David Cassidy on the Web
Sweet Vendetta pulls off 4-length win in Big A's open Andover Way.
March 19, 2008
By Rab Hagin
New York-breds in the News
www.nybreds.com
LEFT: SWEET VENDETTA (Photo: Adam Coglianese)
Although eligible for entry-level state-bred allowance competition, Team Penney Racing's and David Cassidy's New York homebred SWEET VENDETTA instead has contested two open Aqueduct stakes for three-year-old fillies since breaking her maiden on Valentine's Day, initially placing second and then convincingly capturing the Andover Way by four lengths on Wednesday. In both stakes efforts, the blossoming filly has been piloted by jockey Channing Hill, who appeared to ride the New York-bred with complete confidence in the two-turn mile and 70 yards event, for which she was sent off as the 2.85-to-1 second choice among six starters. The $67,500 contest in pouring rain over a sloppy, sealed track was expected to develop into a two-filly fight between recent 11-3/4-length maiden-breaker Serious Vow, the even-money favorite, and Sweet Vendetta, but what transpired was a surprisingly easy romp for the New York-bred.
As expected, Serious Vow was sent immediately to the lead and set fairly quick quarter-mile splits of 23.95 and 23.68 while Sweet Vendetta saved ground under wraps in third place before advancing on the outside when the field rounded the second turn. Serious Vow's third quarter-mile wilted to 24.26, following which Sweet Vendetta looked almost ready to inhale her, and by mid-stretch Hill's mount was in front by 3-1/2 lengths and pulling away. As Sweet Vendetta continued drawing clear, Laurel Park allowance winner Love You Not -- the 18.70-to-1 last choice -- overtook Serious Vow to place a clear second. It was the second winning ride of the day for Hill and the third victory by a New York-bred in a race outside state-bred company on Aqueduct's rainy Wednesday card.
Victory in the Andover Way -- named for the Grade 1-winning dam of major sire Dynaformer, whose Grade 1 winners include New York-bred Critical Eye (see New York-bred Millionaires Club) -- increased Sweet Vendetta's earnings to $86,596 with a record of two wins and a second in six starts. Two-time New York Thoroughbred Breeders Trainer of the Year Gary Contessa had first equipped the bay filly with blinkers for her seven-length maiden win at Aqueduct on February 14. In two subsequent outings -- Aqueduct's mile and a sixteenth Busher Stakes 10 days later and the Andover Way -- Sweet Vendetta has finished second and first. Contessa also had given her maintenance workouts over Belmont's training track on March 11 and 16.
Sweet Vendetta races for her breeder, television and singing star David Cassidy, in partnership with the Team Penney Racing of Shirley Penney of Weehawkin, New Jersey, and she was bred by Cassidy in partnership with Edward Lipton of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The daughter of Grade 1-winning millionaire Stephen Got Even is the fifth offspring, fifth New York-bred winner, fourth top-three stakes performer, and third stakes winner that Cassidy has bred from Sand Pirate, who must rank as one of the best bargain broodmares of the current decade. Sand Pirate, a Canadian-bred, had raced in western Canada and Washington state, winning six times at distances ranging from six furlongs to a mile and a sixteenth before heading to southern California, where in November of 1999 she was claimed for $9,000 at Hollywood Park. In January of 2000, the then seven-year-old mare won her final start by three lengths going a mile at Turf Paradise in Arizona with a $12,500 tag under Cassidy's colors before shipping to Dr. Jerry Bilinski's Waldorf Farm in North Chatham to begin her broodmare career. Sand Pirate is out of a graded winner, Wayward Pirate, but what initially enhanced her female family after Cassidy's acquisition of her was the emergence of one of her half-sister's offspring, Continental Red ($1,383,788), a late-developing Grade 2-winning turf router who also was a stakes winner on dirt. Sand Pirate is a complete outcross (no inbreeding) through five generations, as is Sweet Vendetta, who also has no Raise a Native/Mr. Prospector or Northern Dancer ancestry in her pedigree, making her a rare gem as a future broodmare.
Sweet Vendetta is the eighth New York-bred open black-type stakes winner of 2008, and following a runner-up effort by New York-bred Gold and Roses ($847,665) in Philadelphia Park's $75,000 Bensalem Stakes the previous day (Tuesday), she also is among 20 state-bred top-three finishers in open stakes competition this year. Another recent runner-up New York-bred in open stakes company is Self Made Man ($116,258), who placed second to a rival he was spotting six pounds to in Turfway Park's mile and an eighth Tejano Run Stakes on Saturday, March 15. The 20 New York-bred open stakes performers of 2008 have registered 26 top-three efforts in open stakes at nine tracks in New York, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Japan.
