Barn Tour: Nutella Fella leads Contessa's talented 2-year-olds

Gary Contessa took a bit of a departure before arriving where he is today, training an undefeated juvenile colt who might be headed for the Breeders’ Cup after winning Monday’s Grade 1 Hopeful at Saratoga. And who’s also a “maniac.”

Contessa stepped away from training in 2020, just before COVID hit. A year later, he became the private trainer for Nick Beaver’s Bell Gable Stable, and the owner led the standings in 2021 and 2022. Wanting to train higher-caliber horses in New York, Contessa said, he suggested that Beaver should turn over his horses to public trainers. Beaver agreed, but Contessa remained with him as general manager of his stable.

“I straighten out all the problems, I breed the mares. I send the babies off to be broke. I buy the horses at sales for him,” Contessa told Horse Racing Nation on Tuesday. “But we gave the horses this year for the first time to public trainers. Rick Sillaman got the horses this year.”

And one of those horses was Nutella Fella, a Runhappy 2-year-old who won his debut at Delaware Park by 2 1/4 lengths.

Sillaman “was getting him ready and he was a gate scratch a number of times because he's very, very bad at the gate. Finally he gets him to a race, the horse is a maniac in the paddock, a maniac on the track and a maniac at the gate, breaks last, loops the field and draws off. And Nick and I are talking on the phone, and he goes, ‘Gary – Hopeful?’ I said, 'yeah.' We knew that there had to be a lot more left in the tank and he ran a decent number. He ran an 18 on the Ragozin sheets. He ran a 65 Beyer at Delaware. And we knew that he probably left about 20 points on the track being a lunatic.”

So Nutella Fella joined Contessa at Saratoga, where the trainer had about a dozen juveniles – “the toughest order,” he said. “Everybody has their best. You have to run against the best of the best, every single race at Saratoga.”

Nutella Fella “was in very good physical shape” when he arrived, Contessa said. “All I had to do is really straighten him out of the starting gate. And the horse from day one always has acted like a really good racehorse. He is all business when he's training. He has no vices, nothing, but his Achilles heel is the starting gate.”

At the end of training every day, Contessa brought him to the gate.

“Kudos to Hector (Soler, head starter) and the starter in New York and the gate crew on the Oklahoma side of the training track,” Contessa said. “Those guys spent hours with me working with this horse.”

Loaded last for the Hopeful, he “grew reluctant to load,” according to the Equibase chart. “Compared to what he could have done, it was minimal,” Contessa said.

And then, of course, he won at odds of 54-1.

Contessa said he was pleasantly surprised because of the strong field. "But I knew from training him that he had serious talent.

“He does anything the jockey asks him to do. If you study that race (Monday), that jock went inside, then he went outside, then he went back inside, then he went outside and the horse just said, OK, let's go, whatever you want me to do, I'll do it. He's really a professional race horse.”

Nutella Fella will continue training in Saratoga and will ship to Belmont for the Champagne (G1). “And after the Champagne, we'll decide if it's going to be the Breeders' Cup or not.”

Contessa is confident that Nutella Fella can go longer.

“He looks exactly like Runhappy. And we all know Runhappy was absolutely at his best at seven furlongs. So we may eventually hit a wall on distance, but so far, he sure looks like he'd go a mile. It looks like if he had went a mile (Monday), he would have won by eight or 10. So I certainly think that it's well within his scope to get a mile.”

And Runhappy’s owner, James McIngvale, a.k.a Mattress Mack, had congratulatory words for his stallion’s first Grade 1 winner.

Contessa had another graded-stakes-winning juvenile at Saratoga in Becky’s Joker, who scored in the Schuylerville (G3). He provided updates on her and others in his stable for the latest in HRN’s Barn Tour series.

Becky’s Joker. The Schuylerville was the first career start for Becky’s Joker, a 2-year-old daughter of Practical Joke. In her next start, she was seventh of eight in the Adirondack (G3), and Contessa scratched her from the Spinaway (G1) on Sunday. “She'd developed some behavioral problems in the Adirondack and probably caused herself to lose the race. She was bad in the post parade. She was bad in the paddock. Very out of character for her. So we got her back from the Adirondack and we decided we would consider the Spinaway but only if we got her brain right. And I wasn't happy with her coming into the Spinaway. I really feel that she's young. She's really a child, as far as horses go. And she was starting to develop some vices that really were not good vices. So I spoke to (owner) Lee Pokoik and I said, Look, I want to scratch out of the Spinaway, and I want to let her be a horse. I want to send her to a farm. I want to put her in a field and I want to let her have 30 days off, get Saratoga out of her mind. So that's what she's doing. She's on a 30-day hiatus and sound as a bell, nothing wrong with her. But mentally I think she needed a break. She was starting to develop some vices that I wasn't happy with.” Contessa said he will winter either at Oaklawn or in Florida in addition to his New York stable, and he hasn’t decided where Becky’s Joker will join him.

Play Free Bird. A 2-year-old daughter of Maximus Mischief, she is 0-for-4 with starts at Belmont Park and Saratoga, two each on dirt and turf and all at 5 1/2 furlongs or less. “Play Free Fird wants to go long on the turf. So I see in the Belmont book that long on the turf is coming for New York-breds. So I'm very happy about her. She's a neat little filly. We didn't pay a lot of money for her, paid $47,000.”

Classy Mischief. The 2-year-old daughter of Into Mischief is 0-for-3, with her first two starts at Saratoga and then one at Monmouth Park. “Classy Mischief ran second going a mile at Saratoga in a maiden race for 2-year-olds. And instead of coming back in a maiden race, I took her to Monmouth Park and I ran her in the Sorority, and she was flying at the finish, got beat a length, finished fourth in a blanket finish. But she was really making up ground. Two more feet, she would have won the damn race. But she ran fourth in the Sorority and ran a very good race. So she's definitely a stakes-caliber, Into Mischief filly. And I'm either going to train her into the Frizette (G1, Oct. 7) as a maiden, or about a week before the Frizette is a maiden special weight going a mile. It'll be one or the other. But knowing Lee Pokoik and knowing me and not being afraid to take chances, don't be surprised if Classy Mischief ends up in the Frizette.”

Uncle Eddie. The 2-year-old Nyquist colt is 0-for-5, with four of those starts at Saratoga. “Nice little horse. I gave $40,000 for him in the March OBS sale. And he's run, every race has been good. Now the other day, we finally got him in going 5 1/2 on the turf. And he ran fifth, but Castellano got off him and said, ‘Gary, this horse wants to go a mile on the turf.’ So here we go, another turf horse. So he runs on the dirt, which is nice. I think he'd be great in the winter at Aqueduct. But I think we may discover that his forte is going a mile or more on the turf. And he's a Nyquist colt. So he's certainly a useful sort. He's made $25, $26,000 just at the Saratoga meet this year. So he’s been useful for sure. And we'll get to decide in the next few spots if he's mile turf, if that's correct, or if he wants to stay on the dirt. But it looks like he's going to be a nice little turf horse.”

Boss Tweed. The 2-year-old colt hasn’t raced yet but his one published work was four furlongs in 48.0 seconds, fastest of 72 at the distance, in July. “He's a really talented Laoban, New York-bred. I think he's stakes caliber. He does everything right. I really like him a lot.”