2011 Rolex Wrap Up

As usual Rolex was full of OTTBs!  This year marks the first year we have given an award at Rolex, to the highest placed OTTB in the competition.  This turned out to be tricky – several horses listed as “thoroughbreds” in the program were not, and several others are purpose-bred, or home-breds, rather than race bred.  For our purposes we limited the award nominees to horses who were verifiably raced or bred for that purpose.

Our winner, in eighth place for the whole competition, was “St. Barths,” a lovely chestnut gelding ridden by Hannah Sue Burnett. 

St. Barths and Hannah Sue at Rolex

Hannah was also the 2nd highest placed American rider.  St. Barths was originally known as “Red Track Shoes,” by Salty Shoes out of Red Canada Lady.  He was unraced, but was bred for (and initially trained for) the track.  Congratulations to St. Barths and Hannah!

The other horses in the running for our award this year:

Shiraz:  This horse came in 12th at Rolex, ridden and owned by Colleen Rutledge.  What an amazing powerhouse!  Shiraz is one heck of a jumper and was very exciting to watch! Originally known as “Bold and Burley,” by Gallapiat out of Bold Blosson, Shiraz raced 14 times, finishing his career at Penn National with two wins to his credit.

Parker: Finishing in 14th place, Parker was originally known as “Eastside Park” (by Marquetry, out of Hello Mom), and raced at Monmouth Park with 15 starts to his credit.

Icarus:  Finishing in 19th place, Icarus was originally named (appropriately) “I Just Want to Fly” (by Boundlessly, out of Suzan’s Silver).  He is an Iowa bred, and raced four times with earnings of $540.

Anthony Patch finished right behind Icarus, in 20th place.  Unfortunately they had a stop on Cross Country, or we might have seen him up nearer to the top! As regular readers know, Anthony Patch was originally “Alex’s Castledream” (by Castleguard out of Aimee Alexis) and was originally sold off the track through our very own CANTER Mid-Atlantic trainer-owned listing program. 

Finishing 23rd was Prowler, ridden by Susan Beebee of North Carolina.   By Turkoman out of Another Deposit, Prowler was originally known as “Kittoman” and raced 28 times (mostly at Philly Park) with one win.

In 24th was High Society, a horse whose connections apparently did not know he actually raced.  High Society is an Australian bred TB by Vain Karioi out of Test Bat.  According to equineline he raced 7 times, never placing.  As we had heard this horse hadn’t raced, we double checked by taking a look at his shoulder brand.  Horses from Down Under receive a brand instead of a lip tattoo, and the lower number indicates the last number of the year they were born.  As the breeding produced two geldings, one in ’96 and one in ’97, and the younger one did not race, we made sure to take a look. Sure enough, the brand read “6” which means we did identify him correctly 🙂 

Kelly Sult’s Hollywood finished in 26th place.  As we mentioned last year, this horse was originally known as “Mighty Reckless” by Mighty Adversary, out of Reckless Knight.  He raced 12 times with a whopping $626 in winnings.

Rounding out the successful finishers is Sandhill’s Tiger, in 28th place. Out of Danzero and out of Sparkling, Sandhill’s Tiger was originally known as “Danribot” and is listed on equineline as having 28 starts and a “winner”  (if anyone knows how to get more detailed race result info for the horses from Australia, let me know!)

In the “did not finish” category:

Wonderful Will was withdrawn before the second inspection.  He was one of my favorites, especially because retaining his JC name made him easy to research.  🙂  Wonderful Will (Woodman – Shir Dar) raced 11 times, never placing.

 My Sedona was eliminated on Cross Country (fall at fence 24), though everybody walked away looking fine.  My Sedona was originally known as “Montana Hot Stuff” (Starbird Glacier – Past Noon) and raced four times.

Gaelic Marriage (whose JC name is “Gailic Marriage” by Husband out of Gail on the Run) was also eliminated on cross country.  He is listed as unraced by equineline.

Two of our TB award nominees retired on cross country:

Our Questionnaire, registered as “Questionnaire,” a NZ Thoroughbred by Westminster out of Strike a Pose.  He had 13 starts and was placed.

Exploring (also  his original registered name), by Discover and out of Sistene, who raced 2 times with earnings of $185.

Two others were withdrawn prior to Cross Country:

Gryffindor, aka “Budweise,” by Country Light out of Lani Molly, who is a race winner with 26 starts.

Titanium, who is by Shuailaan out of Lost Silver, who was a winner with 14 starts.

It’s worth noting that the TB influence at Rolex this year was pervasive – besides the OTTBs, there were several homebred/purpose bred Thoroughbreds present (like “Snip” from New Zealand), and many Sport Horses with heavy TB influence in their pedigrees.

It has also come to our attention that the seventh placed horse, Exponential, was also an OTTB, but prior to the event (and even now), we cannot confirm his identity as his official records have his parentage as “unknown.”  Hopefully we can confirm he is, add him to our list, and let him share the glory!

Which also brings to mind… how the heck do we find all this out? Well… between the Rolex program and USEF records, we can often find the horses’ parents name.  From there, I cross reference the YOB with dam’s name on Equineline to verify the pedigree information.  From there, if the horse is in North America, I can look up their race results on equibase.com. 🙂  Some horses are more complicated, and it took a fair amount of googling, checking riders’ sites, and sending emails to get other information to go on. 

If anyone has any additions, feel free to pass them along!

Edited to add: We received an email from a friend/client of Jessica confirming that Exponential is indeed an OTTB, and his registered name was “War Buckaroo,”  an Ontario-bred by War Deputy out of Misspent Bucks.  He raced a whopping 44 times (until he was 6 years old), with 3 wins to his credit and $55,600 in earnings.  As Exponential finished in 7th place, that makes him the highest placed OTTB at Rolex! And if you haven’t watched any of the competition, I’d highly recommend seeing if you can watch some video, this horse is an AMAZING jumper – and also doesn’t appear to be all that big.  He has wings for feet and I have no doubt we will continue to see him competing at major competitions for years. 

Exponential Catching Some Air