Progress Report

2011 Racing Season

Rivendell's 8th season is off to a good start with a few horses making a very prominent start off with the new season.

Big N Tough winning the Golden Gate Derby in Track Record time and Risen Star Stakes with ease has certainly stood out from the rest in our stable. He is favorite on the barn at the moment for some very promising races this year. His PSR's top this year at 115 on a fast track at 8.5 furlongs and 110 on a slow track at the same distance.

Narsil this year has distinguished himself from the others at the barn by winning the GI February Stakes at a mile on dirt, beating out some excellent horses such has Mr Purler , Mystic River and the famous mare Pegasus Song. This race has officially pushed his earning past the 2 million mark. Although his favorite surface is turf, if the conditions are right he can be a surprising on the dirt as well.

Arctic Silver, though having yet to win this season, he has proven his injury last year has not affected his speed and remains one of our best sprinters we have bred. His top PSR this year is a fair 113 at 6 furlongs on the turf which he placed 3rd in the G2 Ascot Vale. A switch back to his preferred surface of dirt may improve his numbers and speed.

Riches N Glory, a home-bred two year old colt, broke his maiden the first time out in the Crackerbarrel Stakes at 5 furlongs on the dirt. He was out of the gate fast and finished a strong 3 lengths ahead of the second place finisher. Although we have yet to try all of our two year olds on the track, and this was not an especially fast time, we think this he is the one to watch for now in our new racers.

Kagura still going good as she proved beating Czonka in the GI Santa Maria Handicap as well as two other very talented fillies She's A Prize and Whishing Wells. With this filly its hit or miss, as some days she tries and others she could care less so it was a surprise to see her come through this time and a PSR of 101. Our other 4y/o mare Purple Passion, didn't catch a break as she went up against Fafabell placing 2nd in the Endevours Breeders Cup, although she did put out one of her best PSR in a long while at 106 which hopefully leads to a good season.

Rivnedell Sales Catalog

A preview of the upcoming horses for sale from breeders, racers and yearlings being sold at auction by Rivendell Stables. I ended up selling more than I thought I would because we wanted space for new foals.... and I love the breeding.

Breeders

Go Dancing, 6y/o broodmare. Has produced two unraced foals, one bred at Rivendell that is a sprinter filly named Katana who we are keeping.

Sovereign Sword, 9y/o stallion. Has sired three unraced foals, two bred at Rivendell, a long distance colt Dagger, who is up for sale but we will retain if not sold, and Katana, the filly mentioned above. Sovereign Sword has a very good AR, good PSR 's, track records, over 2mill in earnings but with limited room we are unfortunately selling him. We still hope to breed to him after he is sold.

Racers

Princely Pride, 4y/o colt. Is a lightly raced sprinter that has some earnings, has not performed greatly, could be a later maturing horse but its a gamble. Supposed to have good speed and acceleration but it hasn't shown yet so we are selling.

Balrog, 4y/o colt. Is a long distance dirt horse with over $100,000 in earnings, has shown he can get the distance of up to 11 furlongs in allowance races with good speed ratings. Isn't very consistent but he does have the potential to place in allowances and stakes races and has a long peak. I would have rather liked to keep this one, but I have two other distance horses so he is being offered to make room, this would be a good pickup for a newbie stable. He does have a reserve at $75,000 and will be coming home if not meet.

Upwards, 3y/o colt. A long distance turf horse. Shown some promise as a two year old placing 2^nd in a 12f Maiden race and has a long career peak. Could be a good stakes horse or more as a three year old if he has continued to mature. A newbie could take a gamble on him or any one who would like shot of having a distance horse.

Two Year Olds

Bacardi Ice, 2y/o colt. Sprinter colt sired by Fouardee who has 4 foals in the game including Big N Rich with 3 mill in earnings, and Brimstone with almost half a mill in earnings. AR suggest he likes softer surfaces better, but will still run ok on the both hard surfaces. Supposed to mature early, like his siblings, and could be a good horse to race early as a two year old.

Fullmetal Panic, 2y/o filly. Sprinter, either hard dirt or turf. Also a quick maturing foal and would make a potential good sprint 2 y/o... and most two year old race are sprints.

