Howl To The Hound

Well, for the first time in HRP history we stand teetering on the edge of history, can Howl To The Hound become HRP’s first ever Triple Crown winner by taking the third leg in the Belmont?

This is a horse that has captured the community’s imagination in the same way Secretariat did in real life in the USA, in the same way Frankel did in Europe and Winx in Australasia. This is a horse with a perfect 8 from 8 record who has shown brilliance and dominance as well as guts and determination, he has everything, now he just needs one more win.

So where did this horse come from and what makes him so good? We will be grilling the owner himself, Mb Stables as well as talking to his breeder Jive Inc to see where this story started.

First up let’s talk to Jive Inc, a player that re- joined in 2016, he has amassed nearly 200 winners in his new career at the time of writing but whilst his five graded stakes wins including a BC win are impressive it is his breeding program that is really making its mark.

1) Firstly the sire Marry Me Mandy. You acquired the horse for $40 after a good but not outstanding career back in 2016. He had raced 24 times for just 3 wins and just one little ungraded stakes win at EMD. You raced him twice more before retiring him, did you buy him as a breeder or were you hoping he could still run to his early form as a two and three year old?

Actually I raced the horse 22 of its 26 tries!  As I said in Kevo’s interview with me, I raced as “Visceral Farms” prior to being Jive Inc. So I am the actual original breeder of Marry Me Mandy and HOTH! I sold it to Our Athletes when I left the game… but when I came back he was nice enough to sell him back since the horse had sentimental value to me! (I returned the favor in spades by selling him La Terrifiant!)

I bought Marry Me Mandy solely for breeding purposes, which was the intent when I never gelded! I wanted to breed this Sire and thought it probably had some shed potential! (Boy was I right! Took a while, but better late than never).

2) There are a few significant lines in his blood, Charley Farley of course on his sire’s side and Wolfmoon Rising and Lone Winner on his dams side, was there anything specifically that made you think that he could make a good breeder?

 I actually really loved the Cannes pairing to CF (Always a fan of the French Quarter lines) and was a big time fan of the Black Moon line when I was early in the game. So it seemed like I got a lot of bang for my buck in the pedigree, at least in terms of things I liked.

I always thought Pink Panther was underrated as a sire, so I felt like exploring that a little bit.

3) He seems to produce one really good one a year, Truly Madly Deeply in 2017, Groovy in 2019 and of course Howl Of The Hound in 2020. Interestingly Howl of The Hound was his only cover in quarter one, what made you persevere with his bloodline even with so few relatively top horses.

Don’t forget Mandy Mo (2016), Cut The Brakes (2017), Deceptive Speed (2018), Operation Filth (2015)….

I think he’s had a handful of quality horses and honestly, I’ve had a bunch of good homebreds from him but my impatience usually got the better of me early on. I retired or deactivated early or sold off horses…

In Q1 of 2020, I was thinking of abandoning the 9 year old Sire in hopes to find something newer and better. Oddly enough, I learned quickly that he produced faster horses than everything I tinkered with, so I went back to him, and it turned out nicely.

4) The Dam, Stop Traffic, was bought for $6 and you never raced her but sent her straight to the shed, at that point she had only won one race, what made you think she would make a good broodmare.

She was retired when I bought her from Raj actually. I just thought that she had a lot of quality lines outside of CF at the time I bought her.  Laffin Policeman, Poet Laureate, and Creative Officer were all sires that had good success and wouldn’t cause too much inbreeding when paired with CF lines.

5) I see you bred a full sister to Howl To The Hound but after a 1.08 virgin work you deactivated her, will you be trying again?

Some think I shouldn’t have deactivated her, but I had been breeding poorly conformed, terribly slow horses. But yes, I think Stop Traffic will be going to Marry Me Mandy exclusively for the next 7 tries.

If the next couple are truly horrible, maybe I’ll try a Marry Me Mandy foal with Stop Traffic?

6) Obviously you sold the Howl To The Hound and who could really blame you as at the time he was only showing above average works and didn’t look like he would reach the heights he has. Looking back would you say that people should give their young horses more time before selling them or do you feel that spreading your income around with breeders bonuses and the like is worthwhile.

