The happy news that Rachel Alexandra produced her first foal, a big colt by Curlin, is a reminder that she was Horse of the Year in 2009. Her successors as Horse of the Year are also mares: Zenyatta in 2010 and Havre de Grace in 2011, although U.S. racing had never before found a trio of mares to earn that honor.

Previously, Twilight Tear (1944) and Busher (1945) had been the only fillies to win successive acclaim as Horse of the Year. In between the World War II era champions and the present trio, Azeri (2002), Lady’s Secret (1986), All Along (1983), and Moccasin (1965 in a split decision with Roman Brother) are the only other fillies or mares chosen as the overall champion.

They make a grand list of exceptional racers who won many of the most coveted prizes of the American turf. And some of them became outstanding producers. In the context of Rachel Alexandra producing her first foal and the prospect of Zenyatta following suit before long, the production success of our best racemares is of even more interest.

Twilight Tear (1941 by Bull Lea x Lady Lark, by Blue Larkspur), the first filly Horse of the Year, was the most similar to Rachel Alexandra, a daughter of Medaglia d’Oro. Like the 2009 champion, Twilight Tear was from the first crop by her sire, and she also became his first champion racer.

Whereas Rachel Alexandra became a national hero with victory in the Preakness, Twilight Tear’s stablemate Pensive (Hyperion) was busy winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 1944. That season, she had been terrorizing the fillies in the Acorn and the CCA Oaks so that Calumet Farm appeared to have the best colt and filly of the season.

They met in the Arlington Classic, where Twilight Tear crushed the colts, then continued a scorched earth campaign through the year that included a victory in the Pimlico Special, earning her the national title.

As a producer, Twilight Tear was outstanding. She produced three stakes winners from seven foals, and two of them were notably high-class horses. As Calumet Farm’s second Horse of the Year, Twilight Tear was initially mated to Calumet’s first Horse of the Year, Whirlaway. The mare’s first two foals were by Whirlaway, and the second was stakes winner Coiner. Her third foal, A Gleam, was by Whirlaway’s sire, English Derby winner Blenheim, and she was ranked as the second-best 3-year-old filly in 1952 behind stablemate Real Delight after thrashing the better colts and fillies on the West Coast.

Twilight Tear’s last stakes winner was Bardstown (Alibhai), who was gelded and didn’t race until he was 4, but who nonetheless was a sparkling performer. He won major stakes each year, raced through age 7, and earned $628,752 in 1950s real dollars while winning major events like the Widener (twice), Trenton, and Gulfstream Park handicaps.

Although they never met on the racetrack, Busher (1942 by War Admiral x Baby League, by Bubbling Over) was as justly acclaimed as her predecessor as Horse of the Year. Winner in 15 of 21 starts, Busher was champion filly at 2, then the best of everything at 3, when she also became the leading money-earning filly to that time.

Busher defeated older fillies in the Santa Margarita, then older colts and horses in first the Arlington and then the Washington Park Handicap, as well as colts her own age in the Hollywood Derby.

As a racehorse, Busher was clearly as talented as any human beings that her owner Louie B. Mayer elevated into movie stardom.

But as a producer, things were not so easy for Busher. From five foals, only one raced. But that one counted. The mare’s only colt was the handsome Jet Action (by Kentucky Derby winner Jet Pilot). Jet Action won major stakes each year from 3 through 6, and at stud he may be best remembered as the sire of the second dam of Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew.

If Busher is counted as having an erratic production record, the results from Lady’s Secret were massively disappointing (no stakes winners), and All Along (Targowice) was only good, with two stakes winners, including G2 winner Along All (Mill Reef) in France.

But of all these Horses of the Year, the queen bee was Moccasin (1963 by Nantallah x Rough Shod, by Gold Bridge), a big and exceptionally fast 2-year-old who generated a lot of discussion about her potential for the Kentucky Derby of 1966 in a crop that also included champion Buckpasser and brilliant Graustark. The Derby did not work out for any of that trio, but the unbeaten juvenile champion filly was equally amazing at stud. From nine foals, Moccasin produced seven stakes winners.

