new stallions for 2010: visionaire

Visionaire (ch h 2005 Grand Slam x Scarlet Tango, by French Deputy)

Crestwood Farm, Ky; $7,500

A very robust horse with a pretty head, Visionaire made $300,000 as a Saratoga select yearling in the capable hands of Reiley McDonald at Eaton Sales. That sum was two and a half times the yearling average for Grand Slam in 2006. So you know the horse was big, pretty, and well-grown.

He still is. In fact, I’d be surprised if Visionaire ever missed an oat in his life. He is a big-topped animal who is typical of his grandsire French Deputy and of the more substantial stock that Grand Slam can sire also.

Nicely let down from racing, Visionaire now girths 77.5 inches and stands over a lot of ground. He has a big eye and a very masculine head and topline. The chestnut horse is a good example of the muscular animals that can come from this pedigree. He has good forelegs, a strong hip, and plenty of length.

During his racing career, Visionaire showed the power necessary to come from behind in top company, and he looks like a horse who should have handled distances somewhat longer than a mile.

In terms of pedigree, he is another example of Mr. Prospector crossed on Northern Dancer, and for breeders he also represents the typical quandary: where to go now?  And before anyone suggests Bold Ruler or inbreeding to Northern Dancer or Native Dancer, the big chestnut already carries duplications of all three.

So put on your thinking caps and find him some mares.

curmudgeon on native dancer

John Sparkman discusses the origins of Native Dancer in this fascinating post. A foal of 1950, Native Dancer won 21 of 22 starts, losing only the Kentucky Derby (narrowly), and the gray son of Polynesian has become increasingly important as an influence in pedigrees. You can read more about that in my post from last week.

new stallions for 2010: colonel john

Colonel John (dk b colt, Tiznow x Sweet Damsel, by Turkoman)

WinStar Farm, Ky; $15,000

This dark bay colt is bred to have a distance runner’s physique — tall and spare — with a sire like Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Tiznow and with champion Turkoman for a broodmare sire. Turkoman (a son of Alydar) is also the broodmare sire of Horse of the Year Point Given, who is another very big horse. Point Given, however, has quite a lot more mass than Colonel John. The latter is built like a distance runner or swimmer: tall and lean and well-tuned to perform.

Standing 16.3 in his plates, Colonel John towers over barnmates like Distorted Humor and Speightstown, but not his sire. Tiznow can look any horse in the eye. Colonel John is noticeably lighter made than his sire, however, who carried more all important muscle on his big frame that allowed him to win a pair of BC Classics and Horse of the Year. Despite siring a champion juvenile filly in his first crop, Tiznow is more typically a sire of two-turn horses who can develop high class and generally get better with age.

Colonel John, a stakes winner at 2 who also ran second in the Futurity at Hollywood Park, improved enough at 3 to win the G1 Santa Anita Derby and the Travers at Saratoga. Those performances mark him as a classy animal, and he showed determination, as well as athletic ability. Although his 4-year-old campaign was limited to four starts, Colonel John retired with six victories from 15 starts and $1,779,012 in earnings.

Colonel John has very good length through the body, outstanding leverage from the length and proportions of his hind legs, and very good extension to profit from his ground-covering stride.

A finely tuned and highly specialized animal, Colonel John represents a somewhat different type than his highly successful sire, who was less precocious than Colonel John but has proven relatively versatile as a sire.

With the vast quality of the WinStar broodmare band, Colonel John has the potential to be mated creatively and productively to produce some good racehorses.

remembering bayakoa

Racing fans remember their favorites for different reasons, but for my wife Irene, a trio horses stand out from her first two trips to Keeneland: champion Housebuster galloping out of the morning mist, champion Unbridled finishing second in the 1990 Blue Grass (to my choice Summer Squall), and champion Bayakoa, in town for the 1990 Spinster.

Although a horse lover from her youth, Irene never had been to a racetrack until we went there together, and having grown up in Georgia, she didn’t have a lot of options for a chance encounter with racing.

But in her first outings to the home of “racing as it was meant to be,” she was suitably impressed by the sport and by the grand horses she had the pleasure of watching. Among the trio, Bayakoa was a special favorite.

The Argentine-bred champion was a daughter of Consultant’s Bid (by Bold Bidder) out of the Argentine-bred Arlucea, by the Nashua stallion Good Manners. Bayakoa won a G1 in her homeland (was twice second in G1 company), then racked up 12 more G1 victories here in the States.

