The WTBOA is pleased to announce the new Emerald "Buy Here / Win Here" Bonus Program for WTBOA Summer Sale yearlings. Conceived by Emerald Downs President Ron Crockett, the program was announced at the WTBOA Annual Membership Meeting, which took place this past Saturday, July 12, at Emerald Downs.

   The Emerald Bonus Program is available to all 2014 WTBOA Summer Session yearlings that go through the ring at the 2014 WTBOA Sale.

   Bonuses will be paid to qualifying Summer Session yearlings who break their maiden at Emerald Downs. This one-time bonus will be for qualifying horses of any age and at any level. The bonus will be split, 50 percent to the consignor and 50 percent to the owner. The consignor is the registered owner(s) as listed on the 2014 WTBOA Summer Sale Yearling Session Contract. The Owner will be the person who owns the qualifying horse at the time that it breaks its maiden.

   More details about this exciting new program can be found at http://www.wtboa.com/Sales/EmeraldBonusProgram_2014.pdf.

   The complete WTBOA Summer Yearling & Mixed Sale catalog is now online at www.wtboa.com. Printed catalogs will be available in late July.

  The now two-time 2014 Emerald Downs stakes winner Noosito (see story above) was honored as top Washington-bred for week 14 after he defeated his paternal half-brother Del Rio Harbor by 1 3/4 lengths in the Seattle Slew Handicap and evened their score against each other to three-to-three. Last Rose Stables' Noosito, who was the final foal for his dam Julia Rose, Washington's broodmare of the year in 203, was bred by Pam and Neal Christopherson's Bar C Racing Stable Inc. The Christophersons also co-bred and co-own Del Rio Harbor.

  Emerald Racing Club, whose Dancing Yodeler won his first race for the 128-member club on the July 13 card, was named leading owner (see above). Sam Dronen was awarded trainer of the week, Eliska Kubinova earned jockey honors and Jose Diaz, who works for Doris Harwood, was named best groom. 

   The family of unraced Whimsical Aire has been a "gold mine" for the Konecny family ever since the late John and his wife Doris Konecny - who now lives in Southern California - purchased the daughter of state champion Silky Steel in 1983. The 1990 broodmare of the year would produce a dozen winners from 18 foals during her long career at the then Konecnys' Enumclaw-based Czech-Mate Farm. Tops among them were her three stakes-winning daughters: champion Mahaska, dam of champion Quizzical and granddam of champion Enumclaw Girl; Zashrany, whose only two foals were both stakes winners; and Taj Aire, who would be named Washington broodmare of the year in 2003. At the time of her title, Taj Aire, a daughter of the Seattle Slew stallion Taj Alriyadh, had produced three stakes winners: Washington champion turf horse Handyman Bill, Grade 3 stakes winner Elusive Diva, and $314,895 earner R. Baggio. Since then, she added two stakes-placed daughters and in 2008 foaled the Speightstown colt Tropics.

  Tropics has gone through the auction ring three times: first as a weanling for $280,000; next as a yearling for $700,000 (the highest price among the 59 Speightstown yearlings selling in 2009); and finally in 2011 he went through the Tattersalls horses in training sale for $4,185.

  Last year, as a five-year-old, the now gelding became Taj Aire's fourth stakes winner when he won the Hopeful Stakes at Newmarket in August and then added a 3 1/2-length tally in the Group 3 Bengough Stakes at Ascot in October for owner/trainer Dean Ivory.

  In his fifth start of the year, Tropics faced a dozen other sprinters in the prestigious Darley July Cup, a six-furlong Group 1 race held at Newmarket on July 12, and defeated all but Diamond Jubilee Stakes (G1) (in which Tropics had run ninth) victor Slade Power. Ridden by Robert Winston, the notes from the chart say that 66-to-one Tropics "raced far side, always prominent, ridden and every chance over one furlong out, stayed on same pace well inside final furlong. Second of seven in group."

  In his three seasons of racing, Tropics has made 18 starts, with a record of 6-4-1 and has earnings of $385,087.

   With his twenty-second stakes win (among his 27 wins in 41 starts) and fourth graded tally, The Jim Stable's pride and joy Ben's Cat raised his earnings to $2,105,990 after the eight-year-old Maryland gelding made a late move to take the 2014 Parx Dash Handicap (G3) by a nose over race favorite Tightend Touchdown. With regular rider Julian Pimentel aboard, the King Leatherbury-owned, -bred and -trained gelding  - a three-time Maryland horse of the year - Ben's Cat  scored his third consecutive victory in the now $200,000 Pennsylvania sprint since running second in the five-furlong event in 2011. Ben's Cat had set the :54.96 course record for the distance during the race's 2012 renewal.

