Reining Flowers a Special Filly for Sharilyn Gasaway

"Don't fall in love with your horses," they say.

"This is a business," they say.

"You can't make decisions with your heart," they say.

It's a good thing that Sharilyn Gasaway didn't listen to what "they" said, or she might not have had a 2-year-old homebred filly, out of her heart horse, break her maiden at Saratoga Race Course. 

Reining Flowers  had finished second in her first two starts, both at Horseshoe Indianapolis, both at sprint distances. On July 28, trainer John Ortiz entered her going a mile and a sixteenth at Saratoga, and the dark bay filly lived up to the promise of her sire, Midnight Storm  , who did his best running at distances of a mile or more, winning seven graded stakes and earning $1.7 million. 

Bred and owned by Four G Racing, Reining Flowers is out of the Congrats  mare Mi Fiori, whose racing career might generously be characterized as modest. But that didn't matter to Gasaway, one of the Gs in Four G Racing, which co-owns Kentucky Derby (G1) victor Mystik Dan .

In the spring of 2014, the Gasaways' horses were with trainer Mike Stidham, and after Mi Fiori didn't meet her reserve at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, Stidham put together a partnership to buy her privately. The Gasaways were part of that partnership. 

"We had just taken (husband) Brent's parents on an Alaskan cruise, and we stopped at a Chihuly exhibit called Mille Fiori, which means 'a thousand flowers.' I thought that that would be a great name for a horse, but it was already taken, so we went with Mi Fiori, which means 'my flowers.' "

The filly became a barn favorite, and Gasaway adored her. Racing primarily in Illinois and Louisiana, she was out of conditions and, not fast enough for stakes races, she was entered in an Arlington Park claiming race June 5, 2016. Sharilyn was opposed, but Brent persuaded her that no one would take the filly for a $50,000 tag. 

He was wrong.

Sent off as the odds-on favorite, Mi Fiori won by 3 1/4 lengths and was taken by trainer Larry Rivelli. 

"Brent asked me, 'Am I going to be sleeping outside tonight?' " Gasaway remembered. 

Devastated but determined, Gasaway decided that she would claim Mi Fiori back whenever she got the chance. The filly came and went in the entries, never in for a tag, and sometime between October and December 2016, she was transferred to trainer Ron Faucheux for new owners, then disappeared from the work tab and entries for seven months. 

Gasaway tracked her down and offered to buy her, but Faucheux told her that the horse was doing fine and back in training. Mi Fiori returned to the track July 14, 2017, winning by 4 1/4, and two races later, on Dec. 7, Gasaway got her chance. 

Now 5 years old, Mi Fiori was in for $17,500 at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots, and Gasaway called Mike Stidham. 

"He told me I should let her run one more time and then she'd probably be dropped to a lower-level claiming race," she said. "I told him I didn't care, and then he called Brent, who told me that we could probably get her for $10,000 next out.

"I said, 'Brent, I do not care. I've been trying to find her, and I want to claim her back.' "

And she did. 

Mi Fiori raced once more, then the Gasaways retired her to breed. Her first foal, Crown Imperial  (Classic Empire ), has earned $434,394 and was third in last year's Jessamine Stakes (G2). She missed winning the Bolton Landing Stakes by a nose last summer at Saratoga. 

Randy Gullatt advised the Gasaways on the matings for both fillies, and he steered them toward Midnight Storm, then standing in Kentucky at Taylor Made Farms. In 2023, the stallion moved to Milky Way Farm in Temecula, Calif., where he stands for $4,000. He finished 2023 at 15th on the third-crop sire list, and his top runners are Great Escape  ($513,551) and Runaway Storm  ($308,371), both grade 3 winners. 

"Randy thought Crown Imperial was a little small, and he wanted to get something with a little more bone," said Gasaway. 

Both Crown Imperial and Reining Flowers are trained by John Ortiz.

"They're similar fillies," said Ortiz. "They've got the same running style, a big, long stride, and they always come running at the end. We might run Reining Flowers back here towards the end of the meet, but you can't rule out Kentucky Downs with those million-dollar purses."

He paused and added, "But winning at Saratoga is just as good as winning a million-dollar purse." 

Mi Fiori is a half sibling to Gucci Factor , (by Gio Ponti ), the winner of the 2019 Poker Stakes (G3).

"I got a couple of calls asking if I'd be interested in selling Mi Fiori," said Sharilyn. "And I said absolutely not. It took me forever to get her back. Why would I give her up again?"