Owners Karl and Cathi Glassman, this week's Green Group Guests of the Week on the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland, bought their first horse in 2015 and initially didn't have much to show for it. But they understood patience and that good fortune would eventually come their way.
Did it ever.
The Glassmans have their first star, the GI Whitney winner Arthur's Ride (Tapit). Making his stakes debut at age 4, he was a 2 1/4-length winner on a rainy day in Saratoga. The win gave Bill Mott his first victory in the Whitney.
“It's horse racing,” Karl said. “We count our blessings every day, as Cathi said, to even have a horse run in Saratoga to run in the Whitney is still mind-boggling. And to win that race, I think we're both still on cloud nine. Where does it go from here? A lot of it depends on where Arthur takes us. Since he's come back from his challenges, he's never missed a work. He's healthy as he could be. And we just count our blessings where we are, and hopefully, he'll stay healthy and run in the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the Breeders' Cup. To run him there would be quite the honor.”
Arthur's Ride didn't run between Feb. 11, 2023 and March 16, 2024.
“It was a Wednesday morning, Bill called me and said that we had a problem,” Karl said. “He had tendon problems and we shipped him back to Barry (Eisaman). Barry did his magic, but he was still off for about a year. We've taken our time with him. Then we shipped him from Gulfstream to run at Churchill on a really tough, bottomless track and he didn't run well. Bill never lost the faith in him. We shipped him up to Saratoga on Belmont weekend and he won that allowance race impressively. After the race, I called Bill and I said, 'what's next?' He said, 'Jockey Gold Club. It's the right distance, a mile and a quarter.' But we are going to put him in a prep first. And I thought, 'I wonder what that means?' I said, 'Bill, what's the prep?'And he said that it was going to be in the Whitney.”
Making the story all that more sweet, Karl named the horse after his late father, Arthur.
“I try to not get emotional when I talk about this,” he said. “My dad was a special guy. My grandpa taught me how to read the Racing Form. I went to the track with my grandpa and my uncle. My dad raised five kids in a very middle-class background in California. So while he loved sports, loved racing, he didn't have time to go to the races. So I kind of had a misspent youth with my grandpa and my uncle and my friends. My dad was just such a great guy. And right before the pandemic, Cathi and I were able to take him to Santa Anita, take him through the paddock and watch a race from the winner's circle. He was so excited. He loved that so much. In January of 2022, we were at Gulfstream together, and he watched a horse that we owned break his maiden. I took my dad to the winner's circle, and he looked like we had just won the Kentucky Derby. It meant so much to him. In the days before that conversation, we had spent a lot of time together. As he got older he would say, 'I've had such a great ride.' And I told him that we had named a horse after him.”
In our breeding spotlight section we cast an eye over WinStar stallion Constitution (Tapit).
Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders' Association, West Point Thoroughbreds, WinStar, XBTV.com and Stonestreet Farm, the team of Zoe Cadman and Bill Finley looked back at the Whitney, the GI Test S. and the GI Clement Hirsch S.–won by the star filly Adare Manor (Uncle Mo). Randy Moss was not available because of NBC Olympic broadcast commitments.
Finally, the disqualification of Maximum Security (New Year's Day) from his win in the inaugural Saudi Cup was discussed as was marathon superstar Next (Not This Time). Finley wants to see the distance specialist tested in the big money races, which are contested at a mile-and-a-half or less.
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