 I would give more time. I’ve watched Defunct things, Groovy, La Terrifiant, HOTH, and many others develop months to a year after I’ve sold them.

If you want to sell an elite prospect for hundreds of dollars, I can’t blame you. BUT if you’re just selling a 2 year old to make 50 or 60 bucks, or in my case 27 bucks—- just be patient and give it time.

7) Finally is there a next Howl To The Hound? Could it be Up In Smoke?

I don’t think you’ll ever see another like HOTH. I’m not sure we’ve seen one in the history of this game. 8 for 8, winning the KYD and PRK, and a real threat to win the TC.Even if he doesn’t, you’ve got to think he’s the BC Classic favorite and probably a favorite in every major race for the foreseeable future.

In the spirit of practicing what I preach, I will show patience on Up In Smoke and see how he turns out over the course of this 2 year old campaign. I sure hope he turns out like HOTH though!

Finally a lovely story about how you named the horse. Initially i thought it was because of Wolfmoon Rising being in his bloodline but it turned out you named him after your own dog who sings like Dolly Parton, a dog that just may go down in history.

Next onto his owner Mb Stables. What can you say about this player that hasn’t already been said. Joining in 2009, i remember racing against him at the free track that year and though his initial 10.4% strike rate looked much like the rest of us i could tell that in time we would have a great player. He took a few years to get going, a lesson indeed for our new players but when he did there really was no looking back. Today he has over 8500 winners to his name with over half a million dollars in prize money. Add to that nearly 800 graded stakes wins and 110 meet titles and you have the most dominant player probably any horse racing game has ever seen.

Now there will be a little part of all of us if we are entirely honest that rolls our eyes just a little that the player that has been spanking our asses for years now stands on the brink of the biggest payout ever. But I think it was always going to be Mb Stables that had the best chance of breaking the hoodoo of the TC here at HRP and we all knew that deep down. No-one else has the depth of talent, the breeding set up and the spending power that he has and put that together with a singular determination to be the best and the rest of us really had little chance of being the first to stand in this position.

As a community we now stand behind our flagship player and our flagship horse as they try and make history, the doubters shall be silent, the haters quiet because all that matters now is that the hound is howling on Belmont day.

So i put some questions to Mb Stables as to how we got to this point, here is what the great trainer said:

1) Marry Me Mandy doesn’t fit into your usual criteria for a stallion with no stakes form to speak of and only a few decent horses out of a long career in the shed.The mare was nothing to write home about on the track either so what was it that first appealed to you about HOTH.

I do think Marry Me Mandy is a very interesting sire. He was a stakes winner albeit a minor stakes, and he did have some runs in TC preps and Juvi GS races. In our game just a couple of lengths make all the difference, so even a horse who was competing on that level but not winning does deserve a shot in the shed. If a mare is possessing those handful of genes separating the very good from the elite then they can unlock the next superstar with the right cross.

For me though, the breeding connection I had when I bought HOTH was that I owned a very talented son of his Groovy who was a TC runner for me. That played a minor role in my decision to bid on him in the auction.

2) He is clearly blessed with both speed and stamina. Would you say he gets most of his ability from the Pink Panther/ Charley Farley line or is he just a once in a career type freak from a bloodline perspective.

I see Pink Panther as one of the most pure speed lines in the game alongside Jolly Be Great. I have tended to avoid the line in general in my barn because I feel the foals from the line tend to peak early and lack the ability to route, but my mind is quickly changing seeing Howl Of The Hound.

He has a lot of route influences when you get past the Pink Panther side. Black Moon and Smokin are two of my favorite old time route influences I think Smokin is a big reason why Red Rioja and Commanding have had so much success as a sire as they have multiple occurrences of him in the pedigree. Die Laffin has been a major route influence on his dam side and both Laffin Policeman and Model American ran big races in the KYD in their time. So all in all it actually seems to me that he has more route influences in his pedigree with the major speed influence coming from his direct sire line. I could see a lot of successful horses using crosses of those major lines in his pedigree I don’t think it’s as fluky of a pedigree as I’ve seen on some other monsters in this game

3) You bought him at the auction off the back of a 1.00and 1H 5 furlong work and a 1.13and 4H 6 furlong work, would you have gone much higher to get him as he only had averagely good works.

