Breeders’ Cup Barn Notes: A Lot & “The Motts”

Another quiet morning with the European horses who will complete quarantine later today ahead of their first day training tomorrow morning. Connections seem happy with the condition of their horses and no concerns are reported.

Khaadem (IRE) (Turf Sprint) did the same routine as Sunday, a trot in the chute of the main track followed by a trot and light canter around the turf track.

Charlie Appleby and Aidan O’Brien, amongst many more of the international trainers and jockeys arriving California today and will be trackside overseeing their horses Tuesday morning.

Horse: El Cordobes (Ire)
Trainer: Charlie Appleby

Jockey: Billy Loughnane

Set: Del Mar Quarantine

Morning activity: Quarantine

Planned activity: Will train at Del Mar for the first time on Tuesday morning

El Cordobes (Ire), named after famed matador Manuel Benítez Pérez, will mess with both the bull and the horns when he takes on a world-class field in the Saturday’s Longines Breeders’ Cup

Turf. Naturally a bit overlooked as the stablemate to dual Turf winner Rebel’s Romance (IRE), the Charlie Appleby trainee earned his way into the race with a workmanlike victory in August’s G1 Sword Dancer at Saratoga, his first of two stateside runs.

Last out, after failing to find cover and relax as needed, he finished third in Rebel’s Romance’s G1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic on Sept. 27. Said effort was part of a long campaign that saw him go from a 91 rating in a January Meydan handicap to 116 and a contender in America’s top grass race.

“I just think he’s a horse who ticks the boxes and has had those two runs in American in the Sword Dancer and Joe Hirsch there,” Appleby said of the $2.3 million sale purchase. “I feel in the Sword Dancer, yes of course it wasn’t a super-impressive victory, but it was a win where he cut his teeth and did well in his first run in the states.

“In the Joe Hirsch, I thought he wasn’t necessarily unlucky, but I know he should have and could have finished second,” Appleby continued. “In my mind, I could never see him beating Rebel’s Romance and I told that to William when we talking about whether he was going to make the trip over to ride. Beating Nations Pride is one thing, but beating Rebel’s Romance—I could never see that. Again, I wanted to run him just to see if he could run a sensible race behind Rebel’s Romance. Doing that would put him in the mix of a race like the Breeders’ Cup Turf.”

While it is rare to use a Breeders’ Cup championship race as a building block, that is exactly what Appleby and Godolphin hope to do in what is the well-bred gelding’s 12th lifetime start.

“More experience, especially in races like these, is important for him—one-hundred percent,” Appleby concluded. “He’s a gelded son of Frankel and, as you know, we try to pick horses who can try to campaign internationally for us. He’s there already and could be on the cusp of being that kind of active, competitive top-level horse that we could send to places like America and hopefully a couple times during the year we could try to pinch one or two Grade 1s, as we say.”

Olé.

Horse: Tawny Port

Trainer: Miguel Clement

Jockey: Manny Franco

Morning Activity: Galloped 1 ¼ miles under exercise rider Rafaela Sanchez.

Planned Activity: Routine gallop scheduled.

The Quote: “He loves the fall and has been training forwardly. He’s very consistent and honest. In his three last races, he was actually finishing fastest, quarter pole to the wire. Plenty of interest, but just a question of will he get there in time. But I do expect him to make a solid account for himself. As long as there is a good trip, I expect him to run plenty well enough late and out-run his odds.” – Miguel Clement

Horse: Rhetorical

Trainer: Will Walden

Jockey: Irad Ortiz Jr.

Morning Activity: Galloped 1 1/4m with exercise rider Jeramie Fennell

Planned Activity: Same as Monday.

The Quote: “He is a pretty easy doer. This is why we are in the game. We want to compete at the highest level with the best horses. That is what the team is centered around doing. We are privileged to be here, and we are excited, also.” – Will Walden 

Horse: Bellezza

Trainer: Miguel Clement

Jockey: Jaime Rodriguez

Morning Activity: Galloped 1 ¼m under exercise rider Lee Vickers

Planned Activity: Routine gallop scheduled.

