Mr. Stuart S. Janney III and Phipps Stable’s homebred four-year-old colt Tom Collins is seeking his maiden win on Friday, July 4th in Race 4 at Saratoga. The maiden special weight race for ages three years and older will cover a mile and a sixteenth on the inner turf with a purse of $100,000. Post time is scheduled for 2:46 pm Eastern.
Breaking from post № 7 in a field of 9 entries, Tom Collins is the morning-line second favorite at 7-to-2, with Peter Brant and Tony Shafrazian’s Dirand, a three-year-old Irish-bred by French-bred stallion Sottsass, favored at 3-to-1 after finishing third in his career debut last time out.
Tom Collins is making the fourth start of his 2025 campaign and has placed twice this year, finishing second at Tampa in March and third last month at Saratoga.
Trained by Hall of Famer Shug McGaughey, Tom Collins retains the services of five-time Eclipse award-winning jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. who rode him to a third-place finish last time out on June 6th in which he earned a career-high 77 Beyer speed figure.
By Darley’s stallion Frosted, a son of Tapit, Tom Collins is an eighth-generation Janney-Phipps homebred out of multiple stakes-placed Tiznow mare Party Now. The dam came up a neck short of stakes victory in the Tropical Park Oaks at Gulfstream Park in 2014 to eventual multiple graded stakes-winning Irish-bred Sandiva, by British-bred sire Footstepsinthesand.
Tom Collins’s tail-female line traces back to blue hen mare Belle Histoire, by Blue Larkspur, a daughter of Col. E. R. Bradley’s great imported French-bred matriarch La Troienne, by her native sire Teddy. Notable graded stakes winners from the family over the last decade include Inspector Lynley, by Lemon Drop Kid, Five Star General, by Distorted Humor, Seek and Destroy, by Verrazano, and Tammy the Torpedo, by More Than Ready.
Phipps Stable Fan 