Barn Tour: Jonathan Thomas updates on 10 in his stable

Jonathan Thomas won six graded stakes with Catholic Boy from 2017 to 2019. He has won four other graded stakes, including one in each of the last three years with different horses.

This year, his graded-stakes winner is Selenaia, who took the Grade 3 Honeymoon Stakes at Santa Anita by 3 1/4 lengths. It was her third win in a row and her first start in a stakes.

Thomas, who started training his own string in 2017, had his best year yet in 2022, with $2,523,566 in earnings and a record of 193: 38-40-25.

Not bad for a guy who has about 30 horses in training.

“In a sport where there's guys with 300, we’re trying to take down big races with a small string,” Thomas told Horse Racing Nation on Tuesday. “We're lucky, we've got some great clients. But we're making the best of what we have numerically.

“Everyone thinks I have like 150 head,” he added. “No one believes me.”

Thomas is spending the summer at Keeneland for the first time.

“It's been a really good facility to summer,” he said. “… It's been a really, really good place to train.”

When training there ends in July, he’ll split divisions between Saratoga and Del Mar.

Thomas provided updates on Selenaia and others in his barn for the latest in HRN’s Barn Tour series.

Selenaia. The Ireland-bred, 3-year-old daughter of Sea the Moon is 2-for-2 this year. “She's a filly that we liked last year,” Thomas said. “We kind of raced her a little sparingly because she was still a pretty growth-y filly. Gave her the winter off. And she's done little wrong since she's come back. The trainer is keeping his options open for her next start. “She's wanting to get good, kind of put us in a position where we've got a plethora of options this summer. … We'll look at races like the Saratoga Oaks(G3) or possibly the Del Mar Oaks (G1).”

Wolfie’s Dynaghost. The 5-year-old son of Ghostzapper moved to Thomas’s barn after the 2022 season and is 2-for-4 this year, most recently finishing fifth in the Eclipse (G2) at Woodbine a month after a fifth-place finish in the Turf Classic (G1). “He's been a really neat addition to the barn. Just a real professional, a real pleasure to be around. Little disappointed his last start up in Canada. He threw in an uncharacteristically poor performance, with what has become a valid excuse.” He’s going to get a few weeks of rest. “Maybe squeezing that race in at Churchill was a mistake in hindsight, getting him back on the grass. But we're going to give him a mild freshening to kind of target late summer and then run him kind of through the fall.”

Well Into. The 3-year-old Into Mischief filly started the year with her first two wins, then was fourth in the Appalachian (G2) and eighth most recently in the Hilltop at Pimlico. “She's kind of wanted to knock on the door. We're giving her the summer off. I just thought off her performance at Pimlico, being on the go all winter and running at Gulfstream, it's hard to string that form out all year. So we're giving her a break this summer, and she'll be back this fall.”

Mrs. Astor. This 3-year-old daughter of Lookin At Lucky broke her maiden in January on her third try and most recently finished third in the Regret (G3) at Churchill Downs. “She's a neat filly. Really had high hopes for her early on. I don't typically say this, but she suffered from two really poor rides early in her career. I'm not one to ever knock jockeys, but she really got very, very unlucky in two starts. And, you know, Jose (Ortiz0 came back and rode her, she won really nicely. I thought that she's kind of a graded-stakes-type filly. She finished third in the Regret last time out. She left herself a little much to do, but she also was beaten by two very good fillies. So she finished third in a Grade, 3. I think she has those capabilities. I also think she's a filly that I think she'll continue to mature and get better as time goes on. So she's not relegated to having to be a 3-year-old. I think she's got kind of 4-year-old capabilities as well. … We're going to step back a little bit, let her regroup. There's a first-level allowance race at Del Mar that's a straight filly allowance race. So that that would be kind of the target. That's I think the third week of July.”

