Making the Most of his Shot

2nd-TAM, $20,000, Msw, 12-23, 2yo, 1m 40y, 1:43.37, ft.
+ONE MORE SHOT (c, 2, Trappe Shot–Orion's Daughter, by Tactical Cat) Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by Fasig-Tipton. Lifetime Record: 1-1-0-0, $12,000.
O-Niall J. Brennan; B-James F. Miller (WV); T-Jamie Ness.

“He looks like he is going to be a good one,” trainer Jamie Ness said after One More Shot's eight-length debut victory last Wednesday at Tampa Bay Downs. The colt's dominant performance rewarded the patience of Ocala-based horseman and leading juvenile consignor Niall Brennan, who purchased the youngster for $100,000 out of last year's Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale with the intention of re-selling at the 2-year-old sales this year.

“He was going to go to the OBS April sale, but he got an injury,” Brennan explained Tuesday. “He just missed the 2-year-old sales window, so we just gave him the time. We turned him out and let him grow up a little bit. We put him back in training in August. That always happens with a few every year, where we have to go to the next route, which is to take them to the racetrack and give them a chance to be what they are going to be.”

One More Shot is out of Orion's Daughter, a half-sister to the dams of multiple graded stakes winner Sailors Sunset (Petionville) and Grade I winner Wickedly Perfect (Congrats). He became the ninth winner, and first of three over the holiday weekend, for his freshman sire, Trappe Shot (by Tapit).

“We really like the colt,” Brennan said. “He's a little atypical for his sire. He's tall and scopey. He's not a compact Quarter-Horse type that a lot of the Trappe Shots seem to be. He's a good-sized, scopey colt and he has a huge stride on him. That's why we ran him two turns first time out. We just felt like he's a very smooth colt and does everything right and he wants to run long. He's a mile to a mile and a quarter horse–he's not a sprinter. And we just let him do what he wanted to do.”

Brennan admitted he was impressed by the colt's first effort.

“We were delighted,” he said of One More Shot's debut. “I thought he would need a race–he drew the one hole and everybody else had already started. The jockey said he was green, but he was much the best and, at the end of the race, he could have gone around again. The jockey was impressed with the way he did it. You don't know what you beat down there in a Tampa maiden. But it is Tampa and it's a very testing racetrack. It's a very good racetrack for horses to run on to test them out a little bit.”

The race caught the interest of several potential buyers and, should a private sale not materialize beforehand, One More Shot could make it to the OBS sales ring after all. He is catalogued as hip 593 in next month's Winter Mixed Sale.

“We've had some calls and some interest in him, obviously,” Brennan confirmed. “Because he's a 2-year-old, winning first-time out going two turns at this time of the year by eight lengths, it kind of grabs the attention. So we've had some interest in him and he's entered in the OBS January sale in the horses of racing age section. That was always the intention, if we have horses that we have left, we try to get them to the races and then have them in the January sale and just move on to the next project.”

While Brennan would not completely rule out another start before the Winter sale, he indicated it was unlikely One More Shot would be under his colors again.

“We haven't really discussed it, but we probably wouldn't start him again because the sale is coming up in four weeks' time,” the Irishman explained. “So it would be right when we would normally run him back. He's a young horse and he's improving. I think if we just do right by the horse, if we don't sell him before, more than likely we wouldn't run him, we'd just put him in the sale.”