It's not as if co-owner Larry Connolly was anticipating any trouble on his first visit to Monmouth Park, but he brought a four-legged street fighter with him just in case. The tough guy in question is Dornoch, an equine version of John L. Sullivan, one who seemingly enjoys mixing it up as much as winning. Dornoch had already shown a proclivity to take a punch and respond with a flurry entering the 57th Haskell Stakes-Gl at the New Jersey track July 20.
As a 2-year-old, the full-brother of 2023 Kentucky Derby-Gl winner Mage was passed by the talented Sierra Leone inside the eighth pole in the Remsen Stakes-G2 at Aqueduct, only to re-rally up the rail for the win. In the Belmont Stakes-G1 at Saratoga June 8, Dornoch took over the lead turning for home, was headed by Mindframe at the stretch call and again showed another gear, taking off for the wire and withstanding a furious rally from the erratic Mindframe. "He loves the fight," said trainer Danny Gargan, who called Dornoch the best horse he has ever trained two months before the horse ran a race. "I don't give up on him, because we have so much faith that he's going to dig back in." If anyone still questioned Dornoch's resiliency after the Remsen and Belmont, his Haskell performance provided what should be a final answer. On a banner day for racing in New Jersey, with another record handle and the most fans since American Pharoah came to Oceanport with a Triple Crown in tow nine years ago, Dornoch proved that not only could he take a punch, he could take two. Breaking from the same inside position that had been his undoing in the Kentucky Derby - no different from virtually every horse who draws the rail at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May - Luis Saez took Dornoch to the lead, mitigating any disadvantage the post might have. Timberlake, the Champagne-Gl winner as a 2-year-old who had won the Rebel-G2 title and finished a fading fourth in the Arkansas Derby-Gl, was intent on "The Haskell was a little more nerve-wracking. To get passed by two different horses and still win the race, especially a race of that caliber, were super proud." - Dornoch's co-owner Larry Connolly contesting the pace and ran even with Dornoch into the first turn. Saez saved ground and took a half-length lead onto the backstretch through a quarter-mile in :23.32 and a half in a moderate :48.08. Mindframe stumbled at the gate, but Irad Ortiz Jr. had him within 2 lengths of the frontrunner heading down the backstretch. As they entered the far turn, Flavien Prat took his best shot with Timberlake, just outside of Dornoch, while Ortiz made a confident wide move on Mindframe. Just as Dornoch repelled the bid of Timberlake, Mindframe struck the front at the stretch call and, if you used Ortiz's body language as an indicator, looked as if he was on his way to victory, perhaps even an easy one. Dornoch had other ideas, re-breaking on the inside and spurting away for a 1¼-length win. Maryland-bred Mindframe stayed for second with Timberlake 5 lengths back in third. The winner covered 1⅛ miles in 1:50.31 Oops, he did it again. "The Haskell was a little more nerve-wracking," said Connolly. "To get passed by two different horses and still win the race, especially a race of that caliber, we're super proud." Track announcer Matt Dinerman, calling his first Haskell, took some incoming from the social media cognoscenti for sounding as if Mindframe were going to win, but Gargan had zero issue with it. "Everybody wants to be hard on the announcer, but this horse will put you in a predicament where he looks beat," Gargan said. "If you watch the race, you might think Mindframe is going to win by 5 [lengths]. But I know when a horse gets to him he is going to switch leads and he has another gear. When he switched leads, he took back off." Dinerman, who has drawn positive reviews in his first season on the Monmouth mic, was caught a little off-guard by all the Fred Capossela wannabes.
"I'm my own worst critic," said Dinerman, who in the last year has taken over the booth at Oaklawn Park and Monmouth. "Everybody has a right to their own opinion. I warch how riders ride horses and Irad looked like he was ready to make a winning move." When horses make a move like he did, they probably win more than 90 percent of the time. When they lose, it is likely because they ran into a really tough customer, which is exactly what Dornoch is. It was super impressive that he held off those challenges and prevailed," said Connolly, a 1979 graduate of Washingron and Lee University in Lexington, Va., who has been a longtime supporter of the college since. He served on the board of trustees from 2015-22 and the J. Lawrence Connolly Center for Entrepreneurship and the J. Lawrence Connolly Endowment for the University's Shepherd Program for the Interdisciplinary Study of Poverty and Human Capability were named in his honor in recognition of his generosity. Connolly went to the track in his youth growing up in Westchester County, N.Y., but did not get seriously involved
in racing until a friend took him to Cheltenham in England late 1990s. A year after selling his audit and accounting consulting firm, he went to Saratoga for the 2013 Travers and one morning on the backstretch his good friend from Atlanta, Keith Mason, told him he was going to buy into the Donegal Racing Syndicate. "That might be something I want to do," Connolly said. Two years later, they were in the Travers winner's circle with Keen Ice, who pulled off a shocker in defeating Triple Crown winner American Pharoah. Easy game, right? "That was an unbelievable moment" Connolly said. "I was hooked for life after that. That was my first year in the syndicate and that was beginner's luck. I had a sense of the importance of it and the difficulty, but I didn't fully appreciate it." Connolly, who was in on 2020 Kentucky Derby winner Authentic with the Starlight Racing syndicate, formed West Paces Racing in 2019 with Mason and a few other friends from Cherokee Town and Country Club, on West Paces