By Dick Jerardi
Terry Finley’s West Point Thoroughbreds has been part owner of a Kentucky Derby winner. Two years later, West Point paid $1 million at a Saratoga Yearling sale for what turned out to be one of history’s fastest horses. Today, almost six years after that purchase and 2 1/2 years after that horse’s last race, West Point is part owner of another serious Derby prospect in Arkansas Derby winner Sandman.
Finley got in pretty late on 2017 Derby winner Always Dreaming. He was there from the start with several partners on unbeaten and untested Flightline and has been there from the beginning on Sandman who was purchased 13 months ago at an Ocala 2-year-old sale for $1.2 million.
It has been some run for the 1985 West Point graduate who grew up in Bucks County, went to Truman High School in Bristol Township and discovered his love for horse racing by going to Delaware Valley tracks when he was very young. The Ky. Derby is foremost on Finley’s mind at the moment, but he has his eye on a certain September Grade I race at his hometown track around 12 miles from where he grew up.
“The Pennsylvania Derby is in my top 5,” Finley said. “I would love to come back to Bensalem and to get the job done with a Derby winner. Wouldn’t that be great?”
First, that other Derby in Louisville.
“He was a big, beautiful, easy moving colt,” Finley remembered about the presale before West Point and three partners bought Sandman.
Like Flightline, Sandman is a son of the legendary sire Tapit who just happened to run against Smarty Jones in the 2004 Derby and finished his racing career later that year in the Pa. Derby.
“We didn’t think he’d bring ($1.2 million),” Finley said.
Well, Sandman has already won $1,254,595 with so many major races straight ahead. And, as a son of Tapit, there is no telling what his breeding value might be.
West Point was second to California Chrome with Commanding Curve in the 2014 Derby. Then, Always Dreaming got Finley into the winner’s circle. Now, Sandman.
“Yes, we’ve been there before, but every year is a new puzzle and a new play,” Finley said. “I just told my team let’s just do everything to cherish these because you might not ever go the Derby with the first or second choice again.”
In a Derby with so much inexperience, it will be Sandman’s ninth race and fourth at Churchill Downs. The colt comes from the back and, if somehow, they could get another meltdown pace like they got in Arkansas, Finley and partners would be smiling during the run down the backstretch.
“There aren’t that many owners that have won two Kentucky Derbies and that doesn’t escape us,” Finley said. “That’s pretty darn cool.”
Speaking of cool, that was Flightline during his all too brief, but incredibly impactful career. His yearlings will begin to sell later this year.
“Boyd Browning is over the moon excited with that first group,” Finley said. “He’s been at it a long time as the president of Fasig-Tipton so you can imagine that there will be some real strong foals by Flightline at that September sale.”
Finley summed up the stallion market succinctly: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”
Finley would have loved to have raced Flightline into 2023, but it was not financially feasible. He was just worth way too much as a stallion. So, how good was Flightline? And what would have happened if he had raced more than six times?
“Comparison is a drainer of joy,” Finley said. “It derives you of joy to constantly be thinking about comparisons. That being said, I think it would have been great to put together a plan for 2023 to take him across the country and to showcase him.”
Flightline’s final race was a tour de force in the 2022 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland. Finley will never forget the feeling.
“I think we’ve won 25 Grade I (races),” Finley said, but after the winner’s circle “you look out and everybody’s gone or they’re trying to bet the next race. That day at Keeneland, you had as many people on the apron and in the grandstand to watch the winner’s circle as you did before the race.”