Statistically, with fewer than 4 percent stakes winners annually for the breed, that ratio of success is impossible. But Moccasin did it anyway. The best of her foals was European highweight Apalachee (Round Table), who returned to Kentucky and became a useful sire of fast, rugged racers.

And the lesson from these big, beautiful, and brilliant performers is that, just as they dominated on the racetrack, the top racemares succeed more often than the norm in their role as mothers to the next generation of racing stars.

With a sassy victory in the Grade 2 San Fernando Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday, Tapizar has returned to a position of prominence that he occupied a year ago following a sharp success in the G3 Sham Stakes.

Unfortunately for the colt and owner-breeder Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC, the dashing bay son of Tapit went off the rails in his next start, the G2 Robert Lewis Stakes. Following the Lewis, Tapizar was found to have chipped a knee, which was treated surgically, and naturally, the colt took some time to recuperate and return to racing at his proper level.

It’s good news for racing, as well as for his owner and for the sire Tapit, that the handsome and robust colt appears to be back in top form and ready to make a sizable impression on the older division this season.

Already the sire of champions and multiple G1 winners, Tapit is a truly top young sire, and he only needs a tiny push to be ranked at the top of the tree with the very best in the world. From the evidence to date, the stock to give him that nudge are already on the track.

Not only is last season’s multiple G1 winner Zazu a star for her sire, but Tapit also has one of the best Triple Crown prospects in Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Hansen, a near-white colt who was named champion 2-year-old at last night’s Eclipse Awards and is one of the most striking and easily identified colts in the 3-year-old division.

Now Tapit has Tapizar reasserting himself to claim an important position among the older horses with a season full of premium racing ahead.

That is a bonus for Winchell Thoroughbreds, which bought and raced the elegantly bred Tapit, an 11-year-old son of the important stallion Pulpit and the Unbridled mare Tap Your Heels. The latter is a stakes-winning half-sister to champion sprinter Rubiano. Both are grays with speed and class, and they are out of the Nijinsky mare Ruby Slippers, also a gray.

Tapizar did not get the family’s graying gene, but he inherited a lot of the talent of his immediate family. Tapit was a good horse at 2, winning the Laurel Futurity, and was even better at 3 with a victory in the Wood Memorial. Despite an abbreviated career, Tapit appears to be one of the more consistent factors in breeding for both speed and soundness.

Along with his bay coat, Tapizar inherited his mass and size largely from his dam, Winning Call, and broodmare sire, Deputy Minister, a champion at 2 and a leading sire and broodmare sire. Tapizar is a tall, brawny beast who prefers to take the race to his competition early and stretch away from them furlong after furlong. He appears to possess the combination of balance and power that allows him to take the starch out of his competition and reduce the race to a competition on his own terms, and if Tapizar proves capable of producing these efforts consistently as the distances stretch out toward 10 furlongs, he is going to become a very salty customer in his division.

Tapizar is already the best horse produced by his dam, but he is making her look good now. Tapizar is yet another high-quality racehorse produced from the Carols Christmas family that has had such success in the Winchell breeding and racing program.

Carols Christmas, a daughter of Whitesburg, was a cornerstone producer for Winchell Thoroughbreds, and her best-known offspring was Olympio, a chestnut son of Naskra who was tough as hickory and won four derbies at 3: the Arkansas, American, Hollywood, and Minnesota, as well as running second in the Super Derby.

Carols Christmas also produced G2 Del Mar Debutante winner Call Now, who is the second dam of Tapizar. The 20-year-old Call Now has produced a pair of stakes-placed runners, including Tapatia (by Tapit).

Other descendants of Carols Christmas include Cuvee (Carson City), winner of the G1 Futurity Stakes, and Pyro (Pulpit), winner of the G1 Forego, second in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and third in the G1 Travers.

Both at the sales and on the racetrack, the breed is crying out for the influence of A.P. Indy. This is not so simply because the 1992 Horse of the Year has been a greatly successful and influential stallion. That he has.

But furthermore, his sons and daughters have become some of the most treasured members of the best international breeding operations, and some of A.P. Indy’s second-generation descendants like Tapit have ascended to the highest levels of demand in the commercial arena.

