juvenile champ good magic is conjuring up success among freshmen sires of 2022 with iroquois stakes victor

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juvenile champions

Juvenile champions are an elite subset of the population, and for many years now, Coolmore has made a project of collecting as many of these as possible to stand at its Ashford Stud outside Versailles, Ky.

This has worked well, most notably with champion Uncle Mo (by Indian Charlie), champion and classic winner Lookin at Lucky (Smart Strike), as well as champion and subsequent Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile).

Coolmore doesn’t catch ’em all, however, and a pair of juvenile champions that went to other studs were responsible for the winners of the juvenile stakes at Churchill Downs over the weekend. The 2008 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner and champion Midshipman (Unbridled’s Song) sired Fun and Feisty, who won the Grade 3 Pocahontas Stakes. The dark bay filly is owned by Lucky Seven Stable and was selected out of the Fasig-Tipton July sale last year by trainer Kenny McPeek for $100,000. The filly has now earned more than a quarter-million.

Midshipman, the most successful stallion son of Unbridled’s Song to date, stands at Darley‘s stallion operation at Jonabell. The Godolphin/Darley combine had acquired the colt shortly before the Breeders’ Cup as part of a giant package deal for the broodmares, farm, and racing stock of Robert and Janice McNair, which paid immediate and lasting dividends.

Following Midshipman in 2008, Coolmore acquired five of the next six juvenile champions, excepting only the eminently talented Shared Belief (Candy Ride), who was a gelding. Darley picked up the 2015 juvenile champion Nyquist (Uncle Mo), who subsequently won the 2016 Kentucky Derby. Coolmore bought the 2016 juvenile champion Classic Empire (Pioneerof the Nile), and Hill ‘n’ Dale stepped into the ring by securing the 2017 champion Good Magic (Curlin).

The latter’s first foals are juveniles this year, and he sired the winner of the Churchill Downs companion feature to the Pocahontas, the Iroquois Stakes.

That race featured the odds-on favorite Echo Again (Gun Runner), winner of an impressive maiden special at Saratoga, and the unbeaten Damon’s Mound (Girvin), winner of the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga. That pair led much of the race but collapsed in the stretch to finish unplaced as Curly Jack (Good Magic) and Honed (Sharp Azteca) pulled away to finish one-two in the 8.5-furlong Iroquois.

Curly Jack is the second stakes winner (both graded) for freshman sire Good Magic, and Honed is the fourth stakes horse for freshman sire Sharp Azteca (Freud; Three Chimneys), who leads all freshmen by number of winners (18).

At the moment on the first-crop sires list, the two freshmen sires above stand in reverse order to the finish of the Iroquois. Sharp Azteca is in fourth place to Good Magic’s fifth, with progeny earnings of $1.03 and $1.01 million.

The freshman leader at the moment is Bolt d’Oro (Medaglia d’Oro; Spendthrift), who is narrowly ahead of Army Mule (Friesan Fire; Hill ‘n’ Dale) $1.24 million to $1.20. The leading freshman by number of stakes winners is Justify (Scat Daddy; Ashford), who has four and earnings of $1.12 million. He’s in third place on the freshman list.

With less than a quarter-million dollars separating the top five freshmen sires, this is a competitive and tightly bunched group, and we’re only now into the turn for home.

At this point, Sharp Azteca leads with total number of winners (18) from Bolt d’Oro (16), but they are tied for total starters with 52 from crops of 117 and 141.

Volume matters and not simply the number of starters. Only eight freshmen sires have more than 100 foals in their first crop, and five of those (Bolt d’Oro, Justify, Sharp Azteca, Good Magic, and Mendelssohn) are in the top seven crop leaders at present. Not only are these the most popular young prospects to go to stud for the 2019 breeding season (foals of 2020), but the leaders by number of foals also have more numerical opportunity to hit the long ball that goes over the fence, clears the bases, and makes that lucky stallion the all-star of the game.

The crop leader by number of foals among the 2022 freshmen is the “other” son of Scat Daddy, Mendelssohn, who stands at Ashford, like Justify, and is a half-brother to Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday) and to champion Beholder (Henny Hughes).

The only two young sires to have broken through against the power of numbers are Army Mule (89 foals; 40 starters; 15 winners) and City of Light (79; 17; 8).

