with Cop A Tude at Laurel today, ridden ably by Sheldon Russell.  Jay Sloan’s homebred colt by Officer out of Emotional Storm (who Graham trained as well) ran rather greenly but towards the wire was pulling away and looking very professional.  Congratulations to Jay and High Five Stable and thanks for getting us started!

Nice article in today’s Thoroughbred Daily News:

Jay Sloan operates the High Five Racing Stable, which offers “friends-and-family type” partnerships, with a focus on fillies towards the goal of maximizing their investment. But, following yesterday’s good-looking debut from the cleverly named Cop A Tude, it turns out that the occasional colt is just fine too.

“We do prefer fillies for their residual value, and it wouldn’t really have gotten us anywhere to put this colt through the ring,” said Sloan, who is based in northern Virginia and works in the financial and accounting business. “So, we just thought we’d go on and see what might come of it.”

Sloan, who races Cop A Tude in partnership with Jeff Jaffee, bred the colt from Emotional Storm (Storm Boot), whom he acquired for $39,000 as a FTMMAY juvenile and raced to five wins and nearly $143,000 in earnings. She now resides at Pope McLean’s Crestwood Farm, who “have done a wonderful job with her,” Sloan stated. The mare’s first two foals to race each found the winner’s circle without significant further distinction, but the decision to send her to Officer while he still resided in Kentucky looks to be paying dividends.

“Officer gave a chance to do a real outcross,” explained Sloan. “[Emotional Storm] has Storm Cat and Mr. Prospector in her pedigree, so we thought we=d try a true outcross. He’s got a great sprinter’s profile, and hopefully he can repeat today’s effort down the road.”

The fact that Cop A Tude was live on the tote didn’t exactly come as a surprise to Sloan, who was on hand for the victory.
AHe had been training very well; he had quite a few bullets, but you never know what to make of that,” he commented, adding that Cop A Tude is High Five’s first-ever debut winner. “We were certainly hopeful, but he does have a bit of an attitude with that Storm Cat blood, so we were cautiously optimistic that he’d handle the race-day experience well. He passed a few horses, which is always encouraging on debut, but I give all the credit to [trainer] Graham [Motion]. The 5 1/2 [furlongs] was a great debut distance.

Sloan considers himself fortunate to have been affiliated with Motion since High Five’s beginnings back in 1999.  “We’ve known for quite a while what the world has known for only about a year,” Sloan offered. “He is a master horseman.”

As for what’s next, no one is getting too far ahead of themselves, Sloan assures.  “I thought he was green and professional in spots, and we’re just going to let Graham make the call,” he stated. “He has the patience of Jobe, and we’ll certainly abide by his decisions.”–Alan Carasso{jcomments on}