Ghostzapper sends favorite, maiden after Queen’s Plate

Ghostzapper is seeking his third Queen’s Plate winner in the last four years, and will have two shots when the Canadian classic is renewed this Saturday at Woodbine.

Ghostzapper, the sire of recent Queen’s Plate winners Shaman Ghost (2015) and Holy Helena (2017), will be represented in this year’s Plate by the favored Telekinesis and the maiden Real Dude. Telekinesis, whom Stonestreet Farm purchased for $470,000 as a Keeneland November weanling, comes off a victory in the Plate Trial.

“He’s an extremely beautiful horse, well made,” trainer Mark Casse said. “He was an expensive weanling. As a weanling, I was the underbidder on him for another client, and Stonestreet bought him, and of course I went to [Stonestreet owner Barbara Banke] and said I would really like to train him, and we got him. So, he’s been on our radar since he was very young.”

Frank Stronach stands Ghostzapper at his Adena Springs operation, and has captured the Queen’s Plate four times, including with Ghostzapper’s sire, Awesome Again, in 1997 and the stallion’s progeny Shaman Ghost and Holy Helena. This year, he takes a shot with the homebred Real Dude, who is out of Canadian champion and Queen’s Plate runner-up Ginger Brew. Real Dude is seeking to become the first maiden to win the classic since Scatter the Gold in 2000.

“I really think he can go all day long,” trainer Sid Attard said. “The farther, the better. The owners want to take a shot, and I say, ‘Why not?’”

Stronach also campaigns Plate entrant Silent Poet, who is out of a Ghostzapper mare. Ghostzapper has been emerging as a broodmare sire in recent years, including as the broodmare sire of Triple Crown winner Justify.

Sam-Son Farm also has two

Sam-Son Farm’s breeding program has given it five victories in the Queen’s Plate, and the operation looks to add to that total with two homebreds from prominent families. SamSon’s Plate entrants Say the Word and Strike Me Down are both based at Fair Hill with trainer Graham Motion.

“It’s definitely a race that’s been on my radar, a race that I’d love to say I’ve won,” Motion said. “Those historic races like the Queen’s Plate, those are the ones that you’d love to win. I’m very fortunate to have these horses for Sam-Son, two legitimate horses. It’s exciting.”

Say the Word, a gelded son of More Than Ready, is out of the unraced Giant’s Causeway mare Dance for the cause. The mare’s second dam is SamSon’s great Sovereign Award and Eclipse Award champion Dance Smartly, a Canadian Triple Crown winner. Dance Smartly, a half-sister to leading sire Smart Strike, went on to produce a pair of Queen’s Plate winners in Scatter the Gold and Dancethruthedawn, who was a Grade 1 winner and champion.

Say the Word was winless in his four starts at 2, and Motion said he returned a better horse at 3. In three starts this year, Say the Word has a maiden win at Gulfstream and a third in an allowance at Woodbine.

“He was a horse we liked early on as a 2-year-old, and then he was slightly disappointing in the afternoon,” Motion said. “After we gave him a break over the winter and gelded him, I think it really improved him.”

Strike Me Down, by leading sire Tapit, is out of the multiple graded stakes-winning Smart Strike mare Strike Softly, the dam of graded winner Golden Sabre. It is the family of Grade 1 winner and Canadian champion Wilderness Song.

Donner, Symansky make team

Former racehorse and international three-day-event standout Donner and longtime partner Lynn Symansky are among the five horse-and-rider teams named to the U.S. eventing team for the FEI World Equestrian Games, set for Sept. 11-23 in Mill Spring, N.C.

Donner, a New York-bred gelding who raced under the name Smart Gorky, went winless in six starts. He arrived at Symansky’s barn in 2008 as a resale project, but she has instead partnered with him for a decade as he has climbed the levels to become one of the most decorated American horses competing in eventing.

Donner was part of the gold medal-winning U.S. team at the 2011 Pan American Games, was on the U.S. team at the 2014 World Equestrian Games, helped the U.S. win the Nations Cup at the 2017 Great Meadow International, and last year was named the Equiratings Horse of the Year. He has completed the Land Rover Kentucky CCI four-star event, the most famous event in North America, four times.

Donner is by Gorky Park, who raced in hurdle and steeplechase races in Europe before coming to the U.S. to win the 1991 Continental Cup Steeplechase Handicap for Jonathan Sheppard.

One Liner in Fasig-Tipton sale

Fasig-Tipton has cataloged 152 horses for its summer sale of selected horses of racing age, set for the evening of July 9 in Lexington, Ky. The catalog is expected to change substantially because FasigTipton will review and accept late nominations up until sale time.

The online catalog, available now, is enhanced with features including an assessment of each horse by the Daily Racing Form’s national handicapper, Mike Watchmaker.

Stakes performers cataloged include One Liner, winner of the Grade 3 Southwest Stakes last year. The Into Mischief colt, trained by Todd Pletcher for WinStar Farm, China Horse Club, SF Racing, and Head of Plains Partners, finished second in the Grade 3 Pimlico Special last month and most recently was ninth in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap.

The Fasig-Tipton sale of horses of racing age was inaugurated in 2013. Last year, Grade 2 winner Distinta topped the auction, selling for $600,000 to Medallion Racing.

“Since this sale was first held in 2013, sale graduates have made nearly 5,000 starts and earned $29 million,” FasigTipton president Boyd Browning said in a release. “The sale has also produced an impressive 28 percent stakes horses and more than 50 stakes wins.”