We Storm. The 3-year-old son of We Miss Artie broke his maiden June 7 on his second try. He’s entered in the Canterbury Derby, but Thomas said he won’t start there. “I entered because it came up with a short field. We'll run him at Del Mar in a first-level allowance race. Del Mar is doing a really nice thing, and hopefully those races go. But for a little bit in the middle of the year, it's kind of rare to get those straight 3-year-old races that aren't stakes. There's two first-level allowance races, so we plan on running Mrs. Astor in one and We Storm in the other one.”

Regal Realm. The 4-year-old Animal Kingdom filly is 2-for-2 this year, with both wins coming in optional-claiming allowance races. She’s entered in the Lady Canterbury Stakes on Wednesday at Canterbury Park. “She's doing well. She's run through her conditions now, so it's kind of time to step up a little bit. She's got enough pedigree where if she gets some legitimate black type, it'll definitely flatter her as she goes forward in a broodmare career. She's an odd filly where she's not really a miler, she's not really a six-furlong filly. That seven really flattered her at Belmont (in her most recent start). She's got great tactical speed. So she's kind of a mid-range, or sprinter to miler. So she's a little stymied by the lack of distance opportunities for her. A mile is going to be a little bit long, just a touch long for her. But it's going to be obviously a step below trying to go to Belmont, some other places like that – not that it's going to be an easy spot at all.”

High Front. The 4-year-old son of Summer Front returned from a layoff of nearly a year to finish second in an allowance at Keeneland and then win a Churchill Downs allowance last out. He will start in the Dark Star Turf Sprint at Canterbury on Wednesday, though he also was entered in an optional claiming allowance at Ellis Park on Friday. “He's shown up basically every time we've run him. I'm kind of ultimately curious to stretch him out a little bit. But this race at Canterbury was a little too good to pass up.”

Kitten Mischief. The 4-year-old son of Into Mischief won his first start of the year after going 0-for-6 last year, then was fourth last out in a Keeneland allowance. “He's another horse that's kind of been knocking on the door, wants to run an extreme route, marathon race. It's a really hard life for a horse that wants to run a route of ground. There's really few opportunities. I had hoped to have run him more by this point of the year. But I think there was literally, from the time he won his allowance race at Gulfstream … it was four months, anywhere in the United States, until there was a race at that distance again that wasn't a graded stake. So he ran at Keeneland, he finished fourth, he was beaten two lengths. Ran well, ran a good number. So we're just waiting for a good spot for him. I would love to run him in a two-other-than and then transition into stakes. But there aren't any. At that distance, you're running into Grade 1 or Grade 2 horses. And I guess we might have to step up and try that. And I don't know if he's quite ready yet, but he's really stymied by the lack of opportunity. That's just kind of unfortunate. If he was a six-furlong dirt horse there'd be about a billion opportunities, but he's not.”

Mouffy. The 4-year-old Uncle Mo filly started her career with two wins and a second last year, then came back a year later to finish seventh in an optional-claiming allowance at Churchill. She’ll run in an optional-claiming allowance at Horseshoe Indianapolis on Wednesday, though she also was entered in the Lady Canterbury. “She really ran well for us last year. I put her in the wrong spot last time at Churchill. It was kind of a fast track, ran fine. I'm completely changing it up and running her two turns on the turf. Uncle Mo out of a Smart Strike mare, she should get the trip. We're going to run her at Indiana – no race is easy, no matter where it is, but we wanted to kind of give her a chance to run against some easier competition to see where we're at with her. I think she has stakes capabilities, but she's not a dirt sprinter at the end of the day. At least a stake dirt sprinter.”

Bay Storm. The 5-year-old son of Kantharos is 0-for-4 this year, most recently finishing fourth in the Intercontinental (G3). He has been in the money in all but two of his 16 career starts, and he was fourth and fifth in the others. “She's really shown up. The one one thing we've been dying to get for her is a graded-stakes win. She's been very close. She runs extremely well fresh. Her lifetime best race was the race at Kentucky Downs where she just got nailed by Campanelle (losing by a nose in the Mint Ladies Sprint, G3). Thinking that's kind of her long-range target. So there's a chance we might just freshen her up and train her into that race.”