Kentucky Downs: The story behind One Mean Man

When One Mean Man goes to the post for Thursday’s $150,000 Old Friends Stakes, he stands as testament to the prolific nature of the tiny broodmare operation of his owners and breeders: trainer Bernie Flint and longtime horse partner Ron Hillerich of Louisville.

Flint and Hillerich owned Abbeyville Miss, who never raced. After the mare failed to have a foal the past few years, Flint bought his partner out. But Hillerich, a prominent Louisville attorney, was involved when the payday hit. That includes Abbeyville Miss producing One Mean Man, a five-time stakes winner, with another four seconds and third in stakes while earning $521,610. 

Ditto for his full sister, Mizz Money, who won four stakes (two graded) and was sold for $550,000 last November. Both Mizz Money and One Mean Man were sired by Mizzen Mast, who stands at Juddmonte Farms for $10,000 per breeding.

Abbeyville Miss is a daughter of Skye Castles, whose only career start was a fifth at Kentucky Downs and whom the partners later sold for $250,000 as a broodmare. Skye Castles’ daughter Unbridled Melody, whose biggest win was an allowance race at Turfway, is a full sister to the Flint-trained Grade 1-placed Unbridled Express, now a stallion in Indiana.

Sold to WinStar Farm in 2007 for $325,000 by the partners, Unbridled Melody produced Tourist and three other minor stakes-winners. Tourist won Kentucky Downs’ 2015 More Than Ready Mile, a race renamed the Tourist Mile after the horse won the Breeders’ Cup Mile last fall.

Another Skye Castles daughter, Pavati, had different ownership and trainer and was lost in a $15,000 maiden-claiming race. Pavati, however, is the dam of Party Boat, a two-time stakes-winner for trainer Graham Motion.

The family traces back to My Sea Castles, a $28,000 2-year-old purchase by Flint for Hillerich, fellow attorney Tom Conway and himself in 1993. She won three stakes in Kentucky and ultimately was sold in 1996 for $700,000 to Rosemont Farms. My Sea Castles is a three-quarters brother to Agnes World, a Japanese-based horse who earned more than $3 million, including Grade 1 races in France and Britain.

While Flint has a few others, Hillerich owns half of three broodmares, including half of Mizzen Miss, a full sister to Mizz Money and One Mean Man. 

OK, back to the latest gift from My Sea Castles:

One Mean Man is seeking to end an 0-for-8 streak since ending his 3-year-old season with a Dec. 31 win in the Fair Grounds’ Woodchopper Stakes. That makes him by one day eligible for the Old Friends, restricted to horses that haven’t won a stakes in 2017.

But One Mean Man for the most part has been running very well, with Flint saying it just takes time for the 4-year-olds to catch up with older turf horses. In the meantime, his colt will find some familiar company in the Old Friends, having raced previously against Sir Dudley Digges, One Go All Go and Thatcher Street. One Mean Man was a good second in his last two races, Ellis Park’s Cliff Guilliams won by Flatlined and Indiana Grand’s Warrior Veterans won by Western Reserve. Both Flatlined and Western Reserve were to run in Wednesday’s$400,000 Tourist Mile.

“He’s had a challenging year, but he’s run against older horses,” Hillerich said. “But the good news is he’s really sound and very fit. He’s always competed and given us 110 percent. I think irrespective of what happens this year, we have a lot of hope for him in the next year and the year after that. He’s maturing all the time. We’re not disappointed. He’s just had a challenging year. He’s almost been there but not quite. We hope later in the year or next year we get over the hump and when it’s all said and done, he’s going to do something really good.”

So about that name. Flint — the colorful and outspoken trainer who used to be a New Orleans police officer — wants everybody to know it’s not named for him.

“I’ve been married quite a while, we have 19-year-old boy-girl twins. Way back when my wife always said, ‘I have two sweet babies and one mean man,’ jokingly because I’m a lawyer,” Hillerich said, referring to Angela Hillerich. “I said, ‘One Mean Man. I love that name. I’m going to keep that. If we ever get a good colt, I’m going to put it on him.’ Bernie said, ‘Don’t put that name on that hoss. Everybody is going to think that hoss is mean. He’s not like that.’ I said, ‘No, no. It’s not that. They’ll like the name.’ It was a joke in our family.”

