Tracy Ann’s Legacy ran them off their feet under Paco Lopez in the opening day feature race at Gulfstream Park on December 2nd, making the lead and never looking back to win going away by better than 3 lengths. Much of racing is the trip; she broke like a shot and Paco played ‘catch me if you can’ for the entire race. Tracy Ann's Legacy picked up a very generous $28,900 winning purse as a Florida bred, her second win in four starts since being claimed for just $22,000 in July at Monmouth Park (she was 2^nd in an allowance and 4^th in a stake in her other two starts for us). You couldn’t possibly dream up a better start to Gulfstream’s premier meet than winning the opening day feature race, which made Kenwood Racing the leading money winning owner for the day in North America (see below), or a better start to the final month of what has been an outstanding year for Kenwood Racing runners with 17 wins from 90 starts and counting. A huge congratulations to trainer Kelly Breen and his hard-working crew and all the happy owners in our incredibly successful active racing group #58!

This super-successful claim offers a valuale ‘teachable moment’. This filly has an awful way of moving; she looks like an old-fashioned eggbeater walking, galloping, and running, her legs going sideways. Most horses who move like this don’t make it to the races or run a couple of times and have to be retired because they can’t physically stand up to the rigors of training (there’s a colt on the early Derby trail for next year featured in a recent Blood-Horse article with a similar way of going). You’d never buy horses like these at a sale and rightfully so, because 95%+ aren’t going to stand up to training.   100% of all the two year olds we’ve purchased at sales have started and over 90% have won because we avoid horses who move like this as unproven youngsters, but every so often there’s one that disproves the rule because they are raceHORSES not raceCARS. Once they make it to the races and demonstrate soundness and ability, you don’t worry so much about pedigree, conformation, etc. because the results speak for themselves. Tracy Ann's Legacy has already had a terrific career, sound and talented with her 8^th career win yesterday, along with 6 seconds and 3 thirds from 21 career starts and career earnings over $225,000 to date. Once they hit the track, some beautifully conformed horses with terrific pedigrees have zero talent or break down and some horses who move like an eggbeater are fast and sound. You play the odds but with living, breathing animals you just never know. Occasionally you see a tennis player with an unorthodox swing, a basketball player with a horrible shooting motion, a baseball pitcher with a really odd way of moving his arm who make it in the big leagues. You wouldn’t teach anyone to move like they do, but for them it works.