At the opening session of the Keeneland January sale on Monday, the Tabasco Cat mare Spice Island, in foal to Tapit (by Pulpit), sold for $775,000, and the mare is already the dam of Grade 1 winner Ice Box, a son of Pulpit who has retired to stand at Calumet Farm for the 2012 breeding season.

And rather than being led by commercial fashion, the demand for the A.P. Indy line at the sales is fueled by their success and increasing dominance on the racetrack.

This weekend, for instance, the grand old man’s daughter Captivating Lass won the Busanda Stakes at Aqueduct, and his son Stephanoatsee was second in the Count Fleet. The winner of the Count Fleet was Alpha, by the A.P. Indy stallion Bernardini.

At Gulfstream Park, the A.P. Indy stallion who marked his sire as a rising force in breeding, Pulpit, had the winner of the Marshua’s River, Heavenly Landing, and Pulpit is also the sire of Longview Drive, who ran third in the Sham at Santa Anita on Saturday. The Tapit filly Tapitsfly ran third in the Marshua’s River.

The reasons for the expanding ascendency of A.P. Indy are complex, but some of the hallmarks of the line are an enthusiasm for racing, a refreshing combination of speed and stamina, and the potential to race at the very highest class.

A.P. Indy has sired occasional very fast horses who won at sprint distances, such as G1 Hopeful Stakes winner Majestic Warrior, G2 sprint stakes winner A.P. Assay, and Churchill Downs Stakes winner Saint Anddan, who was one of the leading freshmen sires in 2011.

But the reality is that nearly all high-class horses are fast, and the best of the A.P. Indys tend to show their form going two turns because the greater prestige and prizes are available in those races. So we mostly associate the progeny of A.P. Indy with the classic distances, and among his best are Preakness winner and champion 3-year-old Bernardini, now an important young sire, and Horse of the Year Mineshaft, who sired one of the best 3-year-old fillies in 2011, It’s Tricky, winner of the G1 Acorn and CCA Oaks.

The accumulating importance of A.P. Indy is shown in the number of his sons who have become important young sires, such as the 2010 leading freshman sire Congrats, who outfinished Bernardini for that honor. And the full brother to Congrats, Flatter, is the sire of G1 winner Flat Out, one of the best older horses in 2011 when he won the Jockey Club Gold Cup and was second in the Whitney and Woodward.

Like the great sire of stallions Northern Dancer, A.P. Indy can get important sons at stud who showed a vast difference in racing results. Some of the successful sons of A.P. Indy were excellent racehorses, like Bernardini, Mineshaft, and Pulpit. Others were talented but less proven, like the stakes-placed Flatter and the twice-raced Malibu Moon.

An enigmatic facet of the A.P. Indys’ dominance is that they generally add finesse to their mates. In addition to speed, to stamina, to gameness, they add that little touch of undescribable excellence that is so much a part of the best racing stock.

So the next time you’re at Lane’s End looking at the new stallions, spare a moment to observe and offer a bow to the big bay horse who has given so much to racing and breeding. He is an honor to the breed.

Only a couple of his sons came close to emulating his success at stud, notably Caerleon, but the daughters of Nijinsky were another matter. They were great producers, and nearly all of them are gone. That is not surprising since Nijinsky died 20 years ago in 1992.

But there are a few still kicking the can down the road, and the Bernardini colt Alpha, winner of the G3 Count Fleet Stakes at Aqueduct on Saturday, is out of Munnaya, a 21-year-old daughter of the great racer and sire. She was bred by Gainsborough, is owned by Darley, and also has a yearling full brother to Alpha, who has to be one of the last prospective top horses out of a Nijinsky mare.

As a racehorse and as a broodmare, Munnaya has been one of her sire’s better representatives, and the tale may not quite be told. It will be great fun to watch Alpha’s progress over the coming months.

Munnaya’s racing and produce record are below:

With victory in the last Grade 1 stakes of 2011, Teddy’s Promise added another crown of laurel to one of the oldest families in the American Stud Book that traces back through the centuries to the Cub Mare, who was bred in England in 1762. Her daughter Maria Slamerkin, by the English-bred stallion Wildair, was born when her dam was 7 and is the next ancestor of Teddy’s Promise.

