Stakes on Opening Day at Saratoga before a second there in the Seeking the Ante Stakes on New York Showcase Day. She most recently finished second in the Joseph A. Gimma Stakes Sept. 24 at Belmont Park.
Nevin and Godolphin co-bred Backslash’s yearling filly by Frosted who sold for $70,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-bred sale. Backslash is also the dam of a weanling New York-bred filly by Congrats, bred by Nevin.
