Family ties: Banitt-bred Slipped Onmybeans follows Fancy Little Girl’s lead

by James Platz

In 2023, Scott and Becki Banitt campaigned 2-year-old pacing filly Apple Juice to Horse of the Year honors in the State of Minnesota. This season, they have another standout filly pacer that is building a case for end-of-season hardware. Homebred Slipped Onmybeans has not only won nine of 10 seasonal starts, but she also possesses the same family ties as Apple Juice.

Slipped Onmybeans is the first foal from Fancy Schmancy mare Fancy Little Girl, a lifetime winner of nearly $100,000 bred, raised, and campaigned for part of her career by the Banitts. Fancy Little Girl is the older sister of the aforementioned $230,000-plus winner Apple Juice, and the first foal from the ultra-productive Computer Art, who has six winners from seven of racing age.

Fancy Little Girl won at least one race in each of seven seasons of competition, going 9-21-22 in 142 career attempts. Dean Magee was in the bike for her debut in June 2015, finishing second. Eleven years later, he was again the driver of choice behind Slipped Onmybeans in her first pari-mutuel start earlier this season, and has served as her only pilot.

“She went [1]:56.2 and I remember him coming off the track,” Scott said of the first trip with Fancy Little Girl. “He was shaking his head with that big smile. He goes, ‘Wow.’”

The couple would eventually sell the mare, a product of their stallion, Fancy Schmancy, but reacquired her later to add to their small breeding operation.

“She was pretty special,” Scott said. “She was a nice-looking horse. And that was our first foal out of our stud. So, we had an attachment. She tried every race. Even though she wasn’t the best in there, she fought to the wire every time. She was just a durable, gritty old mare, the kind you’d like. She wasn’t the fastest, but she tried hard. And she really passed that on to her offspring here now.”

The Banitts say that one of the greatest attributes Fancy Little Girl has passed to Slipped Onmybeans — outside of nearly identical looks and slightly different coloring — is that of endurance.

“If she could go a mile and a half races, we’d go a mile and a half because she has the endurance,” Scott said. “We’re not saying she’s the fastest, but she has that grit and determination that she can go forever.”

Conditioned by Scott, Slipped Onmybeans has become another strong performer at Running Aces. Since her debut in mid-June, the filly from the first crop of Captainryanmichael has turned in a nearly-flawless campaign to date. In her nine seasonal wins, her margin of victory has been less than two lengths only twice. And in her lone defeat, the margin was a head. Slipped Onmybeans is currently riding a seven-race win streak, including a 1:54.1 mark taken in early August, made all the more impressive by the fact that she and Magee have been saddled with the outside post in six of those contests.

“If you win three or four Minnesota-bred restricted races, which she’s in, they assign you the outside,” Scott said. “We’re racing her out of the 9-hole, so you basically have to leave to get anywhere. You can’t get away last and plan to come. She hasn’t shown her versatility. She’s actually more handy in a hole. She loves it.”

Slipped Onmybeans has already banked $71,950 for the breeders, considerably more than what they would have received had she sold at last fall’s Heartland Standardbred Sale, held in Winona, MN.

“We had a reserve of $12,000 on her at the sale, and I think she got up to $9,500,” he said. “My wife looked at me, and she goes, ‘I’m going to no sale this.’”

The filly was in the sale because Scott, retired from UPS, is intent on maintaining a small stable and pursuing racing for enjoyment. He isn’t keen on having a barn full of horses and the responsibilities that come with them, particularly when he embraces the role of grandparent in a growing family.

“I’m retired from UPS,” he said. “I had a 31-year career there, and we have six grandkids, with one on the way. They’re really getting active in sports and dance and school activities. I don’t want to make this a job. I want to make it a fun hobby.”

Keeping true to his word, Scott has all four yearlings in the Heartland Standardbred sale, slated for Sept. 22 at the Minnesota Equestrian Center. The consignment includes I Lost My Bananas, a full-sister to Apple Juice and Fancy Little Girl, Fancy Little Boy, a full-brother to Slipped Onmybeans, and Rightwhereushouldb, a first foal from Meechee, another sister to the above fillies.

“The reason I have everything in the sale this year is because I don’t want to make this my job, and I don’t want to hire people to help me, you know what I mean?” he said. “I like doing it myself, and I like sitting behind the horses. I just don’t want to make this my full-time gig anymore. I want to have fun at it, and I want to enjoy it, and enjoy every day of it.”

Slipped Onmybeans isn’t just delivering on the racetrack, she makes every day a joy with her presence in the barn. The conditioner said that, like her dam, the filly is super friendly and wants to be touched, petted, and hugged. On the track, however, she’s all business. And she’s separated herself from the rest in her division at Running Aces in what is shaping up to be a phenomenal freshman campaign. Saturday night (Sept. 19), Slipped Onmybeans will battle eight others in the $65,000 Championship for freshman pacing fillies, slated as Race 3. She has drawn post seven and is tabbed as the 3-5 morning line favorite.

“We were going to sell her for $12,000, but didn’t quite get to that,” he said. “So, we kept her. In hindsight, I’m glad we did.”