When trainer Cherie DeVaux first phoned C R K Stable owner Lee Searing last year with glowing praise about his 2-year-old colt Englishman, Searing took the report with a proverbial grain of salt.
"She told me he was very quick" Searing said.
Searing, now 78, has owned Thoroughbreds since he first bought one at Agua Caliente in Mexico when he was 18. He has owned grade 1 winners such as the recently retired Baeza , Honor A. P. , Switch, and Express Train. So, he had heard words like that before and knew how quickly things could change with an animal as precocious and fragile as a Thoroughbred.
Then, the next time DeVaux called, she said Englishman was "very, very quick" and Searing took notice.
Now, Searing and the rest of the industry know just how quick Englishman can be as he is a dazzling two-time grade 1 sprint winner and a heavy 4-5 favorite in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) Oct. 31 at Keeneland, where a win would crown the 3-year-old son of Maxfield the champion male sprinter of any age.
"What he's done is spectacular," Searing said. "That's one word we can use. He's a tremendous looking horse. He's bred right. He's fast. He breaks well. (Jockey) Jose Ortiz has done an unbelievably good job with him and we spaced his races. He's coming into the Breeders' Cup ready to run. This horse and horse racing has given me a lot of enjoyment."
Englishman figures to be one of the heaviest favorites at the Breeders' Cup, even though he will be facing older horses for the first time and will break from post 13 Saturday.
After he won his first two starts by a combined 14 3/4 lengths at sprint distances, there was conjecture DeVaux might stretch out her speedy, front-running colt to see if he was a Triple Crown candidate. But she knew her horse best and instead entered him in the Pat Day Mile Stakes (G2) on Derby Day at Churchill Downs where he set the pace but finished second, 3 3/4 lengths behind the Bob Baffert-trained Crude Velocity.
The two met again in the 7-furlong Woody Stephens Stakes (G1) June 6 at Saratoga Race Course and Englishman not only turned the table on Crude Velocity, but he also upended it. Second early on, he powered away in the stretch to win by 5 3/4 lengths over Crude Velocity in 1:20.40, setting a track record.
Nearly three months later in the Aug. 29 H. Allen Jerkens Memorial Stakes (G1) at the Spa, he led throughout and won by 3 3/4 lengths in 1:20.71 for the 7-furlong stakes.
"We got beat by Baffert's horse. But the second time it wasn't really a horse race. My horse showed up and proved he's everything people said he was. Now Baffert doesn't want to run against Englishman, and that's a big-time compliment," Searing said. "If everything goes right, he will be very tough to beat in the (6-furlong) Sprint. It's so exciting to have a horse like him at the Breeders' Cup who will be a big favorite."
April Mayberry picked out and bought Englishman for Searing for $400,000 at the 2024 Keeneland September Yearling Sale and she prepared him for his racing career at her Florida farm.
"I have all the confidence in the horses April picks out and she loved Englishman. That was enough for me," Searing said.
Englishman was one of about 15 2-year-olds owned by Searing last year and they were divided among trainers Peter Eurton and John Shirreffs on the West Coast and DeVaux in Kentucky. DeVaux's group includes grade 3 winner and grade 1-placed Remember Mamba and grade 2 winner Supercharger.
And ... a Breeders' Cup favorite.
"The Searing family has been a big supporter of my career since it started," DeVaux said. "Lee and his wife, Susan, are wonderful to work with and it is an honor to have a colt like Englishman to share with them. I got a few horses when he wanted to move some of his horses out of California and it evolved from there. It makes it easy to do my job when he puts faith and trust in our program and our stable."
Searing was equally thankful for DeVaux's accomplishments with his horses.
"I'm happy with the work Cherie and her team does," he said about DeVaux, who also trains the 3-year-old Kentucky Derby (G1) and Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Golden Tempo for Phipps Stable and St. Elias Stable. "She's a woman who is the face of horse racing right now and that's all good. From this group, Cherie has produced three graded stakes winners out of six or seven horses, so about 50% graded stakes winners with her is pretty good, I'd say."
As amazing as Englishman's speed has been, just as surprising is that he's so fast despite a pedigree that has a distance tilt to it. Maxfield won the Clark Stakes (G1) and the Stephen Foster Stakes (G2) in 2021, both at 1 1/8 miles.
His dam, the 12-year-old Speightstown mare In It for the Gold, posted her lone win in her seventh and final start for owner Bob Edwards' e Five Racing Thoroughbreds at 6 furlongs on turf.
Edwards then sent In It for the Gold to his broodmare band at Heartwood Farm in Kentucky, where he keeps about 12 mares and breeds under the banner of Fifth Avenue Bloodstock.
In It for the Gold was bred to Nyquist and then Into Mischief and produced winners. Her now 4-year-old colt by Gun Runner named Thought Control is stakes-placed for Edwards.
Then came Englishman, and Edwards, who has owned champions such as Good Magic and Rushing Fall, struck gold as a breeder.
"We bred her to Nyquist, then Into Mischief and Gun Runner, and the Gun Runner can run a little bit," Edwards said. "Then we breed her to Maxfield and it's one of the fastest horses in the country."
Edwards sold In It for the Gold for $75,000 at the 2023 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale to Country Life Farm, but having Fifth Avenue Bloodstock associated with a horse as good as Englishman has been a boost to his breeding operation.
"It's a good checkmark for our résumé," Edwards said. "People see our colors at the track, but they don't know we have a successful breeding program. We have 12 mares and breed to the best sires in the country. We keep some and sell some to get money back in the coffers."
Among the other horses Edwards has bred are Carl Spackler , a multiple grade 1 winner he raced, and Talkin, who was sold for $600,000 and is grade 1-placed.
In It for the Gold also has a yearling Mandaloun filly and a 2026 Tiz the Law colt for breeders Country Life and In It for the Gold Broodmare.
"It is so electric to watch Englishman run," said Mike Pons of Country Life Farm in Maryland, "Having his dam is one of those serendipity things in this business. It's magical to watch him run and it means so much for a farm like ours to have his dam and horses who are a half sister or half brother to him."
Searing displayed his faith in Englishman's bloodlines by paying $425,000 at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training for his half sister by Authentic , an unraced 2-year-old filly he named English Woman and sent to DeVaux.
Though Searing has a stallion deal in place for Englishman with Lane's End, he said the colt will race next year and No.1 on his wish list is the Metropolitan Handicap (G1) at a mile at Belmont Park.
"It would be lovely to win the Met Mile and show everyone he can go a mile," Searing said. "I don't buy horses to be sprinters."
Of course, sprinting will do just fine for Searing and DeVaux this weekend at the Breeders' Cup.
"Now let's see if he can win the big one," Searing said about a 3-year-old who is indeed very, very quick.
