'Rising Star' Has Moseley, Walsh on the Brink of Further Success

Patricia Moseley has been around the game of Thoroughbred racing long enough to know that patience pays off. The former chairwoman of Suffolk Downs and widow of influential Massachusetts racing figure James B. Moseley has maintained a homebred racing operation for over 40 years and witnessed the ebb and flow of her stable's bloodlines across numerous generations. But patience and hard work are often augmented by the rising tide of good fortune, and Moseley's notable good luck came at the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF)'s 2012 fundraising gala in Saratoga Springs, where she placed a winning bid of $22,000 to acquire a stallion season to Ghostzapper.

Moseley shrewdly observed that Ghostzapper would be a suitable match for her stakes-placed mare Archstone (Arch)–who did her best work at distances 10 furlongs and longer over the turf–and sent the bay to visit the Hall of Famer and 2004 Horse of the Year in the spring of 2013.

“We got the [stallion] season at the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation dinner,” Moseley recalled. “And it was when Ghostzapper was just starting to warm up again, so [the price] was very reasonable at the time. He's having an unbelievable year [in 2017]. I saw he was doing well, and that's why we bought it at the charity event. But then, he really warmed up, so this year would've been a product of everyone that bred that spring.”

The product of the Ghostzapper–Archstone mating is 'TDN Rising Star' Proctor's Ledge, who has notched two impressive victories over the Gulfstream Park turf course to begin the 2017 season, adding to a recent run of success for her sire that has included current GI Kentucky Derby co-favorite McCraken, GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational runner-up Shaman Ghost and GII San Vicente S. hero Iliad.

Although Proctor's Ledge could do no better than an even seventh in her one-mile unveiling over a damp Churchill Downs turf course Nov. 26, the Brendan Walsh trainee returned to action with a 49-1 upset score going nine furlongs on the Pegasus World Cup undercard Jan. 28 [video] and recently made it two in a row with a handy 3 1/4-length success over entry-level allowance foes Saturday [video].

Moseley, who watched Saturday's race on her i-Pad while visiting an ailing friend in nearby Fort Lauderdale, said the win made her particularly proud because of the fact that Proctor's Ledge raced without Lasix. Guided along by Walsh's steady training plan, the filly represents the payout for years of perseverance with her damside predecessors.

“It's a culmination of many generations of a family we had, dating back to Drumtop (Round Table), who Bull Hancock actually got for us,” Moseley reflected. “It's always exciting to see these families come through. Bull bought her, and we actually owned her with Alice Chandler and we went on and bred her…Drumtop has been very good to us.”

In addition to capturing multiple stakes races on the racetrack for the Moseleys in a career that spanned from 1968-1971, Drumtop went on to become a foundation mare for their breeding operation, producing stakes winner Topsider (Northern Dancer) and Aliata (Mr. Prospector)–herself the dam of the useful stallion Storm Boot (Storm Cat) and, of course, Archstone. Moseley said she is hopeful that Proctor's Ledge may ultimately prove to be the most talented female runner to emerge from the bloodline.

To understand the importance of the Moseleys to the history of racing in Massachusetts, one can simply browse through the stakes records of Suffolk Downs, finding events named in honor of Drumtop, Topsider, and James Moseley himself. But the current climate for racing in the Bay State is unfavorable, with legislative woes limiting Suffolk to just six days of live racing in 2016.

“I have a farm going in New York now because things got so discouraging in Massachusetts,” Moseley said. “You breed a lot of Mass-breds and suddenly, there's no racing.”

While Moseley can point to plenty of favorable memories of Massachusetts racing in years past, she went back over 300 years through the state's history–to the Salem Witch Trials–to find inspiration for her Ghostzapper filly's name.

“I was fishing around for names, and more or less at the same time, I read this article in the paper about them christening Proctor's Ledge, which was where they pushed the witches over,” Moseley said. “With Ghostzapper, that seemed appropriate. And for a while, I thought, 'I don't know,' but a horse makes a name, doesn't it?”

As for Brendan Walsh, the 43-year-old Irish-born trainer has made a name for himself training the likes of multiple graded stakes-winning marathoners Cary Street (Smarty Jones) and Scuba (Tapit), as well as a number of talented female turf runners. Walsh said the success of Proctor's Ledge is particularly special because of Moseley's commitment to him from the outset of his career as a public trainer in 2012.

“A good friend of mine introduced me to her when I first started,” Walsh recollected. “My very first winner, actually, was for her–a filly called Sandcastle (Mizzen Mast). She's been a great supporter of mine since I started. I've always had two or three or four horses for her, so I'm delighted that this is for her. It's nice when somebody like that who has supported you since the start happens to come by a good one. She's just a great lady–loves the game, and loves horses. Nobody deserves it more than her.”

In recent years, Walsh and Moseley have also paired to campaign the multiple stakes-placed 7-year-old mare Bitty Kitty (Kitten's Joy), who Walsh said will be bred this spring. Sea Cloud (Mizzen Mast), a 4-year-old Moseley homebred, cleared her first-level allowance condition at Gulfstream Feb. 11, making the recent run of success for the owner and trainer all the more sweet.

Walsh said he was thoroughly impressed, but not necessarily surprised, by either of Proctor's Ledge's victories. Although the filly was dismissed at astronomical odds for her maiden victory at Gulfstream, the Irish native noted that she was deceptively competitive in her debut at Churchill–an effort that set her up for marked improvement early in her sophomore season.

“She ran really well,” Walsh remarked. “I thought last week, just since the maiden, she had really come to hand. And a couple people said, 'Oh, you're running her back quickly,' but she was just doing so good that when the race came up, I thought we'd go ahead and run her. She came out of that first race so well. I thought she was sitting on a good run, but she impressed me.”

As Walsh's stable continues to grow in his sixth year on his own, stakes-bound Proctor's Ledge gives him a decidedly bright outlook for the future.

“I think all her best days are in front of her, physically and mentally,” Walsh added. “She's taking a huge leap forward every time she runs, so we're very excited. I think there's no limitation [in terms of distance]. I had a nice 3-year-old grass filly last year named Auntie Joy (Uncle Mo), and I think this filly's as good as her, if not better. So we might take a similar route to what we did with her.”