Jockey Julie Burke got her first victory at Kentucky Downs, guiding 27-1 shot Vanilla Cat to a late-running victory over Lenamarie in Wednesday’s second race for maiden 2-year-old fillies. Burke said she’d only ridden two other races at the track.

“It’s great,” she said, adding of the $130,000 purse, “It’s one of the biggest pots I’ve ever won. The ground is pretty soft, so I think taking your time is probably a key at the moment. You wouldn’t have to make up too much ground. This filly did make up a lot of ground. I think she’s pretty good, so she was able to do it.”

Even with few opportunities at Kentucky Downs, Burke is from Ireland and has ridden over courses that have dips and rises. “It’s probably like some of the country tracks, the smaller tracks,” she said. “It’s pretty straight forward, really. Horses seem to handle it pretty well, adapt to it good.”

Vanilla Cat had run once before, finishing a creditable fifth at Ellis Park behind the well-regarded Katie’s Reward. Drawing in off the also-eligible and breaking from post 11 in the field of 12, Vanilla Cat rallied from near last, paying $57.80 to win as the ninth choice.

“We thought she’s run well,” said Keeneland-based trainer Bill Harrigan, who owns and bred the filly with Mike Pietrangelo. “She ran 4 1/2 weeks ago at Ellis Park and closed into a very good maiden winner. We plotted our race from that day, and luckily she drew in. So much of this is getting a 2-year-old to the post mentally calm and in the gate, and Julie did a great job.”

An objective could be Keeneland’s Jessamine Stakes, said Harrigan, who generally only trains what he doesn’t sell.

Vanilla Cat is a special filly to her owners. Normally they would have sold her, but she’s the last foal of their Seattle Slew mare Feature Article. Pietrangelo bought Feature Article out of the John Mabee dispersal.

“I called up Bill and said, ‘I bought this mare. She can either stay in California or come to Kentucky.’” Pietrangelo said. “He looked at the pedigree and said, ‘Send her here.’ She has done nothing but produce spectacularly priced yearlings for us. This is her last foal. She actually died in the field carrying an Uncle Mo. That was sad. But we knew we wanted to keep it (the bloodlines) alive. This was a Tale of the Cat, and was one of the few fillies she’d had. So it was an easy decision.”

You can catch interviews such as this during the races on Kentucky Downs’ Facebook Page.

Gary West shared his takeaways on betting Kentucky Downs after being on site for the races as an analyst the past several years. His thoughts:

 

In 2016, at 6 furlongs and 6.5 furlongs, 46 percent of the winners led after the opening half-mile.

In 2015, when the course took more rain during the season, only 6 percent of the winners at those distances led after the opening half-mile.

And so over the last two years, early speed has won 26 percent of the sprints at 6 and 6.5 furlongs.

But there hasn’t been a front-running winner at 7 furlongs over the last two years.The last front-running winner at the distance was Shake Up, the 5-2 favorite, on Sept. 10, 2014.

In one-mile races over the last two years, the typical winner has rallied from 3.53 lengths back after the opening half-mile. And front-runners have won 10 percent of the races.

At a mile-and-70 yards, the typical winner has come from 2.03 lengths back after the opening half-mile. And front-runners have won 23 percent of the races.

Over the last two years, 93 horses have made their debuts at Kentucky Downs, most of them 2-year-olds. Only five, or 5.3 percent, have won. Some of them are still racing, but to this point the five have earned $1,843,304, or an average of $368,700.

Saturday and Sunday are Family Fun Days, with bouncy races on the course for the kids, pony rides, petting zoo and face painting.

Sunday is College Day, with a laptop given out after each race to a full-time college student via drawing, courtesy of the Kentucky division of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. Kentucky Downs also will give out one $3,500 scholarship. Student ID required.