The offspring of these well-intended young sires will continue to make competitive racing this fall, and we have miles to go before we sleep, as Mr. Frost might say.

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a pair of g1-winning juveniles are making arrogate’s legacy even more bittersweet

How soon they forget!

Had this year’s leading juveniles been switched with last year’s, what headlines would the papers be carrying? Over the weekend, a pair of juveniles by champion Arrogate (by Unbridled’s Song) won the Grade 1 features at Del Mar. A colt and a filly by the same sire taking Grade 1 honors? Has that happened before?

A year ago, minus a week or so, Gun Runner had Echo Zulu winning the Grade 1 Spinaway and Gunite winning the G1 Hopeful. The world stood agog, and Gun Runner began his ascent into the pantheon of stellar stallions.

Mavens of the horse world, however, are not as fickle as yesterday’s headlines. Not quite, anyway.

Gun Runner had first run with top juveniles, followed up with some excellent performers at three, and he is the toast of the Thoroughbred breeding and selling world. Poor Arrogate is gone, but at least he is not quite forgotten.

The winner of the Del Mar Futurity was Cave Rock, a dark brown, nearly black son of Arrogate bred in Kentucky by Anne and Ronnie Sheffer Racing LLC. The colt is out of G3 Schuylerville Stakes winner Georgie’s Angel, by Wood Memorial winner Bellamy Road, who also was a dark brown, nearly black racer of immense talent.

And there is no doubt about the talent in Cave Rock. The good-looking colt sold for $550,000 a year ago at the Keeneland September sale, purchased by Three Amigos Racing Stable, and Cave Rock races for Mike Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman. The colt is trained by some neophyte named Baffert.

The latter name is also important in the saga of Cave Rock’s sire Arrogate. After Juddmonte Farms had purchased Arrogate and sent him to Baffert, the colt was showing hints of the talent typical of an Unbridled’s Song, but the trainer sent the colt back to the farm.

“He had some baby things going on and needed to finish growing up and fill out,” Juddmonte’s farm manager Garrett O’Rourke recalled, “and after some time playing and galloping on the farm, we sent him back to Bob. A few months later, Arrogate had his first start” in a maiden special at Santa Anita on April 17 of his 3-year-old season.

The rest is history.

In the Del Mar Futurity, Cave Rock indicated the level of form that Arrogate might have been able to show if his growth pattern had been a little different. The juvenile colt was away a step slow, then got into gear, and by the time the field had gone a quarter-mile, Cave Rock was slightly in front of his quick stablemate Havnameltdown (Uncaptured), who is owned by the same trio as the winner.

The pair staged something of an exhibition of speed with a quarter in :21.56, a half in :43.65, three-quarters in 1:08.55, and seven furlongs in 1:20.99. By the finish, Cave Rock had pulled away to win by 5 ¼ lengths, but it was impressive for both colts.

The previous day’s Del Mar Debutante was run in opposite fashion. The Arrogate filly And Tell Me Nolies was bumped at the start, was fifth of seven at the half, came wide on the outside at the turn, moved up to second by the stretch call, and won the race at the wire by a head. The winner’s time was 1:23.29.

Bred in Kentucky by Lara Run LLC, And Tell Me Nolies is out of the Exchange Rate mare Be Fair. The bay filly was sold for the first time at the 2021 Keeneland January sale for $70,000 to D.J. Stable, then resold at the 2022 OBS April sale for $230,000 to Bryan Anderson, agent. The filly races for Peter Redekop B.C. Ltd. and is trained by Peter Miller.

The dam of And Tell Me Nolies won the G3 Lake George Stakes at Saratoga, was third in the G1 Apple Blossom at Oaklawn, and showed improved form at three and four. Be Fair, in fact, was highly tried against the best fillies of her crop, finishing fourth or fifth in G1s such as the Ashland Stakes, Kentucky Oaks, Acorn, and Ruffian.

She clearly had some talent, and on retirement and carrying a first cover to leading sire Indian Charlie, she was sold at the 2011 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall sale for $300,000 to Dell Ridge. The mare sold at Keeneland November in 2018, carrying a foal by Practical Joke, for $50,000 to Lara Run.

