Vickie Foley 2-year-olds impressive in debuts

Vickie Foley trains a small stable, currently totaling nine horses, but two of those were good-looking winners in their 2-year-old debuts at Ellis Park.

Alexis Harthill’s Include Edition rallied from last and five-wide out of the turn to prevail this past Sunday by 1 1/3 lengths at almost 24-1 odds, paying $49.60 to win. A week earlier, the Vickie Foley et al syndicate’s Mine Inspector broke slowly, quickly got into striking position before blowing to the lead to romp by 7 3/4 lengths. The Discreetly Mine colt covered 5 1/2 furlongs on turf in 1:03.43, including the last sixteenth-mile in 6:08 seconds.

James Graham rode both horses.

Harthill and Foley were a bit surprised by Include Edition’s victory, which they watched from Louisville. Vickie’s brother, trainer Greg Foley, saddled the filly and was in the winner’s circle with his family. It was a big day for the Foley clan as Greg won the prior allowance race with Transatlantic Kiss, one of his three wins this meet heading into Friday’s card.

 “We were going to ride with Greg, and his whole family ended up going,” Vickie said of Include Edition. “And it was raining. We just decided to stay home. We were there in spirit. We were hooping and hollering and went out to dinner celebrating.

“She broke well, but she didn’t like being pinned down on the inside and I liked how Graham let her settle, let those horses go on, and he moved her out (from) the slop hitting her in the face. He just let her relax and she just exploded. She did it with such grace. He didn’t get excited and rode her beautifully.”

Greg Foley played a role in both youngsters landing in his sister’s barn. Greg Foley was the underbidder on Mine Inspector as a yearling and urged his sister to take a look at the colt when he was offered at a 2-year-old auction. Her syndicate, overseen in conjunction with Louisville accountant Bill Malone, acquired Mine Inspector for $45,000, or $7,000 less than his previous owner paid for him as a yearling.

Greg Foley purchased Include Edition for $15,000, one of three yearlings he bought with the idea of ultimately selling to clients. When he had no takers after paying for the youngsters to be broken over the winter in South Carolina, he asked his sister and Harthill if they would be interested. Harthill bought two of the three. Her other purchase, a West Virginia-bred now named Tryon Summer, was second in her debut at Indiana Grand on July 4.

“After it’s said and done, yeah, he’d love to have the fillies, but he’s happy we have them,” Vickie said. “This filly (Include Edition) has trained excellent. She’s very intelligent. She’s done everything you want. But they were touting (in the race) horses of Ben Colebrook, Steve Asmussen, one who had a bullet work.”

“All those fancy horses, so they forgot about her,” said Harthill, who also is an owner in Mine Inspector.

Mine Inspector got left at the gate, spotting the field several lengths but soon strode up to be in the second flight of horses, tipping out on the turn to sweep to the lead. Approaching the wire, Ellis announcer Jimmy McNerney said, “Here’s a good one, folks. Mine Inspector is running a gi-normous race here!”

“This little horse, he’s not real sharp right from the gate,” Vickie Foley said. “He’s been to the gate many times but has always been a little slow breaking. That will come with experience.”

She admitted briefly being worried after the break, thinking, “Oh crap. But then when I saw how easily he was recovering, I wasn’t.”

Said Graham: “He did everything right. He’s a smart little horse. He’ll improve. He quickened up nicely when I called on him, galloped out strongly, too. They went so far in front, I was just glad he didn’t break real good, break running with them. Then I’d have had to sit and wait on them and fight him maybe. But when I pulled the trigger, he quickened. And he quickened smart.

“He might stretch out later on, too. He’s not an aggressive horse mentally, which is a great thing.”

As it turned out, a horse Vickie Foley and Malone couldn’t have afforded made it possible to buy the one they wanted.

“We bought this horse at Ocala, and he was a real nice-looking individual,” Vickie said. “We got him at the right price. We just really liked him. In fact, the reason I was really on to him, Greg had bid on this horse at the yearling sale. Greg loves Discreetly Mine colts…. Greg put us on this horse.”

Malone said they got Mine Inspector for under their budget because the prior owner reselling had just sold another horse for a nice profit at the sale, and as such didn’t put a predetermined minimum selling price on the colt.

“When we went to the sale and looked at all the horses, Vickie said, ‘That’s the one. That’s the one I want,’” Malone said. “We sat there for two days, didn’t buy anything, waiting for this. If you don’t have a lot of money, it’s tough to buy horses. We had a Mine Inspector 25 years ago, and we renamed this one Mine Inspector.”

Foley said she’s looking at the $75,000 Ellis Park Debutante on Aug. 19 for Include Edition, while Mine Inspector likely will be pointed toward a $140,000 allowance race at Kentucky Downs.

“We have a small stable but we’re pretty loaded with some nice stock. And we haven’t even turned Tigers Rule loose,” Vickie Foley said, alluding to her nice turf 3-year-old who narrowly lost Keeneland’s Grade 3 Dixiana Bourbon last fall.

Good Lord draws eight older horses

Churchill Downs allowance winners Majestic Affair (2-1) and Concord Fast (3-1) head Sunday’s $50,000 Good Lord Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs. The stakes, previously known as the Don Bernhardt, was renamed in recognition of its three-time winner Good Lord, who was trained by the recently retired Ellis Park fixture Forrest Kaelin. The field, with horse (weight) jockey/trainer and odds:

Post time: Sunday at 4:10 p.m. CT

Ellis graduate Talk Veuve to Me captures Indiana Oaks

Talk Veuve to Me, who was second in her racing debut last summer at Ellis Park, romped to a 4 3/4-length victory over Figarella’s Queen in last week’s Grade 3, $200,000 Indiana Oaks at Indiana Grand and now is in Saratoga.

“She showed what I was expecting her to show,” said Keeneland-based trainer Rodolphe Brisset, who has two wins and two thirds in five starts at the current Ellis meet. “It was maybe a little quicker than what I was thinking on paper. But she took the lead pretty easy. You could see that she was looking around a lot, just went to the wire cruising.

“She’s very unlucky being born in one of the best years —how many good fillies do we have this year? — between Monomoy Girl, Midnight Bisou and Red Ruby and I’m sure I’ve left out some. It’s a very, very strong year for 3-year-old fillies. I don’t know where everybody wants to go. She may have to face them and turn the table on some to be in the top three. But we are what we are.”

Figarella’s Queen, a 13-1 shot ridden by Robby Albarado, closed from sixth to finish 6 3/4 lengths in front her Brad Cox-trained stablemate Kelly’s Humor, winner of last year’s Ellis Park Debutante.

Talk Veuve to Me, a daughter of Violence, originally was purchased by Brisset privately after she failed to sell at a 2-year-old auction. Brisset was about to go out on his own, after being an assistant to Hall of Famer Bill Mott, and he sold part-interest in Talk Veuve to Me to good friend Stephen McKay. The filly was second in her debut at Ellis Park last summer, then sidelined by a slight stress fracture. Returning to the races in March at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans, she won by 11 lengths and the Team Valor International syndicate bought majority interest.

In her next two starts, Talk Veuve to Me was second in Churchill Downs’ Grade 2 Eight Belles on the Kentucky Oaks undercard, then second in New York’s Grade 1 Acorn behind Kentucky Oaks winner Monomoy Girl.

“She had two real hard races, the Acorn, the Eight Belles,” said Team Valor president Barry Irwin. “We wanted to find a spot we were confident she would win. Just so she wouldn’t lose another race and get seconditis. Rodolphe picked out this one, and it worked out great.”