Dagger, 2y/o colt. Long distance turfer sired by Sovereign Sword, average maturation, short peak. Has reserve, will return if not sold.

Yearlings

Minis Tirith, yearling filly. Dirt sprinter by Troll Tower out of Steal The Gold who both have some nice offspring already. She matures slowly and I dont have the patience or the room to wait for her to mature so I am selling, she does however have a long career peak for whoever wants to wait.

Purple Paragon, yearling colt. Dirt sprinter by Purple Passer, matures quickly. Looks like a very nice sprinter prospect but I have a ton of upcoming unraced sprinters already so I am taking a chance and selling him.

Viper Venom, sprinter colt by A Bus out of Dakota Magic. Will like the mud and soft turf best, matures quickly and has a long peak performance. If you want to wait around for those soft tracks he might be worth it.

Most AR's found on stables homepage, if you dont find it message or emial me.

Final Week

Final week of racing was spent at Sha Tin race course in Hong Kong with our horses Trigun, Narsil and Melkor.

Trigun gave us quite the shock when he placed last in the Hong Kong Cup. It was a very poor performance, he just seemed to fizzle out unexpectedly after the first half of the race. At first we thought he might have come away injured or sore, so our vets checked him and he was clean. A fluke? Maybe. He will start out slow next season.

Narsil and Melkor in the Hong Kong Vase performed up to standards. Narsil went to place a well 3rd behind two excellent horses, Color Of Fame and Jenny's My Gal. Melkor was never really a factor in the race but at least he wasn't last. I think Melkor may continue to improve next year.

Thus ends the racing season.

Up Up and Away!

Trigun, Narsil and Melkor load the plane for a trip to the Sha Tin Racecourse in Hong Kong.

Trigun, our 3y/o colt by Revenge out of Steal The Gold, has been entered in the Hong Kong Cup. With a record of 6 4-1-0 and a track record at 10 furlongs, the Cup looks promising.

Narsil, 3y/o colt by Octagonal Waltz out of Mannerism, has been entered in the Hong Kong Vase. As never placed worse than 3rd in any of his turf races from 9-12f. He has only raced once at 12f and came in 2nd to Malvern Hill and in front of Color Of Fame, maybe we will meet them both again at the Vase.

Melkor , 3y/o colt by Forest Dancer out of Kelly Belle, may be entered in either race. He has won his last three starts from 11-12 furlongs, with his last start producing a PSR of 109 without being pushed. He could be a surprise.

These will be our last races of the season, we hope to end it with a bang!

Big N Tough Wins BC Juvie!

We were at Churchill Downs this weekend with three of our horses, Narsil, Big N Tough and Kagura. The BC Classic, BC Juvie and Churchill Down Distaff was the goal.

The first race of the day with was the biggest, the BC Classic with our boy Narsil. He is a very versatile horse, likes either turf or dirt, and we had two options to go with him.. the Classic or the Turf. We choose the dirt option in the end. During the race he was in the thick of things, a big field, and placed as best he could. His time I think could have been better and palced better even if the field was not as big, but that's racing. Narsil, in the end, placed a respective 5th against tough opposition and came away clean in the end, no injuries and no soreness.

The second race of the day for us was the BC Juvenile race with our 2y/o colt Big N Tough sired by our own stallion Big N Rich. We were very excited with our colts chances but with other colts like Rocket and Deux Francais we were a mighty bit worried how our colt would do not having been up against much before, but his previous time on dirt told us he should be in this race. Much to our shock he went for the lead early on in the race, avoiding being caught in traffic later in the race which was our biggest fear. He led the remainder of the race to the finish line giving us our 2nd BC winner in our stables history! We were pleasantly surprised at the end of the race to see he set a new track record. What does the future hold for him? A big rest back at the barn.

Our last race of the day was the Churchill Downs Distaff with our 3y/o filly Kagura who we opted not to enter into a BC Distaff race this year despite being an early goal we had in mind for her. Her times just were not up to par, so we opted another race more to her form. In the end of the race she surpassed the rest of the field and won her 4th race of the year sending her earning over the million dollar mark. We are very proud of our homebred filly.

Well I would say this ends the year with a bang, but we have one more big weekend ahead. ;-) See ya'll at Hong Kong.