Most recently, the then-15-year-old mare sold at the 2021 OBS winter sale, cataloged in foal to Gun Runner, for $35,000 to Jim Ballinger. The resulting foal was a colt who sold as a weanling at Keeneland November last year to McMahon & Hill Bloodstock for $150,000. Be Fair was bred to Mo Town in 2022.

In similar fashion to Be Fair, Georgie’s Angel, the dam of Cave Rock, sold before her G1 performer was known. The mare produced Cave Rock on March 12 and sold later that year at the 2020 Keeneland November mixed sale for $75,000 in foal to Arrogate. Georgie’s Angel produced a filly by Improbable this year, and she was bred back to Connect. The mare’s yearling, a full brother to Cave Rock, brought the top price at the Fasig-Tipton sale of select New York-breds, selling for $700,000 to Tom McCrocklin, agent for Champion Equine.

phipps family breeding is at the bottom of flightline’s ascent toward greatness

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bobby spalding, feathered, flightline, jane lyon, lady pitt, ogden phipps, st elias, summer wind farm, Tapit

To win a race so impressively that it’s fleetingly compared to one of the great events, like Secretariat’s Belmont Stakes, is a major accomplishment for a racehorse and its owner and caretakers. To actually run a race that is comparable … boggles the mind.

Yet that is what Flightline did in the Grade 1 Pacific Classic on Saturday, Sept. 3.

In winning the race by 19 ¼ lengths in 1:59.28, the dark bay son of Tapit (by Pulpit) ran his unbeaten career race record to five and added a third G1 to previous top-level victories in the Malibu and Metropolitan Handicap.

A $1 million sale yearling from Fasig-Tipton‘s Saratoga sale from three years ago, Flightline was bred in Kentucky by Jane Lyon’s Summer Wind Farm and is an athletic son of one of the farm’s premium producers, Feathered, herself a daughter of leading sire and broodmare sire Indian Charlie (In Excess) and Receipt (Dynaformer).

Summer Wind’s farm manager, Bobby Spalding, said that “Flightline was always a nice, level-headed colt who impressed you with his natural athleticism, but when you’re watching them grow up, you don’t know that one of them is going to win a Grade 1 by nearly 20 lengths. That’s just amazing!

“[Trainer] John Sadler has done a marvelous job with this colt, and he’s grown up to be a grand individual. I think they said he was 16.2. His mamma’s only just 16 hands, maybe, but she’s the kind of mare that I like, not too big, not out of proportion anywhere. Just real nice, and this is a wonderful family,” Spalding concluded.

This is a wonderful family, full of high-quality racehorses and producers, that had been in the hands of the Phipps family from the mid-1960s.

The Phipps patriarch Ogden Phipps, breeder and owner of champion Buckpasser, was always open to freshening the broodmare band and took the opportunity to purchase 1966 champion 3-year-old filly Lady Pitt (Sword Dancer). A winner of the Coaching Club American Oaks, Delaware Oaks, and Mother Goose, Lady Pitt was a medium-sized chestnut more notable for toughness than brilliant speed. Bred in Kentucky by John W. Greathouse, Lady Pitt was a stakes winner at two, but she came into a higher level of form at three, finishing first in six races, including the Alabama (disqualified to second for bearing in on second-place Natashka).

The daughter of 1959 Belmont Stakes winner Sword Dancer was elected champion of her division over Natashka (Dedicate) and Phipps’s Destro (Ribot), and the great racing commentator Charlie Hatton noted that Phipps thought Lady Pitt deserved the award due to her consistency, being in the money 12 times from 16 starts. She stood 15.3 hands at the end of her 3-year-old season.

The owner-breeder stood behind his assessment and added the mare to his broodmare portfolio at Claiborne Farm when the opportunity came. Bred to Buckpasser, Lady Pitt produced Bank of England in 1970, and she is the ancestress of the four-time Grade 1 winner and 2022 freshman sire Oscar Performance (Kitten’s Joy). Six years later, Lady Pitt foaled the notably talented Blitey (Riva Ridge).

A winner of the Test, Ballerina, and Maskette before any of those three were elevated to Grade 1 races, Blitey produced the highly accomplished Dancing Spree (Nijinsky), who won Grade 1s at six furlongs (Breeders’ Cup Sprint), seven furlongs (Carter), and 10 furlongs (Suburban). His full sisters were Grade 2 winner Dancing All Night and Oh What a Dance, the dam of champion Heavenly Cause (Seeking the Gold).

