LRL: A full-circle moment for Daniel McKenzie
Sunset Rising scores the first upset
Frank Vesp- March 1, 2026
Daniel McKenzie arrived in the winner’s circle after Sunday’s first race at Laurel Park with his young daughter on his shoulders. She deserved the ride.
McKenzie, his daughter Lianna McKenzie and Katy Voss were the co-breeders of Sunset Rising, which started the day with a bang, posting a $40.40 prize in a $51,730 first special weight event. It took her a while to get to the races, but the wait was well worth it.
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“I started to get discouraged when she was 25-1,” Daniel McKenzie said. “I thought, ‘Man, they don’t know.’ It feels good: many years, very hard work.”
In fact, the story doesn’t begin today, or when Sunset Rising came to the barn, or even back in the breeding business when McKenzie bred Fearless Lassie, his young Jump Start mare, to Maryland sire Golden Lad.
It instead starts in 2021, when McKenzie claimed Fearless Lassie for $16,000 from a never-won two claimer. He was working for Voss at the time and first brought in Stephen Murdock and then Tony Aguirre to train her before he came up with a bright idea: do it himself.
“I said I wanted to claim a horse and get my trainer’s license,” McKenzie recalled. “She says, ‘Man, you’re good in the barn. Bring the horse over here: you help me, and I’ll help you.'”
He did it and she did it, and in her first start with McKenzie as a trainer of record, Fearless Lassie did so too, earning McKenzie’s first training victory.
It turned out to be her last victory. After two more starts, McKenzie took her out and soon sent her to Golden Lad, a stallion in which Voss had a season she had no intention of using. The resulting filly was big and solid, but her path to the races was anything but linear.
“She came in, she needed surgery right away,” McKenzie said. “She started back, and it’s a different issue, a different problem.”
She arrived today with a steady gust of wind that started in early January, and while none jumped off the page, McKenzie said he was happy with the way she had worked. He showed up at Laurel today with a confidence that the betting public did not share.
Bettors instead turned their focus to two other new starters in the field of seven: Vekoma’s Brittany Russell-trained Serenity Song, who left at even money, and Grande Voix, a Yaupon filly for Mike Trombetta who was 2-1.
Grande Voix, with Mychel Sanchez in the irons, immediately rushed to the front and led the field through an opener in 23.87 seconds while absorbing outside pressure from the 15-1 Nattie’s Boss. Jevian Toledo meanwhile had Sunset Rising in fifth place, but only three lengths behind the leader while two wide.
Grande Voix clung to the lead around the bend, but gave way in the upper portion as the cavalry arrived on the scene. Cupid’s Choice, with Xavier Perez in the irons, was the first to flash past, opening a two-length lead with a furlong to go.
But Toledo tagged Sunset Rising outside the leader and abandoned her run. Sunset Rising poked her head out inside the sixteenth post, but she was joined in the late Serenity Song, taking the lead with every step despite running on her left lead.
Sunset Rising and Serenity Song crossed the finish line as one, but it was Sunset Rising’s nose that arrived first, drawing cheers from the connections that matched the journey it took them to get there.
The running time for 5 ½ furlongs on a fast main track was 1:06.60.
Sunset Rising’s win was the 31stst of McKenzie’s training career. He is perhaps best known for his work with Just a Fair Shake, who first won at age two and then, as a sophomore last year, finished second in both the Federico Tesio Stakes and, on the Preakness undercard, the Sir Barton.
With another first-out winner in Sunset Rising, McKenzie has a number of races to look forward to.
“She’s really smart, and she’s always trying. Her mom always tried,” McKenzie said before pausing and thinking and adding, “It’s crazy.”
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