He was a yearling that nobody wanted, but trainer Sean Dooley and his brothers took a chance with Allbentouttashape that has already paid off
. The disfigured pacing colt was the Maritime’s top freshman in 2009 and is en route to another stakes-filled campaign.
In search of a colt by the popular Maritime stallion Quick Comeback, Dooley spotted Allbentouttashape in the 2008 Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition Select Sale as a yearling. He is the half-brother to Showmethefame (sired by Apaches Fame), a career winner of $427,704 who recently lowered his lifetime mark to 1:49.2 on Saturday, May 15 at the Meadowlands Racetrack.
“He was a good-bodied horse and came from a good place. Greg MacKenzie raised him and he raises strong animals as a rule,” explained Dooley. “I didn’t actually think I was going to be able to get him for what I was looking to pay. I was looking to pay probably $4-7,000 for a yearling and I thought he’d be a lot more but he had a deformed nose called a ‘wry’ and basically turned a lot of the buyers off so I took a chance with the nose and he seemed alright.”
Allbentouttashape, a $4,000 purchase, turned out to be a stunner winning 13 of his 16 engagements and never finishing worse than second to earn $76,957 for the Dooley Boys Racing Stable. His biggest victories were in the Atlantic Breeders Crown where he took his mark of 1:57.4 and the Maritime Breeders Final – both of which were during a year-end seven-race win streak. The bay gelding was named Two-Year-Old Colt Pacer of the Year and Horse of the Year by the Saint John Harness Horsemen's Association for his top-notch efforts on the track.
“He was quite a handful [to break and train down],” admitted Dooley. “He’s a big strong colt with a lot of energy and had his own attitude about doing things the way he wanted to do it but basically when I gelded him things started to fall in place. He was quite aggressive early in [his two-year-old year] but Kenny Arsenault, his driver, did a really good job keeping him calm and getting him some manners behind the gate. Basically he was a sound horse that had no issues at all with soundness or breathing or anything.
“Gate speed was probably his big attribute,” noted Dooley. “He was a good leaver but he was more than one-dimensional. He made a couple of starts from the back tier and he won from the back of the pack too. On a half-mile track in the Maritimes and when there’s trailing positions it’s a big advantage being able to leave.”
Being a good trucker and easy on himself also helped Allbentouttashape stay so consistent, added Dooley.
“If he could win a race by a length or a length and half he did. He wasn’t the type of horse that would run away and win by 10. He liked to race and liked to win but just kept it well within himself.”
Allbentouttashape spent a month at a farm in Woodstock, NB during the winter before heading to Christine Wry’s farm in Nova Scotia. According to Dooley, the colt trained back very well and looks strong. In his third qualifier of the season on Thursday evening at Charlottetown Driving Park, he won by six lengths in 1:57.4.
“I think he’s got lots of potential and I think once he gets to the racing wars his competitive spirits will fire up and hopefully he’ll do well. I certainly don’t expect to have the same kind of season that he had last year but I do expect him to be one of the better colts.”
Dooley is pointing his prized pupil to the first Atlantic Sires Stakes event for three-year-old colt pacers on May 30 at Inverness Raceway. Another stakes-filled campaign is calling his name if he stays healthy.
“I always get one or two colts every year or every couple of years and hopefully sell them as three-year-olds,” says the Newfoundland native, a full-time emergency mental health nurse whose father had horses while he was growing up. Dooley’s been a part-time horseman since the early 1980s and is currently stabled at Exhibition Park Raceway in Saint John, NB. This year, he also has Allbentouttashape’s two-year-old half-brother, Ventures Cirrus (by Arcane Hanover).
“I’ve had some marginal success. I’ve had some stake winners but nothing on the level of Allbentouttashape.”
After getting his two brothers involved in the ownership ranks, Dooley says racing is a “fun-family-type-of-thing.”
“We’re fairly serious about racing but it's not like he needs to win everything for us to be happy.”