A half-sister to this trio was Fantastic Find (Mr. Prospector), who won the G1 Hempstead and was second in the G1 Test and Ballerina after they went to the top-level designation. Fantastic Find is the fourth dam of Flightline through her daughter Finder’s Fee (Storm Cat), winner of the G1 Matron at two, the G1 Acorn at three.

A major disappointment as a producer, Finder’s Fee did not produce a stakes winner, but the mare’s most successful racer, stakes-placed Receipt, is the second dam of Flightline.

Receipt was third in a listed stakes at Saratoga, as well as fourth in a Grade 2 there, but her branch of the family might have appeared to be going stale, because the Phipps Stable chose to sell her, in foal to Indian Charlie, at the 2012 Keeneland January sale. The mare brought $350,000 from St. Elias Stable. Five months later, she produced Feathered.

Bred by Teresa Viola Racing Stable, Feathered was a May foal, like much of this family, but nonetheless was progressive enough to be a featured prospect at the 2014 OBS March sale from the late J.J. Crupi’s New Castle Farm, agent, and sold for $300,000 to Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners.

Feathered won her second start, a maiden special at Saratoga, then showed high form in a trio of Grade 1 races, finishing third in the Frizette, fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, and second in the Hollywood Starlet.

The following season, Feathered won a couple more races, including the G3 Edgewood Stakes at Churchill Downs, and ran second in the G1 American Oaks. Retired and sent to leading sire War Front (Danzig), Feathered was sold through the 2016 Keeneland November sale, with Hill ‘n’ Dale Sales as agent, for $2.35 million to Summer Wind.

The mare’s first foal was the bay filly Good on Paper, a winner at three who earned $52,940. She was sold privately before racing to Glen Hill Farm.

The second foal out of Feathered was Flightline.

Feathered has a 2-year-old full brother to Flightline named Olivier, who was a $390,000 RNA at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale. The colt most recently worked at Keeneland on Sept. 3 (five furlongs in 1:02.2) and has been retained in a partnership. Feathered has a yearling colt by Curlin (Smart Strike), a filly at side foaled on May 17 by Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday), and was bred to Tapit.

Spalding said that the initial thought “had been to leave Feathered open and breed the next year, but Mrs. Lyon asked about sending her to Tapit. We only had time for a single cover, but she had the right idea. Unfortunately, the mare did not get in foal.”

Flightline is one of 95 Northern Hemisphere-bred graded winners for Tapit and one of 152 black-type winners for the three-time national leading sire, who stands at Gainesway.

jack christopher continues to star for elite sire munnings and is the link to broodmare sire half ours

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aaron jones, barry schwartz, half ours

If there was much doubt about the best 3-year-old sprinter this season, Jack Christopher (by Munnings) cleared it up with a strong victory over fellow Grade 1 winner Gunite (Gun Runner) in the Grade 1 Allen Jerkens Memorial at Saratoga on Aug. 27.

Bred in Kentucky by Castleton Lyons and Kilboy Estate, Jack Christopher has been an active advertisement for the best qualities of his sire Munnings (Speightstown), and no son could be more like the sire. Munnings was such a precocious and talented prospect that he brought $1.7 million from Demi O’Byrne, agent, at the 2008 Fasig-Tipton Florida sale of juveniles in training.

Trained by Todd Pletcher, Munnings won his debut on July 26 for owners Michael Tabor, Mrs. John Magnier, and Derrick Smith with six furlongs in 1:09.84 and jumped straight into G1 company, finishing third in the Hopeful, then second in the Champagne. A disastrous result in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (10th) was followed by a layoff of more than seven months. When Munnings returned at three, he won the G2 Woody Stephens and Tom Fool Stakes, then had a trio of thirds in Grade 1 races: the Haskell, King’s Bishop, and Vosburgh.

At four, Munnings added a third Grade 2 triumph with the Gulfstream Park Sprint Championship, then another Grade 1 third in the Carter, but the massively constructed chestnut did not truly prosper in his final season and retired to Coolmore’s Kentucky stud, Ashford, without the highly coveted Grade 1 victory.

We cannot praise the stallion more highly than to say that it didn’t matter. Munnings has become a necessary addition to any breeding program wanting fast horses.

