Race Recap:  Salt Water Reign Wins Again!!

Salt Water Reign prevailed over a field of 7 on March 28th in a race for New York state-bred 3-year old fillies going 6 furlongs at Aqueduct.

At the top of the stretch she made a move towards the rail in an attempt to get past the pacesetter. When that hole wasn't open jockey Eibar Coa then shifted her to the outside. She squeezed up next to the horse to her immediate outside, found daylight, then found another gear as she exploded past the pacesetter and broke free by daylight. She drew away as she crossed the wire and won by 4 ¾ lengths.

To watch a replay of the race click here: http://www.racereplays.com/nybreds/index.cfm?racename=wednesday5  If clicking on the link doesn't work then copy the link and paste it in your browser.

Track Trivia:  Focus on Saratoga

Saratoga Fun Fact: A lake in the middle of the track contains a canoe that is painted annually in the colors of the winning stable for that year's Travers Stakes winner.  We think Blue and Pink would be nice :)

See end of newsletter for answers.

New Offerings in April - Subscribers Find Out First!

The Hibiscus team is gearing up for the Keeneland Two Year Olds In Training Sale on April 17 and the OBS Spring Sale of Two Year Olds In Training April 24 - April 27.  "We will continue to follow the same model that brought Salt Water Reign to our stables last year, " stated Mike Oliveto.  "We look for the right combination of value and pedigree.  If a horse has the potential, we are very confident that our management and training approach can pull it all together".

 This year, Hibiscus has implemented a notification program called H-Alert that will ensure that interested partners get alerted when new horses are available.  As soon as new horses are acquired, information including photos and pedigree will be compiled and sent to current partners and subscribers of this newsletter. Click here if this newsletter was forwarded to you and you would like to subscribe and be among the first learn about new offerings.

A Horse's Tale - The Story of Salt Water Reign

This article from Mike Oliveto chronicles the events of acquiring, preparing and racing Salt Water Reign and provides insight into the process that has taken place over the past twelve months.

The Purchase - When we arrived at OBS in 2006 there were around 150 New York state-bred horses in the sale.  That may seem like a lot but it’s fairly easy to eliminate about half just by flipping through the catalog.  Before we even hit the barns we met with Alex Brancato who was doing some advance legwork for our trainer Steve Klesaris.  She said that Steve had picked out a nice filly that he thought would be good for our program.  I cross-referenced this horse against my ranked list and found that this one was in my top 10.  She was a nice looking Salt Lake filly out of a grade 1 placed mare.  You don’t see too many of these in the state-bred program.  We rendezvoused with Steve and had a look at her and decided to take a run at her in the sales ring.  When the gavel came down Hibiscus Stables were the owners at $57,000.  I felt really good about this horse because it was high on my list, was individually selected by both Steve and Alex, and even Steve’s high profile client, Jeff Puglisi, told me that he liked her as well.  It seemed all the planets lined up for this horse.

The Preparation - She was immediately shipped to a farm in Ocala with which Steve has a relationship and she then went on to Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland where Steve has a facility.  Fair Hill is also the base for top trainer Michael Matz who you may remember was the trainer of Barbaro.  Barbaro trained for his Triple Crown run at Fair Hill.

We weren’t sure if Steve wanted to give her some time off after the sale as some trainers do.  However, Steve likes to get them going right away.  As Steve pointed out, “These horses are trained up to the sale.  We don’t want them to lose their sharpness by giving them days.  In this game time is money.”  So Salt Water Reign began her lessons in May learning to breeze and breaking from the gate.

By the end of July Steve had her ready to be entered into a maiden special weight the final week of the Belmont meet.  Just as he was about to enter her she developed a cough and Steve had to put her training on hold for a week, which disrupted her schedule to get into a race.  Once she recovered NYRA had moved to Saratoga and Steve didn’t feel comfortable sending her from Maryland for her first race.  Steve seems to be the kind of trainer that likes to send a new horse into its first race more as a learning experience and less with the expectation to win.  Horses usually get a lot out of their first race and often show vast improvement from the first to the second race.  As such, Steve elected to run her in a maiden race at Delaware, in her own backyard, against open company.  As luck would have it, the day she was supposed to race it was the hottest day of the entire year with the temperature above 100 degrees.  Racing was canceled that day and once again Salt Water Reign would have to wait for her debut. 

The Races - They brought the race back a few days later and re-drew the entries.  Salt Water Reign wound up going up against Your Flame In Me who would go on to run in stakes races.  She experienced a bit of a troubled trip as another horse cut her off in the backstretch.  Even then she finished a respectable 4^th with a 56 Beyer Speed Figure.  That debut may seem very uninspiring but we were elated because she finished 4^th against open company competition and her Beyer had her extremely competitive with the figures that the winners were posting back in New York in state-bred competition.

We were getting ready for her 2nd race, which would be in Saratoga, when we received the call from Steve that she was feeling sore.  After a trip to the New Bolton center she was diagnosed with an inflammation of the growth plates in her fetlocks and she’d need some time to heal.  This condition is not uncommon to young horses going through the rigors of training.  Although she was expected to make a full recovery it was yet another setback.

By the time she was fully recovered we were ready to bring her back as a 3-year old in January.  Steve sent her to up to Aqueduct to face a field of 6 other state-bred maidens and she didn’t disappoint our expectations as she crushed them by over 6 lengths as she drew away in hand under the wire.

She returned a month later to face winners for the first time.  She drew the outside post and ran a respectable 3^rd racing 3-wide on a day where the rail was golden.  Steve also noted that the month of February was bitter cold and she missed more than a few days of training, which he believes set her back and explains why she wasn’t at her best that day.

We brought her back a month after that and she showed us her true heart as she won her second race in four starts once again drawing off after being bottled up in traffic entering the stretch.

The Future - We’re looking to race her back in April and then take a look at a stakes race in May.  The one thing that I continue to impress is that she’s the daughter of a multiple graded stakes winner and a grade 1 placed mare.  She’s bred to run in open company and she showed that by the way she dispatched state-bred allowance foes.  If she continues to advance and stay healthy she’ll eventually run through her last state-bred condition and then there’ll be nothing left but stakes and open company allowance races.  The beauty of running in New York in open company is that the owners and breeders qualify for racing bonuses from the New York Breeders Fund.  That means that Salt Water Reign would receive a 10% bonus on top of all purse monies won when racing in New York against open company.  We have a lot to look forward to this summer with Salt Water Reign.  If she stays on track it may be a very exciting summer for the Hibiscus partners who invested in her.

- Mike Oliveto, Hibiscus Stables.

Hibiscus Stables Partner Spotlight: Tom Consaga

Our partner, Tom Consaga of Yorktown has opened up a new real estate office in Pleasantville, NY. RE/MAX Ace Realty - phone number: (914) 495-4020 ext 100. Tom has been involved in all phases of real estate for the past 15 years, and has been a licensed realtor since 1998.  Tom is married to Lori and they have a 3 year-old son Thomas III.  They are expecting another bundle of joy in October. Good luck to Tom and Lori!

Tom was tapped for an article about Hibiscus Stables where he summed the feeling after Salt Water Reign's first win by saying. "We have very high hopes for her,” he said, adding, “I don’t even care about the investment part of it, with the amount of fun I’m having.”   Click here to read the entire article.

Answers to Track Trivia:  C, A, True, Go For Wand