BY BROCK SHERIDAN

After finishing second to future graded stakes-winner Obliteration in his first start, West Point Thoroughbreds’ Curtain Call reappeared on stage at Saratoga to produce an impressive victory in a six-furlong maiden special weight Saturday. Curtain Call took over with a furlong to the wire to win by eight-and-a-half lengths under Jose Ortiz for trainer Mark Casse in the $100,000 contest.

Starting from post two in the field of five 2-year-olds, Curtain Call and even-money favorite Tagermeen were quickest from the gate before Throckmorton shot to the front from the inside post one. Throckmorton put a length-and-a-half on Tagermeen, a $1.4 million graduate of this year’s Ocala Breeders’ Sales Spring Sale, as Curtain Call settled along the rail in third through a quarter mile :22.17. Tagermeen tried to get to Throckmorton around the turn as Curtain Call raced patiently in third with Time to Strike beginning to make a run on the outside. Throckmorton maintained his margin at the top of the stretch after a half mile in :45.17 as Curtain Call emerged in second as the lone menace. Curtain shot to the front past the eighth pole and quickly stretched his lead to win in 1:10.31 on the sloppy and sealed track. Tagermeen came back to take second by a length-and-three-quarters ahead of Throckmorton in third. Time to Strike and Wise Words completed the order of finish.

Curtain Call paid $6.10 to win.

He earned $55,000 for the victory to push his career bankroll to $68,500.

West Point Thoroughbreds paid $325,000 for Curtain Call, selecting him out of Steven Venosa’s S G V Thoroughbreds consignment at this year’s Ocala Breeders’ Sales March sale of 2-year-olds in training. Last year he sold for $115,000 to Dylan Venosa as agent during the Fasig-Tipton July Sale of selected yearlings.

Curtain Call debuted at Churchill Downs on June 12, finishing second to Obliteration in a five-and-a-half-furlong maiden special weight. Obliteration next won the Grade 3 Sanford at Saratoga by 10 ½ lengths on July 5.

Curtain Call is by Tiz the Law out of Deep Trouble, by Into Mischief and was bred in Florida by Nancy Stone of Ocala, Fla. Deep Trouble has produced six foals and four starters, all winners. She has an unnamed yearling full-brother to Curtain Call and a weanling filly by Verifying, who stands at Pleasant Acres Stallions.

Stone said she recently sold a partnership in the yearling colt to Steven Venosa and the weanling filly by Verifying is boarded with Eduardo Azpurua at Shangri-La Farm in Morriston, Fla.

“I really wanted a filly,” Stone said of the Verifying weanling. “Verifying is a half [brother] to Midnight Bisou and Into Mischief is a half [brother] to Beholder. To me there’s about $21 million in filly power.”

Stone purchased Deep Trouble while carrying Curtain Call for $35,000 at the 2022 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale.

“I went to the [Keeneland Sale] never intending to buy the mare,” Stone said of purchasing Deep Trouble. “I did not go knowing I was going to leave with a mare.

“I went to go look at the Tiz the Law babies because I was in on Tiz the Law [as part of the Sackatoga Stable partnership] and I’m also in on a group that has an LBR [lifetime breeding rights] on Tiz the Law. So I went to go look at the babies, they were weanlings, and the weanlings I liked were out of Into Mischief mares.

“It’s a crazy story.

“I was in on a foal share on [Deep Trouble] and the partnership dissolved and put her in the sale. I bought the mare and ended up with her—having no idea what I was going to do. It was total impulse.

“I got lucky and ran into the [Brent and Crystal Fernung] from Journeyman and asked them if they foal out. I had just moved to Ocala and I wanted to have a Florida-bred. Journeyman was nice enough to take her and make arrangements for her to get shipped down to Florida and that is where he was foaled out—at Journeyman.”

Curtain Call is the sixth Florida-bred winner at Saratoga Race Course this year and third 2-year-old winner.

Among the Florida-bred Juvenile winners are Arindel homebred Mythical, who on June 5 became the first filly since Florida-bred Rosie O’Greta in 1995 to win the $145,000 Tremont (Listed). Resolute Road Racing’s Deblasi won a five-furlong maiden special weight by three-and-a-half lengths on June 8.

John Ropes’ Dorth Vader leads the stakes winning Florida-breds at Saratoga with Grade 1 victory in the $485,000 Ogden Phipps presented by Ford on June 6. Live Oak Plantation homebred Bring Theband Home won the Listed Harvey Pack on July 4, blazing through five-and-a-half furlongs in a stakes-record :59.90, just .1 of a second off the track record set by Cogburn in last year’s Jaipur.

Return to the July 12 issue of Wire to Wire