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a.p. indy, accelerator, bluegrass cat, breeding racehorses, brethren, classic performance, daydreaming, distorted humor, drosselmeyer, funny cide, get lucky, luck in breeding, maria's mon, mr. prospector, phipps family, storm cat, super saver, supercharger, winstar farm
The following article was published earlier this week at Paulick Report.
As the dam of consecutive graded stakes winners, including last weekend’s Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes winner Brethren, the broodmare Supercharger (by A.P. Indy out of the Mr. Prospector mare Get Lucky) can be counted as one of the luckiest of broodmares.
That would not always have been the case, however.
The fall of an auctioneer’s hammer and a short van ride from Keeneland to WinStar Farm changed the royally pedigreed broodmare Supercharger from being one of the most snake-bit, luckless mares in the Bluegrass to one of the more fortunate.
Prior to the mare’s sale to WinStar at the 2006 Keeneland November sale, the handsome bay had been barren in four of eight breeding seasons, and only one of her foals had made a start in a race.
In most circumstances, such a mare would not have brought 10 cents.
Supercharger, however, was a special sort of mare. The product of decades of breeding in the fabled Phipps family operation based at Claiborne Farm, Supercharger was a full sister to some notable horses.
Both Grade 2 Top Flight winner Daydreaming and Grade 3 stakes winner and Wood Memorial second Accelerator were on the catalog page at the time of her sale. Another full sister had produced G1 winner Bluegrass Cat (by Storm Cat), and just last fall, their full sibling Girolamo won the G1 Vosburgh.
With these many factors in her favor and in foal to the important classic sire Maria’s Mon, Supercharger sold for $160,000. And it seems too simple to say, but nonetheless true, that after years of never catching a break, Supercharger became golden.
The foal she was carrying at the time of the sale turned out to be 2010 Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver, who was foaled at WinStar Farm just months after the purchase. The mare’s next foal was another bay colt, this one by WinStar’s leading sire, the Forty Niner horse Distorted Humor. Named Brethren, he is unbeaten in a short but highly promising career.
The Davis is the most important race that Brethren has contested so far, and the colt won with authority and apparent ease.
The owners’ representative, Elliott Walden, who is also CEO of WinStar, indicated that picking up graded earnings was an important element of selecting the Davis for Brethren, and horses don’t need graded earnings unless they are going to the Kentucky Derby.
Subsequent races will be chosen to help the colt achieve that goal with steps up the ladder for class and distance.
From the evidence of the Davis, Brethren has plenty of class, and the bay colt shows a good deal of his A.P. Indy heritage in physique and racing style. He possesses enough scope and quality to carry him two turns, and the overwhelming aptitude of the A.P. Indy stock is to race the classic distances.
Nor is Distorted Humor an impediment to the classics. Although a tearaway sprinter himself, Distorted Humor was limited to sprints by mental inclination, not physical aptitude or physical imperfections.
Moreover, Distorted Humor already has sired a Kentucky Derby winner in Funny Cide, and several of his stock have shown high-quality form at nine furlongs and farther, including Drosselmeyer (Belmont), Commentator (Whitney), Flower Alley (Travers) and Any Given Saturday (Haskell).
The racing stock by Distorted Humor tend to have strong, muscular bodies that give them an extra touch of speed, and that works well with the above-average cardio systems that also tend to be part of the package from this outstanding stallion son of Forty Niner.
All in all, Brethren is more likely to be found wanting in ability at the very highest level, rather than wanting in stamina. Because only one colt each year can walk into that winner’s circle and have the garland of roses placed across his withers.
Should that happen with Brethren, his dam will have likewise overcome the greatest odds in producing consecutive classic winners.
In addition to Super Saver and Brethren, the mare has produced for WinStar the 2-year-old filly Lisa T. (Awesome Again) and the yearling colt Superfection (Medaglia d’Oro).
bloodstock in the bluegrass 