Connections Hit Bull's-Eye With Chance It

Shooting Star Thoroughbreds' Chance It has proven to be one of the fastest 2-year-olds so far this season, and it would be no surprise to see the bay colt favored when he heads to post for the $200,000 Florida Sire Stakes' Affirmed Division Aug. 31 at Gulfstream Park.

While his next start will be just the fourth of his career, Chance It's journey already reads like a movie script as the right horses and right people have come together at the just right time to get him to the races. The long odds of his story inspired his name.

That story starts two years before he was conceived, with a dart throw for a free stallion season at a Kentucky farm, and a chance encounter at a Florida restaurant that pulled a horsewoman back into the breeding game with a gift horse.

Fred Pace, a longtime owner and breeder, received a free season when his stepson Zach Wills threw a dart at a Darby Dan Farm event in Lexington, and it landed on Jersey Town . The problem was, Pace didn't have a mare available he could send to the stallion.

"I really had already committed my two good mares, so I really didn't have anything to breed him to," Pace said. "It was late. There weren't any sales or anything coming up, so I just thought, 'You know what, I'm going to look through the adoption sites and see if I see something that catches my eye.' As I went through, I saw the mare Vagabon Diva, and I remember a week or two before her dam had foaled a stakes horse, and it was a filly too."

Vagabon Diva, by Pleasantly Perfect and out of the Storm Cat mare Clear Distinction, is a half sister to Aireofdistinction, by Songandaprayer, who won the Spring Fever Stakes in late February 2014 at Oaklawn Park. Vagabon Diva, a dark bay mare, raced only four times, winning once, and was retired sound. Pace found her with Second Stride, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to retraining and rehoming Thoroughbreds with locations in Crestwood and Pleasureville, Ky.

"There's some pedigree here," Pace remembers thinking.

"I really liked her and she had a really sweet disposition," he said. "It was just one of those lucky breaks."

Pace said his best luck has come from the mares he spent less money on. He went to $27,000 at the 1999 Keeneland November Sale for House d'Or (by Housebuster), who produced grade 3 winner Goldsville, stakes winner My Natalie, and multiple stakes-placed Chez Audra. Pace had even more success with Willow Woodman (by Woodman), a $3,000 purchase from the 2001 Ocala Breeders' Sale Fall Mixed Sale. Willow Woodman produced Willow O Wisp,  a multiple graded stakes winner on California turf courses, and multiple stakes winner and grade 1-placed Will O Way, and stakes winner Kizzy's Chaos.

The price for Vagabon Diva was even less. After Pace was approved by Second Stride, he paid a $250 adoption fee.

While Vagabon Diva was in foal, Pace unfortunately lost the other two mares he had left. Not wanting to raise the Jersey Town foal on its own, he sent Vagabon Diva to the Florida farm of a good friend: Mike Lightner.

Vagabon Diva foaled a son of Jersey Town in Florida May 12, 2015. Later named Trenton Traveler, the gelding was campaigned by Pace and Dutch Ishmael and put in training with Mary Lightner, Mike's daughter. Trenton Traveler won his first two starts for his connections at 2 before running 11th in the Dixiana Bourbon Stakes (G3T) at Keeneland when the race was taken off the turf.

Though Pace kept Trenton Traveler, he had decided to get out of the breeding game and wanted to make sure Vagabon Diva would have a good home.

"I told Mike, 'I don't want just one mare and I'm too old to start a young mare over, so just find somebody that you really like that you know is going to take good care of her, and give her to him,'" Pace said.

While Trenton Traveler was still a foal by his dam's side, Mary Lightner stopped for lunch in Florida. The only other patron in the restaurant was Bett Usher, who was coming off a foal watch shift at Kinsman Stud. The two horsewomen got to talking, and it turned out Usher knew Mary's father. After learning about Vagabon Diva, Usher asked Lightner to send her the mare's pedigree page.

Usher grew up in the Midwest with her family involved in Quarter Horses. While the family raced them, Usher also competed with the breed in performance. She found herself surrounded by Thoroughbreds after moving to Florida from Iowa in the late 1990s, and credits Carol and Marty Hershe, Dr. Jean White, and good friend Jeanne Vera for helping her learn about the industry.

When Usher met Mary, she'd been out of the breeding game herself for about five years. She worked in healthcare, but helped with foal watch two nights a week. Like Pace, she saw potential in Vagabon Diva's pedigree, and picked the mare up after Trenton Traveler was weaned.

"I thought to myself, 'I'm never doing this again.' It's hard work and I'm in my 60s. I didn't think I'd ever be doing this again but she changed my life, 'Vanna' did," she said, calling the mare by her nickname.

Usher bred Vagabon Diva to Currency Swap the following season, and the mare foaled a bay colt March 9, 2017. That colt became Chance It, and having trained his older half brother, the Lightners were interested. Usher received a call from Mike Lightner and he and his son Raymie came out to see Chance It. They purchased him as a weanling.

"He was a character from the minute he took his first steps, and he played," Usher recalled. "... He had jolly balls. His favorite was his blueberry-flavored jolly ball. He had three different sizes of the pasture balls, which got expensive because about every other week I was replacing one of them because he'd blown them up playing with them so hard."

Usher, who owns Vagabon Diva with her sister Elaine Daughtery, bred the mare back to Prospective  and the Lightners also purchased that yearling colt. Vagabon Diva currently is carrying a foal by Bucchero , who entered stud this year.

During a lunch conversation with friends and family at the Keeneland September Sale, the Lightners decided to begin a racing syndicate. Shooting Star Thoroughbreds is now in its first year, with Mary as the managing partner and Mike and Raymie helping select horses. Saffie Joseph Jr. and Peter Miller train for Shooting Star, with Chance It going to Joseph in Florida.

"We've thought he was special, ever since the day my dad and my brother saw him," Mary Lightner said of Chance It. "They really liked him. He's just always been special to us. We raised him there on our farm. It's kind of neat when it works out like that. We never dreamed in a million years ... It looked like he could run, but we didn't have any idea it would turn out this well so far, so we're happy about it."

Pace also remains part of the story after joining the Shooting Star syndicate.

"He's been one of my dad's best friends his whole life. He and a couple of dad's other buddies have been around all these years," Mary said. "It's kind of poetic that after all these years they're now retiring and have this horse who really, really looks like he might be the real deal. For them to all be in it together is really kind of neat."

Chance It has two wins from three starts at Gulfstream. In his second start he earned his maiden win June 29, drawing off by 9 1/4 lengths to win at 5 1/2 furlongs. Then he came back at six furlongs Aug. 3 and was much the best in the Florida Sire Stakes Series' Dr. Fager Division. Chance It earned a 91 Beyer Speed Figure for both winning efforts (103 and 99 Equibase Speed Figures) with Edgard Zayas aboard for all three races. After Saturday, connections are hoping to aim for the Sept. 28 FSS In Reality division for 2-year-olds going 1 1/16 miles.

The Dr. Fager win gave Usher her first stakes win as a breeder.

"He was just a cool little guy from day one. He ran everywhere he went," Usher said. "If he was at his mama's side out in the pasture and he wanted a drink of water, he ran to the water trough. He just ran. It doesn't surprise me that he's doing what he is. It does that he's as fast as he is. But he was a cool little guy from day one."

Usher said Vagabon Diva has found a home for life with her, and she plans to be at Gulfstream Saturday to see Chance It run in the Affirmed.

"Sometimes I just have to pinch myself," Usher said, "because who would have ever thought this would happen?"