Dark Hollow Farm

SAFELY KEPT ENSHRINED INTO HALL OF FAME

Details: Published: 13 May 2011

One of the all-time greats SAFELY KEPT (bay filly, 1986, by Horatius – Safely Home, by Winning Hit) has been enshrined into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame. The Class of 2011 will be inducted on Friday, August 12 at 10:30 a.m. at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion. The ceremony is free and open to the public and for the second consecutive year will be televised live on HRTV.

The Dark Hollow bred SAFELY KEPT raced four years, won 24 of 31 starts and accumulated earnings of $2,194,206. Owned by Barry Weisbord and Richard Santulli’s Jayeff B. Stable who purchased her from Dark Hollow as a two-year-old for $300,000, SAFELY KEPT won four of her five starts as a 2-year-old in 1988 and then took eight of her nine races at age 3 to earn the Eclipse Award as Champion Sprinter. Among her wins during that campaign were the Grade 1 Test Stakes, the Grade 2 Genuine Risk Handicap and the Grade 2 Prioress Stakes.

At 4, SAFELY KEPT won eight of 10 races with seven of those victories in stakes events for trainer Alan Goldberg. She defeated a star-studded field in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Sprint. That victory, over stars such as Black Tie Affair and Dayjur, also avenged her only loss from the prior year, as she defeated Dancing Spree by 9½ lengths.

Safely Kept concluded her career with five wins in seven starts as a 5-year-old in 1991, including her third victory in the Genuine Risk Handicap, Maryland Million Distaff and Garden State Stakes Handicap.

Sky Beauty (bay filly, 1990, by Blushing Groom – Maplejinsky, by Nijinsky II), bred in Kentucky by Sugar Maple Farm, won 15 of 21 starts and had purse earnings of $1,336,000 in her four-year career. Owned by Georgia Hoffman and trained by Allen Jerkens, Sky Beauty posted a five-race win streak at age 3 in 1993, which included the New York Filly Triple Crown and the Alabama.

Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, Open Mind and Sky Beauty will join SAFELY KEPT in the contemporary category as voted by the 183 members of the Hall of Fame’s voting panel. The Hall of Fame’s Historic Review Committee will announce its selections in early June to complete the Class of 2011.

The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame is located across from the Saratoga Race Course on Union Avenue in Saratoga Springs. Hours are Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Hours during the Saratoga Race Meet are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Programs at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame are made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency. Call 518-584-0400 for more information.

SafelyKept90BC2 One of the all-time great sprinters SAFELY KEPT (bay filly, 1986, by Horatius – Safely Home, by Winning Hit) has been enshrined into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame. The Class of 2011 will be inducted on Friday, August 12 at 10:30 a.m. at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion. The ceremony is free and open to the public and for the second consecutive year will be televised live on HRTV.

The Dark Hollow bred SAFELY KEPT raced four years, won 24 of 31 starts and accumulated earnings of $2,194,206. Owned by Barry Weisbord and Richard Santulli’s Jayeff B. Stable who purchased her from Dark Hollow as a two-year-old for $300,000, SAFELY KEPT won four of her five starts as a 2-year-old in 1988 and then took eight of her nine races at age 3 to earn the Eclipse Award as Champion Sprinter.

Among her wins during that campaign were the Grade 1 Test Stakes, the Grade 2 Genuine Risk Handicap and the Grade 2 Prioress Stakes.

At 4, SAFELY KEPT won eight of 10 races with seven of those victories in stakes events for trainer Alan Goldberg. She defeated a star-studded field in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Sprint. That victory, over stars such as Black Tie Affair and Dayjur, also avenged her only loss from the prior year, as she defeated Dancing Spree by 9½ lengths.

Touchnow Colt Sells For $140,000 At OBS

Details: Published: 19 April 2011

The striking bay colt by Champion LEMON DROP KID out of $320,000+ stakes winner TOUCHNOW was the third highest priced colt to sell at the OBS two-year-old in training sale in Ocala on Monday, April 18,2011. Auctioneer Ryan Mayhan knocked the colt down to the former ambassador to Finland and renowned horsemen Earle I. Mack for $140,000.

