We have had a pretty good week so far. We won a $50,000 Wide Open Allowance at Indiana Downs with DREAMIN BIG. Last night ROCKIN ROCKSTAR ran 4th in the $100,000 Karl Boyes Memorial Stake that was one second off the track record.

The highlight of the week was Jerry Merritt and Penny Lauers homebred SNEAKIN AWAY that won The $89,000 Snack Stakes for 3 year old Indiana Breds going one mile on the Turf. He won impressively by 8 1/2 lengths going the mile in 1:36.48. This was his third lifetime win and second of the year pushing his lifetime earnings over $100,000. To put icing on the cake his payoffs were: $58.40, $17.00, $12.00 which was helped by the 1-2 favorite finishing 4th. What made this more significant was that he was a homebred and we raced the mother who was a hard knocking mare that won right at $100,000 lifetime.

Better yet, the stake was named after a horse that Penny and I had bred and raised and was a special part of our family. Snack was on the Derby trail and we had sold 80% interest to Paul Reddham (I’ll Have Another owner) prior to his catastrophic ending at Santa Anita. We were honored when they named this race after our “SNACK“. We hope to run back July 11th in the $200,000 Indiana Signature Stake.

It has been quite a week. Even though it was terrible that I’ll Have Another had to be retired, they still ran the

Belmont and it was a hell of a race. Obviously Johnny Velazquez rode a great race. I don’t think Smith made as big of a mistake as some people are saying. Usually when a horse starts to get tired, they will drift a little as well as when you hit them left handed drifting will occur, (which unfortunutly for Smith )left enough space for Union Rags to gamely run through to win. It was a good race for Belmont having the largest attendance of 85,000 when there was no horse running for the triple crown, as well as the largest TV audience. It just shows there is still a lot of interest in Thoroughbred Racing across the country despite reports to the contrary. If the politicians and the “do gooders” would sit back and let it take its course, put their focus into promotion of the industry, racing might have a chance to pick back up.