The Quote: “She really transformed this winter and blossomed, which sometimes takes place for these European fillies, when being based at Payson Park. She’s not the same filly, in our opinion, as when she first came to us. She’s the most gorgeous filly we have in the barn. She’s strong, she’s powerful, and her works have been from good to great. She stays, which makes her even more lethal. And she has an affinity for firm turf, which is exciting, because we expect her to get plenty of firm turf in California.” – Miguel Clement

Horse: Kopion, Big City Lights
Trainer: Richard Mandella

Jockeys: Kopion (Mike Smith) and Big City Lights (Kazushi Kimura)
Morning Activity: Kopion walked, Big City Lights galloped after arriving at Del Mar from their Santa Anita base.
The Quote: “I thought selfishly of running both Kopion and Tamara in the Filly & Mare Sprint for me to give me the best chance of winning. The more I thought about it, the two fillies are at the top of their game. I think they’re as good as anyone and I think they both deserve their own chances.” – Richard Mandella on the decision to run Kopion in the Sprint versus the Filly & Mare Sprint.

“He’s doing great. He’s a Cal-bred who wins his share. He’s had a long layoff, but he runs very good fresh. He worked good enough that I thought he deserved a shot.” – Richard Mandella on Big City Lights

Horse: Haulin Ice
Trainer: Saffie Joseph, Jr.
Jockey: Tyler Gaffalione
Set: 8:45 a.m.
Morning Activity: Jogged on the main track after shipping in on Sunday
Planned Activity: Gallop on the main track
The Quote: “She came in good and she’s just jogging this morning. It’s her first day on the track.” – Trainer Saffie Joseph, Jr.

Horse: Tamara

Trainer: Richard Mandella

Jockey: Mike Smith

Morning Activity: Galloped after arriving at Del Mar from her Santa Anita base.

The Quote: “She doing great. She came back great. We had a frustrating year with her last year, but nothing big happened to her Thank God. She’s back in really good shape. Her Del Mar Debutante and the race the other day (the Chillingworth (G3)) tell me she can run. She likes this track. It’s all in the family.” – Trainer Richard Mandella

Note: Tamara is the daughter of three-time Breeders’ Cup winner Beholder.

Horse: White Abarrio
Trainer: Saffie Joseph, Jr.
Jockey: Irad Ortiz, Jr.
Set: After renovation break
Morning Activity: Jogged back to the wire and galloped 1 3/8m
Planned Activity: Same routine
The Quote: “He’s happy, shipped well, held his weight after the ship, and that’s what you want. So far, so good.” – Trainer Saffie Joseph, Jr.

Multiple Grade 1 winner White Abarrio has seen his fair share of racetracks, and reached the epitome of success when taking the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic in 2023 at Santa Anita Park. At 6-years-old, there’s little he has not seen or done on a racetrack. Yet even with all his experience, there’s no harm in some moral support as he prepares for an attempt at his second Breeders’ Cup victory in the Dirt Mile.

In September, trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. decided to offer White Abarrio a new companion in the form of a chocolatey-brown goat, appropriately named Brownie, in an effort to keep the job engaging and interesting as he approaches the end of his fifth season on the racetrack.

“We just wanted to work on the mental aspect,” Joseph Jr. explained. “He’s 6 and everything with a horse is mental. The happier you get them, the more they’ll give you their all. It’s a change you’re looking for to try and refresh them, and it’s really worked. He accepted him and they’ve been fine. He plays with him and bites him playfully. They’re friends and I definitely think it’s helped him. If he wins, it’s all Brownie.”

Horse: Iron Orchard
Trainer: Danny Gargan
Jockey: Joel Rosario
Set: None
Morning Activity: Tack walked after shipping from New York on Sunday
Planned Activity: Will jog around 5:30 a.m.
The Quote: “She’s coming into the race good. She likes to win, so hopefully she can pull off one more. It’s nice after having the big horse [Dornoch] last year to come back this year to have a 2-year-old that can bring us back to these big races. It’s a lot of fun.” – Danny Gargan

Grade 1-winning juvenile filly Iron Orchard learned early in life how to stay the course. The daughter of Authentic lost her mother at just four months of age but persevered through tragedy to display that tenacity on the racetrack and put together three flawless starts to begin her career.

