By Jessica Martini
Kinsman Stable's Crew Dragon (Exaggerator) overcame a case of third-itis and plenty of traffic trouble to graduate by a gritty neck when trying nine furlongs for the first time at Gulfstream Park Sunday for trainer Bill Mott.
“Our team was very impressed with the gameness he showed fighting through horses to get them at the wire,” Kevin Adler, Kinsman's Vice President and Director of Racing, said. “Bill has liked this horse since the summer and Crew Dragon showed his versatility by getting the mile and an eighth.”
The Steinbrenner family's Kinsman Farm purchased Crew Dragon for $110,000 at the 2019 Keeneland September sale.
“[Kinsman President] Jessica Steinbrenner takes our team to Keeneland to try and buy a few athletes at a reasonable price to send to Ocala to train on her farm,” Adler said. “Crew Dragon had a nice athletic walk, good conformation in front, good shoulder, was decent size with an early birthday [Jan. 23], so physically he checked our boxes. We also liked that he is by Exaggerator from a female family with Distorted Humor in the third dam, so the bloodlines were there as well.”
Crew Dragon is the first foal out of Go Go Dana, a half-sister to graded stakes winner Liam's Dream (Liam's Map). His third dam is Danzig's Beauty (Danzig), dam of Distorted Humor.
The original plan was to offer the colt at the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale last spring. That was until the coronavirus pandemic intervened.
“[Kinsman Farm's Ocala-based trainer] Emily Dawson has done a great job getting the babies to the sales the past few years and Crew Dragon was training nicely on the farm early,” Adler said. “So we had the intention of taking him to the sale down at Gulfstream. The pandemic forced Fasig-Tipton to cancel the sale, leaving us to navigate around all the changes to the sale dates. We were stuck in limbo not knowing if we would have any sales, so we babied him along, making sure he was sound and happy. Once we had firm dates, we were able to get him ready to send him over to the OBS sale in June to see how he would perform. He breezed well, galloped out strong and vetted clean, so our team decided that we would take the chance and run him. So a few days later, he was on a van to Bill Mott.”
Crew Dragon opened his racing career three months later, closing from off the pace to be third without challenging the top two while going one mile over the Belmont turf Sept. 18. Closer to the pace in his next start, he was unable to keep pace with runaway winner Original (Quality Road) when third again going 1 1/16 miles over the Aqueduct turf. He raced greenly to be third again going that same distance at Gulfstream Park Jan. 2.
“His first two races in New York were encouraging enough, but his third kind of disappointed us, even though he ran against what looks like two really nice horses,” Adler said. “Turf racing is tough, so you have to be patient with the young horses as they are still figuring out how to race and compete.”
Crew Dragon finally put it all together Sunday. Behind a wall of horses at the top of the lane, the handsome chestnut gamely surged between foes when he finally found daylight and just got up in the shadow of the wire for a determined victory.
“Very exciting to watch for sure,” Adler said of Sunday's effort. “You would love to have a barn full of horses with the guts he displayed.”
As for where Crew Dragon might start next, Adler said, “We have been doing this for quite a few years and one thing we have learned is it is best we let the Hall of Famer Bill Mott make those decisions.”
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