I don’t remember what my high bid was on him, but I can’t imagine it was too much higher than what I bought him for. He was an above average horse at the point I bought him. He had a few 1:14.4 farm breezes and was showing very nice early speed that was the main reason I was interested in him. I prefer horses with early foot as it gives you more options with race instructions

4) You gelded him as he arrived in your yard and he threw a 58 and 4 work straight after. Was that a nice surprise or was there some reason you felt he would improve for the geld.

I think his gelding was a major factor in his ascension. I don’t think we’d be looking at the same horse if he was kept intact. At least I hope not because obviously now seeing how good he is I wish I could breed to him! You never know how a geld will impact horses, but in general I tend to geld lesser racing prospects because only a handful of colts every year will get a chance to breed in my barn. After I got him I fully adds tested him as well, and his farm breezes improved to 1:13.4 by August before that 5 furlong work. So I think it was a mix of the gelding, the extra time to develop, and adds testing that improved his workout times.

5) He won on debut at GG from a wide draw against 6 rivals who had had a race. was this the first time you thought you had something special.

There were a few things that I could see it coming. I knew after he breezed 1:12.4 before the race in September that I had something nice but when a horse outruns their works on debut like that and wins going away you know they have the right racing genes. I find often the really special ones have a way of rising to the occasion in their first race if you give them the right amount of time to develop. If you throw them into the first in April or May they may not be ready, but for a horse debuting in September with nice works you hope for a positive racing effort in their debut.

6) His conformation looks pretty solid, do you feel he will get the BEL trip OK?

The temptation that I feel most of us have is to think that a route horse is going to show in their conformation every trait being pure router. Low stifles, Long Humerus, Hip To Stifle Longest Rear Triangle. Yes, horses like that do tend to handle 12 furlong races better than a balanced horse, but I think the best dirt routers in this game tend to be horses with lots of speed and lots of stamina. They’re horses who “have it all”. Nobody knows how their horse will handle the 12 furlong distance in a few weeks, but I’ve liked how he’s run at 10 and 9.5 furlongs so I’m hopeful he’ll be able to get the distance if he gets the trip.

7) After his initial two races he has been showing some grit to win his races by fairly small margins and yet he won the Preakness by open air, do you feel he is actually still improving

I’ve told several people I think he has more heart than any other horse I’ve ever trained. Even after contesting the pace I see him over and over again out finish horses in the final furlong of races. Even horses who were closing from behind he out-finishes them once they get side by side. So I think that’s why he’s had a tendency to win close races. He lets them get close but won’t let them by. The PRK was his best race yet and I just think all the factors lined up for him to run his best Saturday. I do think that the competition he faced in the PRK was less than his previous efforts which contributed to the margin of victory. I’m not sure if he’s getting better but I hope so because he’ll need to run even better to win the BEL!

8) When he won on debut he was only 15.2hh, did you wait specifically for him to grow before you raced him?

I don’t pay much attention to height in deciding whether or not to run a horse. I think workout times tell you more about whether a horse is ready.

9) Do you see any real dangers in the BEL?

Of course! The Derby runner up Cheesy by many accounts ran a better race than Howl Of The Hound in the KYD and he’s been a tremendous horse all year. And he’ll be fresh for the race. Putting my heart aside and thinking with my head, Cheesy should have a better chance to win the BEL than Howl of the Hound. We’ll also probably see Locamotive who ran a great 3rd in the KYD from post 20, the Oaks winner Naples who will get a weight advantage, at least one of the runner ups from the PRK, and several horses who were winners on the TC trail. It’s not going to be an easy race by any means.

10) What will you spend the bonus on if you win it

I’m not going to fall into the trap of speaking about money I don’t have LOL. I’ll worry about that if I’m lucky enough that he crosses the finish line in first

Many thanks to Mb Stables and Jive Inc for their wonderful insights.

And so here we are waiting on the weather, the draw and the final word from HRP as to whether the bonus will be paid out. If ever there was a day when the whole community should put aside their differences and celebrate this wonderful moment it is now. Join with me in wishing Howl To The Hound Godspeed and Pegasus’s wings in what is beyond doubt the biggest thing to ever happen at HRP.

Categories: FEATURED STORIES, TC 2021-2023, THE TRIPLE CROWN