By Steve Sherack
While already a player on the GI Kentucky Derby trail via Itsaknockout (Lemon Drop Kid)'s win via disqualification in the GII Besilu Stables Fountain of Youth S. Feb. 21, Starlight Racing unveiled another potential star in the 3-year-old division at Keeneland Saturday.
Two Weeks Off (Harlan's Holiday)–a hard-fought maiden winner in his second career start going seven furlongs at Saratoga in his juvenile finale Aug. 30 (video)–returned from the bench in style with a 6 1/2-length allowance tally in a loaded first-level allowance (video).
Secured in a tracking second behind the highly regarded debut winner Yockey's Warrior (Warrior's Reward), the $170,000 KEENOV weanling and $320,000 FTSAUG graduate cruised up on the outside to gain a narrow advantage at the top of lane and kicked home impressively to win for fun. The final time of 1:25.13 for the about-seven furlong distance established a new track record. The effort netted a gaudy 104 Beyer Speed Figure.
“It was a pretty decent field and, with the long layoff, I thought we'd be well-pressed to win, but the way he did it and the horses he beat–he received a 2 3/4 on the Ragozin Sheets–we're very excited about him,” Starlight's Jack Wolf commented.
Two Weeks Off, forced to miss the remainder of his 2-year-old season after having a chip removed, could return in either the GII Peter Pan S. at Belmont Park May 9 or GI Preakness S. at Pimlico May 16.
“Two or three days before the final nominations for the Triple Crown were due, [trainer] Todd [Pletcher] asked if it was O.K. to nominate him for the $6,000,” Wolf continued. “I said, 'Sure, if you think he'd be ready for one of the races.' It looks like we possibly could run in either the Preakness or the Peter Pan and go from there. But we haven't made that decision yet. The horse came out of the race in good order and I would think that with the big numbers that he ran, we would want to give him at least five weeks [between races] and see how he does. Todd thinks he's a two-turn horse.”
Two Weeks Off, bred in Kentucky by Haymarket Farm, is the second foal produced by the unraced Elusive Quality mare Havenlass. She is a half-sister to MGSW Royal Haven (Hail Emperor) and to Grade II-winning, Grade I-placed Belterra (Unbridled).
Starlight, which of course campaigned the talented three-time Grade I winner and earner of $3.6 million Harlan's Holiday, have also done quite well with his offspring. Champion Shanghai Bobby (Harlan's Holiday) capped a perfect five-for-five season with a narrow win in the 2012 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita. The ill-fated Intense Holiday (Harlan's Holiday) carried Starlight's blue-and-yellow silks to a win in last term's GII Risen Star S. and a runner-up finish in the GII Louisiana Derby.
“When we were looking at Two Weeks Off, [bloodstock agent] Frankie [Brothers]'s exact words were, 'That's going to be our next Shanghai Bobby,'” Wolf revealed. “Maybe we'll get a later edition of Shanghai Bobby and this is the 3- and 4-year-old version.”
He continued, “We try to be objective at the sales and it just so happened the past three or four years that the Harlan's Holidays kept showing up on Frankie's shortlist. It doesn't really come into play when buying yearlings, but if I had to take a stallion who I would like to have a successful horse by, he would be my number one choice. He's made our whole Starlight thing go from the beginning and was a hell of a horse and a stallion and it's unfortunate that he had to pass so soon.”
Wolf concluded, “Hopefully he'll be a stallion of stallions and will continue to live on.”
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