Bred and foaled in New York by Marty Zaretsky’s Pine Ridge Stables, Iron Orchard is out of the dual stakes-placed Brethren mare Onebrethatatime and was born on April 22, 2023. The foaling was routine and uneventful, and about one month later, the filly and Onebrethatatime were sent to Kentucky for the mare to be bred again. The two returned to Pine Ridge shortly thereafter, and that’s when things took a turn for the worse.

“They came back and everything was normal for the most part, but then the mare started getting sick,” said Kenny Toye, farm manager for Pine Ridge Stables. “She kept deteriorating and passed away. You’re dealing with the death of the mare, but you have to focus on what you can save.”

The clock began to tick for the filly, who called out for her mother and would never receive an answer. Toye and his team immediately sprung into action, and contacted Laura Phoenix’s Heavensent Nursemares to find a surrogate for Iron Orchard. Luckily, the farm had a lactating thoroughbred named Spiteful Love that was ready for a foal, and the two were introduced within 24 hours of Onebrethatatime’s untimely passing.

“It’s a very stressful time for the baby, and the most critical time is when the mare and the baby get introduced,” Toye said. “Their connection was pretty immediate and simple. You think, ‘why would a baby accept a new mom?’ To see that happen is magical, it sticks, and it’s very powerful.”

Iron Orchard flourished with her adoptive mother, and despite concerns that a filly who went through such an ordeal would be behind in her development, she impressed enough as a weanling to sell for $140,000.

“You couldn’t even tell there was any kind of rift,” Toye said. “Around the summertime, consignors will come to look at our breeding stock and we decide who is ready to sell as a weanling and who needs to wait – she was a standout physical. We entered her in the (Keeneland) November sale, knowing that anything can happen and that we would scratch her if we needed to. It never happened, and she kept moving forward every single day.”

The filly would subsequently sell to Bill Childs and Mark Stanton for $500,000 at this year’s OBS Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, and was sent to the barn of trainer Danny Gargan to begin her racing career. A winning debut against maiden auction company this summer at Saratoga Race Course led to a successful stakes debut against fellow New York-breds in the Spa’s Seeking the Ante, and a triumph at the highest level in Belmont at the Big A’s Grade 1 Frizette on Oct. 4.

With her Frizette score, Iron Orchard punched her ticket to the Breeders’ Cup as part of the “Win and You’re In” Challenge Series. While Gargan will still be the one to saddle her at Del Mar, a new owner will look to claim the floral blanket after she sold to KatieRich Stables for $2.5 million in a special online auction through Fasig-Tipton in mid-October.

“It’s a miracle to even get them to the next day. So many things can go wrong, and for this filly to make it to the races, period, is a miracle,” Toye said. “When she was in that Grade 1, she pinned her ears when horses passed her, and to see her dig in like that, it gives you chills.”

Now, Iron Orchard is facing her toughest task on the racetrack to date, and is here thanks to her doting adoptive mother and a team surrounding her with equal care and attention on both the farm and the track.

“There’s so many things you can say to describe the feeling, but to know that she came from our efforts as a team gives us a lot of confidence in what we’re doing,” Toye said. “We know how special it is to get there to the Breeders’ Cup, and knowing that she came from the farm and that we had that special time with her, you get emotional.”

Horse: Argos

Trainer: Riley Mott

Jockey: Flavien Prat

Morning Activity: Galloped 1 1/4m at 6:45 a.m. with exercise rider Antonio Garcia

Planned Activity: Same as Monday

The Quote: “He has always been a pretty good looking, well training horse. We thought a lot of him when he came in. He is by Nyquist, who is probably one of the hottest sires in America right now. After his maiden win, I mapped out a two-race plan to hopefully propel us to the Breeders’ Cup. I wanted to get to the (G1) Summer Stakes (at Woodbine), which has been a bucket list race of mine since when I was working for my dad (Hall of Famer Bill Mott). If we were lucky enough to run well there (he won), the Breeders’ Cup was going to be the net plan.” – Riley Mott

Oh, there was never a doubt that this was where Riley Mott was going to end up.