The big bay was a hell of a mare.

Sent to the paddocks here in Kentucky under the watchful eye of Frank Penn, Bayakoa “was a typical hard race mare, who never let down to be a mother, never let down the way you’d expect with a broodmare. She’d run herself fit in the paddock,” Penn said.

Clearly, the dominating attitude and high-energy disposition that made her such an extraordinary racemare posed some hurdles when the mare was supposed to be directing her energies into producing little Bayakoas.

The mare’s independence extended to pretty much every aspect of her life. Penn said that Bayakoa “would trust one person on the farm and didn’t much want anyone else to fool with her. She wasn’t mean or anything, but she had a mind of her own, and we adjusted to her, rather than trying to make her fit our way of doing things.”

Bayakoa was clearly accustomed to being large and in charge, and Penn took the practical horseman’s approach by working with the horse, rather than fighting her. He also learned a lot about what made the mare tick and perhaps some of the things that made her such a successful racer.

He said that “Bayakoa had a tremendous pain threshold, went through colic surgery, and after [Bayakoa's daughter] Arlucea (by Broad Brush) was born, the mare developed laminitis. After fighting it six weeks, we had to put Bayakoa down because she had too much rotation. She’s buried on the farm here, and people come by a few times a year to see the grave.”

As a racemare, Bayakoa was a real powerhouse, with a tremendous hindquarter that gave her the speed to lead or the kick to finish, depending on the circumstances of the race. The passion to compete that allowed her to be such a success on the track played some role in limiting her success as a broodmare.

None of her four foals showed form remotely in keeping with their great mother. Her two producing daughters are unraced Trinity Place, dam of multiple G1 winner Affluent (by Affirmed), and winner Arlucea, dam of multiple G1-placed Izarra (by Distorted Humor). Penn said that “Trinity Place is parrot-mouthed like Bayakoa but looks more like [her sire] Strawberry Road. Arlucea is more like Bayakoa,” in substance and frame.

Perhaps her daughters and granddaughters will produce more top horses, but even if they do not, the memories of Bayakoa in the saddling paddock at Keeneland have staying power. Who will forget her, with her neck bowed, her eyes virtually blazing, her muscles rippling as she pranced with grace and power?

the legacy of unbridled

The remarks from a reader about the lineage of this year’s Kentucky Derby second, Pioneerof the Nile, brought back some thoughts of his famous grandsire, Unbridled.

When Unbridled was put down due to complications from colic surgery on Oct. 18, 2001, Claiborne Farm and the breeding industry in general lost a top stallion far too early in his career. Unbridled was the big horse, not just as the racing star for Frances Genter and not just as the immense specimen who made other big horses look small. Unbridled’s significance to the breeding industry was even bigger than that.

The horse went to stud at a tough time for the industry, became an immediate success, and then was retained to stand in the U.S. without shuttling. For all these reasons, as well as his courage and personality, Unbridled became symbolic of some of the best qualities of American Thoroughbred breeding.

The son of the very high-class stallion Fappiano, who also died too young, Unbridled was a champion on the track, winning the Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic. A handsome horse with a big stride, Unbridled showed his best form at 10 furlongs, but he also had enough speed to run down champion sprinter Housebuster at seven furlongs. Despite Unbridled’s accomplishments on the track, he went to stud in 1992, near the end of the bloodstock depression, when it was hard for horses to find a place at stud and harder still to fill books for them.

That didn’t faze Unbridled. He made the most of his opportunities and sired a classic winner, Kentucky Derby winner Grindstone, and a Breeders’ Cup winner, Unbridled’s Song, in his first crop. This made him such a hot property that the offers started pouring in for him, with interests from Japan working hard to secure this highly promising young horse.

In the early and mid-1990s, the Japanese had purchased several top prospects, Horses of the Year and classic winners, for more money than the horses could have earned while standing here in the States, and some people were saying that the U.S. was busted and couldn’t compete. People’s spirits were down, many horsemen were feeling defeated, and some thought that the horse business in this country was dying.

But as one source close to the deal said, “There’s always a way to stand a good horse, a horse that people really want to breed to.” Unbridled was that horse.

