Violence keeps his perfect record intact after winning the CashCall Futurity
Veteran horseman, Todd Pletcher, is now really flexing his muscles in the 2-year-old division this year, because he is training a seriously good string of juvenile colts at the moment, and he proved it again by saddling his undefeated colt, Violence, to victory in the Grade 1, $750,000 CashCall Futurity at Hollywood Park on 15 December, 2012.
Black Rock Stables’s 2-year-old colt downed the Futurity in front-running fashion, and once in the lead he extended his margin and made sure nobody overhauls him in the dying stages of the 1 1/16 mile test, and defeated Fury Kapcori in second and Den’s Legacy in third with the winning time of 1 minute and 43.50 seconds.
The Kentucky bred son of Medaglia d'Oro, Violence defeated maidens at first asking on 18 August, 2012, at Saratoga, when he was asked to run over a distance of seven furlongs.
It was a smooth ride under jockey John Velazquez, as the pair clocked the distance in 1 minute and 22.91 seconds. However, his victory in the Grade 2 Nashua Stakes wasn’t as smooth; rather a bumpy ride at Aqueduct Racetrack saw Violence win the 1 mile test by two lengths over Vegas No Show.
Under jockey Javier Castellano, Violence covered the distance in 1 minute and 35.32 seconds on 4 November, 2012.
Javier Castellano was aboard the colt in the CashCall Futurity on the closing day of the Betfair Hollywood Park autumn meet, the 6 to 5 favourite was making his first start on two turns in the field of 11 juveniles.
"He's a big, leggy colt that we felt like was going to continue to improve and mature," Pletcher said. "After he won first time out, we talked about a couple of strategies. One was to try and make the Breeders' Cup and the other was a more patient strategy.
"We decided to wait on the Nashua and when he ran so well in there, we started looking at whether we wanted to run him back in 20 days in the Remsen (gr. II at Aqueduct), put him away for the winter, or look for something else.”
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