Ever since he was 8-years-old, all young Riley wanted to do was this. While others his age might have dreamed of becoming the shortstop for the New York Yankees or a fireman or an astronaut, Riley Mott wanted to be a horse trainer.

“I kind of put all my eggs into one basket,” Mott said. “Maybe not the smartest idea, but I was able to realize my passion at a very young age.”

Mott certainly has horse racing in his DNA.

His father is Hall of Famer Bill Mott and the two are reunited this week at the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar. Riley, who was an assistant for his father for nine years before going out on his own in the fall of 2022, will saddle his first Breeders’ Cup horse when Argos runs in Friday’s Juvenile Turf (G1).

Argos will bunk in the same barn that houses his dad’s two horses, the imposing Sovereignty in the Classic and Scylla in the Distaff.

“I’m glad I don’t have to run against him because I don’t want him beating me,” the dry-witted elder Mott said outside his barn at Del Mar. “Now, I can root for him. I absolutely want him to win, and I think he wants me to win.”

The elder Mott was looking forward to having his son join him on the Del Mar backside. Riley Mott plies his trade in Kentucky while his dad sets up shop in Saratoga for much of the year.

Monday morning, while Bill Mott was putting Sovereignty and Scylla through their final Breeders’ Cup workouts at Del Mar and dealing with a steady flow of print and video journalists, Riley Mott was doing his thing with Argos in relative obscurity.

And that was fine with him. He was more than content to soak in the atmosphere. Besides being in the same barn with his dad, two of his friends, Will Walden and Miguel Clement, also have horses in the same barn. They are also saddling their first Breeders’ Cup horses.

“Certainly, bringing my own horse under our own banner means a lot,” Riley Mott said. “Hopefully, it’s the first of many.”

Riley Mott, 33, checked one big box on his resume earlier this year when he won his first Grade 1 race. It came with the 3-year-old World Beater (11-1) in the Saratoga Derby Invitational at Saratoga Race Course on Aug. 2.

His dad finished seventh in that race with Capitol Hill.

Since then, Riley Mott has picked up another Grade 1, that coming when Argos won the Summer Stakes at Woodbine. According to Equibase, Riley Mott has 98 career wins in 618 starts. He has a long way to go to catch up with dad, who has made 5,558 trips to the winner’s circle.

The Motts will enjoy this little family reunion; both are here to compete and win.

Father Bill said he and Riley will talk about the horses; they do that all the time. But he is not going to stay clear of what his son is doing.

“I am not going to interfere with what he is doing,” Bill Mott said. “He wants to do his own thing. That is the way he wants it and I can understand that. Naturally, if he would ask, I would do whatever I could, but I would not interfere.”

Riley Mott made it a point to get a good glimpse of Sovereignty Monday morning. He still bleeds Mott blood and, as they say, blood is thicker than water. He will be rooting for dear old dad on Saturday.

“He is competitive; he still has the fire,” Riley said of his 72-year-old father. “Hopefully, it will be a fruitful weekend for both of us.”

Horse: Bottas
Trainer: Miguel Clement

Jockey: Manny Franco
Morning Activity: Galloped 1 1/14m under exercise rider Lee Vickers

Planned Activity: Routine gallop scheduled

The Quote: “He’s got a very good turn of foot. He’s got tactical speed. He’s always shown ability from Day One. They’re always very high on him. It’s impressive enough, the way he won his maiden, beating a TDN Rising Star. Then he had to show some grit and determination to win the Pilgrim, because it was not a straightforward race. He’s undefeated. He’s 2-for-2. He’s live, and he’s improving. It’s fun.” – Miguel Clement

Horse: Gordon Pass

Trainer: Will Walden

Jockey: Ird Ortiz, Jr.