So when it came to feelings of pessimism about the game, somebody neglected to tell Claiborne’s Seth Hancock, Rich Santulli, and other top American breeders. They stepped up and bought the horse from the Genter estate in competition with overseas interests. Unbridled was syndicated into 40 shares worth $475,000 apiece. At the time, the deal to purchase Unbridled was one of the largest transactions in several years, and despite what the horse had already done, some observers said he wasn’t worth it.

Looking back, Unbridled was an absolute bargain.

His importance to the breeding business is far greater than what he accomplished as a racer or sire. Retaining him for American breeders was a statement about what’s important in breeding: quality and classic performance. Securing Unbridled to remain in Kentucky and not shuttle was a huge psychological victory, an affirmation that American breeders could compete with anyone.

Since the purchase, Unbridled has had champion 3-year-old filly in Banshee Breeze in 1998, champion Anees in 1999, Preakness Stakes winner Red Bullet in 2000, champion juvenile filly Halfbridled and Belmont Stakes winner Empire Maker in 2003, the 2005 champion 3-year-old filly Smuggler, and the notable Grade 1 winners Manistique, Eddington, Exogenous, and Unshaded.

With performers like these, breeders and yearling buyers weren’t far behind in acclaiming Unbridled. He was one of the most reliable sources of racing stock that could go a distance, but he also sired two winners of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. The breeders’ response to the big bay accelerated annually to the point that no-guarantee seasons to Unbridled were fetching $225,000 the year before his death. And live-foal contracts were not buyable.

Top racing stock creates that kind of demand. “His record speaks for itself,” Seth Hancock said. “He was a great source of stamina. He could get you a champion, but above and beyond that, he was a really special horse to be around.”

When the time came, the people at Claiborne treated Unbridled with the respect he deserved and let him go. The big bay left behind a good band of offspring, the youngest of whom (foals of 2002) are coming 8-year-olds. We can look at them and find dreams both realized and others still hoped for.

From 10 crops of racing age, Unbridled sired 582 foals, 421 runners (72.34 percent), 279 winners (47.94 percent), 49 stakes winners (8.42 percent), and 26 graded stakes winners (4.46 percent).

Unbridled was a big horse. He cast a big shadow, and he has left us a big legacy.

new kentucky stallions for 2010

The listing below includes all the horses who have been announced to enter stud in Kentucky for the 2010 breeding season. Modigliani, relocating from Ireland to Castleton Lyons, is the only other stallion new to the Kentucky breeding scene.

Of these, I have already written profiles of US Ranger and Pioneerof the Nile. The remainder will follow in the coming weeks.

Name                              Sire                                 Fee                                 Farm

Boboman                      Kingmambo                $5,000                        Walmac

Colonel John              Tiznow                           $15,000                     WinStar

Cowboy Cal                 Giant’s Causeway      $7,500                        Pin Oak

Einstein                         Spend a Buck               —–                              Adena Springs

Kodiak Kowboy         Posse                              $15,000                     Vinery

Modigliani *                Danzig                            $5,000                       Castleton-Lyons

Old Fashioned            Unbridled’s Song       $12,500                     Taylor Made

Parading                       Pulpit                             $3,500                        Claiborne

Pioneerof the Nile    Empire Maker             $20,000                    Vinery

Singing Saint               El Prado                        $5,000                       Adena Springs

Tale of Ekati                Tale of the Cat             $15,000                     Darby Dan

Thewayyouare          Kingmambo                 $10,000                     Ashford

Tiago                              Pleasant Tap               $7,500                        Adena Springs

US Ranger                    Danzig                           $10,000                      Pauls Mill

Visionaire                    Grand Slam                 $7,500                        Crestwood

Zensational                 Unbridled’s Song      $25,000                      Hill ‘n’ Dale

* Relocating from Ireland

native dancer reshaped the breed

Native Dancer never measured anything, except his opponents’ shortcomings. But he is an outstanding example of how biomechanical analysis can work to help breeders understand the complexity of successful matings and trends in the game.

A grandly made, massively muscled son of Preakness winner Polynesian and the winning Discovery mare Geisha, Native Dancer reshaped the breed in his own image.

It is not the image that was preeminent in his own time, however. The transitional aptitudes of the classic-quality miler who excelled at 10 furlongs was the beau ideal of the 1940s through the 1960s, when Nasrullah and his son Bold Ruler were the most important influences on American breeding, ably assisted by Princequillo and his great son Round Table.

