Mindframe

SARATOGA SPRINGS - As Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott watched Sovereignty (Into Mischief) gobble up ground on the Oklahoma Training Track from afar Saturday morning, his mind drifted back to maybe the best horse he ever trained. Sovereignty, working for the first time since winning the GII Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga on July 26, went four furlongs in :48.99 (117/65) and galloped out in 1:02 2/5. Assistant trainer Neil Poznansky was on board. Mott had accompanied Sovereignty to the Oklahoma aboard his pony, Rocky. "Coming to the wire,...

Benefitting from dominant wins in the GI Kentucky Derby, GI Belmont Stakes and the GII Jim Dandy Stakes, Godolphin homebred Sovereignty (Into Mischief) leads the first week of tabulated votes for the 2025 Longines Breeders' Cup Classic Rankings, which are a weekly rating of the top 10 horses in contention for the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Classic. Sovereignty, a 3-year-old, earned 383 votes. Defending Longines Breeders' Cup Classic winner, recent GI Whitney Stakes winner, and 'TDN Rising Star' Sierra Leone (Gun Runner) is in second place with 365 votes. Sierra...

The 2025 Keeneland September Yearling Sale has cataloged 4,686 horses to be offered over 12 sessions from Monday, Sept. 8 through Saturday, Sept. 20, Keeneland announced Tuesday. Click here for the online catalog of yearlings. Print catalogs are scheduled to start arriving in the mail the week of Aug. 18. Last year, the September Sale was the world's highest-grossing Thoroughbred auction in history with more than $428 million in sales for 2,894 horses. A total of 36 yearlings sold for $1 million or more, marking the highest number since 2006....

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.-'TDN Rising Stars' Fierceness (City of Light) or Mindframe (Constitution) in the GI $1 million Whitney Stakes? Will one of them be running or will it be both? Those questions got definitive answers Saturday morning outside Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher's barn on the Oklahoma Training Track. When entries are taken for the meet's marquee race for older horses on Sunday, both horses names will be front and center, but it will be Fierceness who carries the flag for Pletcher and the ownership group of Mike Repole's...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Arguably the best older horse in training, Mindframe (Constitution), went back to work Friday morning. The 4-year-old colt had his first work since winning the loaded GI Stephen Foster Stakes last month for Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. Mindframe worked an easy four furlongs in :52.46 (76/78) on the main track with regular exercise rider Carlos Quevedo on board. "He does whatever you ask him to do," Pletcher said outside his barn at the Oklahoma Training Track. "He is cool that way. He goes easy...

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Anyone who went by Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott's barn on the Oklahoma Training Track Friday morning did a double take. A jumbo-sized maple tree, which has stood tall for years outside Mott's office, was no more. Thanks to a violent display of weather Thursday night after Opening Day at Saratoga Race Course, the tree was uprooted and came crashing down. Part of the tree came to rest on the roof of Mott's office. Miraculously, there was no damage done to the office, which was unoccupied...

SARATOGA SPRINGS - Early Sunday morning, trainer Tom Morley walked down his shedrow at his barn on the Saratoga backstretch. He stopped in front of a stall occupied by a curious looking dark bay colt named Donegal Momentum (Uncle Mo). Morley snuggled close to the 4-year-old, hugged him, kissed his neck. He has affection for all his horses, but, after what Donegal Momentum went through on Saturday, he deserved an extra dose of tender love and care. During Saturday's one-mile GIII Kelso Stakes on the Inner Turf course, Donegal Momentum...

He has a name as American as apple pie. How fitting then that Constitution has had a big week (and month) leading up to the Independence Day holiday. The WinStar Farm stallion's 'TDN Rising Star' Mindframe won his second Grade I of the year--one of just five horses to do so--in Saturday's GI Stephen Foster Stakes at Churchill Downs over a star-studded field while notching a 105 Beyer Speed Figure. Less than 24 hours later, Constitution's Pin Up Betty added the Anchorage Overnight Stakes in Louisville after also winning the...

SARATOGA SPRINGS--After Baeza's (McKinzie) lackluster third-place finish in the GI Belmont Stakes last month, trainer John Shirreffs wasn't convinced his horse was as bad as he showed at Saratoga Race Course. Shirreffs is keeping the faith and will ship Baeza back to Saratoga for a date in the $500,000 GII Jim Dandy on July 26. "It seems like all roads lead to Saratoga," Shirreffs said by phone from California Wednesday afternoon. "So far, it's the only race that has been under discussion with [owners] Mr. [Lee] Searing and Mr. [Robert]...

As noted last week, trainers can only amplify--not magnify--a horse's genetic legacy. D. Wayne Lukas was able to draw our attention to assets we might gladly replicate, but not even he could actually alter the genes available. In suggesting that he met his brief even more usefully with future broodmares than with sire prospects, this attorney admittedly left a star witness in the street in Serena's Song (Rahy)--whose 18-for-38 record, inside 30 months, advertised the toughness underpinning her class even more lavishly than Terlingua and others. But the point duly...

They got just four horses for the $100,000 Los Alamitos Derby Saturday, hardly a surprise since most stakes run at Los Al wind up with depressingly small fields. The Ashley T. Cole S. at Aqueduct attracted a field of five. At Laurel, the Deputed Testamony drew five starters and so did the Alma North S. Only four ran in the DeFrancis Memorial Dash. At least Laurel had an excuse as a number of horses expected to be shipping down from New York had to be scratched because of the quarantine...

Repole Stable and St Elias Stable's 'TDN Rising Star' Mindframe (Constitution) was his own worst victim in last year's GI Belmont Stakes and GI Haskell Stakes, his inexperience costing him victories in both of those marquee events for the 3-year-old generation. He got the monkey off his back, at least to some extent, when proving best in a thrilling four-way go in the GI Churchill Downs Stakes on the Kentucky Derby undercard, and in the $1-million GI Stephen Foster Stakes at Churchill Downs Saturday afternoon, cemented his position as one...