If it seems a bit obscure to step back 250 years to discuss the pedigree of a contemporary stakes winner, there is a lot to learn along the way.

Not the least thing is the value of enthusiastic sportsmanship, which the owners and breeders of Teddy’s Promise displayed when Ted and Judy Nichols chose to test the G1 waters in the La Brea rather than the listed Kalookan Queen Stakes the following day.

An earlier sportsman of great enthusiasm and good fortune was George Lorillard. He raced some of the best offspring of the great 19th-century sire Lexington, and in 1879, he won the Alabama Stakes at Saratoga with Ferida. She is one of the outstanding female-line descendants of Maria Slamerkin, and Ferida is the 13th dam of Teddy’s Promise.

In 1879, Ferida was first or second in 13 of her 14 starts, with her successes also including the Monmouth Oaks and Ladies Stakes, as well as other all-age and all-sex events of the time. The following year, Ferida won the Great Long Island Stakes and had the peculiar distinction of running in two races on the same card.

That takes a tough racer, but Thoroughbreds a century ago were trained differently than they are today. And in the 19th century, it was commonplace for them to race in heats (best two out of three) to claim a prize, rather than the single dash, which was becoming more customary when Ferida was racing toward the end of the century.

And when the bay daughter of leading sire Glenelg and the Lexington mare La Henderson retired, she was considered an outstanding representative of one of the best Thoroughbred families.

Yet 30 years later, that was no longer the case. In 1913, the English Jockey Club created the Jersey Act, which declared any horse a “half-bred” unless it could show direct ancestry in all lines to stock registered in the earliest volumes of the General Stud Book of England. This made horses descending from some of the best American lines ineligible for the GSB unless already in the book.

Primary among those “tainted” horses was Lexington, whose stock had been a cornerstone of the breeding programs of the Lorillards, Whitneys, Vanderbilts, and others up to this point.

As expected, these horses descending from Ferida and other Lexington stock became less desirable, less valuable, and less productive of top-class performers.

But in 1958, another high-class member of this female line showed up in Hillsdale (by Take Away out of the Johnstown mare Johann), and Hillsdale finished his 3-year-old season at Santa Anita with a victory in the Malibu Stakes. Hillsdale was better yet at 4, winning 10 of 13 starts, including the Hollywood Gold Cup, and more than a half-million dollars.

Sent to stud at Claiborne Farm, Hillsdale placed his family on a much higher level of contemporary recognition, and his two-years younger half-sister Hillbrook is the fifth dam of Teddy’s Promise.

And while Hillsdale was central in asserting that this family was still top quality for racing, his sister proved a broodmare of excellence for Paul Mellon’s Rokeby Stables. Hillbrook produced seven foals, all fillies, and one major winner, Prides Profile (Free America). The latter won the Schuylerville, Gazelle, and Diana, as well as finishing second in the CCA Oaks and Ashland, third in the Mother Goose and Alabama.

What makes Hillbrook exceptional is that six of her daughters produced stakes winners, and several of them were high-class animals. The daughter of importance to our story is Prides Promise (Crozier), who was second twice in three starts.

But as a broodmare Prides Promise produced Summertime Promise (Nijinsky) for Rokeby, and when she was deemed redundant in the racing stable, she was sold and became a more successful racemare with victories in the 1976 Apple Blossom Handicap, as well as a second in the G1 Santa Margarita.

At stud, Summertime Promise looked like a bust, with no black-type winners from only five foals. But four of those were fillies, and each produced at least one stakes winner. The most important were Blushing Promise (Blushing Groom), whose only foal was the important racehorse and sire Carson City for W.T. Young’s Overbrook Farm, which bred most of this generation, and Alydar’s Promise (Alydar), who was acquired by John Mabee’s Golden Eagle Farm and produced the important sire General Meeting (Seattle Slew) for him.

Alydar’s Promise is the second dam of Teddy’s Promise, and the mare produced her second-to-last foal in 1998. This was the Capote mare Braids and Beads. After being acquired by the Nichols, Braids and Beads produced Teddy’s Promise, and the result is now part of history.