These horses were beautifully balanced in their physical quality and in their biomechanical properties, as well. And if they had a degree of mechanical imbalance about them, it tended to be toward stride length. They were good-bodied, medium-sized to big horses with speed and stamina. A breeder, however, would never mistake a Nasrullah for a Quarter Horse, which is the archetype of the power profile in mechanical development.

On the other hand, Native Dancer possessed those power characteristics of the Quarter Horse allied with size and scope that allowed him to excel at distances from five furlongs to a mile and a half. Native Dancer, in terms of his physical traits, was out of synch with much of the breed by having so much more power than the typical strains of Thoroughbred used by major breeders.

At first it seems illogical that horses you might call “imbalanced” can be outstandingly successful, but a good horse who is not mechanically balanced is exceptionally developed in one respect or another.

Examples of this type include the once-beaten Native Dancer, as well as his son, the important sire Raise a Native. While Native Dancer was a good sire during his own lifetime, it was only after his death, through his sons and daughters, that Native Dancer’s full impact on the breed began to develop and transform the breed.

In the case of Native Dancer and his descendants, the breed norms have drifted in the direction of the great gray himself. Although considered to be only a good stallion during his own lifetime, Native Dancer had a transcendent influence on the breed, and his lasting contribution seems greater over time.

This result cannot be explained simply by the preference for Native Dancer by breeders themselves. Instead, the traits that Native Dancer possessed: considerable body length, very good size, and a very large hip and hind leg – have become standardized among an elite population of stallions and mares.

For reasons that are partly social and partly economic, the traits that Native Dancer possessed had never become standard among the elite breeding stock of the Thoroughbred. For one thing, the great breeders of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century wanted to breed the classic horse, the horse who could excel over a mile and a quarter to a mile and three-quarters at 3, and the great majority of the power types would never be able to do this.

Native Dancer was able to carry his speed, and he came to prominence at a time when the economics of the sport were shifting rather dramatically from aristocratic domination by a handful of families and breeders. From the 1950s to the present, the influx of “new wealth” into Thoroughbred racing and breeding has propelled the value of Thoroughbreds upward by a factor of 50 to 100 times what they were worth a half-century ago.

The influence of this economic boom also has created a fully developed commercial marketplace for racehorses, and the buyers at these markets want action. They want horses who are going to be fast, contend for the important prizes, and perhaps they can make it to the classics, as well.

And the model for the “modern commercial Thoroughbred” is Native Dancer: big, round-bodied, strongly muscled, with a long hip, big gaskin, and shoulder. These are the traits of the biomechanical power horse.

Even among this tribe, there are variants. The most classic of these, led by the Fappiano and Unbridled crowd, also includes some unrelated but similar individuals, and their traits have become the preferred qualities many of the best performers in the breed who can stay 10 furlongs.

Some of the other strains of the power horse tribe are life and death to stay past a mile, and in that, they are showing the tendency of the purely power horse to gravitate toward short distances. For, while Native Dancer and his descendants have produced a gravitational shift in the breed, the forces of nature are apparently swinging back toward a more classic and better mechanically balanced type of horse that will take us through the coming decades.

seasons to pensioned stallions

A reader of this week’s post about the great work of the Thoroughbred Charities of America suggested that one way of funding equine charities would be to offer seriously rare seasons at auction and posed the question “Would it be possible, for the sake of charity, to auction off highly sought after breedings to pensioned stallions?”

Now, that is a good question. If scarcity increases value and what could be scarcer than seasons to pensioned stallions, then a shot at Storm Cat … or whomever was actually able to cover … would possess highly significant value.

But … as the following stallion managers explain, there are incidental considerations that would probably rule out charity seasons to pensioned stallions.

Ric Waldman, formerly consultant to Overbrook Farm and now consultant to other clients, said that “from the perspective of Storm Cat, if he were able to breed and impregnate mares, he wouldn’t be pensioned. There’s a considerable incentive to keep breeding him if he’s capable. He impregnated three mares out of the 32 or 33 he covered a year and a half ago. Even though he impregnated three, it took quite a few to get those pregnancies. As he ages, it would take a ratio larger than 10 – 1, you’d logically expect.

