Tell Your Daddy Goes All the Way in Bernard Baruch
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Photo: Coglianese Photos/Chelsea Durand
Tell Your Daddy wins the Bernard Baruch Handicap at Saratoga Race Course
Flying P Stable's Tell Your Daddy controlled the early going of the $186,000 Bernard Baruch Handicap (G2T) Sept. 6 at Saratoga Race Course and dug in for a half-length victory to secure his first stakes win.
The 5-year-old Scat Daddy gelding earned stakes placings this year prior to Monday's 1 1/16-mile turf test. He was third, beaten less than a length, in the May 22 Seek Again Stakes at Belmont Park, and earlier in the Spa meet was second in the Aug. 7 Fasig-Tipton Lure Stakes.
With John Velazquez up for trainer Tom Morley in the Bernard Baruch, Tell Your Daddy led by a length through opening fractions of :24.92 and :50.75 on the yielding course. He enjoyed an uncontested lead with the scratch of En Wye Cee .
"(The lack of other pace) made all the difference today," Velazquez said. "Last time, he ran a winning race (in the Lure) and ran a good race, but the other horse that day (Flavius ) went to the lead and kept running. Today, our plan was to go to the lead and hope to hold off the other horses, and he did."
Tell Your Daddy (pink cap) leads the way into the stretch of the Bernard Baruch Handicap at Saratoga
Dreams of Tomorrow was a half-length back in second as six furlongs went in 1:15.54. L'Imperator then came into contention turning three wide into the home stretch.
Tell Your Daddy fended off L'Imperator, then was challenged by No Word , who after bumping with Dreams of Tomorrow near the three-sixteenths pole, moved inside for a rail bid. He repelled No Word to cross the finish line a half-length in front, paying $7.90 to win.
The final time was 1:44.61.
No Word was second a length over L'Imperator. Dreams of Tomorrow completed the order of finish.
Tell Your Daddy was bred in Kentucky by Spendthrift Farm and is the first foal out of the stakes-winning Rockport Harbor mare Harbingerofthings , whose second foal, Dynadrive , is stakes placed. Harbingerofthings has produced three other foals: an unraced 2-year-old Lord Nelson colt, a yearling Mendelssohn filly entered in the Keeneland September Yearling Sale with Taylor Made Sales Agency, agent for Spendthrift, and a Mendelssohn colt born this year. She was bred to Vekoma for 2022.
Wonderful moment here at #Saratoga as @MaggieWolfndale and @morley_racing celebrate Tell Your Daddy’s win in the Bernard Baruch Stakes on closing day. pic.twitter.com/emZGBODRVa
— America'sBestRacing (@ABRLive) September 6, 2021
At Fasig-Tipton's The Turf Showcase for yearlings in 2017, Tell Your Daddy was the co-sale topper, along with another Scat Daddy colt, when purchased by Lothenbach Stables for $250,000 out of the Vinery Sales consignment. He raced for Lothenbach with trainer Neil Pessin through January of this year, when he was claimed by Morley for $40,000 from an allowance optional claimer at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots.
"We were looking for horses with some real back class to them and this horse ran a huge race in the Shakertown (G2T) at Keeneland (finishing sixth in 2020)," Morely said. "He was flying at the end going 5 1/2 (furlongs) in what looked like a very good Shakertown and got beaten (1 1/2 lengths). I rang Jay (Jason Provenzano of Flying P Stables) and I said, 'if we can get this horse to Belmont and go six or seven or a one-turn mile, he's already won two mile-and-a-sixteenth allowance races.' So, that was our plan. We started at seven, went to a mile, and then we came up here and went a mile and a sixteenth and Johnny said, 'I think he'll go further.' So, it worked out brilliantly and it was great to see him getting his head in front. He's run some huge races in defeat for us, but that was massive."
From 24 lifetime starts, Tell Your Daddy holds a 4-4-2 record and has earned $325,646.