Winning combination: Fancy Point get first win for herself and trainer Will Phipps

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Trainer Will Phipps is a Yankee fan. “You’d better believe it,” he said with a grin. Just like the late team owner, George Steinbrenner, he’s also a fan of winning. Fancy Point gave Phipps his first Saratoga stakes winner — and first victory of this meet — when the homebred for Steinbrenner’s Kinsman Farm broke her maiden in winning the P.G. Johnson Stakes for 2-year-old fillies on the turf Wednesday. “We’re very lucky people, that’s for sure,” said Phipps, who is no relation to the famed Phipps Stable family. “I’m honored to have such a horse for the Steinbrenners. This is for the big guy,” he added, gesturing to the sky. “It’s a real honor.” From his moderately-sized string of horses, Phipps, who went out on his own in 2008 after working as an assistant to Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott, had a second and two thirds at this meet coming into Wednesday. His only two previous black-type winners were at Tampa Bay Downs. Steinbrenner, who died at the age of 80 on July 13, was an active thoroughbred owner and breeder. He owned Kinsman Stud Farm near Ocala, Florida and raced under the name Kinsman Stable. “The Boss” campaigned Bellamy Road, the 2005 Wood Memorial winner and Kentucky Derby favorite; among the other major winners who raced under the Kinsman banner, alone or in partnership, were Dream Supreme, Majestic Warrior, Sweet Symphony, Eternal Prince, Buy The Firm and Spinning Round. Mott trained several horses for Steinbrenner, including Grade I winner Dream Supreme and her son, Hopeful winner Majestic Warrior. It was because of his connection to Mott that Phipps came to know the Steinbrenner family. “I met them when I was working for Bill, and they called me one day over the winter and said, ‘Would you like to come to a baseball game?’” Phipps said. That relationship eventually led to Fancy Point, a strong-willed daughter of recent Hall of Fame inductee Point Given, joining the Phipps barn. The filly was a solid fourth in her debut on Aug. 1 at Saratoga. Although she’d be in against fillies who already had wins on their resumes, Phipps, saying the connections “felt pretty bullish” coming in, wanted to take a shot in the P.G. Johnson, saying that he’d wanted to try the filly on turf and the timing of the race was good. “We loved her in the morning, so we took a gamble,” he said. Phipps wasn’t looking for a particular strategy in the race, leaving it up to rider Javier Castellano to judge the pace and how the race was unfolding. He was confident in Fancy Point’s ability to adapt to any scenario that might unfold in the race. That was because of what he’d seen from her during a unique training drill he employs in the mornings to give young horses experience in race scenarios and to judge what type of running style they might develop. “We work in groups of three, we call it the Indian style,” he said, moving his hands to illustrate. “All the horses train in a single-file line, and they [take turns going] from last to first, and they pass, and they rate, and they lead. And there’s some that really sit in well behind horses and some that hate being on the front end. You get to learn a lot about them — the ones that don’t like dirt in their face. This filly, anywhere — you can put her anywhere all the time. We’re just very lucky. They don’t make many like this.” It’s good that the humans involved had no preferred strategy, because once the gates opened, Fancy Point had her own ideas about where she’d like to be running — in front all the way around. “As soon as they opened the gate, she broke like a shot; boom!” Castellano said. “She got the first jump. I tried to settle her a little bit and I was wishing somebody else could go in the lead just to keep track, but she just galloped along.” The filly established a comfortable lead while moving easily through honest fractions of :23.67, :48.29 and 1:12.90. Around the far turn, Pleine Forme, who had been tracking several lengths back in second, moved to challenge, cutting the lead to a half length. Let out just a notch by Castellano, Fancy Point eagerly spurted away again to open up three lengths in upper stretch. The filly dug in well in the final furlong to preserve a length and a half victory over Kathmanblu, who wove her way through traffic to be a hard-charging second. The final time for the mile and a sixteenth was 1:42.78. “When I asked her a little bit, she gave it to me and took off again,” Castellano said. Fancy Point returned $9.70, $5.50 and $4.60. Kathmanblu paid $14 and $9.10 while Pleine Forme held third and paid $5.10. The top three were followed by Lauren Byrd, favored Believe In A.P., Maria’s Luck, Arch Support and Avanta. Phipps said he hasn’t picked out a next target for Fancy Point yet; he wants to give her time to recover from Wednesday’s effort and “let her be a horse” for a bit before examining the options and consulting with the Steinbrenners. The winner of last year’s P.G. Johnson, Tapitsfly, went on to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. Fancy Point was one of two winners on the day for Castellano, which allowed him to move into a tie with Johnny Velazquez in the battle for the prestigious Spa riding title. Castellano, looking for his first title here, and Velazquez, a three-time meet champion, each have 49 winners.

Article Link : https://www.saratogian.com/2010/09/01/winning-combination-fancy-point-get-first-win-for-herself-and-trainer-will-phipps/