By Jessica Martini
When Tim Ritchey acquired a son of Quality Road for $75,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearling Sale in 2015, the colt's appeal was obvious. It took two years for the bay to make it to the races, but Captain Scotty proved worth the wait with an effortless 6 3/4-length debut romp at Laurel Sunday.
“He was just a nice, big solid horse that had a good walk to him,” Ritchey, who both owns and trains the youngster, recalled.
But Captain Scotty proved to be a work in progress.
“Somewhere along the line, he was traumatized fairly good and had lost confidence in people,” Ritchey said. “It took us awhile to get to where we could work with him and handle him. Just like you do anything, we gave him rewards and tried to do everything in a fashion that wouldn't scare him or spook him. Finally we ended up winning his confidence. He is well over that now. It just took some time for him to get over it so he could move forward in a safe fashion.”
Sent off at 4-1 in Sunday's debut, Captain Scotty stormed clear down the stretch for an effortless victory under Andrew Wolfsont.
“He's trained very forwardly and I expected a good effort out of him. And that is what he gave us,” Ritchey said of Sunday's race. “He is a big, strong horse who can run. Nothing seems to bother him, he got to the gate in good order and came away from the gate well and he ran his race.”
4th-LRL, $42,520, Msw, 12-3, 3yo/up, 6f, 1:09.69, ft.
CAPTAIN SCOTTY (c, 3, Quality Road–She Is Raging {MSP, $286,863}, by Aggressive Chief) Lifetime Record: 1-1-0-0, $22,800. Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by Fasig-Tipton. O-Tim F. Ritchey Racing Stables, Inc.; B-John R. & Martha Jane Mulholland (KY); T-Timothy F. Ritchey.
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