In the context of examining the female lines and families of famous Thoroughbreds and determining which are more successful statistically, the Boojum also uses commentary from turf scribe Charlie Hatton to put flesh and spirit into the animals being portrayed.

This is all the more important for a horse such as Riva Ridge, who was a wet track away from becoming a Triple Crown winner as a 3-year-old but whose form collapsed so badly after mid-season in 1972 that the impressive Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner actually lost the 3-year-old championship to Key to the Mint in the year-end Eclipse Award voting.

Riva Ridge came back the following year with a campaign that established his superiority over other older horses (except possibly Prove Out), while all stood reverently in the shadow of His Chestnut Perfection.

As a sire, however, Riva Ridge was only moderately and intermittently successful. Among his best offspring were G1 winner Tap Shoes (Hopeful, Futurity, and Flamingo), G2 winner Blitey, and G3 winner Favoridge (also second in the G1 Cheveley Park and 1,000 Guineas).

In a comment following the piece on Riva Ridge, the Boojum mentions the pedigree of Blitey and her success as a broodmare for the Phipps family.

A member of Riva Ridge’s second crop at stud, Blitey has a pedigree that is also a fascinating exercise because where else can we find Riva Ridge, Sword Dancer, and Whirlaway as successive sires of quality in the female line, and talk about high-class racehorses with minimal success at stud! These three are poster boys for selective success at stud.

I would hypothesize that one reason for this is the odd mechanical nature of Riva Ridge (and probably the other two, as well). Riva Ridge was a very, very light horse in an era when the weights of better horses have trended upward and continue to do so. If we look at photographs of Riva Ridge, and lamentably they don’t grow on trees, we can see how deer-like and refined he was. He carried no excess anywhere, as Hatton said:

Physically also, it was almost as if he were two horses. When he was out of condition, Riva Ridge, a 16 hands bay with black points, looked rather like a light necked, rawboned gelding. He was never massive and masculine.

But when freshened, he was racing-like and elegant, appearing to have stepped out of an ancient print of an Epsom Derby hero. He cut a captivating figure on parade for the Stuyvesant, his coat glistening and moving gracefully as a ballet dancer.

And I believe it was that lightness of body which made him such an efficient racehorse, as well as so unsuited to dig in and plow through the mud. It wasn’t a weakness of character, I believe, but the fact that he wasn’t equipped to do the job. He didn’t have the bulk and necessary power to churn through the heavier track, and any holding tendency of the track kept him from using his natural action to glide over the track with minimum effort.

Hatton described the horse’s action as “wonderfully light and collected. A splendid gate horse at four, he had catlike agility and could be in the first flight leaving the post in any race. ” Riva Ridge’s quickness was a result of lightness in proportion to muscle, but in his case, it was lightness of body rather than an exaggerated proportion of muscle that gave him speed, which he frequently used to flit along in front of his competition to wide-margin victories in races like the Derby and Belmont.

When deprived of this natural advantage, as the wet tracks fouled his action somewhat and required extra muscle power to push along at a similar speed, Riva Ridge was physically unable to outrun his contemporaries.

I prefer this explanation of Riva Ridge’s lack of success on wet tracks because it is consistent with his general character as a game and high-class racehorse, rather than saying that he got a burr under his saddle whenever the track was wet.

So much, for good or ill, in a horse’s racing career depends on how the animal is managed. A year ago, the then-5-year-old Kafwain mare Twelve Twenty Two was the winner of a single race from six starts, and a critic could have made a case that she was “just a horse.”

Today, however, the 6-year-old mare has won six of 12 starts, has lost only once this season, has earnings of $198,556, and has twice won stakes, including the Harry Henson and most recently the Bold Ego Handicap at Sunland Park on Dec. 23.

Trainer Henry Dominguez, who conditions the mare for owners Judy and Kirk Robison and Solitaire Stable, said that “the owners will probably want to race her during the winter, then maybe breed her next spring.”

The trainer noted, “We claimed her out of Hollywood Park a little more than a year ago for $25,000. She’s been good to us. She had run some good races when we claimed her, including a close one to Life At Ten,” a nose behind that multiple G1 winner in a maiden race early in the career of each. “We thought she had some back class, had some conditions, and would work for us out here” in the Arizona and New Mexico racing circuit, Dominguez added.

