In the sixth race at Saratoga Race Course Aug. 8, 2-year-old first-time starter Aye Eye bumped the gate at the break, broke slowly, lagged 19 1/2 lengths behind, and ran one of the most impressive races of the summer meeting.
The connections of Aye Eye were more like "ai yi yi" when the gates opened and their horse was literally nowhere to be seen. Neither the horse nor his tracking chip appeared on the screen for at least half of the six-furlong race.
Yet, when the field came around the final turn, there was the gray/roan colt, still far back, but eating up ground. Rider Javier Castellano had kept the son of Essential Quality close to the rail, but now swung him wide, but not wide enough to avoid getting stuck behind horses.
Castellano moved left, moved right, on a horse full of run with nowhere to go. Five wide, he moved four paths inside within half a dozen strides, then slipped to the rail just in front of Tactics, pulling away to win by 1 1/2 lengths.
"That was a big, exciting race for all of us," said trainer Joe Orseno. "I've never won a race like that before."
Castellano had never been on the horse, and the only instructions Orseno gave him were to try to overcome the inside post.
"It's hard for horses because you have to load first, and you have to wait for the rest of the field," said Castellano. "It's a process for the horses. You don't know how they can react."
Whatever plan Castellano had was left at the gate as Aye Eye walked out. Going to the lead was no longer an option, leaving the jockey to ponder whether he should take a stab at contending or write the race off and hope for better luck next time.
"I didn't rush," he said. "I let him develop the pace himself and took my time. I didn't lose confidence. I gave him a chance on the backside to develop himself. When I tapped him, he jumped on the bridle and started to travel better. I didn't have to use him much."
After the race, Orseno said that the colt had shown courage during morning workouts...but only when he was on the outside. On the inside, he was content to travel along with the horses he worked with.
It's a good thing Castellano didn't know that before the race, because at the top of the stretch, when he had to decide to go wide or go inside, he chose the latter.
"I decided not to go outside, because I didn't want to split horses," he said. "Sometimes when you split horses, you reduce the speed a little bit, or you get in close and the horse hesitates a little bit. But then I saw a lot of traffic, and I saw there was room inside. We moved to that hole and he took off."
Aye Eye was the longest shot in the eight-horse field, going off at 26.50-1 and paying $55 to win.
A $140,000 RNA at last year's Keeneland September Yearling Sale, Aye Eye was bred in Kentucky by Betz Thoroughbreds, DJ Stables/ Graves/Gainesway/Lamantia/Ramsby. He was purchased by Robert Cotran at this year's Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training for $45,000.
By Essential Quality, he's out of the Divine Park mare Divine Queen, a multiple stakes winner who retired with earnings of $339,344.
Had Aye Eye met his reserve as a yearling, he wouldn't have been eligible for the race he won, which is restricted to horses that sold or were RNAs for $60,000 in their most recent sale. It's that condition that led Orseno to ship up from his New Jersey base. The condition was so popular that it was split into two divisions last Friday, with Orseno running in both legs.
"We were coming with the horse in the first race, and when the races were split, it was a no-brainer to bring this one, too," said the trainer.
As Aye Eye's break made Castellano scrap whatever plan he had, Orseno may be doing the same, based on the colt's performance.
"Truthfully, we've been thinking turf all along with this horse, because of the way he goes in the morning, but the way he just ran, we have to think about some different things. It's a good problem to have."
