Midnight Bourbon

While Steve Asmussen was on the road to the Texas yearling sales Sunday morning, his team was still celebrating a pair of Grade I victories at Saratoga Saturday. Yaupon (Uncle Mo) captured the GI Forego S.  in a dramatic stretch run shortly before stablemate Jackie's Warrior (Maclean's Music) battled to a determined victory in the GI H. Allen Jerkens Memorial S. Asmussen also saddled Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow) to a runner-up effort in the GI Runhappy Travers S. "I was so proud of how our horses ran yesterday. It was a...

If you like to sift through numbers, a few stand out from Saturday's GI Runhappy Travers S. card at Saratoga Race Course. How about six Grade I stakes, whose winners all earned triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures? They weren't big-figure blowouts either. Five of those ultra-competitive races were decided by a half-length or less at the wire. Nine winning favorites from 13 races also catches the eye. As does the four-win performance by jockey Joel Rosario. But the most mind-boggling numeric notation from the summer's biggest day of racing appeared in...

Champion Essential Quality (Tapit) came into Saturday's GI Runhappy Travers S. as the heavy favorite with three other Grade I victories to his credit, in addition to his Eclipse Award. Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow), on the other hand, entered with a point to prove as he never had a chance to show his stuff last time in Monmouth's GI Haskell Invitational S. July 17, after clipping heels and almost going down in the stretch. Essential Quality got the better of his rival at Saratoga Saturday, but not before Midnight Bourbon gave...

Eclipse winner Essential Quality (Tapit) headlines a strong field of seven in Saratoga's prestigious GI Runhappy Travers S. Saturday evening. Should he succeed he would be the second colt in as many as years to complete the GI Belmont S./Travers double and the first juvenile champion to take the Midsummer Derby since Street Sense won the 2007 renewal. Opening his sophomore account with wins in the GIII Southwest S. Feb. 27 and GII Toyota Bluegrass S. Apr. 3, the Godolphin homebred was fourth as the favorite in the GI Kentucky...

Winchell Thoroughbreds' Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow), who most recently clipped heels and nearly fell to the track in the stretch run of the July 17 GI Betfair.com Haskell S. at Monmouth Park, tuned up for an expected start in next Saturday's GI Runhappy Travers S. with a four-furlong work in :49.77 (17/68) over the Oklahoma training track at Saratoga Sunday. "He's a very impressive horse," trainer Steve Asmussen said. "I think we're obviously very fortunate that he came out of the mishap in the Haskell in good shape and he's training...

The Monmouth Park stewards have handed jockey Flavien Prat a seven-day suspension for his ride aboard Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) in the July 17 GI TVG.com Haskell S. The ruling was issued Sunday, three days after the stewards granted Prat a hearing. The suspension runs from Sept. 7 through Sept. 13. The timing may not be a coincidence, as the suspension starts the day after the Del Mar meet closes. California racing then shift to Los Alamitos, where Prat doesn't normally ride on a regular basis. It will, however, keep...

Over a teleconference, the Monmouth Park stewards held a hearing with jockey Flavien Prat Thursday morning concerning his ride aboard Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) in the GI Haskell S. run July 17. The stewards called for a hearing after disqualifying Hot Rod Charlie from first place. In a tight finish, Hot Rod Charlie may have come over on Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow), who was in third at the time. Midnight Bourbon fell, tossing his jockey, Paco Lopez. Neither Lopez nor Midnight Bourbon was seriously injured. According to a Monmouth Park spokesman,...

No man an island, huh? Not so sure about that, after the last year or so, when even a family household has sometimes felt like a peninsula at best. So, the very last thing anyone wanted on returning to Saratoga, after being denied its unique balm of fellowship last year, was to hear "the Q word" yet again. A 21-day quarantine for horses stabled in Barn 86, after one of Jorge Abreu's fillies tested positive to EHV-1, must have felt like Groundhog Day for Abreu and neighbor Kenny McPeek. Here...

Trainer Doug O'Neill experienced the agony and ecstasy of racing early Saturday evening at Monmouth Park, all in the span of less than 10 minutes. First, his star 3-year-old Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) won a hard-fought stretch battle in the GI TVG.com Haskell S., which would have been the colt's first Grade I victory after a handful of near-misses. But quickly after the race, in which Hot Rod Charlie came in on Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow) and the latter soon stumbled and lost rider Paco Lopez, the red inquiry sign lit...

Trainer Doug O'Neill joins the TDN Writers' Room following the disqualification of his horse, Hot Rod Charlie, in the Haskell Stakes to give his take on both the controversial race and the new whip ban at Monmouth Park.

After a heart-stopping incident in the stretch, and heated battle to the wire between Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) and 'TDN Rising Star' Mandaloun (Into Mischief) in Saturday's whip-free GI Haskell Invitational S. at Monmouth, the former crossed the line a nose to the good, only to be taken all the way down to last and Juddmonte's Mandaloun crowned the official winner. With the win, Mandaloun earned an automatic berth to the GI Breeders' Cup Classic later this year. Stretching-out 'Rising Star' Following Sea (Runhappy) seized the early lead entering the...

So the big question is whether the out-of-town jocks, in the heat of a $1-million battle for the GI TVG.com Haskell S., can master the instinct to reach for the whip? If any lifelong flagellants are anxious of their self-discipline, then they need only play back the 1988 running and remind themselves how Laffit Pincay, Jr. coaxed Forty Niner home, in withering heat, by a nose from Seeking the Gold. The whip is unsheathed, for sure, but so seamlessly with the horse's own efforts that the overall effect is like...