Editors Note: We’re wrapping up the 23rd year of The Special with some moments from the meet. You can find the complete editions from 2023 here.
Arc of a Winner: Belmont victor flies to 2nd Grade 1 score. By Sean Clancy. August 30 edition.
Jena Antonucci threw her hands in the air, jumped, spun and hugged anybody in reach. And then she leaned over to Fiona Goodwin who she couldn’t hug. Antonucci whispered advice to her longtime assistant whose left arm hung in a black sling over a pink jacket.
“Don’t cry.”
Tears had welled in Antonucci’s eyes as she stepped out of the clubhouse box near the sixteenth pole moments after Arcangelo dominated the Grade 1 Travers on a bittersweet Saturday afternoon at Saratoga.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she said to another racetrack lifer. “Who would have thought?”
Yeah, who would have thought.
In her 14th season training horses, Antonucci had arrived, winning the Travers with a $35,000 yearling purchase for Jon Ebbert’s Blue Rose Farm. Trainers live their lives hoping for one horse to change it all. Arcangelo had done just that for Antonucci, winning her first, second and only Grade 1 stakes.
“The sport will test your mettle, it will test your constitution, it will test every bit of sanity you have,” Antonucci said. “I stick at it because I have the opportunity to make horses for a living. When you have that opportunity, you try and do the best you can with anything that comes through your hands. That’s why I do it. We are just committed to training this horse, these horses, to stewarding them the best that we can. When you do that, these things happen.”
Arcangelo earned his fourth consecutive win, his third consecutive stakes, his second consecutive Grade 1 stakes and leapt to the top of what was once a muddled 3-year-old division. The son of Arrogate trounced Kentucky Derby winner Mage, Preakness winner National Treasure, 2-year-old champion Forte and three others in a never-in-doubt display of style and stamina. Javier Castellano engineered a perfect trip, establishing a toehold between the three frontrunners and the three closers, sliding out when needed and rolling to a 1-length score over late-running, rail-skimming Disarm and the longest shot on the board Tapit Trice. Arcangelo finished 1 ¼ miles over the muddy track in 2:02.23.
“Holy —-,” Antonucci said as she walked down the steps toward the winners’ circle. “What a race that was.”
She hugged NYRA gap attendant Wendy Smith, NYRA safety steward Juan Dominguez and the Jockeys’ Guild’s Terry Meyocks. The lifers. Like her.
“It’s just amazing. I’m so incredibly grateful for this horse, this opportunity,” Antonucci said. “Just thrilled beyond belief. This horse showed up. He’s class and honesty all day long.”
And all 10 furlongs long.
Arcangelo broke sharply from post two and eased back as Irad Ortiz Jr. came out from the one hole on Forte. Curlin winner Scotland and Junior Alvarado cleared six inside rivals to establish a lead. Forte slotted into second. Mage, with Flavien Prat for the first time, pulled into an uncomfortable spot between horses. National Treasure and John Velazquez eyed a stalking spot outside. Tapit Trice and Jose Ortiz lagged in last in the opening strides after a bungled break.
Momentarily in fifth, Castellano declined that spot with a definitive move up the rail to nearly join Scotland on the lead. The Hall of Fame jockey, seeking his seventh Travers, had reshuffled the deck.
Scotland pulled through the first quarter mile in :23.46. Arcangelo loped along in second. National Treasure set up in third on the outside. Forte shuffled back into fourth as Tapit Trice circled horses. Disarm settled in fifth. Mage trailed after a rough first shift.
Scotland led National Treasure by three quarters of a length through a half mile in :48.10. Tapit Trice ranged outside in third. Castellano braced against Arcangelo finding the bridge between the leading three and the closing three. Prat moved early with Mage ranging to Arcangelo’s flank as Disarm stayed on the rail and Forte tried to clamber out of one of his flat spots.
Scotland, National Treasure and Tapit Trice stacked three across after three quarters in 1:11.73. All the while, Castellano angled Arcangelo to the passing lane four wide. Midway on the turn, it was a four-horse stack but only one was moving.
“I feel like on the backside, I had so much horse I could have opened up by 10, I took my time, put him outside,” Castellano said. “Eventually after that I enjoyed the ride, enjoyed the moment.”
Passing the quarter pole, Castellano checked off the three inside him and looked over his right shoulder to see Forte, who was nothing but a fading mailbox. Arcangelo opened up at will as Disarm slid inside Scotland at the three-sixteenths pole but had a mountain still to climb. Castellano offered three smacks right-handed near the eighth pole, regrouped with a hand ride, two more just to make sure near the sixteenth pole and then an easy wave to the finish. Number seven was in the books.