His son Jack Christopher is now a three-time Grade 1 winner (Champagne, Woody Stephens, and Jerkens Memorial), and the flashy chestnut is being pointed for a date with the Breeders’ Cup, either in the Dirt Mile or the Sprint. The Breeders’ Cup Sprint would bring a confrontation with older sprinters, including division leader Jackie’s Warrior (Maclean’s Music), who finished second to Cody’s Wish (Curlin) earlier on the Travers card.

From the eighth crop by Munnings, Jack Christopher is out of Rushin No Blushin, a mare who ran second once in eight starts, earning $5,766. A half-sister to the two-time Grade 1 winner Street Boss (Street Cry), Rushin No Blushin is by the little-known stallion Half Ours (Unbridled’s Song), who is the answer to an interesting trivia question.

Who is the highest-priced colt of racing age ever sold at Keeneland? Half Ours was not a 2-year-old at the time of sale, and several distinguished race fillies have brought more, but the gray son of Unbridled’s Song is the answer.

At the 2006 Keeneland November sale, Half Ours was sold to dissolve a partnership between co-owners Aaron Jones and Barry Schwartz. At the time, Half Ours was three. The imposing colt had been a spectacular early 2-year-old, winning a mid-April maiden special at Keeneland by 10 3/4 lengths and coming back the first week of May to take the listed Juvenile Stakes at Churchill by 4 1/4 lengths.

From May of 2005 to November 2006, the colt had not raced again. Trained by Todd Pletcher, Half Ours was doing well, however, and both owners were well aware that the colt was progressing nicely.

When the bidding began, it became obvious how well aware of the colt’s well-being the co-owners were.

Frank Taylor of Taylor Made Farm recalled the situation. “Half Ours was a really talented colt,” he said, “and Barry and Sheryl were perfect partners, but Mr. Jones wanted to direct the racing program to maximize the colt’s stallion potential.

“So a sale at auction was the simple solution.” Taylor was there to bid with Jones; Buzz Chace was bidding for Schwartz; and Coolmore was part of the bidding, as well, Taylor recalled. “I told the bid spotter that as long as Mr. Jones’s hat was on, he was bidding.

“The bidding started at $100,000, $200,000, going up quickly,” Taylor recalled. The bids crashed past $1 million, then $2 million, and the bidding became a runaway train, fueled by the desire of each man to own the colt outright.

“Then, Coolmore got in and stayed in with the bidding till $5 million to $5.5 million. Mr. Jones had just been sitting there with his hat on, and he looked over at me and said, ‘I don’t like this plan. I like bidding,’ and he started bidding by hand with the spotter.

“Buzz had the bid at $6 million for Barry, and I looked at Mr. Jones and said, ‘That’s plenty. You’re getting full value if you let him go.’ He just grinned back at me and threw his hand in the air.”

Jones was the winning bidder at $6.1 million.

Slightly more than a month later, Half Ours returned to racing at Aqueduct and won a six-furlong allowance by a neck in 1:10.96.

The colt came back in February to win an allowance at Gulfstream going a mile, then won the G2 Gulfstream Park Sprint Championship. Unbeaten in five races, Half Ours was targeted for major “stallion” races but lost his unbeaten status in the G3 Alysheba at Churchill, his prep for the Metropolitan Handicap. Second as the favorite in the Alysheba, Half Ours came back in the Met Mile and finished 7th behind a string of future Kentucky-based stallion prospects.

The winner was Corinthian (Pulpit) over Political Force (Unbridled’s Song) and Lawyer Ron (Langfuhr), with Sun King (Charismatic), Latent Heat (Maria’s Mon), and Silver Wagon (Wagon Limit) next.

Half Ours raced no more but was retired to Taylor Made Farm south of Lexington, where the good-looking colt’s sire stood at stud. Half Ours attracted some notice, being a fast and attractive son of a highly commercial sire, and Rushin No Blushin was one of the horse’s first crop of foals.

Neither Half Ours nor his superiors in the Metropolitan remained active stallions in Kentucky, although Lawyer Ron, for one, was not sold but sadly died very young. Corinthian went first to Pennsylvania, then was sold to stand in Turkey. Half Ours was sold to Clear Creek Stud in Louisiana, became one of the leading sires in that market, and died last year at age 18.

Yet a bit of the legacy and lore surrounding Half Ours lives on in Jack Christopher.