Name: Kody Kellenberger Occupation: Exercise Rider
Location: Lexington, KY What are your earliest memories of big races or/and horses? Watching California Chrome and American Pharoah.
How did you get involved in horse racing? I started working at RimRoc farm as a groom in Lexington KY moving from Upstate NY where I worked with show horses. Mostly reiners and then hunter jumpers. My first riding job was at Kenny Mcpeek’s Magdalena farm breaking babies.
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The Great Mare Songbird Gives Birth To A Filly By Arrogate
Congratulations to new mama Songbird, who delivered her first foal, a filly by Horse of the Year Arrogate, five minutes after her due date—Songbird continues, as a broodmare, her near perfect record as a race mare, almost always right on time and knowing where the wire was.
Stud Notes: Quality Road’s City of Light Romps In The Pegasus
Can Quality Road get any hotter? Will he become, at the young age of 13, this year’s leading sire? It’s awfully early to prognosticate, but with his son, City of Light, winning the Pegasus S.-G1 on January 25, his get’s earnings went up by four million dollars.
Baffert’s Big Colt Dessman Parks In His First Start at Santa Anita
No surprise that a Baffert maiden, Dessman, won the seventh at Santa Anita on January 19, 2019, by eight lengths. The gorgeous hunk of horseflesh towered over the field, both in racing terms and in looks, weighing 250 pounds more than any other horse in the field (Santa Anita posts weights of all horses), and looking like the proverbial man among boys.
Beholder Gives Birth To a Healthy Curlin Filly!
Spendthrift Farm’s General Manager Ned Toffey has reported that the superstar mare Beholder has had a healthy Curlin filly this afternoon. We wish mother and daughter well!
Pegasus World Cup Turf Contender Aerolithe Arrives at Gulfstream
HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – Sunday Racing Co., Ltd.’s Grade 1-winning mare Aerolithe arrived at Gulfstream Park early Wednesday at approximately 3:15 a.m. to prepare for the $7 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational (G1), North America’s richest grass race, Jan. 26. The mare’s excellent adventure went from Tokyo to South Korea to Anchorage to Miami. Total travel time, including layovers, was 21 hours and 25 minutes.
Shippers Dominate Santa Anita’s La Canada Stakes
From the “a good horse can come from anywhere” file, the La Canada S.-G3 at Santa Anita, run on Saturday, January 12, 2019, proved a total anomaly because of its one-two finishers. Winning the race was Manitoba Wonder Mare Escape Clause, who has been racking up wins at such tracks as Assinoboia and Canterbury, whose race record now reads 28 starts, 19 wins, three seconds and three thirds. Talk about consistency! And iron-leggedness! Her bank account contains $423,500 for owner/trainer Don Schnell. By little known Canadian sire Going Commando, by Unbridled’s Song, Escape Clause became his first graded stakes winner.
Pedigree Column: Bellafina
The Santa Ynez S.-G2, run January 6, 2019 at Santa Anita, was hyped as a two-horse race, and commentators noted that they could not separate Bellafina and Mother Mother, as the two were both so talented. Wrong! This wasn’t so much a horse race, or even a two-horse race, as it was a demonstration of breathtaking ability and superiority on the part of the gorgeous Bellafina. She won by 8 ½ lengths, her separation from the rest of the field growing as she neared the finish line.
Abel Tasman Thrills Us Again – This Time In The Sales Ring
Champion, current Eclipse Award nominee, winner of six Grade One stakes races, and multi-millionaire Abel Tasman provided all the thrills at the 2019 opening day of the Keeneland January Sale when she sold as hip number 288 for five million dollars, tying a Keeneland January record that stood for 19 years when the beautifully bred Mackie (Summer Squall/Glowing Tribute, by Graustark) fetched the same amount. Bidding opened at three million dollars, then hardly paused until Abel Tasman reached the five million mark.
Welcome Back Victor Espinoza!
Beloved Triple Crown winning, Hall of Fame jockey Victor Espinoza returned to the saddle for the first time on January 5, 2019. Before July 22, 2018, this wouldn’t have been news, but on that day, at Del Mar, the horse he was on suffered a fatal breakdown. Espinoza hit the dirt hard, fracturing his C3 vertebra in the process. It was unclear if he would ever ride again, and his depression as he worked his way through the pain of the injury itself, and the process of rehab and physical therapy, was well documented.