Among the back class for Twelve Twenty Two was a third in the California Oaks, which was also the mare’s only start at 3. Unraced at 4, Twelve Twenty Two continued in training at 5, and her present owners claimed her out of her only start at 5, when Twelve Twenty Two started as favorite in a $25,000 claimer after being away from racing for 22 months.

Apparently, previous trainer Ron Ellis had resolved whatever kept the mare off the track so long because Dominguez said that “we haven’t done anything out of the ordinary with her. She just came like this. She’s done everything we’ve asked and is a real good horse to have around.”

Had either the previous owner, Jay Em Ess Stable, given up on the nice-looking mare or had she been claimed by an outfit that didn’t respect her potential, the results might not have been so positively exciting. But as evidence of how far she’s progressed, Twelve Twenty Two’s only loss since the claim came in the G1 Humana Distaff on Derby Day.

Now the big mare is fulfilling expectations long held for her success. Bred in Florida by veterinarian Jeffrey T. Berk (now practicing in Kentucky), Twelve Twenty Two was a nice prospect that Berk hadn’t intended to breed in his own name.

“I basically tried to buy the best mares I could afford, getting them off the track and trying to identify the potential up and coming sires,” Berk said. “In retrospect, I don’t think that’s a great way to breed a good racehorse. But 10 years ago, selling young mares in foal to young sires was the way to make money. My business plan was not to keep them very long, but this mare [Southern Solstice, the dam of Twelve Twenty Two] didn’t get sold.”

As a result, the Kafwain filly that Summer Solstice produced in February 2005 was bred in Berk’s name.

The attractions of Summer Solstice for Berk began with her pedigree, as the mare is a daughter of the major international sire Southern Halo out of Bedroom Window, dam of the good stakes winner Bedroom Blues (by Cure the Blues), winner of $586,569.

A $53,000 weanling at Keeneland November in 2000, Southern Solstice most recently sold at the 2007 Keeneland January sale. In foal to Broken Vow, the mare brought $100,000 from Charles Middleton.

In between, Berk had purchased the mare privately off the racetrack, tried to sell her at the 2004 Keeneland November sale in foal to Kafwain (carrying the stakes winner) but bought her back for $47,000. Through the Summerfield consignment, Berk sold the mare in foal to Peace Rules at the 2005 OBS October sale for $47,000 and sold Twelve Twenty Two at the same auction, where the weanling brought $25,000 from Clover IV. Twelve Twenty Two was sent back through the ring as a yearling, where she brought $35,000 from Jay Em Ess Stable.

Jay Em Ess is known for buying good-looking, athletic young stock and frequently enough getting the best out of them. The mare’s current trainer Dominguez said that “Twelve Twenty Two is about 16.1, and stoutly made. There’s a lot of bone and body to her. She’s a nice mare, and she shows it on the racetrack.”

Berk concluded, “It’s rare you see a horse become this successful so late,” and that, I believe, is the result of a number of people, at every stage of this mare’s career, doing the right thing to enable Twelve Twenty Two to realize her potential over the long run. Now she has.

Eskendereya (2007 ch by Giant’s Causeway x Aldebaran Light, by Seattle Slew)  Taylor Made $30,000

Hold Me Back (2006 dk b by Giant’s Causeway x Restraint, by Unbridled’s Song) WinStar $6,000

Neko Bay (2003 dk br by Giant’s Causeway x Brulay, by Rubiano) Wintergreen Stallion Station $7,500

Of the three, Eskendereya was the most acclaimed on the racetrack, as he was co-favorite for the Kentucky Derby until declared out of the race. The strongly made chestnut did not race again but entered stud at Taylor Made Farm, where he stood for $30,000 live foal in 2011.

Eskendereya, like all these horses, shows a noteworthy influence from his broodmare sire. In Eskendereya’s case, that is Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, who proved himself both a very good sire and a very good broodmare sire. Seattle Slew tended to produce offspring with some natural speed, as well as the ability to carry it, and that quality was a notable facet of the talent that made Eskendereya a premium contender for the classics.

