Making the Grade: Leave the Light On

Leave the Light On held off Frosted to win the 2014 Remsen Stakes. (Photo by NYRA/Coglinese Photos)
Making the Grade, which will run through the 2015 Belmont Stakes, focuses on the winners of the big races, usually from the previous weekend, who could impact the next Triple Crown. We’ll be taking a close look at impressive winners and evaluating their chances to win important races based upon ability, running style, connections (owner, trainer, jockey) and pedigree. 
This week we take a closer look at Leave the Light On, winner of the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes on Nov. 29 at Aqueduct. 

Leave the Light On delivered a breakout performance in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes on Nov. 29 in his stakes debut for trainer Chad Brown. The track that day was especially kind to speed, so let’s take a look at this new shooter on the Kentucky Derby trail and try to determine whether he is a legitimate contender or a potential one-hit wonder.

Leave the Light On
Chestnut Colt
Sire (Father): Horse Greeley
Dam (Mother): Lantern Glow, by Mineshaft
Owners: Klaravich Stables and William H. Lawrence
Breeder: All Good Racing (Ky.)
Trainer: Chad C. Brown

Ability: A chestnut colt by Horse Greeley, Leave the Light On sold for $65,000 as a yearling before co-owner Klaravich Stables purchased him for $210,000 out of the 2014 OBS spring sale of 2-year-olds in training. Leave the Light On debuted on Sept. 13 at Belmont Park and didn’t threaten at all. He was 12 lengths back at the first point of call and finished beaten by 17 1/2 lengths. It’s not unusual for a 2-year-old to have no idea what is expected of him when the starting gates snap open in his first career race. I’m willing to chalk that race up to a learning experience, draw a line through it and look at his next two races to gauge his true talent.
Stretching out to 1 1/16 miles for his second start on a sloppy track on Oct. 16 at Belmont, Leave the Light On got off to a much better start. He opened a clear early lead and drew off in the stretch for a 4 ½-length runaway win that earned an unspectacular Equibase Speed Figure of 77. His speed figure jumped by 19 points to a 96 — still a cut below the best 2-year-olds this year — for his front-running half-length win over Frosted in the Remsen. (Our Trakus blog discusses why Frosted is one to watch coming out of the Remsen.)
Leave the Light On is definitely headed in the right direction, but in order to move into the top tier of 2015 Derby contenders he will need to continue to progress.
Running style: Leave the Light On’s two victories have come when he took the lead early and dictated the pace. Moving forward, I’m not sure he gets away with easy half-miles in :47.69 and :48.91 as he did in his first win and the Remsen, respectively. He did not stagger home in the Remsen, so we know he can set the pace and still finish reasonably well, but often the sign of a potential star is the ability to run very fast early and still finish strong. That type of performance, or showing the ability to stalk and pounce, would do a lot to bolster my confidence that Leave the Light On can be a dangerous horse on the 2015 Triple Crown trail.

Previous Making the Grades
Competitive Edge
American Pharoah
Carpe Diem
Daredevil
Texas Red
Ocho Ocho Ocho
El Kabeir

Connections: Klaravich Stables and William H. Lawrence own Leave the Light On. The longtime partners finished second with Top Decile in this year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and combined in 2012 to finish fifth among U.S. owners by purse earnings. Among the standouts raced by Klaravich and Lawrence in 2012 were Balance the Books, Sum of the Parts, Currency Swap and Spurious Precision.
Klaravich Stables is the racing operation of New York native Seth Klarman, founder of the Baupost Group hedge fund and a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox. Klarman raced Read the Footnotes, a multiple graded stakes winner who finished seventh in the 2004 Kentucky Derby. Klarman’s first graded stakes winner was Subordination.
Lawrence is an investment adviser who co-founded New York-based Meridian Capital Partners.
Trainer Chad Brown has enjoyed a spectacular season in 2014. He won three Breeders’ Cup races this year, taking the Filly and Mare Turf with Dayatthespa, the Turf Sprint with Bobby’s Kitten and the Juvenile Fillies Turf with Lady Eli.
Brown currently ranks second among all U.S. trainers by purse earnings with more than $15.2-million through Dec. 6 and fourth by graded stakes wins with 17. Brown has five career Breeders’ Cup wins among 64 graded stakes victories. He finished fourth with Normandy Invasion in 2013 with his only previous Kentucky Derby starter and fourth with Street Life in the 2012 Belmont Stakes, his lone Belmont starter to date.
Irad Ortiz Jr. rode Leave the Light On for his first two starts and his brother Jose Ortiz picked up the mount for the Remsen Stakes. Both Ortiz brothers are up-and-coming stars on the New York circuit who made their Kentucky Derby debuts in 2014 with Uncle Sigh (Irad, 14th) and Samraat (Jose, 5th).
LEAVE THE LIGHT ON AND JOSE ORTIZ AFTER WINNING THE REMSEN

Photo by Eclipse Sportswire
Pedigree: Leave the Light On is from the third crop of 2006 Del Mar Futurity winner Horse Greeley, whose top runners to date include Canadian champion Go Greeley and multiple graded stakes winner Clearly Now. It’s extremely early to try to make any sort of concrete assertions regarding Horse Greeley’s potential as a sire. He flashed talent as a juvenile during a 4-race campaign that was highlighted by his Grade 2 win in the 7-furlong Del Mar Futurity. Horse Greeley was winless in two starts at three, but did close his career with a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes. Horse Greeley did not win a race at longer than 7 furlongs.
Leave the Light On is a half-brother (same dam, different sire) to stakes winner Harlan’s Pure and is one of four winners from as many starters out of the unraced Mineshaft mare Lantern Glow.
Leave the Light On’s grandam (maternal grandmother), Pacheca, also was unraced and his third dam (maternal great-grandmother) was winless in two starts.
There is, however, a ton of class from all over the globe in the bottom half of this pedigree. Among the standouts this family is responsible include: 1994 Epsom Oaks winner Balanchine; French classic-winning fillies West Wind and Musical Chimes; multiple Grade 1 winners Music Note and It’s in the Air; English Group 1 and U.S. Grade 1 winner Storming Home; European Group 1 winners Saoirse Abu and Art Connoisseur; and Australian Group 1 winners Trust In A Gust, Alverte and Glencadam Gold.
While there is not much as far as racing class from Leave the Light On’s first three dams, there is a back-class silver lining in multiple elite runners appearing in the first four generations of his female family.
Combining some possible distance limitations for a colt by Horse Greeley with the lack of racing class from his first three dams, this pedigree is not one that screams 1 ¼ miles. His last two races have showed significant progress but Leave the Light On has some catching up to do with his 2-year-old peers to join this crop’s elite.