An Ontario-bred filly from the first crop of Grade I winner Collected (hip 317) turned in the fastest quarter-mile work of Tuesday’s second session of the under-tack show for next week’s Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s June Sale of 2-Year-Olds when covering the distance in :20 4/5. The juvenile is consigned by Jesse Hoppel’s Coastal Equine and represents a pinhooking partnership group which has already enjoyed success with a bullet-working daughter of the GI Pacific Classic winner. Hoppel sent a filly by Collected out to work a bullet quarter-mile at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale and then sold the juvenile–purchased for $47,000 last fall–for $250,000 last week.
Bloodstock agent Larry Zap, along with Amanda Murphy and Hoppel, picked out both fillies for clients that include Matt Dohman and Joe Ciaglia.
“I got to watch him as a top racehorse–that definitely sticks in my mind,” Zap said of Collected’s appeal. “He has a lot of his dad in him, a lot of the City Zip in him. They are not necessarily big, robust horses, like say the Bolt d’Oros, but they seem very athletic and they seem very versatile. We liked quite a few of them as yearlings. Like City Zip, they move a lot bigger than they appear.”
Hip 317, out of the unraced Sassy Ali Joy (Indian Charlie), is a half-sister to stakes-placed Tuscan Queen (Street Boss) and from the family of Banshee Breeze. Dohman, making his first foray into the world of pinhooking this year, signed the ticket to acquire the filly for $150,000 at last year’s Keeneland September sale.
Dohman, co-founder of the mortgage company Optimum First Mortgage, has owned racehorses for about a decade now, starting out in the claiming game before trying his hand buying at the 2-year-old sales and finally settling into partnership ownership with Ciaglia in their California Racing Partners.
The Californian’s first exposure to the sport is a familiar one to many.
“When I was a kid, my dad used to take me to the track,” Dohman said. “My mom and dad were divorced, so on our weekends, dad would take us to the track and he taught me to read the Form. That was how I got exposed to racing. When I got older, I had an affinity to it already from my early exposure. One of my friend’s girlfriends babysat for an ex-jockey, Goncalino Almeida, so I contacted him and he said he wanted to become a trainer. He said, ‘Let’s claim a horse.’ We claimed two horses in one day. And then we waited a month, we moved them up in class and one of the horses won and the other one ran second. So I said, “Oh, this is so easy.’”
Dohman continued, “I decided I wanted to get better horses. I went to Barretts at the 2-year-old sales and I started buying by myself for a little bit, just going through the trials and tribulations of trying to be an owner, trying to buy a horse.”
Dohman started communicating with Zap online and the bloodstock agent recommended connecting with his longtime client.
“He told me I should talk to Joe Ciaglia,” Dohman recalled. “I spoke to Joe and last year, I started buying and partnering with them.”
Zap and Ciaglia had been pinhooking with Hoppel for years and the Ocala horseman thought Dohman might also like the resale game.
“When I first met Jesse, he told me I should look at pinhooking, but I told him I didn’t think it was for me,” Dohman said. “I am trying to get some racehorses and win some stakes races. He told me he thought I might change my mind sooner or later.”
It ended up being far sooner than later as Dohman watched the group’s success at the 2-year-old sales last year.
“They bought a bunch of horses at Keeneland [in 2020] and they absolutely just crushed it,” Dohman said. “They really killed it last year, so I decided I should jump into pinhooking with them.”
He added ruefully, “I am learning it was a little bit of an odd year because they were able to buy really cheaply during COVID and then the market picked back up and the horses sold really well.”
Despite the change in the market, Zap said the group has had a successful year so far.
“We’ve done OK,” he said. “The ones that we’ve taken to auction–obviously these two Collected fillies are helping a lot–it’s been a good season. It was tougher to buy yearlings last year than the pandemic year, but it’s been a profitable year.”
The team has high hopes that hip 317 will continue the strong 2022 results and the success will be shared by some new faces.
Dohman brought Robert Drenk, his co-founder in Optimum First Mortgage, into the partnership on the filly, and Drenk in turn brought in first-time owner Ryan Rezaie.
“This is his first exposure in horse racing,” Dohman said of Rezaie. “He’s never owned horses, never raced horses or pinhooked horses. I put him in three horses–one earmarked to pinhook and two for racing. I wanted to get him one horse that would sell and make money and that was this Collected filly. This is the horse that I am trying to get him a little taste of making some money in pinhooking to kind of draw him into the game more.”
The filly was originally entered in the OBS Spring sale, but the decision was made to scratch her from that auction following a :10 1/5 work.
“She’s a May foal and it was just an erratic work,” Dohman said of the April experience. “I told Jesse, ‘Let’s just pull her and put her in June and work her two furlongs.’ Jesse started stretching out her works preparing her for it and he said, ‘Matt this horse is looking really good stretching her out.’ So he was expecting under a :21.”
Zap added, “Jesse has been very patient with her and he worked with her to come along for this. When we take a horse to market, we know it’s a performance sale, we know we have to perform. This one did everything right. Jesse thought we might get a :20 3/5 today, but we will take the :20 4/5.”