A scopy horse with good bone, Eskendereya has the look and race record of a horse who was supposed to race over middle distances, and he should prove an interesting sire if mated with stock that should complement that quality, as well as to insure that the necessary speed and ruggedness for competition are not lost.

Hold Me Back is a really big horse made along the lines of his broodmare sire Unbridled’s Song (and his sire Kentucky Derby and BC Classic winner Unbridled). Hold Me Back showed good racing ability to win at the G2 level, as well as classic potential with second-place finishes in the 2009 Travers and Blue Grass.

In racing style and physique, Hold Me Back has a great deal of Unbridled’s Song about him, and that is one of the peculiarities of Giant’s Causeway, who is a sire of undenied international importance. Yet Giant’s Causeway does not produce them like cookies cut all in one mold; there are a wide variety of types and styles among his progeny, although the better of them tend to have good racing speed, stamina, and the class to compete in graded or group company.

This does, however, leave breeders with something of a puzzle. What do you send to a son of Giant’s Causeway?

In these cases, I believe it is more about racing class and aptitude of the mares than about a particular line or pedigree nick. And with the differing physical types that Giant’s Causeway is siring, the sons should be mated as individuals for their own type first of all. Then, there are some common threads that seem to repay attention when breeding to Giant’s Causeway.

One of those is the importance of speed. The other is the importance of toughness.

By speed, I would distinguish between mares who are genuinely limited to six furlongs or shorter and are simply little bullets and those who have natural speed, whether displayed at short distances or longer. The latter type is much preferred for breeding to the Giant’s Causeway sons, in general. In specific, always consider the physical type of the stallion you’re sending the mare to.

The matter of toughness is much simpler.

The third horse in this group is Neko Bay, and the question of toughness is central to anyone’s perception of him as a stallion prospect. On the one hand, Neko Bay is a lovely animal: beautiful balance and scope, good muscle with medium bone, and the mental balance to suggest he should have been a truly top-class animal.

And he quite nearly proved it, with a victory in the G2 San Pasqual and four seconds in stakes, including the G1 Santa Anita Handicap to the immensely talented Misremembered (by Candy Ride).

A hard-nosed assessment of his race record suggests that the only thing he lacked was the toughness to keep on keeping on when he was in peak form. He didn’t break down, at least not by the usual standards. But each year, the horse came out; made 2, 3, or 4 starts; and accomplished a good deal in these brief forays.

What might he have done with just a touch more durability?

Neko Bay does, at least, have a good body to begin with as a sire prospect and does have the necessary athletic talent and does have the family to suggest there is much to build on. In short, whether you are trying to breed yearlings or racehorses, Neko Bay is what you want. He is a fine specimen.

I believe breeders will find the mares to fire the magic within.

In the 1998 Kentucky Derby, most of the attention at the finish was on Real Quiet, the knife-blade narrow son of Quiet American who came back two weeks later to win the Preakness Stakes. Real Quiet’s immediate victims in the Derby were second-place finisher Victory Gallop (by Cryptoclearance) and his previously unbeaten stablemate Indian Charlie (In Excess), who never raced again.

At stud, however, both the second and third horses outshone their conqueror, and they are combined in the pedigree of Liaison, Saturday’s winner of the Grade 1 Futurity at Hollywood Park.

By leading sire Indian Charlie (whose death was announced Dec. 15), Liaison is out of Galloping Gal, by Victory Gallop. The latter defeated Real Quiet by a nose in the Belmont Stakes and a year later was named champion older horse at the Eclipse Awards.

Of the two, Indian Charlie has been the more successful sire and, at the time of his death, was a highly sought after stallion who was scheduled to stand for $75,000 live foal in 2012. That fee marked Indian Charlie as one of the most important stallions in the country.

The stallion earned that distinction through the many high-quality racehorses that he sired, and they appeared from the beginning of his stud career to the end.

Indian Charlie’s earliest stars were fillies like G1 Spinster winner Pampered Princess and champion older mare Fleet Indian from his first and second crops, and the stallion’s better colts seem to have come later in his career at stud. Last year, champion 2-year-old colt Uncle Mo was unbeaten, and he was recently retired to stud at Ashford for a $35,000 fee.