Morning Activity: Galloped 1 1/4m with eercie rider Jeramie Fennell

Planned Activity: Same as Monday

The Quote: (This will be the first horse Walden has saddled saddles in the Breeders’ Cup)

“I thought his race in the Bourbon (G2) (at 52-1 odds) was very good. He was still a little green and immature and gave himself too much to do. He was third. The horses that were first, second and fourth were 1-2-3 at the quarter pole, and he was last. He came home faster than anybody. He has taken a step forward in all of his (three) races. If he does so again out of the Bourbon, we think he will be right there. He is going to be a huge price, maybe the longest on the board. We have put in the body of work, now it’s just up to how it goes.” – Will Walden

Horse: Intricate Spirit
Trainer: Miguel Clement

Jockey: Joel Rosario
Morning Activity: Galloped 1 1/4m under exercise rider Rafaela Sanchez

Planned Activity: Routine gallop scheduled

The Quote: “He showed a lot of speed on debut when he won, beating a TDN Rising Star. When he won the Futurity, he showed a tremendous amount of speed again. They went the half in 43 and change. For 2-year-olds on that turf course that’s rolling. I don’t think 5 furlongs would be an issue whatsoever. I know they’re going to go very fast early. We all know that. But he’s got a tremendous and enormous amount of speed, as well. Joel could be forward, or he could be sitting right off them, like he did. Whatever he wants. Just let him run. He’s got speed.” – Miguel Clement.

Horse: Military Code (GB)
Trainer: Charlie Appleby

Jockey: William Buick

Set: Del Mar Quarantine

Morning activity: Quarantine

Planned activity: Will have his first view of Del Mar on Tuesday morning

It is rare for Charlie Appleby to fly a bit under the radar in any race, much less a Breeders’ Cup, but Military Code is doing just that in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, currently ninth in the international market for the 5f grass dash that kicks off the World Championships on Friday. William Buick will ride the dual winner from six starts, a Godolphin homebred son of Wootton Bassett who exits a head-bob second in the Listed Roses Stakes at York Racecourse’s famed Ebor Festival on Aug. 23. Appleby has started just one horse in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, winning with Mischief Magic (IRE) in 2022 at Keeneland.

“He’s coming off a bit of a break since Ebor and I just feel he’s a horse who reminds me a little bit of Mischief Magic, where he may not be the best horse in the race, but the running style could just suit him around there, in respects to the hustle and bustle,” Appleby said. “Obviously, we are waiting for the draw, which is a huge factor around there. Regardless of that, I think the style of the race could just suit him. He’s far from being the best horse on rating and has plenty to find on that, but he goes there fresh, he loves the quick ground and I think the track and the style of race will suit him.”

Mischief Magic entered his successful Breeders’ Cup venture off a fourth in G1 company and already owning a Group 3 victory two races prior. His rating at the time 109, is four pounds higher than the 105 of Military Code.

Beginning his career in the spring at Newmarket and Ascot with two of wins, Military Code kept a busy summer schedule that included a disappointing 17th as the 7-1 fourth choice in a 20-horse renewal of the Group 2 Coventry at Royal Ascot. Continuing his tour of the prestigious meetings of the summer in the UK, he was a head second in the Listed Dragon Stakes at Sandown during the Coral-Eclipse meeting and seventh in the Molecomb at Glorious Goodwood before his second at Ebor to subsequent  Flying Childers winner Revival Power.

“The filly that beat us went on to win again, so she put a good stamp on it and I actually think Military Code is in better condition now than he was before Ebor, to be fair,” Appleby continued. “I was wanting to run him between then and now, but unfortunately there wasn’t a place that I thought he would gain the right experience to prepare him for the Breeders’ Cup. I toyed with possibly taking him to Dundalk to get him on a turning track there, but again, it may not have helped us get into the (Juvenile Turf Sprint), as we knew we were on the edge ratings-wise of getting into the Breeders’ Cup, so we decided to educate him at home and hope we got him right.”

Buick reflects Appleby’s confidence.

“He’s a solid horse and it’s going to suit him around there,” Buick said. “He wants 5 furlongs and fast ground. He reminds me a lot of Sound And Silence (GB), who we brought there for that race in 2017 and he finished a good second. I think he’s going to get it to suit him, especially if he gets a good gate.”