Moscow Burning Seeks Sunshine Millions

ARCADIA, Calif. (Jan. 17, 2005) -- Moscow Burning doesn’t owe Jim Cassidy anything. The 5-year-old California-bred daughter of Moscow Ballet has become a world-class performer and earned nearly 30 times the price she was claimed for when Cassidy took her less than two years ago. Now it’s on to another lucrative event, the $500,000 Sunshine Millions Filly & Mare Turf at Santa Anita on Jan. 29.

“We claimed her for $25,000 and she’s earned close to $700,000 since,” Cassidy said. “She just looked like a runner. At first we didn’t know if she would be a good claim or not. The first time I ran her at Del Mar in an open race she got trapped, stopped and turned around. She went from second to fourth back to fifth up to fourth and finished second and just got beat. I said, ‘This is a running son of a gun.’

“Then when I started working with her, she had an attitude. She tried to take (jockey Victor) Espinoza over the fence. So we just worked with her and gave her a lot of TLC. She won the Grade II Sheepshead Bay in New York, was fourth in the Breeders’ Cup (F&M Turf) and should have won the Grade I Hollywood Turf Cup against the boys at a mile and a half. She got beat less than a length and should have won.

“She’s run so many great races, but that particular race she should have won. Then in the Sunshine Millions last year she got beat a nose. The winner got through on the inside and we went about 11-wide.”

In 20 starts, Moscow Burning has an 8-5-2 record with earnings of $807,535 for major owner Dallas Van Kempen of Vista and his partners, Jeffrey Mariani of Pleasant Hill and Michael Nentwig of Fremont, each a resident of California.

“It’s great to have her,” Cassidy said of Moscow Burning. “Anytime you have a horse for a year and a half and she’s still running good, that’s pretty good, especially at this level.”

First post time at Santa Anita on Sunshine Millions day is 11:45 a.m. The festive eight-race program consisting of four races each at Santa Anita and Gulfstream Park matching California-breds against Florida-breds will be televised nationally on NBC from 1-3 p.m.

In other Sunshine Millions developments:
Craig Lewis said Valentine Dancer would be pre-entered in both the Filly & Mare Turf, which she won last year, and the Distaff on the main track.

Pre-entries will be taken Wednesday, while the post position draw is next Monday.