Bred in Maryland by Dark Hollow Farm in partnership with Arnold Davidov and Dorsey Brown.

The striking bay colt by Champion LEMON DROP KID out of $320,000+ stakes winner TOUCHNOW was the third highest priced colt to sell at the OBS two-year-old in training sale in Ocala on Monday, April 18,2011. Auctioneer Ryan Mayhan knocked the colt down to the former ambassador to Finland and renowned horsemen Earle I. Mack for $140,000.

Bred in Maryland by Dark Hollow Farm in partnership with Arnold Davidov and Dorsey Brown.

SAFELY KEPT Merits Hall Of Fame Honors

Details: Published: 06 April 2011

The most heartening element of the Hall of Fame ballot soon to be mailed to the 183 journalists, historians, and dignitaries on the voting roll is the absence of the boys. They’ve had their turn.

Among those males eligible for the ballot who did not make the cut were Ghostzapper, Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex, Saint Liam and Mineshaft, stars of the first decade of the 21st century. Their careers, brilliant but more limited in scope than their forebears, will need to be judged in light of a new racing ethic that requires less and less in accomplishments on the track before going off to stud.

Compared to that batch of lads, the three mares up for Hall of Fame election are very old school. They were consistent, durable and fast. They carried weight and stood stiff campaigns. They could have held their own in any era.

Sky Beauty ruled New York for three solid seasons in the early 1990s, winning all the right races. By the end she was up to 130 pounds in the 1994 Ruffian Handicap, and not even that stopped the train.

Open Mind, the pride of New Jersey, ran 17 times at 2 and 3 in 1988 and 1989, winning a dozen races. During one stretch of 11 stakes starts she lost only twice, by noses.

Open Mind and Sky Beauty both won the Acorn, the Mother Goose, the Coaching Club American Oaks, and the Alabama. That right there should have been good enough for a place in the Hall of Fame along time ago. The old format of voting that allowed only one female to be inducted each year worked against them, pushing them aside in favor of an ever-increasing pool of worthy candidates that included Winning Colors, Bayakoa, Paseana, Miesque, Serena’s Song, Mom’s Command, and Flawlessly.

With the current configuration of the Hall of Fame ballot it is possible to vote for more than one mare if the spirit moves. Certainly, both Open Mind and Sky Beauty will draw considerable support, for they were both pearls of great price. They are also, at least in terms of the traditional Hall of Fame profile, a dime a dozen, hitting the notes repeated constantly in the Hall of Fame mantra, doing their winning among an ordained list of races that have stood the test of time.

Then there is a mare like Safely Kept, champion sprinter of 1989 when her only loss in nine starts was by a neck to the colt Dancing Spree in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.

“I still think she won that race,” said Alan Goldberg, who trained Safely Kept at 3, 4 and 5. “I guess I had a bad angle.”

Safely Kept made 26 starts for Goldberg, all but one of them stakes and six of those stakes against colts. With Goldberg, she won 21 races, giving her an overall record of 24-3-2 in 31 starts upon her retirement in the fall of 1991. She is alive and well at Burleson Farms in Kentucky, pensioned now at the age of 25.

Sprinters have a tough time penetrating the deepest corners of racing’s consciousness. In some circles they are even looked upon as second-class citizens, failed experiments of a breed that treasures excellence over a route of ground. You can count the pure sprinters in the Hall of Fame and not run out of fingers. As for mares in the last half-century, there are only really two: Affectionately and Ta Wee.

Affectionately raced 52 times and won 28 between 1962 and 1965. Ta Wee, Dr. Fager’s little sister, won 15 of her 21 starts from 1968 through 1970. Both were hailed as sprint champions when mares had to beat the boys to do it.

