Tommy Wente's penchant for a bargain buy has paid off in dividends for his St. Simon Place farm. The breeder, using a rather unorthodox approach to purchasing mares, has landed the dams of such graded stakes winners as Hidden Connection, One Timer, and the star of the operation—Rattle N Roll.
Under the Twin Spires on a hot balmy Saturday afternoon, Rattle N Roll raced to his third straight graded score June 3 in the $225,000 Blame Stakes (G3).
Rattle N Roll, by Connect , is the third foal produced from Jazz Tune, a Johannesburg mare Wente picked for a mere $20,000 at the 2016 Keeneland November Sale. The big, rangy chestnut caught Wente's eye in the back ring. In addition to her Edward Evans female-line breeding, Wente liked the fact the mare was in foal to Mineshaft .
"I remember that mare very well. I loved her breeding," Wente said. "We're pretty fly-by-night buyers, we don't go to the sale and have all these mares marked up in the book and a list of horses to go look at. I like going to the back ring and think, 'Can I steal this mare? Maybe I'll bid on this mare'. You almost have to be there for nearly every single horse that goes through the ring and just get that feeling 'Well maybe I can do something with this one.'"
Wente later sold Jazz Tune's Mineshaft foal, a filly named Jazz Festival, for $160,000 at the 2018 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. And then came Rattle N Roll.
"To this day I kick myself in the butt about selling Rattle N Roll," Wente said. "We're a small farm so we rely on selling and the cash flow to keep us going. And Rattle N Roll was in the mix. I kept telling myself when we were prepping him as a weanling that 'This is a nice horse but he needs time.' And looking back at everything now, I know everything happens for a reason. Rattle N Roll might not be where he is today if we didn't sell him then as a weanling."
An astute Ted Campion picked up the weanling Rattle N Roll for $55,000, a price Wente admitted left him with "seller's remorse." Brought back to the Keeneland September sale the following year as a bigger and stronger individual, the colt dropped the hammer for $210,000. The brawny chestnut caught the eye of Kenny McPeek, who secured Rattle N Roll for longtime client Michael Mackin of Lucky Seven Stable.
Reflecting back on Rattle N Roll as a young horse on his 400-acre Lexington farm, Wente recalled the colt's initial struggles within his first two weeks of life. Days after taking his first breath, the colt developed serious gastric issues that would disrupt the movement in his bowels and cause him to colic.
"He spent 2-3 days in the (Hagyard Equine Medical Institute) clinic and we just had to keep him moving and going," Wente said. "For about 10-15 days it was touch and go there for awhile. We could have lost Rattle N Roll."
As fate would have it, the tenacious colt would pull through, employing that similar fighting spirit later on the racetrack. A winner in his third start at 2, Rattle N Roll then splashed into Breeder's Cup contention with a rousing come-from-behind victory in Keeneland's Breeders' Futurity (G1). The 4 1/4-length tally left his connections, as well as Wente, with dreams of bigger prizes until an injury forced him out of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1).
Making the most of Rattle N Roll's newfound notoriety, Went dropped Jazz Tune into the 2021 Keeneland November Sale, where she brought $585,000 to Hunter Valley Farm.
When Rattle N Roll returned as a 3-year-old, it soon became apparent that the colt wasn't quite the same runner he had been as a juvenile, and he flopped in his first three starts in an attempt to earn points on the Kentucky Derby (G1) trail. Once the visions of roses had faded away, McPeek instead turned to softer stakes company, and the colt responded with wins in the American Derby, St. Louis Derby, and Oklahoma Derby (G3) to cap his sophomore campaign.
"We knew he had talent from what Kenny (McPeek) was saying but after the Derby stuff was over he kind of found his little niche in those stakes," Wente said. "He was in the second tier of 3-year-olds which wasn't a bad thing, we were enjoying it.
"And then he came back at 4 in the (New Orleans Classic Stakes, G2) and ran a very good race. He ran a very good number that day. He looked like a totally different horse when I saw him at the Fair Grounds—like he had finally grown into himself."
Following a hard-luck fourth in the New Orleans Classic, Rattle N Roll compiled a trio of consecutive stakes wins, all achieved in his trademark late-running fashion, in the Ben Ali Stakes (G3), Pimlico Special Stakes (G3), and the Blame.
With his confidence restored, Wente is hopeful Rattle N Roll can, at last, get his shot in the Breeders' Cup starting gate, two years after his disappointing defection.
"He looked unbelievable (in the Blame) but he still needs to go to that next level so we'll see what he can do," Wente said the day after Rattle N Roll's victory. "We're excited. Hopefully, he can get back to the Breeders' Cup."
