It was a quiet Sunday morning at Churchill Downs Sept. 15, but you could feel the joy and excitement at the barn of trainer Phil Bauer as Iroquois Stakes (G3) winner Jonathan's Way came out for his morning bath just after 7 a.m.
Since he had last received a morning bath Sept. 14, he streaked his way to an impressive frontrunning 2 3/4-length victory while establishing himself as a leading contender for the $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) at Del Mar Nov. 1 and an early favorite on the Road to the Kentucky Derby.
"All good so far," Bauer reported of his stable's newest star Sunday morning. "He ate up last night and cooled out well. We'll see what the next few days bring, make sure there's no surprises. Still basking in the performance, that was fun."
Waking up the @KentuckyDerby favorite!#JonathansWay doing well at Phil Bauer’s @ChurchillDowns barn the morning after his Iroquois victory.
— Sean Collins (@BH_SCollins) September 15, 2024
With the win, he earned 10 Derby points and a $30k credit for @BreedersCup Juvenile entry fees thanks to the Dirt Dozen series. pic.twitter.com/4zjhSAtY1v
Should no surprises pop up, Bauer is ready to start preparing the colt for the Breeders' Cup, an event where he will now receive a $30,000 credit toward entry fees thanks to his victory in a Breeders' Cup Dirt Dozen Series race.
"This horse has the possibility to really make a name for himself as a 2-year-old," Bauer said. "It would be pretty special (to win). Every time you bring in a 2-year-old, the goal is to maybe go to the Breeders' Cup and then march on to (age) 3. You have the horse racing bucket list, that's definitely on it."
Bauer, who trains privately for Richard Rigney, has yet to win a World Championship event but has started a runner in each of the last two editions. Bauer noted that it would be extra special for the team to win in California as Rigney is from Pasadena.
The Iroquois was also the first race to offer Kentucky Derby (G1) qualifying points, for which Jonathan's Way earned 10. Although Derby dreaming is inevitable, Bauer said he's trying not to get too far ahead of himself.
"I think horse racing is always a 'next race' kind of mentality," Bauer said. "If you look too far down the line, it just clouds your vision."
Should Jonathan's Way wear roses in 230 days, he will need to buck some negative history. No Iroquois runner has ever won the Derby. In addition, he was bred in Ohio, a state whose lone representative in the Derby winner's circle was Wintergreen way back in 1909.
However, those historical challenges will not take any excitement away from Susan Anderson, who bred and raised the colt.
"My phone was blowing up, I couldn't even talk I was so excited," Anderson said.
Anderson is a trainer herself, based year-round at Turfway Park with a stable that numbers around 20. A Cincinnati native, she started riding at age 4 before participating in other disciplines like hunter/jumpers. At age 15, her family moved down the street from a training center where she started galloping and caught the bug for racing.
"I wanted to be a jockey because I thought it was so exciting to breeze horses," Anderson recalled. "My dad said, 'Absolutely not, you're going to college.' I went to college, but I missed the races so much."
Once graduating from Virginia Intermont College, Anderson got back into racing, taking her trainer's test at age 19. Anderson saddled her first starter in January 1987 at Sunland Park and won her first race in her fourth start. The next year, she spent the summer working for trainer Liam Brown at the Curragh in Ireland before traveling to England to work for John Hills.
In 1991, Anderson moved to Dubai where she'd spend the next eight years. In Dubai, she spent nearly six years as an assistant trainer to four-time Dubai champion trainer Satish Seemar. Seemar trained for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. She was offered a training position with His Royal Highness in 1997 and became the first licensed female trainer in Dubai.
In 2000, she moved back home to Cincinnati to be closer to family and purchased Point Of View Farm near Milford, Ohio, as an investment, planning to remodel and flip the house. Instead, it turned into a great piece of land to lay-up her horses that needed time away from the track.
Always a lover of pedigrees and breeding—having bred her first Ohio-bred at age 16—she decided to add a few broodmares to the farm. Jonathan Way's dam Female Drama is one of only three members of Anderson's broodmare band.
"To have a colt like this out of a small broodmare band is incredible," Anderson said.
Female Drama, by Indian Charlie, won the 2009 Wings of Jove Stakes at Belmont Park for trainer Todd Pletcher and owners Larry Byer, Omar Trevino, and Anthony Cecil.
Byer, who operated Byerpatch Farm in Lebanon, Ohio, kept the mare when she retired. After his passing in 2016, his children held a dispersal of his bloodstock where Anderson purchased her.
"When I saw her, I was like, 'Wow.' She was just big and beautiful. Big and beautiful mares have big and beautiful babies," Anderson said. "She's been a good mare to me. I've done pretty well out of her."
Anderson said she tries to breed her mares to first-year stallions to be more commercially appealing at the sales. Anything she doesn't sell, she'll keep and train herself. Jonathan's Way is the first graded winner by Spendthrift Farm's two-time grade 1-winning stallion Vekoma .
"He was such a great racehorse," Anderson said of the stallion. "I watched him run and I thought he was going to be commercial because he was very fast. He was an A++ nick with her pedigree.
"(Jonathan's Way) was always an easy colt to handle. He had a great mind, he did everything right from day one."
Pairing with Joe Seitz and Brookdale Sales as consignors, Anderson brought the colt as a weanling to the 2022 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale expecting to receive about $70,000, maybe $100,000. Instead, the winning bid came in at $290,000.
"(Brookdale) did a great job. Joe Seitz, I think the world of him," Anderson said. "I didn't have the expectation that he would bring that kind of money."
The winning bidder was Oreo Racing, a name Anderson nor Seitz recognized. Seitz asked around and, once learning the true identity as Rigney, Anderson was thrilled.
"When he told me it was Rigney Racing, I was like, 'Thank God it's not a pinhooker,'" Anderson said. "I wanted somebody to have him and give him plenty of time and race him. That was the perfect place for him."
Rigney was equally thrilled with the colt selected by agent John Moynihan.
"We were thinking big, high things for this horse from the very beginning," Rigney said. "One of the wonderful things about John is he's not looking at what the page looks like, he's looking at the physicals. He's looking at who are the athletes."
"He's a natural cruiser," Bauer said. "We were very high on him. We went to see him in Ocala and there were a couple colts that were separating themselves. You still have to see if they're real, but everything we did with him he continued to progress. He never gave us any doubt."
The full extent of Jonathan Way's impact on the race track is yet to be determined, but backing him along the journey will be the entire state of Ohio. According to the Jockey Club, 356 foals were registered in Ohio in 2022, 2.1% of the United States foal crop. Anderson is a board member of the Ohio Benevolent and Protection Association.
"It would mean the world to me," Anderson said of the colt representing Ohio on the biggest stages. "Everybody is excited, I have had more texts and calls from people. Everybody's excited to have an Ohio-bred win a grade 3 and possibly go on to do more."
On dreaming of a Kentucky Derby victory, Anderson said, "I don't even know what to say. That would be my wildest dream."
