Begg sends out first starter

Jamie Begg, a former assistant to trainer Mark Casse, has taken out his license and will have his first starter Friday at Turfway Park.

Begg will saddle Weekend Fun for Windways Farm, the nom de course of his family, in the fifth race, an allowance/ optional-claiming event sprinting on the Tapeta. The filly is 20-1 on the morning line in the main body of the overflow field of 14, of which 12 may start. Joe Rocco Jr. is named to ride.

Weekend Fun, a 3-year-old More Than Ready filly, has won two of her past three outings at Remington Park for former owner Phoenix Thoroughbreds and trainer Steve Asmussen. She won a maiden race in September, was second in an allowance in October, and most recently won an allowance on Nov. 14. Jeffrey Begg, Jamie Begg’s father, purchased her for $75,000 out of the Keeneland November breeding stock sale.

Jamie Begg is a third-generation horseman, following his father and grandfather and namesake James Begg into the business. Jeffrey Begg is a former trainer and Canadian racing mainstay.

Windways Farm bred and raced 1996 Queen’s Plate winner Victor Cooley, a multiple graded stakes winner who took the Grade 1 Vosburgh Stakes at Belmont. The family also bred and sold Queen’s Plate winner Wild Desert.

Jeffrey Begg has remained involved in racing even as the original Windways property was sold and the operation was downsized dramatically. In 2014, he purchased Catch a Glimpse as a yearling and co-owned her as she won seven graded stakes for Mark Casse, including the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks in 2016.

Catch a Glimpse’s career coincided with Jamie Begg’s tenure at the Casse operation, as he joined the team in 2013. As Casse’s New York-based assistant, he oversaw the care of 2019 Belmont Stakes winner Sir Winston. The colt finished second in the Grade 2 Peter Pan Stakes before winning that classic.

“They get along well,” Casse said of Begg and Sir Winston after the Belmont win. “I do match up my horses with people. Some get along better in places, and if I feel they are not bonding, I will move them. So that’s another thing we do. We move them around. But they seem to like each other pretty well.”

Begg also oversaw horses such as Got Stormy, who won two stakes in the span of a week at the 2019 Saratoga meeting, including the Grade 1 Fourstardave Handicap in a course record-setting performance against males.