End of The Year Sales

With the end of the season closing we finally got around to deciding what horses we are regretfully selling for certain. So here are the horses you can expect to see at the auction from Rivendell:

Princely Pride - 3 y/o racer by King Of Sheba out of Betty's Pride
Go Dancing - 5y/o broodmare by Suave Dancer out of Allez France
Minis Tirith - weanling filly by Troll Tower out of Steal The Gold
Viper Venom - weanling colt by A Bus out of Dakota Magic
Bacardi Ice - yearling colt by Fouardee out of Elegant Fashion
Fullmetal Panic - yearling filly by Octagonal Waltz out of Sea Success

The ages are for the current season, and their AR's will be available on our homepage.

Late Bloomers Aplenty

Late bloomers Narsil, Melkor and Trigun have surely given us something to look forward to next year as their success on the track keeps improving. Just last weekend both three year olds colts went out and won with inspiring hopes of what is to come.

Melkor won his first G2 race, the Grand Prix Stakes, by 9 full lengths and taking the lead from the get go for 11 furlongs on turf. This is his 3rd win in a row. My patience seems to be paying off after pulling my hair out a few times. I expect he will do better next year.

Trigun had his work cut out for him though stepping it up in competition and grade in the G1 Doomben Cup. I will admit I was worried with horses such as Lazy Loper, Taj Mahlal, Silver Poetry.. well the whole field was a big obstacle for my colt and to say the least I questioned his ability to perform against such high caliber horses but I did indeed want to test his ability and they did. He pulled through amazingly well, shocking me and winning his first GI race and setting a track record. At this moment Trigun is being shipped via plane for his next test. ;-)

Our other late bloomers are Narsil, who has bloomed nicely now and winning over 1 mill, and also Retaliate and Balrog who we are still patiently waiting to mature.

So don't throw out those two year olds at the end of this season, or sell those three year olds after their first bad start cause they performed badly, you could regret it later.

A Year For The Home Team

Our very own home-bred horses raised and trained right here on the farm have given us the best season yet since we retired our past star Big N Rich. This past weekend was an astronomical one for the farm with 4 horses going out with 3 of them winning and the other coming in second.

We did have some success with our two year old home-breds last year with our fillies, their stablemates though are catching up. Purple Passion and Kagura continue with their fine performances, with Purple Passion being the first home-bred horse ever to pass the millon dollar earning mark this year and Kagura is not far behind.

This season our home-bred colts seemed to have caught up with faster maturing fillies, and we are thinking about time too! Narsil, by Octagonal Waltz out of Mannerism, is our first colt and 2nd home-bred to reach the million dollar mark winning the Eclipse Stakes, Prix Lupin, and Breeders Cup Stakes, two of them track records, and was 2nd in The Derby. His lowest PSR was on a slow track with of 41, his highest now stands at 118 at 10.5 furlongs on turf.

Trigun, by Revenge out of Steal The Gold, is another home-bred colt that has shown maturation and much promise in the last few races. His first race wasn't very promising with a PSR of 30, but a few months more back at home and a furlong later he showed us he had promise and his high PSR now stands at 107. He has won three of his 5 races this season and a 2nd and it is looking very good that he will have a successful four year old career.

Balrog and Melkor, two more home-bred colts and I do believe neither of them no which way is up or down. They are too peas in pod, both have very good potential but neither have consistency. Balrog, by Spanish Midnight out of Saudi Poetry, has not had a win yet this season but his PSR's have been high, 113 at 11 furlongs on dirt, but they have been mostly in the mid 80's to lower 90's. Melkor, by Forest Dancer out of Kelly Belle, has 4 wins this season with his high PSR of 107 and low of 88., with most of his PSR's in the 90's.

Arctic Silver, by Thunder Arctic out of Silverbulletday, is the best two year old I have this year. We had high hopes he would finish the year strongly but he was injured in the Golden Slipper Stakes for a lengthy amount of time and as thus far ended his 2 year old career. We look forward to starting him early next season, he has several PSR's over 100 with 115 being the highest. He does however have a short career peak and we hope he can still race next year.

Our racing roster includes 17 horses, only 5 are not home-breds.
This season we have 21 wins and have won 3.6 mill., all but one race were won by home-breds.

