G3-Winning Filly Seeks Ninth Straight in $250,000 Barbara Fritchie (G3)

LAUREL, MD – It took more than three decades for trainer Javier Contreras to become an overnight sensation. A regular on the Laurel Park backstretch in the early 2000s, the 60-year-old native of Mexico won more races and purse money in 2018 than in any single season of his career, now in its 35th year.

Jockey Fredy Peltroche enjoyed similar success last year, winning a lifetime best $1,361,833 in purses. It was the fifth time Peltroche, 41, has reached seven figures in a North American riding career that began when he arrived in the U.S. from Peru in 2003.

They both have Late Night Pow Wow to thank.

Breeze Easy’s 4-year-old Fiber Sonde filly has helped thrust Contreras and Peltroche from relative anonymity into the spotlight thanks to an eight-race win streak, the last five of them in stakes, including the first in graded company for both jockey and trainer.

“She is the best horse I have ever ridden. She is very, very special horse for me,” Peltroche said. “She’s a big filly now. She’s very, very, very good.”

Late Night Pow Wow goes after her ninth straight victory in Saturday’s $250,000 Barbara Fritchie (G3), co-headliner with the $250,000 General George (G3), both seven-furlong sprints for older horses, on a Winter Carnival program featuring five stakes worth $800,000 in purses.

Bred in West Virginia by John McKee, Late Night Pow Wow ran her first nine races at Charles Town for Contreras as owner and trainer, making one start as a 2-year-old. She won eight of them, the only exception a half-length loss as the favorite in the 4 ½-furlong Its Binn Too Long last April in her stakes debut.

Since then, Late Night Pow Wow has strung together win after win by a combined 21 ½ lengths, the highlight being a hard-fought neck triumph in the Charles Town Oaks (G3) last September. The Barbara Fritchie marks her return to graded-stakes competition at a distance where she is four-for-four lifetime.

Late Night Pow Wow is also unbeaten in two tries over Laurel’s main track, having won the Willa On the Move Stakes in November to cap her sophomore campaign and the What A Summer Stakes Jan. 12 to begin 2019. Her average margin of victory in those races is more than 5 ½ lengths.

“It’s amazing. I was so lucky to come across her, absolutely,” Contreras said. “It’s been a hell of a ride for me, for my jock, for everybody in the barn. You look forward to getting up early in the morning to come to the barn.”

Contreras worked with horses in Mexico, riding in quarter horse races, before coming to the U.S. as a teenager. In 1970, his family moved to Miami where he found work on a farm for late Hall of Fame trainer Thomas J. Kelly. He stayed for 2 ½ years, going with Kelly’s horses to Atlantic City and Monmouth Park in New Jersey and Hialeah in South Florida.

Eventually, Contreras went to work for Stanley Hough at the former Calder Race Course when the trainer was in the midst of a run that would land him in the track’s Hall of Fame. Contreras took out his trainer’s license in 1982, and sent out his first runner April 19, 1985 at Hialeah. Ten days later, Heavy Flick gave him his first career winner.

“I celebrated my 13th birthday in the United States. [Kelly] gave me a hell of an opportunity there to learn how to gallop and do all kinds of things,” Contreras said. “When I worked for Stanley I was galloping horses, grooming, doing whatever he needed. I worked for him for a long time. He’s a great trainer.

“Right after I got my trainer’s license I went to Tampa for the first year and from there I moved to the Delaware-Philadelphia area,” he added. “Then I moved to Maryland and we did really good there for quite a few years. We had some really good years.”

In fact, Contreras called Maryland home in 2001 when he won 41 races and $921,585 in purse earnings, both career highs that took him 17 more years to surpass. His 278 starters that year remain a high-water mark.

A winner of more than 600 races from over 4,000 starters, Contreras’ best previous horse was a gelded, multiple stakes-winning son of Fiber Sonde named Hidden Canyon that had nine victories from 15 races from 2012-16 and earned $288,738 for Contreras.

Prior to the Willa On the Move, Contreras sold Late Night Pow Wow to Mike Hall and Sam Ross of Breeze Easy. Relative newcomers in Thoroughbred ownership, winning their first race at Presque Isle Downs in the summer of 2016, the Breeze Easy partnership has enjoyed success in a short time.

Shang Shang Shang, a horse Breeze Easy purchased for $200,000 as a 2-year-old in training, won the Norfolk (G2) last June at Royal Ascot in England for trainer Wesley Ward. The following month, they went to a sales-topping $700,000 to get stakes-winning filly My Miss Tapit at Fasig-Tipton’s Selected Horses of Racing Age auction.

Also the owner of Imprimis, a two-time stakes winner including the Jim McKay Turf Sprint last May at legendary Pimlico Race Course, Breeze Easy purchased the top-priced yearling at Fasig-Tipton’s July 2016 sale, going to $475,000 to acquire a colt by Hall of Famer Curlin. They sold him during Fasig-Tipton’s Midlantic sale at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium in 2017 for $1.5 million.

Hall and Ross owned a leasing and drilling company, Ellenboro, W.V.-based Bluestone Energy Partners, a producer of natural gas which was acquired by Antero Resources Corp. in December 2010 for a reported $93 million. Hill and Ross hold equity positions in Antero as part of the deal. Former trainer Mike Mollica works as their racing manager.

“The owners are very gracious and they don’t put any pressure on me at all. I think she’s done very well for them,” Contreras said. “I’d love for her to win another graded-stake, absolutely. I put a little pressure on myself trying to make sure she gets there as tight as she can be.

“They are putting their money into the game. This is the position that every trainer wants to be in, to work for people that have good horses and they give you a shot with them,” he added. “Maybe things will keep going and I’ll be lucky enough to keep working for them and maybe they can bring me more nice horses.”

Peltroche rode for 10 years in Peru, graduating from its famed jockey school named for Hall of Famer Laffit Pincay Jr. before coming to the U.S. and making his debut June 3, 2003 at Delaware Park. On July 6, 2013 he picked up his first North American winner there with Ricardo Morales-trained Red Sprinkles.

In 2004 Peltroche rode at Gulfstream Park and Calder, now Gulfstream Park West, before landing at Charles Town in 2005, his first full season in the irons. He has established himself as one of the track’s leading riders, ranking fourth in wins (81) and sixth in purses ($1.2 million) in 2017 and fifth in purses ($1.26 million) and sixth in wins (68) in 2018.

Through the first six weeks of 2019, Peltroche again ranks among the leaders at the meet which began Jan. 4 and runs through Dec. 21. His brother, Elias, rides regularly at Fair Grounds in Farmingdale, N.Y., while two other brothers remain jockeys in Peru.

“I rode a long time at home because I have a lot of family in my country,” Peltroche said. “A lot of jockeys come from my country. I see some of my friends like Edgar Prado, Rafael Bejarano and Miguel Mena come here and I came, too.”

Peltroche has not only been aboard for each of Late Night Pow Wow’s starts, but he has come with Contreras to Laurel to work the dark bay or brown filly before the Willa On the Move and What A Summer. They continued the pattern last weekend, breezing five furlongs in a sharp 59 seconds Feb. 9.

“She is doing so good, working good. Everything is fine,” Peltroche said. “She makes big strides there and she’s been working perfect. She really likes the track there.”

With her career as a broodmare waiting, this is expected to be Late Night Pow Wow’s final season of racing. Until then, Contreras is savoring every moment with his stable star.

“[We] watch her come out of her stall and walk around the shedrow before she goes to the track, watch her train, watch her cool out. It’s been amazing,” he said. “It’s a once in a lifetime thing, so I have to enjoy it. Who knows, I might not ever get another one like her. I’m hoping I do.”