Crossfirehurricane To Train On In America

Scott Heider's G3 Gallinule S. winner Crossfirehurricane (Kitten's Joy) will travel to America this weekend, where he will be trained as a 4-year-old in 2021 by Mike McCarthy in California.

Bred by Heider in partnership with Craig Bernick's Glen Hill Farm, Crossfirehurricane was shipped to Ireland to join trainer Joseph O'Brien. He broke his maiden in his lone start at two and won a conditions race and the Listed Patton S. in February going seven furlongs and a mile both at Dundalk before stepping up to 2000 metres to win the Gallinule by 1 1/4 lengths. Crossfirehurricane was a non-factor 10th in a rain-blighted G1 Irish Derby on June 27, and after a wet European summer threw off some of this other intended targets, he beat one horse home in the G3 Diamond S. at Dundalk on Sept. 25, a race from which he emerged with a cough after receiving plenty of kickback at the back of the pack.

Heider said Crossfirehurricane will spend 30 days letting down at Margaux Farm in Kentucky before joining McCarthy.

He's doing great,” Heider said of the chestnut colt. “I wouldn't say we had it in mind to bring him back here at age four, but he didn't really getting the opportunities to run the second half of the season and he's good and he's fresh, so it just made a lot of sense to bring him back and Joseph fully endorsed the idea of bringing him here.”

Heider has been slowly but surely building up blueblooded racing stables in America and Europe in recent years, his flagbearers in the U.S. including Grade I-winning fillies Mia Mischief (Into Mischief) and Speech (Mr. Speaker) and this year's GII Adirondack S. winner Thoughtfully (Tapit), in addition to Crossfirehurricane and the G2 Park Hill S. winner Pista (American Pharoah) in Ireland.

Of Crossfirehurricane, Heider said, “He's our first homebred group winner in Europe, in Ireland specifically, so he's very special to us. We ran him in the Irish Derby after he'd won a few races in a row, including a group stake. There was a monsoon that hit The Curragh minutes before the Irish Derby and it was tough from some of the camera angles to even see the horses. He did not like it at all on that yielding turf course and came out of it pretty body sore. Joseph took very good care of him, we let him get over being body sore and we knew those weren't the conditions we wanted to run him in again.

“The second half of the season over there there's been a lot of moisture, and every time we were pointing at something the turf had a lot of give to it. We finally found a race late this summer in France [the G2 Prix Guillaume d'Ornano] and actually flew him to France and had him there. France was getting soaked and the track was listed as heavy. The morning of the race Joseph said he would prefer to not run. We let Joseph make the calls so we scratched and flew him home.”

Heider said that despite the weather throwing his colt plenty of curveballs this summer, he has still enjoyed the ride immensely.

“If you'd asked me in the second half of the racing season over in Europe with the soft ground, 'was it frustrating to not be able to run him?' Honestly, very little,” he said. “When he started his campaign, when he broke his maiden at two and then came back and won the stake and then won the Group 3 at The Curragh; I'm still enjoying those moments. I'm hopeful we can keep him happy and healthy because I really do think he can be a top turf horse [in the U.S.] and that's a big reason we brought him back. He's just getting good and the vast majority of the Kitten's Joys excel the older they get. They're hickory tough and this guy is a competitor.”

Joseph O'Brien may be losing one Kitten's Joy from his lineup, but Heider preemptively softened the blow with Rosso Corsa, a yearling filly purchased for $800,000 at Keeneland September this year also by the champion sire of Roaring Lion, Kameko and Hawkbill.

“We're packing our Kitten's Joy pipeline,” Heider said. “We have a 2-year-old filly with Joseph, and we just bought another Kitten's Joy yearling filly in September and she's already over there with Joseph. We're going to continue the Kitten's Joy pipeline to Joseph; it's not going to slow down. We all know now these Kitten's Joys can compete anywhere in the world, and it's been fantastic these last few seasons to watch them perform at the highest level in Europe, but we've known for 10 years plus here in the States that they perform at the highest level over here.”

O'Brien also has Heider's Pista to look forward to in 2021. The 3-year-old filly, who won three straight races this summer including the Park Hill S. before finishing second in the G1 Prix de Royallieu, is currently enjoying some down time ahead of a 4-year-old campaign.

“Pista came out of the Group 1 on Arc weekend in great shape,” Heider said. “The Park Hill was the goal, and coming out of that the Group 1 on Arc weekend was the ultimate goal, and she ran a nice race to be second. But the plan all along after that was to pull the shoes and let her cool her jets and just baby her for a while. She's with Joseph and she's just been getting babied and getting an awful lot of carrots.

“She will go back into training at the end of December and Joseph has a plan for her as a 4-year-old that, frankly, I'm on the fence about whether I lay in bed at night and dream about it or just get nervous. He's got some lofty ambitions.”

With the filly having progressed with each run thus far, there is every reason to keep dreaming with Pista.

“She's far from a finished product,” Heider said. “She'll still pop those ears up and look around a little bit, and she wins with something in reserve. I'm so excited about the races Joseph has picked out for her and I'm hopeful we'll be able to travel a bit next summer to go over and see her. She's the definition of why we're in the game and why we do what we do. She's at that level that you're so incredibly thankful to be part of. Based on the family she comes from, when her racing days are over she'll go right into the broodmare band and we'll be very good stewards of her and the family.”