By Dick Jerardi
There were four graded stakes Saturday and two New York Stallion Series stakes Sunday at Aqueduct on the final major weekend of 2023 in New York.
Trainers Todd Pletcher, Danny Gargan, Dallas Stewart and George Weaver each won one of those stakes. Only one trainer won two of the stakes – Parx Hall of Famer Butch Reid who is finishing off a third consecutive record year.
Glenn Bennett of LC Racing LLC, a partner in both stakes winners. is a longtime Reid client who just happened to be in Jamaica from Wednesday through Sunday. And for a very good reason. His daughter Samantha got married Friday and the day didn’t end until 1 a.m. at the bonfire.
On Saturday, they watched on the beach from Half Moon Resort as Dr. B, named for First Lady Jill Biden and owned with Chuck Zacney’s Cash Is King LLC, led from start to finish to win the Grade III Go For Wand for the second consecutive year. They watched that one on the phone, but could not get video Sunday when Morning Matcha came from last under Park’s leading jockey Mychel Sanchez to blow away the field in the female version of the New York Stallion Series. So Bennett listened to the call on the way to the airport and then watched the video as soon as he got on the plane. Morning Matcha is owned by LC, Cash Is King and Gary Barber.
Bennett’s association with Reid has been great for both of them, as has his partnership with Zacney.
“Butch is just an underrated trainer,” Bennett said. “He’s a great person and I trust him 100 percent.”
Bennett met Reid one day at Parx and they hit it off. So Bennett eventually gave Reid some horses and they have won some big ones. The “biggest ones” got away when the immensely talented Maximus Mischief was injured early in his 3-year-old year (2019). But the horse is off to a great start at stud and may produce a few big ones along the way.
Maximus Meridius, trained by Reid, looks like he may be the most talented 2-year-old at Parx. Whether he is good enough to compete in open stakes will be determined in 2024. Bennett is very hopeful.
Cash Is King and LC Racing won their first race together in December 2016. Now, they are partners in five broodmares, five weanlings, eight yearlings, 10 2-year-olds and 20 3-year-olds and older. Bennett also has a number of horses on his own.
Bennett was in Kentucky when Cathryn Sophia won the 2016. Kentucky Oaks for Zacney and trainer John Servis. He said he was “totally hooked after that and always trying to get back to those types of races.”
Morning Matcha was a solid second in the 2022 Grade I Cotillion at Parx. After her win Sunday, Morning Matcha has six wins, seven seconds and seven thirds from 24 starts. Her $899,740 in earnings are second only to 2020 2-year-old champion and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner Vequist among horses trained by Reid.
Dr B has now earned $583,240, putting her eighth all time in earnings for Reid’s stable. Like her year younger stablemate, Morning Matcha, the 5-year-old Dr B is very consistent with six wins, seven seconds and two thirds from 22 career starts.
They are two major contributors to the Reid stable which has $3.7 million (just inside the top 50 nationally at No. 46) in earnings this year after $3.2 million in 2022 and $2.4 million in 2021.
Bennett took a big future swing when he had Butch’s brother Mark buy Adorabella, a broodmare in foal to the great sire Medaglia d’Oro, for $550,000 at Fasig Tipton Kentucky Night of the Stars sale in November. The resulting foal, which will be a Pennsylvania bred when born next year at Mark Reid’s farm in Chester County, will be a half sister or brother to the good New Jersey breds Girl Trouble and Book’em Danno.
Girl Trouble, who races for Bennett and Swilcan Stable, has won $283,490 and two Parx stakes for Butch Reid. Book’em Danno, a 2-year-old trained by Derek Ryan, is 3-for-4, with wins in the Smoke Glacken and Futurity as well as a second in the Nashua. Bennett has no ownership interest in that horse.
The mare Adorabella, just 7-years-old, is already proven and now she is in foal to one of the 21st Century’s top stallions. Bennett did not buy to sell. He bought to race the resulting foal. And he hopes this could be the one that wins the big one.
