Terry Green sat with bloodstock advisors John Gray, Susan Montanye and Bobby Powell at last year’s Keeneland September yearling sale as the price of a Yaupon colt they targeted ticked upward.
“We had a number we thought we were going to go to, and it got a little bit north of that,” said Gray, general manager of Green’s Jackpot Farm in Lexington, Ky.
Outbid for the moment, Green flashed a, “Well, should we keep going?” look.
“Susan punched him in his left arm, and I punched in his right arm,” said Gray. “Bobby couldn’t reach him but said, ‘Hit him once for me too.’ ”
Green took the cues, went back to bidding and the Indiana-bred joined the Jackpot team for $325,000. Ten months later, the dark bay named Booked has proven to be worth the short-term pain with a maiden win at Saratoga Race Course June 7 and then a victory in Saratoga’s historic Sanford Stakes July 4.
Everybody laughs about the beginning now.
“I got bruised up a little bit on that one,” Green said last week. “I went a little further than I was supposed to, but that tends to happen with horses you like.”
There was plenty to like with Booked. Bred by Peace of Heaven Thoroughbreds, he brought sirepower as a son of 2025’s leading first-crop sire Yaupon. Dam Fingerprint’s first two foals to race were stakes-placed allowance winner Zadorsky and debut winner Tre Italiani.
Gray tried not to factor that into his early evaluation, focusing instead on conformation, walk, presence at the Vinery Sales consignment though in this case he knew the stallion.
“I make it a habit to not look at the page before I look at a horse, because I don’t want to be influenced,” he said. “I looked at him and said, ‘He looks like somebody and it’s not necessarily Yaupon.’ I looked at the catalog and said, ‘There it is.’ ”
An unraced daughter of Competitive Edge, Fingerprint is out of the Rock Hard Ten mare Miss Super Quick and that’s the influence Gray noticed. A distant second to Smarty Jones in the 2004 Preakness, Rock Hard Ten later won five graded stakes including the 2005 Santa Anita Handicap while turning heads with his size and physical makeup. Initially retired to Lane’s End Farm, the son of Kris S. became a stallion in South Korea where he died in 2021.
“I know he didn’t really turn out as a stallion, but Rock Hard Ten was a gorgeous horse and mixed with the Yaupon, they’re pretty enough as it is, but I could see the size coming from Rock Hard Ten,” said Gray. “Then the thing that got me was his walk. He just looked like an absolute athlete.”
Gray put the colt on a short list with several others and sent Powell for a second opinion on the group. The response about Hip 1100 was quick, and definitive.
“You can keep those others, I’ll keep that one,” Powell told Gray.
Montanye agreed with the assessment and got further confirmation when the horse went to her in Florida for early prep work. Booked kept answering questions and joined trainer Steve Asmussen, who won the Grade 1 Hopeful with the Jackpot-owned Basin (also a Keeneland September graduate) in 2019. Booked made his debut in a field of six first-time starters at Churchill Downs April 28. Sent off as the even-money favorite, he was last after a quarter-mile in :22.29 before passing everyone but the Wesley Ward-trained filly Fanshell Beach to finish second.
She went to Royal Ascot and finished fifth in the 21-runner Norfolk Stakes June 20 while Booked shipped to Saratoga. He throttled eight foes in a 5 1/2-furlong maiden June 7 and was even better in the Sanford, a race that dates to 1913 and counts Triple Crown winners Secretariat and Affirmed among its previous winners.
Breaking from the rail, Booked made the lead through a quarter in :21.96, and led by a length after a half-mile in :45.64. He poured it on from there, winning by 6 lengths for jockey Ricardo Santana Jr. while repeating Obliteration’s triumph in the race last year for Asmussen.
Green, Gray and the Jackpot team celebrated the Independence Day win back home in Kentucky and took calls from the partners.
“Normally I don’t take on that many but they’re some buddies of mine from the cutting-horse world, who said they’d love to buy a racehorse someday,” said Green. “The moral of the story is beginner’s luck. They’re all great guys and are super excited. It added to the pressure a little bit because you hate to buy one with your buddies and have it not turn out. As far as I’m concerned, we’re already successful.”
Green co-owns Gulfside Casino Partnership, owner/operator of Island View Casino Resort in Gulfport, Miss., and has long been a participant in cutting-horse competitions as an owner and rider. Jackpot Ranch’s Quarter Horse Minkish won the National Cutting Horse Association Futurity – the Kentucky Derby of the sport – in 2025. Green met Thoroughbred owner/breeder Mike Rutherford through the cutting-horse world and eventually bought into Rutherford-bred Mississippi Delta who won four stakes and earned $731,638 before selling for $700,000 as a broodmare prospect in 2017.
“Mike is a legend in this deal for me,” said Green. “I loved horses, speed horses, but had never been around the Thoroughbreds. I liked it and thought I’d get into it a little bit.”
Or a big bit. Green bought a former cattle farm off Greenwich Pike just north of Lexington near the Bourbon County line, hired Gray, built barns, paddocks, houses, even a small private golf course. The first horses arrived on the farm in November 2019, and the broodmare band is up to 17. Jackpot sells most of the foals, while buying young horses at sales to fuel the racing stable.
“I like the trade part of it, I love the trade, I’ve always been a trade kind of guy,” said Green. “I like to buy the mares, re-breed them, sell them, buy yearlings or weanlings and try to raise them up and sell them or race them. We do a little bit of everything, and it’s a team. I have so much respect for John, Bobby and Susan. I respect all of their horsemanship and their eyes for horses.”
And their punching power.
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