Milton, ON – With the battle won and his perfect record intact through eight starts, Beau Jangles towered over the Woodbine Mohawk Park winner’s circle late on Saturday night (Sept. 20) – ears sharp, a crisp white Metro Pace blanket covering him like the satin robes of a boxer post-fight. The precocious manchild of a horse surveyed his kingdom with an expression that suggested he expected this all along as the partisan crowd buzzed about what it had just witnessed in the $1 million Grade 1 race.
Virtually untested in his career until this night, the 2-year-old Ontario-sired and Ontario-bred pacer had just proven that not only could he brush off a few serious haymakers, he could deliver a few kill shots of his own.
Asked for his takeaway minutes after his pupil posted a half-length victory over ultra-talented U.S. rival Frantic Hanover – also unbeaten until Saturday night – trainer Dr. Ian Moore said he learned that Beau, “has a lot of grit and a lot of guts and a lot of heart and a lot of will and desire to win.”
The result was impressive enough for the 71-year-old Hall of Famer to postpone his plans to retire at the end of the year.
“I have been talking (to my wife) Nancy about (retiring),” Moore said. “I’m getting too old, and it’s getting physically demanding as well as mentally demanding as well … but I guess (retirement is) off the books now … I’ll stick around for his 3-year-old year now.”
Based on Moore’s perma-smile, it won’t be a hardship.
“Somebody asked me last week, ‘Is he the best horse you ever trained?’ And I said, ‘Well, he’s right up there, but I can’t really say that at this point in time,’ but after that tonight, he’s getting there pretty well now,” Moore said. “He got strung out to about the three-eighths of a mile there, and those weren’t cheap fractions either, and the other guy sat right behind him and couldn’t get it done. So, I was very impressed. He’s a terrific animal. We love him.”
The trip was anything but easy.
Sent off as the bettors’ second choice in the field of 10, Beau Jangles (Bob McClure) was parked three-wide through the first turn with Tilthecowscomehome (Jody Jamieson) to his immediate left, Superchamp Hanover (Matt Kakaley) on the rail and favorite Frantic Hanover (Tim Tetrick) leading the field. When Superchamp Hanover made a break in the turn and exited to the safety lane, Tilthecowscomehome took his spot on the rail. Meanwhile, McClure drove on toward the front, but not without a tussle from Frantic Hanover, who stretched out Beau Jangles until mid-way up the backstretch. As Frantic Hanover sat patiently in the pocket, Al Papi (Yannick Gingras) loomed first-over as the two Ron Burke-trained horses were poised to strike. When Al Papi faded in the stretch, Frantic Hanover pounced out of the pocket and looked to be sailing to victory, until Beau Jangles dug in and fought him off.
“(Beau Jangles) had to work really hard,” McClure said. “He was wide in the first turn, and he was stretched pretty hard … and you just never know where the bottom of these horses is, but halfway down the stretch, Timmy’s horse came at him hard and, for a brief second, I thought he was going right by. But this colt doesn’t give up. He just kept digging and kept digging and all the credit goes to him and Doc. Doc had him as ready as he could and this colt didn’t let anybody down.”
The 1:49.1 mile was a career best for Beau Jangles and tied the track record shared by A Rocknroll Dance, Tall Dark Stranger and Fallout.
In the winner’s circle, Beau Jangles’ majority owner Adam Ainspan, who picked out the colt as a yearling on behalf of an all-U.S. ownership team, said he was amazed by the crowd’s reaction.
“I’m glad to see that Canadians seem to be really proud of him,” said Ainspan, who shares Beau Jangles with Mary Beth Roberts under the Graham Grace Stables LLC of Clifton, VA, along with Anne Hooper and Jonathan Roberts under the Kiwi Stables LLC of La Plata, MD and the family of Ed, Garth and Philip Bolton, plus John Draper, of the Bolton Stables of Clermont, FL.
Nearby, Jonathan Roberts was flabbergasted.
“This is unbelievable,” Jonathan said. “He just battled an unbelievable race. I’m nothing but impressed. They took every shot to try to put him away, but he was never going away. That was never in the cards.”
A leading driver in Maryland, Jonathan said he would have preferred to have been in the sulky than watching from the tarmac.
“I’d have been less nervous sitting where Bobby [McClure] was than standing on the apron a nervous wreck,” he said. “I don’t even get nervous in the bike.”
Garth Bolton, who owns Beau Jangles with his brother Philip and their father, Ed, said Beau Jangles proved, “he’s just a great colt. He’s special.
“We are lucky enough to be a part of (Moore’s top 3-year-old pacer) Prince Hal Hanover and now this one is even more special. To be a little part of this guy is just so much fun.”
Feet away, Beau Jangles’ breeder, David Heffering, was fighting off tears. Heffering’s Tara Hills Stud of Port Perry, ON not only owns Beau Jangles’ dam, Mrs Major Hill, it also stands the sire, Cattlewash.
“This is what we live for,” Heffering said. “Being number one in the Ontario Sires Stakes is great but then doing this and having (owners that) just love this horse is incredible. (Ainspan) had the conviction that he loved this horse from the minute that he saw his video.”
Heffering then thanked Cattlewash’s U.S. owner Bill Donovan for bringing the horse to Ontario to stand stud. Cattlewash is already the leading pacing sire in the Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS) program despite only having his first crop of Ontario 2-year-olds racing.
“I give a lot of credit to Bill Donovan for bringing the horse here to Ontario,” Heffering said.
As for being the one to breed Beau Jangles, Heffering gave credit to his pedigree guru Bruce Brinkerhoff, who also made the trip to Mohawk from the States to see the Metro Pace.
“We bought two horses that year to breed to Cattlewash – one was Mrs Major Hill and the other was Sports Check, the dam of TH Check Me Out, who was in the She’s A Great Lady,” Brinkerhoff said.
Proving this moment was at least partly about karma pairing the right horses with the right people at the right time.
It was Moore that cautioned Ainspan that Beau Jangles might be too big as a yearling when the trainer first inspected the colt at last year’s Standardbred Horse Sales Company auction in Harrisburg, PA. But Ainspan loved the athleticism the colt showed on his yearling video and asked Moore to buy the pacer, then known as TH Bo Jangles. The final price was $65,000 U.S., which is now a bargain considering the colt – renamed after Ainspan’s dog, Beau – has earned $972,125 (Cdn) with the OSS Super Final and Breeders Crown, all at Woodbine Mohawk Park, still to come this year, health willing.
“When you see something almost a year ago, you really never know, but to see your vision come true is rewarding,” Ainspan said, adding that seeing Beau Jangles race in person is impressive.
“Just seeing his speed of foot and his stride length, I really expected him to win. You never know for sure, these other horses are great, but it’s just a feeling of satisfaction to see it come full circle.”
McClure called the victory, “amazing,” and said he could feel Canada backing Beau.
“He’s a champion horse and this is still the beginning,” McClure said of the colt that already has four OSS Gold victories to his credit, as well as the Metro Pace and a division of the Nassagaweya.
“He’s going to have a lot of greatness to come.”