Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Strong family bonds behind Mind Control in BC Juvenile
From working for their father in their youth to working for the Brunetti family for about 25 years, racing has always been a family affair for brothers Gregg and Rick Sacco.
Making it to the Breeders’ Cup this year with Mind Control, who will run in Friday’s $2 million Juvenile at Churchill Downs, took on added significance for the Saccos after the colt’s owner and breeder John Brunetti Sr., who raced under Red Oak Stable, died in March. Gregg Sacco trains Mind Control; Rick Sacco is the racing manager for Red Oak, which is now headed by Steven Brunetti and John Brunetti Jr.
“We were extremely close with him,” Gregg Sacco said of John Brunetti Sr. “He was always somebody I looked up to when I was young. It’s meaningful on many levels, personally and professionally, to go there with a colt we feel has a great opportunity to win.”
Mind Control is the first Breeders’ Cup starter for Red Oak.
Rick Sacco said he attended the Breeders’ Cup for the last 10 to 12 years with Brunetti.
“He loved to go,” Sacco said, adding that Red Oak’s first BC starter is “incredible.”
Gregg and Rick Sacco grew up in the racing industry. Their father, William, trained horses beginning in the 1940s and ultimately built a 100-acre farm, called Monmouth Stud, located about three miles from Monmouth Park. William Sacco died in 2009, less than two months after Gregg Sacco’s first Breeders’ Cup starter, Piscitelli, came within a halflength of pulling off a 50-1 upset when finishing fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
Gregg Sacco took over training of his father’s stable in 1989.
“He was a big part of my life and my brother’s life,” he said. “We worked for him as little kids. We worked our way up the ladder with him.”
In the early 1990s, the Saccos met Steve Brunetti and a relationship with the two families was formed. One of the first horses Gregg Sacco trained for Red Oak was Enjoy the Silence, a filly who won six stakes including three at Hialeah in the spring of 1994.
Brunetti is perhaps best known as the owner of Hialeah Park, one of racing’s crown jewel tracks which closed down in 2001 for Thoroughbred racing. It is now a casino and conducts a winter Quarter Horse meet.
“If it wasn’t for him, it would have been bulldozed many years back,” Gregg Sacco said. “To train for him . . . he was a pure gentleman. He was very stern and wanted things right, but he was very proud of the breeding part of it and his son has carried that to the next level.”
Rick Sacco has worked with John’s son Steve to improve the Brunetti’s breeding and racing operation.
Mind Control is out of the dam Feel That Fire, a minor stakes winner, who is out of the unraced mare Ubetwereven. Ubetwereven’s most recent runner is King for a Day, another promising 2-year-old who will run in the Kentucky Jockey Club at Churchill on Nov. 24.
Earlier this year, the Brunettis’ Unbridled Mo won the Grade 1 Apple Blossom at Oaklawn, her fourth graded stakes victory. She will now be part of the Brunettis’ broodmare band.
“A couple of years ago I sat down with Mr. Brunetti to talk about how to keep this going, and my thought was quality over quantity,” Rick Sacco said. “We would cut back on the amount of horses, keep our best broodmares in Kentucky, really upgrade our facility in Ocala to attract outside clients.”
Sacco believes that has paid off this year as Red Oak has won 17 races from 65 starters and won Grade 1 stakes with Unbridled Mo and Mind Control. Following Mind Control’s maiden win, Sol Kumin’s Madaket Stables bought part-interest in the colt.
“We’re operating the type of stable that I felt we could,” said Rick Sacco, adding that the Brunettis spent $4 million on renovations to Red Oak Farm in Ocala, Fla.
Over the last 30 years, Gregg Sacco has trained a handful of stakes winners, including the graded winners Foreverness and Unbridled Essence.
Mind Control, Sacco said “is the most talented horse I trained.”
Mind Control will be a bit of a wild card in the Juvenile if only because he missed a scheduled start in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland on Oct. 6 due to a temperature. He was shipped back to Gregg Sacco’s barn at Monmouth Park where he has put in three workouts, including a five-furlong breeze in 1:00.80 on Saturday. On Monday, he vanned to Long Island where he was flown to Kentucky with a contingent of Belmont Park-based Breeders’ Cup starters.
“He worked like he did right before the Hopeful,” Sacco said. “We’re going there with what we feel is a big chance to win.”