   Ben's Cat is one of three champions sired by three-time and current Washington leading sire Parker's Storm Cat. The son of Storm Cat and half-brother to major sire Malibu Moon, holds court at Gibson Thoroughbred Farm in Thorp. Thorough July 16, 2014, Parker's Storm Cat leads the 2014 Washington sire list with $416,812 and his 14 winners are led by Ben's Cat's $243,350 earnings.

  Belle Gallantey, a $30,000 graduate of the 2011 Pegasus Thoroughbreds Two-year-olds in Training Sale, defeated four-time Grade 1 winner Princess of Sylmar by 2 3/4 lengths to earn her first stakes win in the $750,000 Grade 1 Delaware Handicap on July 12 at Delaware Park.

  Originally purchased as a yearling by Mike Puhich for $10,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale for Pegasus Thoroughbreds, Belle Gallantey began her race career as a two-year-old racing for Glen Todd, Stuart Carmichael and Tom Peter at Hastings Racecourse where she finished third in the Fantasy Handicap.  She was claimed by SAY Racing LLC for $30,000 out of a second place finish in her first start, and third overall, at Santa Anita that October. She won her first race in February of her three-year-old season and after winning one other race for her new owner, was claimed for $20,000 in July 2012 at Del Mar by Robert Hess Jr. and Roddy J. Valente.

  Next seen running at Saratoga (for a $35,000 tag) in August, she next changed hands via David Cramer's $20,000 claim out of an October Belmont race. Her next win came in a $15,000 claimer at Aqueduct that November.  Since that 2012 start, Belle Gallantey has only once run worse than fourth in 22 starts.

  On March 3, 2013, she was claimed by Sunny Meadow Farm for $25,000 out of a second place finish at Aqueduct. Her fourth win came at Belmont Park on September 22, 2013 when she won a starter allowance/$50,000 claiming (N) race by five lengths.

   In her final race of 2013 she was claimed at Aqueduct for $35,000 by Michael Dubb. In 2014, Belle Gallantey won her first three races for Dubb, Bethlehem Stables and Gary Aisquith before finishing fifth in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes on the June 7 Belmont Stakes (G1) card.

  Belle Gallantey was next sent to Delaware Park where she made her 41st start, ridden by Jose Ortiz, in the 10-furlong stakes for older fillies and mare which she won in 2:01.15 over a fast track. The five-year-old daughter of Eddie Read Handicap (G1) winner After Market is the second foal out of $147,843 earner Revealed, a 2002 daughter of Old Trieste whose second dam is two-year-old champion Meadow Star.

  The top earner from the Pegasus Thoroughbreds sale's two-year run, Belle Gallantry - who was bred in Kentucky by Pam and Martin Wygod and went through the Pegasus sale named Collection Basket - has earned $ 866,270. Belle Gallantey received a 107 BRIS Speed rating for her win, the highest of any North American stakes winner for the July 7-13 week.

   Bar C Racing Stables Inc.'s first crop sire Sixthirteen had his first stakes winner on July 12, when his Quarter Horse daughter Lil Touch of Dixie won the $4,200 Prineville Quarter Horse Futurity at the Crooked River Roundup in Prineville, Oregon, on July 12.

  Trainer Jonathan Nance and Barbara Eakins' three-year-old filly Dubonnet took a seven-furlong maiden special weight race at Arapahoe Park by 8 3/4 lengths on July 13. The daughter of Grindstone-Incredible, by Crafty Prospect, was bred in Washington by Nance and Hartwick Farm.

  Washington-owned juvenile fillies Heart of Paradise and Slew's Charm ran second and third in the $100,000 Cinderella Stakes held at the Los Alamitos Thoroughbred meet held on July 12. La Grange, a daughter of Curlin, broke her maiden in the six-furlong stakes with Heart of Paradise (by More Than Ready) finishing second for Dan Hoefflin, Jerry Hollendorfer and Dr. George Todaro and Rozamund Barclay's fellow maiden Slew's Charm (by Roi Charmant) running third in the field of five.

  W V Jetsetter, by Jet Phone, a two-year-old half-brother to 2013 Emerald champion three-year-old male runner Worldventurer, won the TTA Sales Futurity on July 12 at Lone Star. Worldventurer, by Wimbledon, had taken the 2012 TTA Sales Futurity in the first of four stakes wins which included the Emerald Downs Derby for Peter Redekop BC Ltd and trainer Blaine Wright.