“Now if a cheaper stallion were retired due to unpopularity, that might be a different issue, but the dynamics that created the unpopularity would still operate if he were preeeding for charity. And there are a lot of other considerations involved in breeding stallions, whether for profit or charity,” such as expenses for insurance and labor.

Bernie Sams, who handles seasons and shares at Claiborne Farm, said that “if the horse is retired, nobody is going to do that. They have all been retired for a reason, either the horse’s health or fertility, usually. If a guy has retired a horse because he’s old, they aren’t going to take a chance of getting the horse hurt or getting one of the handlers hurt to breed a mare for charity. It just wouldn’t be a good idea.”

thoroughbred charities makes money for horses

Instead of horses racing or working to make money for people, the Thoroughbred Charities of America works to make money for the benefit of horses. Their approach is “horses helping horses” because the primary money-raising element of the auction is the sale of stallion seasons.

Horse farms and stallion owners — yeah, the millionaires that get a hard time in some quarters — donate the seasons, and the resulting income is then parceled out by TCA to deserving organizations around the country.

And what was once the best party on the Eastern seaboard is now the best one in the Bluegrass.

The TCA is the brainchild of Ellen and Herb Moelis, who formed the organization with such major owners and breeders as Allaire duPont, Elizabeth Moran (Brushwood Farm), Robert Levy, and Bob Manfuso.

Their stallion season auction had raised more than $1 million before the party on Friday night at Keeneland. The top season at the live auction was $150,000 for A.P. Indy, with seasons to Street Cry and Medaglia d’Oro bringing $140,000.

The event is not only about money but about refocusing interest and attention on things that are important to the sport and to the horses that make it all possible. The TCA is a great idea that our sport cannot do without. It is that important.

And for making these wonderful things happen, Herb and Ellen Moelis deserve an Eclipse Award.

spend a buck: equine celebrity and success

Sid Fernando wrote an insightful post about some of the mating successes Spend a Buck found during his shuttle years to Brazil (1997 – 1998) and during his years there as full-time resident (2001 – 2002). (Read it here.) Sid also added illuminating information in a commentary on yesterday’s post about this horse.

Spend a Buck spent nine seasons covering seasons in Kentucky at Lane’s End, where he had a bit of success but not enough. The 1985 Horse of the Year was sent to stand in Texas from 1995 through 1998, with trips south to Brazil as a shuttle stallion in latter two years.

The Kentucky Derby and champion had been purchased by Weldon Granger, who stood him in Texas at McDermott Ranch, but for the 1999 season, Granger moved the horse to Louisiana to stand at Jay Adcock’s Red River Farm.

Adcock said, “Spend a Buck almost didn’t make it.”

After Spend a Buck had left the farm in Brazil and entered quarantine, “he got sick and nearly died,” Adcock said. “While in quarantine, actually the day he was supposed to ship, he ran a temp, and they couldn’t ship him. Things got worse from there on.”

Strange as it may sound, quarantine is a place for animals to be verified as healthy. It is not a place for them to get sick. By the time Spend a Buck had recovered from illness and shipped to Miami, he was seriously out of shape.

But Adcock got the horse to Louisiana and went to work getting him healthy and back in breeding condition. Given time (this was a 17-year-old horse), Spend a Buck came around and stood at Red River for three years.

Adcock said, “After the near-death experience, they didn’t shuttle him. Then the Brazilians came and made Mr. Granger an awful good offer.” It was too good to turn down, but due to the amazing success of Spend a Buck’s first two years in Brazil, Haras Bage do Sul made a very serious effort to get the son of Buckaroo back in the country for breeders, and they succeeded.

From 1999 through 2001, however, Spend a Buck was the celebrity stallion in Louisiana. Adcock said, “I had people come to the farm just to take a picture with Spend a Buck. He knew he was a celebrity, he was photogenic, and he had a world of class. He was a really grand horse to be around.

“He would go out in his paddock, which had access to a pond, and would go out into the pond and lay around. Nothing fazed him. He had mares not far away from him all the time, and it never bothered him. Spend a Buck was a class act.”

After the 2001 season in Louisiana, Spend a Buck went south to Brazil for the last time, covered a full season there in 2001, and then on 24 November 2002, part-way through the Southern Hemisphere breeding season, Spend a Buck died of anaphylactic shock from a penicillin injection.