David Cassidy on the Web
Unswept sweeps past rivals in open allowance
December 21, 2003
www.nybreds.com
Forty days after his first start off a seven-month layoff, David Cassidy's and Andrew Farm's three-year-old UNSWEPT asserted himself as a New York-bred to be watched in 2004, capturing Aqueduct's seventh race on Winter Solstice Sunday, a six-furlong open N1X allowance for three-year-olds and up, by 3 1/4 lengths. Ridden for the fifth -- and second consecutive -- time by Aaron Gryder, under whom he already had won restricted allowances on Aqueduct's inner and outer tracks, the dark bay colt went off in the $43,000 contest as a solid 1.70-to-1 favorite among eight wagering interests and nine starters. He easily out-broke the field from the outside (ninth) post position, but Gryder allowed him to settle just outside of the two front-end duelers -- pacesetting 6.80-to-1 fourth choice Johnny Box and New York-bred Introspect, the 4.50-to-1 third choice. Those two went head-to-head through a half-mile in 45.40, but Unswept ranged up three wide on the turn, and the new front-leading phalanx of three contenders rounded into Aqueduct's long stretch almost abreast while also encountering a 23-mph southwesterly headwind. At this point, Unswept's class became evident, as he pulled away decisively, setting a five-furlong fraction of 57.93 and increasing his advantage by more than two lengths through the final eighth of a mile, winning in 1:11.49. It was Gryder's second winning ride of the day.
Trained by Gary Contessa, Unswept had won his debut at Saratoga as a two-year-old last year and a month later had gone into Belmont's seven-furlong Bertram F. Bongard Stakes for New York-breds, where he encountered future graded winners Funny Cide and Spite the Devil and faded to sixth. Given a two-month autumn layoff, he had come back to win or place in his next four starts at Aqueduct through the late fall and into his three-year-old season. Unswept had scored big front-running victories in restricted six-furlong allowances under Gryder, had placed second to stakes winner Grey Comet after hitting the stretch rail in the Damon Runyon Stakes at a mile and a sixteenth, and had placed third in the open Fred "Cappy" Capossela Stakes at six furlongs. A trip to the Midwest for Hawthorne's $101,800 Lost Code Breeders' Cup, however, had resulted in a tiring fourth-place finish, which was followed by the seven-month layoff.
In Unswept's first start off the layoff going six furlongs at Aqueduct on November 11, he had led before tiring to fourth among 12, after which Contessa had given him four Aqueduct workouts at distances ranging from three to six furlongs, including "bullet" drills at three-eighths (35 flat) and five-eighths. The colt's Sunday victory increased his earnings by $25,800 to $138,631 and improved his record to 4 - 1 - 1 in nine starts, and it also qualified his owners, television and singing star David Cassidy and Richard Brodie's Andrew Farm, for a $2,580 open race owner award. Cassidy, who has an address in Saratoga Springs, had purchased the colt for $117,000 at Fasig-Tipton's 2001 Saratoga preferred yearling sale.
A son of deceased stallion End Sweep, Unswept was bred by Dr. Jerry Bilinski of Waldorf Farm in North Chatham, Martin Zaretsky of Old Chatham, and Marc Roberts, who jointly qualified for a $2,580 breeder award. Dr. Bilinski had purchased Unswept's dam, four-time winner Dress, by Topsider, for $27,000 at the 1999 Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's October mixed sale in Florida when she was carrying Unswept, who is the fourth offspring and fourth multiple winner produced from that mare. Unswept's winning half-siblings include non-black-type stakes winner Diablo His Due and five-time winner Valid Redress, who this past August came off a 10-month layoff to set a five-furlong track record at Santa Rosa near California's Bay Area, clocking fractions of 21.25 and 44.18 and stopping the timer at 56.20. The dam of all this speed on both coasts, Dress, was an allowance winner on turf and a three-time winner on dirt, and her half-brother, Brunswick ($412,960), won Saratoga's Grade 1 Whitney Handicap by 3 1/2 lengths in 1993.
