Spendthrift Farm Staffer Rangel Breeds Norfolk Winner

Spendthrift Farm assistant yearling manager Ramon "RJ" Rangel said he cashed a $2 win and place ticket for $283 after longshot Valiant Force  won the June 22 Norfolk Stakes (G2) at Ascot Racecourse at pari-mutuel odds of more than 119-1.

As the owner of Valiant Force's dam, the unraced Quality Road   mare Vigui's Heart, Rangel may collect another payoff this year— though in the sales rather than pari-mutuel market.

Vigui's Heart, in foal to Vekoma  , is now far more valuable as a graded stakes-producing mare, as is her latest foal, a Mitole   filly and half sister to Valiant Force.

Shortly after Thursday's race at Royal Ascot, Rangel began receiving calls from people interested in buying the mare, offers he said he was "still thinking about." He said he acquired her from Mill Ridge Sales when she was a young filly. 

"Her weanling, I'm going to put her in (a November sale). She's a very nice, lovely filly," he said. "And I'm thinking about the mare, whether to run her through the sale alongside the weanling or get the Vekoma and try to breed her back to (a sire) people from Europe will like and from the United States. ... Right now, I'm still emotional, trying to think about all these decisions."

Rangel, 57, expressed his appreciation for Spendthrift general manager Ned Toffey and the Spendthrift team for the opportunity of a foal-share agreement with the mating of Vigui's Heart to Malibu Moon. 

"I wanted to breed her to a proven sire, put some speed into her because she's a big, leggy, long-bodied mare," he said.

A foal-share agreement is one in which a mare owner puts up the use of a mare while the stallion owner puts up the use of a season. These agreements allow breeders to defer paying stud fees until the resulting foal is sold.

Rangel said he "obviously couldn't afford" up-front payment to have Malibu Moon breed to his mare, noting the stallion stood for $50,000.

"Without these people trying to help the little guys, I probably wouldn't be talking today with you," Rangel said.

With Mill Ridge Sales as agent, Valiant Force sold as a weanling at the 2021 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale for $75,000 to J.R.L. 3 Racing. The next year Eaton Sales sold the colt as a yearling for $100,000 to Robson Aguiar and Roger O'Callaghan.

Taken overseas, Valiant Force was second on debut at the Curragh before running fifth there in the Marble Hill Stakes (G3) for owners AMO Racing, Mrs. Roger O'Callaghan and G. De Aguiar and trainer Adrian Murray before the colt's breakthrough win on Thursday.

The breeder cares for Vigui's Heart and another mare at Tanya Johnson's Red Gables Stud in Lexington, Ky., where Valiant Force was foaled, between the hours he spends working with yearlings at Spendthrift.

He quipped that following Thursday's success, "Maybe I'll ask (Ned) for a foal share to Into Mischief  ."

A four-time champion general sire, Into Mischief is one of the most sought-after stallions in the country, commanding a stud fee at Spendthrift of $250,000.

Before Into Mischief, Malibu Moon was a famed stallion at Spendthrift, siring 2013 Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Orb , among other high-class horses. Malibu Moon died in 2021 of an apparent heart attack at age 24. A perennial prominent sire in North America, he put Spendthrift "on the map" under the direction of its then-owner B. Wayne Hughes, Toffey said. Hughes died in 2021.

Discussing Malibu Moon, Toffey said, "It's no accident that there's a massive statue of him out in front of our visitor center."

He was pleased to team with Rangel on the foal-share that led to Valiant Force, mentioning that he has known Rangel since the 1990s, when they met at Dixiana Farm. Rangel has done a "little bit of everything" since, Toffey said, from working with broodmares to stallions. 

Rangel shifted from the stallion to the yearling division at Spendthrift because its hours better allowed him to provide hands-on care to his two broodmares, Rangel said.

This is not Rangel's first breeding success story. He co-bred graded stakes winner and $2.5 million earner Magna Graduate  with Nicole Zitani.

Fifteen years after Magna Graduate left the racetrack, Rangel is the proud breeder of another graded/group winner.

"It's really exciting, really special, and we're really happy for RJ because he's been doing this for a long time," Toffey said.