If Safely Kept does not belong in the company of Affectionately and Ta Wee, then I’ve been reading the records upside down. A Maryland foal, Safely Kept competed at 11 different tracks. She carried weight. And she beat the boys, most notably in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, when the British colt Dayjur went airborne near the wire and the filly dug in to win by a neck.

Craig Perret had by far the most success with Safely Kept, accompanying her for 11 of her 24 wins. But her dance partner never really seemed to matter. She won with Kent Desormeaux, Rick Wilson, Matt Vigliotti, Angel Cordero, Julie Krone, Corey Black, and Gary Stevens, who was aboard for her two final starts, victories under 130 and 128 pounds in the Distaff Handicap at Pimlico and the Budweiser Breeders’ Cup Handicap at the Meadowlands.

“Sprinters didn’t run for a whole lot of money even then, and there weren‘t a lot of Grade 1 races,” Goldberg noted. “Buck, buck fifty most of the time was as good as it got, other than the Breeders’ Cup and the De Francis. Because of that it was sometimes hard to hold onto a jock.”

Not that he’s complaining. Safely Kept accumulated earnings of $2.1 million, a huge sum for a straight sprinter 20 years ago.

“It’s hard for a sprinter to be good all the time,” Goldberg added. “They don’t have much of a margin for error. A good two-turn horse can miss the break or have some bad luck and still make up the difference. Sprinters don’t have that luxury.

“But hey, I’m prejudiced,” Goldberg said. “Of course I think she belongs in the Hall of Fame.”

So go ahead, Hall of Fame voters, and satisfy the traditions of the game with votes for the deserving Sky Beauty and Open Mind. But the ballot is wide open, and excellence in the game is represented by more than just 1 1/8 miles at age 3. They offer sprint races for a reason, as great entertainment in a quick-twitch culture, so why not honor the best at her job for the past 40 years?

The most heartening element of the Hall of Fame ballot soon to be mailed to the 183 journalists, historians, and dignitaries on the voting roll is the absence of the boys. They’ve had their turn.

JoAnn Hayden Featured On HRTV

Details: Published: 06 April 2011

Dark Hollow's JoAnn Hayden was interviewed by HRTV's JoAnn Jones' "It's A Woman's World" Segment on 4/6/11. Click here for complete video.

EIGHTTOFASTTOCATCH Earns 103 Beyer: Top North America Figure For The Weekend

Details: Published: 26 March 2011

Eighttofasttocatch lived up to his name with a dominating 9 3/4-length

score in the one-mile feature at Laurel Park on Feb. 16. The chestnut son

of Not For Love out of Too Fast to Catch, by Nice Catch, muscled his way

to the front after three-quarters of a mile and ³quickly widened in

midstretch² to gain his fifth career victory and increase his earnings to

$144,940.

Eighttofasttocatch-1

Two in a row for EIGHTTOFASTTOCATCH and now a stakes winner! The son of Not For Love capped off Laurel Park’s winter meet with a score in the $75,000 Harrison E. Johnson Memorial S. on March 26. The chestnut, owned by Sylvia Heft and trained by Tim Keefe, was always prominent in the mile and an eighth feature, struck the front near the three-eighths pole and proved tough to the wire to win by a half length. Among those in the beaten field were recent stakes winners No Advantage, Alma d’Oro and Royal Clash. He earned a 103 Beyer for the effort, the weekend's best for any North American stakes winner.

Bred by Dark Hollow Farm and Herringswell Stable out of the Nice Catch mare Too Fast to Catch, Eighttofasttocatch had swept to a dominating 9 3/4-length victory in Laurel Park’s one-mile feature on Feb. 16 in his previous start.

A half-brother stakes winner and Gr.1-placed Storm Punch, Eighttofasttocatch was sold as part of the Dark Hollow consignment at the 2007 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Eastern Fall Yearling sale for $47,000 to Arnold Heft. He now has six wins, three seconds and four thirds from 23 starts, for earnings of $189,940.

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