By Rab Hagin

Scoring his second consecutive disdainfully easy victory against odds-on competition, FREUD 2-year-old colt DAKOTA GOLD ($355,000) drew off by 2½ lengths against eight juveniles in Monmouth Park’s $500,000 Nownownow Stakes at a two-turn mile on “good” turf on Sunday, September 26, setting a stakes record despite the off going. His decisive score – in a two-turn, turf, and stakes debut – convinced the colt’s connections, owner Reeves Thoroughbred Racing and trainer Danny Gargan, to point the powerful chestnut for the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at a mile at Del Mar on November 5.

I just couldn’t wait to get him on the grass,” said Gargan, recalling his optimism after Dakota Gold had won easily first-out by 4½ widening lengths over the odds-on runner-up in a $97,000 Saratoga open maiden special going 5½ furlongs on dirt on September 2. “We knew he had this kind of turn of foot on the grass. There was some pace in the race (a 21.41 opening quarter mile), and…when the jockey asked him, he just galloped by. It was pretty impressive. You get lucky and get a horse like this once in a while. I think this horse has as much talent as any younger horse I’ve ever had.”

Placing second and third behind Dakota Gold in the Nownownow were sons of the leading North American sires in six of the last seven years (plus 2021), including the two-length winner of Saratoga’s graded With Anticipation Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on turf on September 1, who was odds-on. Winning jockey Isaac Castillo was ecstatic afterwards: “This is a fantastic horse, a championship-type horse.”

Bred by Sequel Thoroughbreds and Ron Bowden and an $83,000 weanling purchase at Fasig-Tipton’s 2019 Saratoga fall sale by the Reeves Thoroughbred Racing of Dean Reeves – co-owner of 2013 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Mucho Macho Man – Dakota Gold is the first runner produced from Dakota Kid, by Lemon Drop Kid. Dakota Kid did not start at 2, scoring her lone victory as a 4-year-old going a mile on Santa Anita turf. Her first offspring to live is Dakota Gold’s unraced 3-year-old full sister, who worked three times on Belmont dirt in September and drilled a half-mile on Saratoga’s training turf on October 1. Dakota Gold is Freud’s 72nd black-type stakes winner and third from a Lemon Drop Kid mare, following speedy sisters LOVELY SYN and MENTALITY – the former unbeaten in four starts on dirt by margins totaling almost 30 lengths; the latter a six-furlong stakes winner on Belmont turf in 1:08.69.

Freud, the only New York-based stallion ever to sire Grade 1-winning millionaires on dirt and turf, currently ranks as the leading Northeastern sire of 2021 in cumulative Average-Earnings Index and is also the leading Northeastern juvenile sire and turf sire of 2021. Freud’s deceased full brother, champion and three-time leading North American sire GIANT’S CAUSEWAY, has sired three Breeders’ Cup winners, including the 2019 Eclipse Horse of the Year.

Eight days after the Nownownow, Freud’s 73rd black-type stakes winner, HOWDYOUMAKEURMONEY, won the Presque Isle Debutante Stakes for 10 open 2-year-old fillies going 6½ furlongs on Presque Isle Downs’ all-weather Tapeta track, becoming Freud’s second juvenile stakes winner of 2021. Bred by Davie Bloodstock, LLC & Peter Colon and purchased by owner Commonwealth New Era Racing for $105,000 at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s April sale of 2-year-olds, Howdyoumakeurmoney had won an $85,000 Saratoga maiden special by daylight against nine rivals going 5½ furlongs on turf a month earlier. Her favored victory over a runner-up coming off an odds-on win at Presque Isle Downs established Freud as the leading Northeastern sire of black-type stakes winners in 2021.