Ferry Road in Atlanta. He tried to be as honest and transparent as possible with their first group of investors, "I told them its a very tough business" he said. "Hopefully, we will buy eight to 10 a year and one or two will be partially interesting. Most likely, the syndicate will lose money, but every four, five, six years we might get a live one and have an interesting experience." The "live one" that is Dornoch was picked out at the 2022 Keeneland September yearling sale by Conor Foley of Oracle, the bloodstock agent for West Paces, They paid $325,000, which Foley thought was a fair deal. "I thought he would cost more," Foley said of the son of Good Magic, then an up-and-coming sire whose first mating with the dam Puca in 2019 resulted in 2023 Kentucky Derby winner Mage. "Your eyes are always drawn to a two-turn horse and he looked like a two-turn horse. I believed the stallion could be a nice stallion." Foley had bought Puca as a yearling for Donegal in 2013 and followed her career, in which she was Grade 2-placed and won the Steve Pini Memorial Stakes at Suffolk Downs in her penultimate start. (The runner-up in that race, Queen Caroline, is the dam of Forte, champion 2-year-old of 2022 and the morning line favorite for the 2023 Derby before getting scratched.) Fortunately for Connolly and the Dornoch ownership group, Mage's Derby win came eight months after they bought his full-brother. "I don't think we're going to be buying any more Good Magics," Connolly said. "They're all budget-dependent. We get outbid a lot. Every now and then we get one we really like.' An ownership group was formed that includes West Paces, former Major League Baseball All-Star and World Series champion Jayson Werth's Two Eight Racing, Garden State lifer Vito Cucc's Belmar Racing and Randy Hill's R.A. Hill Stable, which subsequently sold part of its share to Mark Pine's Pine Racing Stables. Dornoch ran second in his first two starts as a 2-year-old, including the Sapling Stakes at Monmouth, before breaking his maiden at Keeneland and outdueling Sierra Leone in the Remsen. Gargan chose the Fountain of Youth-G2 for his 3-year-old debut and he delivered an easier-than-it-looked win as the 1-5 favorite. Having earned enough points to get in the Derby, they tried rating him in the Blue Grass-Gl at Keeneland, a tactic that did not work and he ran fourth. Dornoch's Derby chances effectively evaporated a week before the race when he drew the rail. He broke 13th in the field of 20, got in trouble twice and finished 10th in a classic draw-a-line-through-it performance. That's what his connections thought and some bet accordingly in the Belmont five weeks later, their faith worth a $37.40 mutuel. "We never gave up on the horse" Connolly said. "He had valid excuses. A lot of the owners bet big on the Belmont and were rewarded." Despite that win, Dornoch was only the co-second choice of the bettors in the Haskell, going off at 3-1, along with Timberlake, behind odds-on favorite Mindframe. This time the win ticket was worth a more moderate $8.80 but, more importantly, it moved Dornoch to the top of the 3-year-old male division as summer headed toward autumn.
Stakes Card
Haskell Day also featured 2023 champion older dirt female Idiomatic winning the Molly Pitcher Stakes-G3 by a head over Soul of an Angel in a pedestrian 1:44.53 for 1½ miles. A gate-to-wire winner, Idiomatic put up fractions of :25.57, :50.27 and 1:13.91 in winning for the 11th time in 15 starts. Tapit Trice, who was fifth in last year's Haskell and hadn't in since a third in the Travers, looked like a new horse in the Grade 3 Monmouth Cup Stakes, winning by 5¼ lengths. Turf action saw Beaute Cachee (Fr), coming in off a seventh in the Just a Game-Gl on Belmont Stakes Eve, run back to the form that saw her win the Jenny Wiley-Gl at Keeneland, going gate to wire in the Grade 3 Matchmaker Stakes and prompting Frankie Dettori to treat the Monmouth cowd to his famous flying dismount. Get Smokin held on br a nose win in a three-way photo with Grand Sonata and Tawny Port in the $624,000 United Nations-G2, while Nothing Better won the listed Wolf Hill Stakes. Mindframe, bred by longtime Mid-Atlantic owner/breeder Larry Johnson, placed in his second Grade 1 of the year while making just his fourth lifetime start. The son of Constitution and the Street Sense mare Walk of Stars sold for $600,000 as a Keeneland September yearling and joined trainer Todd Plecher for Repole Stable and St. Elias Stables. The dark bay on his debut by 13¾ lengths in March, aired in an allowance on the Kentucky Derby undercard and settled for second behind Dornoch while racing greenly in the Belmont and Haskell.In late July, the colt was sidelined by bone bruising and taken out of training with the hope of returning late in 2024 or in 2025.
Shore Things
The announced attendance of 38,976 was the largest crowd since 60,983 packed the place to watch American Pharoah win the 2015 Haskell. The total handle of $21,748,352 eclipsed the record set last ycar, $21,359,642. Those numbers brought a smile to the face of Monmouth CEO Dennis Drazin. "It was a wonderful day" Drazin said. "The Dornoch people were thrilled to be here and it was nice to see some stars came out [Werth brought his former Phillies teammate Chase Utley]." Dinerman, who calls the races with his booth window open, said the crowd was so loud that he went to the first aid office to get some cotton balls to put in his ears so he could hear himself talk. "What struck me was how many young people there were" said the 32-year-old Dinerman. "There was an energetic atmosphere and people were celebrating what the Haskell is all about." There has been plenty to celebrate at Monmouth this year, other highlights including a non-Haskell Day record attendance of 28,976 on Father's Day, Drazin attributed some of it to the new partnership with NYRA Bets and resulting increased TV exposure on Fox Sports. "When we took over [in 2012] the state was losing $17.5 million a year. Now we're turning a profit," he said.
