Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘Tiny’ Brings Mark Stanley Back To Limelight

“I never expect to win any race, but I expected her to run well,” said Stanley. “We’ve been pretty behind the eight-ball with her, so hopefully she can build off of that and take another step forward.”

Contrary to her name, “Tiny” is actually fairly large for a filly. That size made her slow to mature, Stanley explained, and also likely helped him afford her as a yearling.

Tiny Temper was bred by the Alan S. Kline Revocable Trust out of a graded stakes-placed daughter of Blame, Don’t Blame Me. She brought $240,000 as a weanling at the Keeneland November sale, but RNA’d at $310,000 at Keeneland September.

Consignor Hunter Valley Farm put the filly back in the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling sale, and again she failed to achieve her reserve when bidding stopped at $155,000. Stanley was then able to buy her privately.

“I was a big fan of Arrogate, but he got off to a little bit of a slow start and her price came down,” Stanley said. “I think a lot of the Hunter Valley people, and when I went by to see her after the sale, they were really high on her. She moves real well, she’s a good size, so she had a lot of appeal to her.”

Tiny Temper did make two starts as a 2-year-old, running second in her troubled debut and winning second out, but she was injured in that second start and required time off. The filly made it back to the races in August of her 3-year-old year, but finished fourth so was sent back to the farm of Becky Maker to get her back on the right track.

“She’s a real big filly and it took her a while to grow into herself,” Stanley explained. “Becky’s rehabilitation program got Tiny back to the track in great condition.”

Tiny Temper returned to Dallas Stewart’s care in November at Churchill, and he had her ready to run by late January at the Fair Grounds. The filly won an off-the-turf allowance by a half-length, after which Stewart targeted the Azeri.

“After she won (Jan. 25 entry-level allowance at Fair Grounds), I was like: ‘We need to be serious about what we’re doing with her quick,’” Stewart told Oaklawn media after the Azeri win. “She showed up big today. We believed in her all along. It’s just taken a while.”

While the G1 Apple Blossom is still on the radar for Tiny Temper, Stanley is most looking forward to the G1 La Troienne.

“I think the long stretch at Churchill will be perfect for her,” Stanley said.

It won’t be the first time Stanley has run a horse in a big race beneath the Twin Spires - just the first time in a few decades. His best racehorse thus far is Ecton Park, who finished 12th in the 1999 running of the Kentucky Derby. Ecton Park won the G1 Super Derby later that year, and would go on to a record of 6-4-5 from 23 starts for earnings of $1.5 million.

Ecton Park was named for a park in Lexington at which Stanely coached Little League baseball for 12 years; Stanley donated 15 percent of the colt’s earnings to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation in honor of his son Jimmy, diagnosed at age 4.

Stanley and his wife both went to college at the University of Louisville, and spent many an afternoon at Churchill Downs watching the races. After graduation, Stanley organized a guys’ trip to Saratoga, and wound up wandering across the street to the Fasig-Tipton sale.

“I said, ‘Look, there’s no reason to bet ‘em when we could buy ‘em!’” Stanley said, laughing. “All 16 of us were going to kick in $5,000, so we stumbled across the street and bought the third-fastest 2-year-old at the sale.

“I’m not sure we had done enough research; we just stumbled across from the track.”

Ultimately, his friends decided not to pay their share in the $70,000 2-year-old filly by Temperence Hill. Luckily for Stanley, the filly wound up winning the Grade 2 Beaumont Stakes at Keeneland in 1994, and earned a total of $208,389 on the track.

“I was hooked,” he said. “It became something my wife and I like doing together, and my daughter and her husband are really into it as well. I think Alex likes it because they’re named after her!”

Alex is the “Temper” in most of the Stanley-owned fillies, he relayed.

“She really lived up to the ‘Terrible Two’s,’” he said. “The filly was by Temperence Hill, so we called her ‘Her Temper.’ Ever since, we’ve always used ‘Temper’ in any of the fillies’ names.”

Today, Stanley keeps no more than five horses in training at a given time, so taking on champion fillies owned by powerhouse stables like Godolphin and Juddmonte in the La Troienne could be intimidating.

Stanley also hadn’t had a graded stakes winner since 2010, having found it harder to purchase quality horses at auction with extra competition from syndicates with higher budgets.

“The price of good horses just jumped,” he said. “Ecton Park had a club foot, Pleasant Temper was offset in knees, but now when they’re buying 10 horses they tend to overlook that stuff.

“The industry has changed a bit, but it’s still horse racing… You’ve got to be in it to win.”