The Thoroughbred Horse Owners and Breeders Association will honor its national award winners at its awards banquet on September 7 at Fasig-Tipton in Lexington. Five national winners have been announced ahead of time, and BloodHorse Daily will provide information about these winners throughout the week.
Today we make a profile Time for trouble The horse won the most prestigious award of the year.
Time for Trouble became the first horse in the 25-year history of the Claiming Crown to win the same Claiming Crown starter race consecutively when he won the Kent Stirling Memorial Iron Horse in 2023 at Horse Racing Tracks & Slots Fair Grounds after winning the race a year earlier at Churchill Downs.
Now, Time for Trouble has a title worthy of that unique achievement: 2023 Racehorse of the Year.
The English Channel gelding has won two of his seven starts in 2023, earning $186,970, his best finish on dirt. He has won by one length in the 2022 Preakness Stakes (G1) and the 2022 Belmont Stakes (G1) Minister of Innovation in a race that requires optional allowances at Keeneland in April 2023, and he ran down Byword by crashing into the front of the Iron Horse on a muddy track at Fair Grounds in his final start of the season.
Also in 2023, he finished second to dirt marathon specialist Next in the 1 3/4-mile Birdstone Stakes at Saratoga Race Track.
Just four appearances on grass last year left him with less than stellar results, said trainer Jeff Hiles of Louisville, Ky., who co-owns him with Paul Parker of Thorndale Stable in Paducah, Ky.
Time for Trouble was bred by Calumet Farm in Kentucky from a Galileo mare named Starstruck.
In a press release from the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association announcing Time for Trouble as the Horse of the Year, Hiles said of the horse, “We will continue to run this race this year, if he remains healthy.”
These are remarkable achievements for a horse that was claimed for just $8,000 just over three years ago. Hiles and Parker won in a 12-way random draw when 11 others claimed Time for Trouble.
The gelding, along with Hiles and Parker, will be honored at the 39th TOBA National Awards Dinner on September 7 at Fasig-Tipton in Lexington.
“I think it’s great that they give out awards like this, anything you can do for people like me,” Parker said in a release from the National HBPA. “It’s great to get any awards at the level I play. I have a mare that I breed. I have a chance to have a good horse someday. But will I ever win the Breeders Cup? Can I even think about winning Horse of the Year? I doubt it. But to win Horse of the Year, that’s something.”
