Month: July 2018

Parx Racing played host to two Pennsylvania-bred stakes on the turf Saturday afternoon, the $100,000 Marshall Jenney for three year-olds and up at five furlongs and the $100,000 Crowd Pleaser for three year-olds at one mile and one-sixteenth. Sweet Bye and Bye got a perfect pace stalking trip and drew away late to win the Crowd Pleaser while Fielder rallied in the last furlong, getting up in the final stride to win the Marshall Jenney

Briardale Stable’s Sweet Bye and Bye, a three year-old Sky Mesa filly competing against males for the first time, sat just off of front runner Smooth B through the first three-quarters of a mile before taking command turning for home. Breaking from the outside gate, Smooth B was hustled away to the early lead while Sweet Bye and Bye was allowed to settle into the second spot as the two headed for the first turn. Racing through fractions of 23.26 and 48.45, the pair remained one-two, only about a length apart, all the way down the backstretch and onto the far turn before winning jockey Carol Cedeno asked her mount to move and engage the leader with about a quarter mile to go. Coming off the final turn, Sweet Bye and Bye had forged a short lead and then with about an eighth of mile to go, finally put Smooth B away for good and began to open up. Striding away to the end, she hit the wire a convincing three lengths in front, keeping her perfect record this season intact, winning for the fourth consecutive time. Trained by Steve Klesaris, she went off as a 9-5 betting favorite and returned $5.80 to win. She covered the distance over a course labeled firm in 1:42.76.

The Marshall Jenney turned into an absolute thriller Breaking from post two, Spartianos (8-1) jumped immediately to the front, while 16-1 long shot, Fielder, making his turf debut for Waldorf Racing Stables and trainer Marya Montoya, sat third while racing out in the three path heading to the far turn. After an opening quarter of 22.66, Spartianos entered the far turn began to extend his lead. Pace prompting outsider Amblin Man gave way, and now coming to the quarter pole, Fielder seemed to be bearing out a bit, was still stuck three wide and suddenly found himself three lengths behind. The ground he lost into the stretch cost him another length, now four back with only a furlong to run. Winning jockey Mychal Sanchez then went to work. Straightened away and set down to run, Fielder dug in and began to close the gap on the outside as Spartianos finally began to tire. The two came to the final yards with Spartianos desperately trying to hold on, Fielder gaining with every stride. As the two hit the wire, it would be Fielder who won the photo, getting his nose in front at the last possible moment. He paid $35.20 to win and finished the five furlongs on the grass in :57.51.

Two state breed stakes on the grass today. With the weather iffy, we’ll have to keep an eye out. Today’s behind the binoculars Keith Jones looks at races 4 and 7.

By Dick Jerardi

Ed Coletti, Jr., has had some very good years training racehorses. This year is going to be his best.

He is closing fast on his first year with $1 million in purse earnings. And on July 8, Dixie Serenade, a Pennsylvania-Bred filly based at Parx Racing, came from out of the clouds at Belmont Park to win the Grade III Victory Ride Stakes at 47-1. It was Coletti’s first graded stakes win.

“It was amazing, such a high,” Coletti said. “You feel like you accomplished something.”

Parx jockey Mychel Sanchez brought Dixie Serenade from last to win the race by a neck. The Victory Ride was an all-in-the-family win. Dixie Serenade’s sire, Uptowncharlybrown, stands at Diamond B Farm north of Reading. The three-year-old filly is owned by the Uptowncharlybrown Stud LLC, a partnership managed by Bob Hutt.

If she recovers well enough from her taxing effort in the Victory Ride, Dixie Serenade will be pointed for the Grade I Test Stakes on Aug. 4 at Saratoga, America’s premier sprint race for three-year-old fillies.

After Dixie Serenade’s win, Coletti was 20-for-85 in 2018 with $774,438 in purse earnings. His stable was 27-for-115 in 2017 with $844,874 in earnings. In all, Coletti has won 461 races with $10.6 million in purses.

“We’ve got a bunch of young horses, overturned maidens, got conditions,” Coletti said in explaining the stable’s recent success. “Since they started breeding Uptowncharlybrown, we’re just getting more and more mares and more action.”

The late Alan Seewald trained Uptowncharlybrown, who was on the Triple Crown trail in 2010 after winning the Pasco Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs and finishing third in the Coolmore Lexington at Keeneland. Sadly, Seewald passed away that year and the decision was made to send the colt to Kiaran McLaughlin’s barn in New York. Uptowncharlybrown ran fifth in the Belmont Stakes, beaten just three lengths by winner Drosselmeyer.

But Uptowncharlybrown was disqualified back to 12th in the Belmont after it was determined that he did not carry the correct weight when a lead weight fell out during the race. Ownership group Fantasy Lane Stable – now rebranded as Uptowncharlybrown Stud LLC – appealed, but did not win the judgement. Unfortunately, Uptowncharlybrown suffered a bowed tendon that was discovered shortly after the Belmont, and was then off for more than year. The horse was not quite the same after the layoff and was retired to stud.

Horses are the family business for the Colettis. Ed’s father and grandfather also were trainers. Ed, Sr., who trained Uptowncharlybrown at the end of his career, won 379 races, including two Grade III stakes at Suffolk Downs. Ed, Jr., was always kind of destined to be in the horse business. He grew up around it and knew it from a very young age.

“I tried to get away,” Coletti, Jr., said. “I went to college for like a year and a half.”

Luckily that brief life detour didn’t last. Now, with 26 horses in the barn, including another highly accomplished three-year-old filly in Smokinpaddylassie, Coletti won’t be getting away anytime soon.

When Jason Servis brought Vision Perfect for the 2017 Parx Dash, the trainer only had the horse for a month after claiming him for $80,000. He was 14-1 and finished 7 1/2 lengths behind Pure Sensation in the Dash.

Fast forward to the $200,000 Grade III Parx Dash on July 7 and Pure Sensation was back trying to win the five-furlong grass race for the third consecutive year with Parx Hall of Famer Kendrick Carmouche riding. But Vision Perfect had been in Servis’ barn for 13 months and this was not the same horse. Under another Parx Hall of Famer, jockey Frankie Pennington, it was Vision Perfect going by front-running Pure Sensation in the stretch and beating longshot Pool Winner by a nose, with Pure Sensation 1 3/4 lengths behind.

So, in barely a year, Vision Perfect made up nearly 10 lengths on Pure Sensation who had been 4-for-4 on the Parx grass course, also winning the Turf Monster twice. That only made sense given that Servis arrived at Parx as the hottest trainer in the country. He was winning with an incredible 50 percent of his starters at the Belmont Park and Monmouth Park meets.

In fact, just 15 minutes after Vision Perfect crossed the finish line Servis was on the first floor of the Parx grandstand watching on television as his Firenze Fire demolished the field in the Dwyer Stakes at Belmont, winning by nine lengths.

When asked why he had claimed Vision Perfect in the first place, Servis, the brother of Parx Hall of Fame trainer John Servis, said: “his numbers were good”.

But Vision Perfect did not really blossom until Servis took him to Florida this winter.

“When I got to Florida, I got to change his whole training routine and really got serious with him, far more hands on with him,” Servis said

The trainer got so serious the horse won a $75,000 stakes at Gulfstream Park by nearly five lengths on March 10. That was the tipoff that a race like Vision Perfect ran in the Parx Dash was possible. Servis promised he would be back to Parx with Vision Perfect for the $300,000 Turf Monster on Sept. 3.

The trainer can’t promise if he will still be this hot in September, but “it’s been crazy,” he said. “I got some nice horses.”

And Vision Perfect is definitely one of them.

By Dick Jerardi