Weeks 29-30

Three out this week and three checks, the going is good here at Rivendell.

Trigun went out at a mile in the Schweppes Cup Stakes and had a repeat performance of his last race, winning with ease and 5 length victory. His continuing improvement in his form and speed indicates it is time for a step up in competition. We are eager to see what he can do.

Arctic Silver placed 2nd to Kostya in the Blue Diamond Stakes, even though just second this GI race paid nicely. Look to see him in the big sprints rest of the year whether they be dirt or turf.

Melkor brought home a 3rd place check in the G3 Ark-La-Tex Hndcp. Some improvement since the first of the year, but still just G3 material.

Our homebreds keep hitting the board this season and surprising us in their abilities, we hope they continue. ;-)

Weeks 25 & 26 Results

Mixed results this week...

Trigun (pictured above) broke his maiden winning The Debonair 5 lengths ahead of the rest, a complete shock to us considering his first run at the beginning of the season he was nearly dead last. We really didn't expect to see anything out of him until next year but it appears he is finally letting us know he is ready. Trigun is by Revenge, no introduction needed, and this late maturing colt of his will hopefully live up to a quarter of what his sire was.

Purple Passion won the GI Coronation Stakes and is back on track and winning, even if the surface was yielding. This is the third race she has run on an off surface, but it doesn't bother her with her 2nd win on it.

Kagura was a bit of a let down this weekend placing 4th in the Bison City Stakes, Princely Pride showed us he can stay in the money, and Retaliate showed us he is still immature as we suspected but he did show slight improvement early in the race.

Big Weekend, Big Stakes

Big risks are being taken this weekend with several of our stable's horses in big stake races, some of them hardly proven to be GI material. Can they do it?

Out of the 8 Rivendell horses starting this weekend, these 5 have the most to lose.

Narsil will be running in the 2.3 million dollar race The Derby. With a record of $264,600 7 starts 2-2-1 one would wonder what that horse is doing there. True he hasn't shown much in the first quarter of this season, but his last two races have me convinced he can do this. His first impressive race was the G3 Eclipse Stks winning with ease and a producing a nice PSR of 117. His latest race, the GI Prix Lupin, is the one that had me convinced for sure to go for The Derby. Again, he won with ease while setting a track record with PSR of 118. He is untried at this distance, but his AR and stamina numbers say he will like it.

Balrog is yet another horse of mine with a questionable entry, this time into the Belmont Stakes. The most absurd of my entries thus far. His record stands at $50,5000 6 starts 0-0-3. He too has not had a good start into the season, not even running a PSR over 100 in his first four races this season. His last race out was a starter allowance, which he placed 3rd in. Still not GI worthy, however his PSR was 113, a major improvement since the starts of the season and a likely contender with already proven GI horses. A Fluke? Maybe. I believe though that he is just now starting to mature and could have a shot on the board.... or he could just be the last horse. ;-)

Deadly Force is the third horse of mine entered into a million dollar race this weekend, the Magic Millions for two year olds. With two starts and two seconds in his first season and a PSR of 105 he has a shot, but still not up to par as with some of the other two year olds this season.... though it appears the ones I was afraid of like dirt better.

Kagura is running the GI Canadian Oaks with a 500K purse, just one of the big races for three year old fillies. She has the ability to win, but if she will put forth the effort to win is not certain. Kagura is not a consistent horse, and she still has yet to reproduce a PSR over 100 like she as previously this season. Also,.. to tell you the truth, I am kinda afraid of Laurie now after beating her filly in the 2nd leg of the TC. Please don't kill me.

My last big race of the week is the Golden Gate Handicap, a 350K purse, whom I have entered Melkor. He has two wins this season, though neither race brought a PSR over 100. Melkor has been much like his two stable mates, Narsil and Balrog, in having a mediocre beginning and like them also a peak where they start to show their true potential mid way through the season. He could start to peak now or even later, cause really he hasn't shown as much improvement as the other two or it could be he just won't be as good.

My trainer skills will be put to the test and despite the shaky start that most of these horses had, I do expect them all to do well by at least placing on the board. Balrog would be the one I suspect to do the worst.

*Warning* If any one of these horses win, prepare for a spaz post. If two win.... please resuscitate me.