Now, Liaison is the second high-class colt in succession by Indian Charlie to win a G1 at 2. This quartet, along with champion filly Indian Blessing, are the stallion’s five G1 winners to date.

Bred in Kentucky by the estate of Bill Carl, Liaison had not been born when his breeder passed away at the beginning of 2009. Carl’s daughter Molly Thomas was in charge of dispersing the broodmares for the family. She said her father “had an extensive inventory of horses at the time, and we made a decision as a family at that time to disperse. We started the dispersal in 2009 and completed it at the November sale this year. We have sold everything, and Liaison sold in 2010.”

Thomas said, “Mark Brooking was a huge help with the valuation of the horses, noting how much the market had declined. We were very realistic about what the horses would bring, and Liaison sold well in 2010.”

Liaison sold for $290,000 at the 2010 Keeneland September sale. Lane’s End consigned the colt as Hip 737, and Arnold Zetcher purchased him. The price was the third-highest for a yearling by Indian Charlie in 2010.

Now once beaten from four starts and one of the early favorites for the 2012 classics, Liaison looks like a bargain.

Ben Berger, who raised Liaison at his family’s Woodstock Farm for the Carl estate, said that Liaison “was a nice colt from the time he was born. He was kind of long, had a lot more size and substance than some Indian Charlies will have. He was a straightforward horse but was never one who’d take your breath away just to look at him, not a flashy horse. But the more you looked at him, the better you liked him.”

Those are typical qualities of Indian Charlie, who was not a flashy horse but who was a horse of great size and exceptional muscle quality. In those respects, Uncle Mo is very like his sire and also in being a plain, dark brown horse. For Liaison to follow in that mold is a good thing.

Carl kept all his broodmares at Woodstock, with upwards of 25 at his peak, Berger said. Then, after Carl’s death, the estate sold off the mares, yearlings, and weanlings in phases. Mark Brooking, who advised Carl on mating his bloodstock, said that “we decided not to do a hasty dispersal after the downturn in the market, and it worked out better as a phased dispersal. We sold most in 2010, then the remainder in 2011. We wanted to make sure everything we sold was in foal and was in foal to the right horse.”

The horsemen responsible for the Carl bloodstock knew they had a good Indian Charlie out of Galloping Gal, got the mare back in foal to that stallion, sold the yearling later named Liaison well in September last year, and then managed a fair price for his dam in November. Galloping Gal went through the ring as an RNA for $120,000, then sold promptly to the Penn brothers.

Unfortunately, what would have been a home run for the new owners went badly wrong, because the 10-year-old mare died earlier this year.

Galloping Gal, out of the A.P. Indy mare Indy Flash, won a pair of listed stakes and ran second in the 2003 Alcibiades Stakes at Keeneland for Carl. He had purchased her as a yearling at the September sale for $50,000, and she earned almost seven times that for him on the racetrack.

In his closing remarks at the trial in Sydney federal court that can be read here, Emmett suggested that McHugh could set up his own stud book, conduct race meetings for stock conceived with AI, and offer higher purses than competing meets for horses conceived by natural cover.

I presume Emmett is not trying to be flippant. If so, perhaps he does need to find another profession.

Setting up a parallel racing and breeding program for AI stock would be absolutely disastrous. Yes, it’s fine to stand up in court and natter on about facile theories, but just imagine if Black Caviar were the product of an AI mating. How long would sloppy distinctions between “natural” and “artificial” last? How absurd would the old guard appear as this house of cards came tumbling round their ears?

The TBA and their legal advisers have not met this issue with the seriousness and depth of understanding that it merits.

Artificial insemination is serious business, and it requires careful and judicious examination. There are measures that the Jockey Clubs of the world could take to moderate the influence of AI, but from the tenor of the arguments being made in Australia, those Down Under seem to be punch drunk from the attacks on the natural cover requirements as a restraint of trade. The TBA’s counter-arguments make them appear to be reeling and waiting for the coming knockout punch.

If the decision comes in favor of AI, the change will be felt round the world.

And just what are the Jockey Clubs of the world planning to do if it comes?