Gold Rush

Sister Act at Gold Rush

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (Apr. 24, 2008) -- As sisters, Tiz Elemental and Tiz a Blend don’t make a likely family portrait.

The former, a 4-year-old filly, is big and lanky; the latter, a 5-year-old mare, a gray, is more compact.

Tiz Elemental is temperamental and impetuous; Tiz a Blend is on the nervous side.
Both are products of Cee’s Tizzy matings with the Great Commotion mare Blending Element (IRE) and made history by winning stakes races on the Santa Anita Park card of April 6. Tiz Elemental won the Grade 3 Las Flores Handicap, her fourth win in a row, and Tiz a Blend came back 30 minutes later to capture the Valentine Dancer Handicap for Cal-breds, her first stakes start.

Both distaffers were bred by Warren Williamson, trained by Carla Gaines and ridden by Victor Espinoza.

It was the first time full siblings had won stakes races on the same day at Santa Anita since March 26, 1994, when two Cal-bred sons of River Edge Farm stallion Pirate’s Bounty accomplished the unusual double.

Three-year-old colt Pirate’s Revenge and 5-year-old gelding Echo of Yesterday won, respectively, the Boo La Boo Stakes and the Crystal Water Handicap--both for Cal-breds. They were both out of the Flying Paster mare Symbolically, bred by Marty and Pam Wygod and trained by Ron Ellis.

Sunday at Hollywood Park, Tiz Elemental and Tiz a Blend can become same-day stakes winners for the second time. On the California Gold Rush card, 10 stakes for state-breds, worth $1.3 million in purses, Tiz Elemental will run in the $150,000 B. Thoughtful Stakes at seven furlongs on the Cushion Track main track and Tiz a Blend, her older sister, will contest the $150,000 Fran’s Valentine at 1 1/16 miles on turf.

Gaines and Williamson won the 2007 Fran’s Valentine with Nashoba’s Key, who achieved her first stakes success that day and went on to capture Grade 1 races on dirt and turf and was a finalist in two Eclipse Award categories. That 5-year-old mare is currently on sabbatical.

Tiz Elemental also won on Gold Rush day a year ago, capturing the Melair Stakes for 3-year-old Cal-bred fillies.

"That was the first time I ever won two stakes in a day," recalled Williamson, 79. "Now it’s happened again. I wouldn’t mind it happening another time Sunday. You never get tired of it."

The April 6 double by Tiz Elemental and Tiz a Blend capped a sensational run of success for Gaines, who in one stretch of 15 starts sent out 11 winners. Her 21 total victories in 76 starts at Santa Anita--a glittering 27.7 percent--enabled her to become the first woman ever to finish in the top five in the final trainer standings. Her six stakes triumphs tied Hall of Famer Bobby Frankel for the meet high and established a one-season record for a woman trainer.

"It can’t get any better than this," Gaines said. But it might.

Tiz Elemental went to the sidelines after her 2007 victory in the Melair, but has returned this year to win the Honest Lady and the Las Flores in open stakes company and is being pointed to the Breeders’ Cup Filly Sprint on October 24, during the Oak Tree Racing Association meet.

"She’s a handful around the barn," Gaines said. "Two men have to be with her and one of them is usually flying through the air trying to calm her down."

Tiz a Blend started only once at 3 and won only one of her first seven starts before this year, but is 2-for-3 in 2008.

Most of her dam’s foals develop late," Gaines said. "Blending Element developed late herself, so this mare could have her best days ahead of her."

Blending Element’s biggest victory came as a 6-year-old in the 1999 Yerba Buena Handicap at Golden Gate Fields.

Tiz a Blend is the 34th horse by Harris Farms stallion Cee’s Tizzy to win a stakes race.
--Larry Bortstein