Excerpted from July 2011 Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred
Safely Kept and Open Mind, diverse and dynamic Mid-Atlantic-bred fillies who won divisional championships and combined for more than $4 million in earnings, were among four principals elected to the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame.
Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer and Eclipse Award-winning filly Sky Beauty also will be enshrined on Friday, August 12, in a ceremony at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Safely Kept, bred in Maryland by David and JoAnn Hayden of Dark Hollow Farm, had dazzling acceleration and tenacity to match, winning 24 of 31 starts over four seasons and becoming the first sprinter to surpass $2 million earnings.
As a 3-year-old in 1989, she dashed to eight victories in nine tries and was voted national sprint champion. Her only blemish that year was a near-miss when second to Dancing Spree in the male-dominated Breeders’ Cup Sprint-G1. She gained redemption a year later in one of the Sprint’s most enduring moments, as the front-running Dayjur jumped a shadow near the wire, and Safely Kept swept past him for a narrow victory.
A muscled bay by Horatius out of the Winning Hit mare Safely Home, Safely Kept won two straight Maryland-bred Horse of the Year titles and four consecutive state-bred divisional titles. Trained by Carlos Garcia at 2 and Alan Goldberg for the remainder of her career, she was retired in 1991 after earning $2,194,206, most of it for Barry Weisbord and Richard Santulli’s Jayeff B. Stable.
Safely Kept tallied 22 stakes victories (12 graded), including the 1989 Test Stakes-G1 at Saratoga. She won the Genuine Risk Stakes-G2, Garden State Handicap-G3 and Maryland Million Distaff every year from 1989 through 1991. Along the way, she equaled Garden State’s six-furlong track record of 1:08.40.
Like Safely Kept, Open Mind was a foal of 1986, but the two had distinctive racing personalities. Open Mind, bred in New Jersey by Robert Brennan’s Due Process Stables, pursued classic distances, often vividly. She won 12 of 19 starts and was voted champion filly at 2 and 3.
Owned by Eugene Klein and trained by D. Wayne Lukas, Open Mind won the 1988 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Stakes-G1 at 2 and blossomed fully at 3, when she took the Kentucky Oaks, swept the New York Filly Triple Crown (the Acorn, Mother Goose and Coaching Club American Oaks) and added the Alabama Stakes, all Grade 1s. The Alabama marked her 10th straight victory.
By Deputy Minister out of Stage Luck (by Stage Door Johnny), Open Mind finished with 11 stakes wins, nine graded, and earnings of $1,844,372.Remarkably, the two met once, but neither won. The race was the 1988 Mary-land Million Lassie, restricted to the offspring of Maryland sires (Horatius stood at Thornmar farm in Chestertown; Deputy Minister had launched his career at Windfields Farm in Chesapeake City). Ms. Gold Pole was the winner, defeating Open Mind by four and a half lengths; heavy favorite Safely Kept was another half length back in third.
Bought as a broodmare by foreign interests, Open Mind went to Japan, had two Easy Goer foals, and died in 1998 at age 12. Her second foal, the filly Easy Mind, was a stakes winner in Japan.
Safely Kept, 25, was pensioned in Kentucky last year after producing her 10th foal, an Empire Maker filly, in May for Jay-eff B. She has eight winners from as many starters and two stakes winners: Con-trast (by Unbridled) and Peace Chant (by War Chant).