“I’m very lucky. I’m very thankful. And blessed for the opportunity,” Castellano said. “Working the horse in the morning, he built a lot of confidence in me, he seemed to me he’s a super horse.”
For Castellano, Antonucci and Ebbert.
“Something you dream of, but you don’t know if you can do it,” Ebbert said. “It is hard. I’ve been in this business for 15 years. You just need the right horse and the right people around him.”
Ebbert saw greatness at the Keeneland September sale in 2021. Looking for a pinhook, the Pennsylvanian stumbled upon the raw-boned son of Arrogate at Gainesway’s consignment in book three, barn two.
“I just walked by him and when I saw him, I just knew. I just knew. I just knew,” Ebbert said. “I was like, ‘Wowwwww.’ Then I look and I’m like Arrogate, ‘Wowwwwww.’ I said that’s the most beautiful horse I’ve ever seen. Those were my exact words.”
Bred by Don Alberto Corporation, Hip 1182 showed twice while Ebbert sat on a park bench and fantasized.
“I just stared at him,” Ebbert said. “I watched him in two shows and said, ‘OK, let me see him.’ I was like, ‘Wow, what a horse.’ I said if this horse grows like I think he will…I just wanted to see him at 4.”
Ebbert bid $35,000 and had another $10,000 to go when the hammer dropped. Now what?
“I needed someone to call after I bought him,” Ebbert said. “I called my mom, and she said, ‘What are you going to do with him?’ I said, ‘I’m going to win the Breeders’ Cup 2024 with him.’ That’s what I said. We’re early. We’re early.”
Ebbert sent the gray ridgling to Clovis Crane in Pennsylvania and then wondered about his vision.
“Of course, after I buy him, I’m like, ‘All right, is this horse going to grow?’ I’m watching him October, November, December…” Ebbert said. “I’m like, ‘Is this horse going to fill out?’ I hope I’m right. I thought I was right, but you’re hoping. You see the vision but you’re not sure if it’s going to play out. You don’t know if he’s going to grow. You don’t know he’s going to be 17 hands. He’s actually 17.1.”
Ebbert learned the sport by betting at Philadelphia Park (now Parx) in Pennsylvania. He’s dabbled at buying, breeding, pinhooking and standing a stallion in Pennsylvania. Samba Rooster, a grandson of Unbridled’s Song, went bust but some of the education helped in discovering Arcangelo. By Arrogate, a son of Unbridled’s Song, Arcangelo simply looked right to Ebbert.
“It’s from working on the Unbridled’s Song line. I had experience watching horses develop from that line and I knew they usually develop late. I could see that in him. From a PA stallion that didn’t make it, that’s how I got the eye,” Ebbert said. “I could just see how athletic he was, but he was very underdeveloped. He was skinny, there wasn’t anything to him. That was my eye. I knew. I knew.”
Ebbert, who’s owned about 20 horses and never had a partner, had met Antonucci the day before he bought his dream and decided to give the small-batch, hands-on approach a try. All Ebbert asked for was patience.
“I was really concerned about this horse when I got him. I bought him with a plan, and she just suited my needs. The communication. The trust. The everything. It was perfect,” Ebbert said. “I met her the day before I bought the horse, like it was meant to be. I was kind of hanging out with them, they were buying their horses, I bought my horses and that’s it.”
Arcangelo followed the script.
He made his debut at Gulfstream Park Dec. 17, rallying to be second going 6 furlongs in the slop. A month later, he finished fourth behind future Derby starter Kingsbarns going 1 1/16 miles.
Two months later with Castellano aboard for the first time, Arcangelo trounced maidens going a mile. Stepped up to a stakes, he fought to a head decision in the Grade 3 Peter Pan. A month later, Arcangelo nabbed the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes.
“He’s just got the ability that maybe the others didn’t have. He just totally bought in, to us, to the team, that we believe in him, and he believes in us. However corny that may sound, it’s that simple,” Antonucci said. “We don’t want to be a huge program; we do what we do. We’d like to pick up a little better quality and we’ve learned so much from all of this. The hard-knocking, cheaper horses for a lack of a better word, it prepares you to handle these kinds of guys, literally, the opportunity to have them.”
At the end of a difficult day at the track, the Arcangelo team raised their glasses to the most improbable story of all.
“Hey, you won the Travers,” Antonucci said to Ebbert. “You won the Travers.”
“You did, too,” Ebbert said. “We all did. We all did. Salud.”
As for not crying, well, that was long gone.
“Oh, I’m cried out,” Goodwin said. “Between this and the Belmont, I’m cried out.”
