The angel and ‘Mistery’ heart
August 4, 2021, by Rich Fisher, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent
Trenton, NJ — When Sonofamistery gets behind the gate for Saturday’s $1 million Hambletonian at The Meadowlands, co-breeder Christine Cone feels he will have an angel on his back.
He also has a heart on his head and, in a cool but somewhat mysterious way, the two are nicely interwoven.
The angel is Christine’s late mom, Claudean, the founder of Millstream Farm, who bred Sonofamistery with her daughter and Aldebaran Park Inc. The heart, according to the word around Millstream, is Claudean’s way of telling everyone this horse has what it takes.
The discoverer of this phenomenon was Christine’s fiancé Michael Midford, who also works at the Cream Ridge, N.J., breeding farm. The two are getting married next May in the ski town of Whitefish, Montana.
“A couple weeks after my mom had passed (in September 2019), my fiancé was driving around the farm and he noticed this heart shaped puddle — it was kind of eerie,” Cone said. “After someone passes you look for signs around you and he came to me and said, ‘Chrissy, I think you need to come and look at this.’ So, we went out, I looked at it and said, ‘OK, that’s a little strange.’”
It gets stranger.
“The puddle dried up,” Cone continued, “but it just kept coming back and coming back and it kept coming right up to a week prior to the Harrisburg sale (in 2019) when Sonny had sold. And it never showed up again. Looking at the puddle, it was exactly (the same shape of) Sonofamistery’s perfect heart on his head. I mean, it comes down to one size is bigger than the other. It’s just an eerie little thing.”
So, this was Claudean at work?
“I think so,” Christine said. “My mom and life and death work in mysterious ways. This was one of them and certainly her trying to tell us ‘You know what, he’s going to be OK.’”
He’s a bit more than OK at this point. A son of Muscle Hill out of Mistery Woman, Sonofamistery is one of Saturday’s favorites on the morning line at 4-1. Owned by S R F Stable and Holly Lane Stud East LTD, he will start from post six with three-time Hambletonian-winning driver Brian Sears and has been improving throughout the season.
After going winless in his first three starts, the horse has won twice in his last five. He has three seconds and a third and has earned $142,132 after a 2-year-old season in which he won three times for $27,500 in eight starts.
Asked if Sonofamistery has picked it up lately, Cone said, “I think absolutely. He’s got freakish speed just like his dam. Mistery Woman is a world champion in her own right. With that being said, he definitely has both mom and dad’s freakish speed. He needed to figure it out and mature and it seems that he has done so.”
Much of that has to do with the work of trainer Marcus Melander, driver Sears, and caretaker Elise Tillerflaten.
“You can’t have a better team,” Cone said. “Having those three is a dream team going into the Hambo. When we sold him and he got into Marcus’ hands, I knew that he would excel to the best of his ability.”
She credits Sears for much of the recent success.
“I think he’s become versatile,” said the recent birthday girl. “Brian has done a fantastic job of kind of teaching him more this season how to come from behind and how to chase a target. I think that’s extremely important, especially in the Hambletonian. I think Brian is going to have the ability to do what he needs to do and hopefully get there at the end.”
The Millstream gang will be at The Meadowlands to watch it play out, after spending a nervous weekend in Cape May, N.J., to celebrate Christine’s 40th birthday. Cape May’s neighboring south Jersey shore resort, Wildwood, is usually known for being the more rowdy of the two towns, with the Cape having a somewhat serene atmosphere.
But the Cone entourage flipped the script on that one while watching last Saturday’s elimination race at the oceanfront La Mer Hotel. When Sonofamistery qualified for the final by finishing fourth, the noise in the room drowned out the waves crashing on the beach.
“Shockingly enough, we were not told to be quiet,” Cone said with a laugh. “I thought we would definitely get a phone call saying we needed to keep it down. Our mantra has been ‘Top five, just get into the finals.’ And we were just ecstatic to have that top five happen.”
The explosion came after holding in a lot of angst for 24 hours.
“We’re here for my 40th birthday; you’ve got to do something big right?” said Christine while sitting on the beach Tuesday. “We came on Saturday and went to dinner. Mike and I were looking at each other just not wanting to talk about it being elimination night. It was one of those feelings we just kind of had knots in our stomach. It couldn’t come soon enough but at the same time it was a big relief to be top five.”
And while there is still work to be done, Sonofamistery is proving to his breeders that their early opinions of him are correct.
“I knew from day one he was something special,” Christine said. “When he was born, he really just kind of ruled the roost on the farm and he kind of had that look in his eye where you knew this colt was a little bit different. My mom saw him, and she completely fell in love with him and said, ‘I do think this guy is something.’
“I think my mom would be over the moon about this; and I know she still is. He has an angel on his back every time he races.”
For those who believe in omens, that angel has had no problems sending down positive re-enforcement.
