Tapit

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Through 14 days of Saratoga's season, Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher's 2-year-olds are getting the job done. Pletcher picked up his fifth victory in the top-level $100,000 maiden special weight races Sunday when Tapit's Legacy (Tapit) cruised to a five-length victory in the third race under Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez. Pletcher has a 5-2-2 record from 15 starters in the open $100,000 races, a win percentage of 33 with a 60 percent finish in the top three. Last season, Pletcher won four of...

  5. BARB, SAR, 7/16, 7 furlongs (2nd) (VIDEO) Beyer Speed Figure- 87 (3, g, by Candy Ride {Arg}--Classic Point, by Flatter) O-Flying P Stable. B-Marc Keller (Ky). T-Mike Maker. J-Ricardo Santana, Jr. He faded after setting the pace vs ultra-fast BAQ maidens April 19 (the top three made our Five Fastest Maidens), and Mike Maker and owner Jason Provenzano saw enough to claim him next out when dropped to $75,000. His Beyers already have improved 10+ points, and Maker hasn't even run him 1 3/8 miles on turf yet....

Even with a lack of it for this running of the GII Honorable Miss Stakes in Saratoga, the Sunshine State was well-represented as Halina's Forte (Mitole) outbattled fellow Florida-bred R Disaster (Awesome Slew) to earn her first graded stakes win. Given the cold shoulder by the betting public, she went off at 24-1 long odds for this sloppy (sealed) running of the contest, and was content to watch R Disaster set the pace as she saved all the ground on the rail in fifth. Still in midpack behind an opening...

SARATOGA SPRINGS - The milestone victory came about 530 miles away from Saratoga Race Course, but that wasn't going to stop Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse from celebrating. Casse, 64, won his 4,000th career race when It's Witchcraft (Tapit) won the 11th race at Colonial Downs by a nose in a four-horse photo finish. Casse watched the race and cheered with his wife, Tina, on a television in the clubhouse at Saratoga. He then scrambled to watch the Saratoga sixth race where he saddled 2-year-old filly Charlottesuniverse (Into Mischief),...

In How To Talk To Customers, co-author Tom Larkin wrote that the key in business relationships was to "Make A Great Impression on the Customer"--known by his signature acronym M-A-G-I-C. "Results matter, and so does the process used to get those results," the Preface pithily preached. According to those that knew him best, Larkin built a successful consulting company which focused on the development and enhancement of a business's number one concern, outreach. He traveled the world giving dynamic presentations on what has become the lost art of customer service....

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...

In the Hanshin Stakes at Churchill Downs on Sunday, Will Take It (Tapit) was up in the nick of time to take the race for owners Willis Horton and Mandy Pope. Since coming over from the care of trainer Eddie Milligan, Will Take It has become a mark of consistency. His 2025 campaign has included clearing an allowance condition at Fair Grounds Jan. 4 and a runner-up finish against optional claimers in New Orleans Feb. 1. The colt then won at that level next out at the track Mar. 8...

GSW & GISP May Day Ready (Tapit) is reportedly being pointed toward a start in the GI Belmont Oaks Invitational during the July 4 Racing Festival at Saratoga. The GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf runner-up took her show on the road after that 2024 seasonal highlight, and tried her luck in the G1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies in Kyoto, Japan as a cap for her 2-year-old season. While she finished 13th then, she returned to the States and made her '25 bow in the off-turf GIII Wonder Again Stakes June...

7th-BAQ, $85k, Msw, 3yo/up, 1m, 4:10p.m. ET On the far outside for this maiden contest is ALIDADE (Tapit), a $350,000 KEESEP purchase by Harrell Ventures and trained by Todd Pletcher. A full-sister to GSW Iron First and MGSW & GISP Anchor Down, Alidade also claims GISW Sweet Lulu (Mr. Greeley) as a half-sister and hails from the female family of GISP Rhiana. On the polar opposite end of the field is Danzit (Tapit) on the rail, a $1.1-million KEESEP purchase by Whisper Hill Farm who debuted in early spring last...

First and foremost, let's salute Journalism (Curlin) and his connections for confirming that only feebleness in horsemen, not horses, menaces the Triple Crown schedule. In last weekend replicating his Churchill challenge to crop leader Sovereignty (Into Mischief), moreover actually moving up his numbers, the only horse to contest all three legs demonstrated precisely the prowess that breeders have long sought from this series. That deserves to be remembered once Journalism goes to stud. Obviously, the GI Belmont Stakes is not asking quite so exacting a question just now. By the...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Led by Breeders' Cup winners Fierceness (City of Light) and White Abarrio (Race Day), a talented field of five will line up for Saturday's GI Metropolitan Handicap on the stacked GI Belmont Stakes program at Saratoga. TDN's Senior Racing Editor Steve Sherack takes a closer look at the pedigrees of all five of the runners entered in the stallion-making race. #1 FIERCENESS (c, 4, City of Light--Nonna Bella, by Stay Thirsty) Lifetime Record: Ch. 2yo Colt & MGISW, 10-6-1-1, $4,315,320. O-Repole Stable, Derrick Smith, Michael B....

2nd-SAR, 100K, Msw, 3yo/up, f, 7f, 12:16 p.m. RESURGE (Constitution) is the latest offspring to the races for Juddmonte out of the champion mare Close Hatches who has already produced this runner's three-quarter Tapit siblings--Tacitus, 'TDN Rising Star' Scylla and Batten Down. Close Hatches herself is a full-sister to SW/MGISP Lockdown who has found success as a broodmare as well by producing dual champion mare Idiomatic (Curlin). The blue-blooded family also includes G1 Tattersalls Irish Two Thousand Guineas victor Siskin (First Defence). Amongst those lined up to oppose her is...