secretariat: fifty years ago

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bold ruler, Kentucky Derby, secretariat

If you recall opening an issue of the weekly Thoroughbred Record dated March 24, 1973 and reading that 1972 champion Secretariat had made a successful debut to his 3-year-old season with a come-from-behind victory in the Bay Shore Stakes at Aqueduct, probably the only surprise in the recollection is that it was 50 years ago.

There are cliches that express the swiftness of time, the ease of its passing, and that sort of thing. They are dull expressions, however, and much less effective than the sharp wonder and kindling joy that the chestnut son of Bold Ruler produced in millions of people. That was half a century past, and yet time has done little to dull the enlivening sensation of that time, that colt, and the things we shared as he progressed toward the Triple Crown, then won it, and, amidst the adulation that followed, somehow found greater heights of accomplishment to test and attain.

This story, so fabled and fabulous, wasn’t supposed to be, actually. The tale of Secretariat’s accomplishment is too improbable. The best-looking colt, the death of the elderly breeder, the need for cash to settle estate taxes. The looming fears that something could go wrong and let everyone down, when that’s normally what happens, in racing and in life, amid the hopes that this time, the dream would come true. It’s a tale too far. Screenwriters and producers in Hollywood would never believe it.

Secretariat’s record-price syndication for $6,080,000 was an indication of the depth of the hopes surrounding this colt in spite of the fear of the unknown. In the racing program set out before him, Secretariat was physically challenging accepted reasoning, first that a son of Bold Ruler could win at 10 furlongs and second that any colt, no matter the sire, could win the Triple Crown again, after the most enthralling accomplishment of the turf had lain dormant for 25 years.

The worries about the colt’s pedigree were real and well-justified. Nearly all the Bold Rulers were milers; he himself had been an exceptional seven- to nine-furlong racer who handled 10 on sheer speed and class. Nearly all of Bold Ruler’s many gifted offspring wanted a mile, were taxed when raced much beyond that, and few had won important 10-furlong stakes.

Even champion Bold Lad (the best Bold Ruler prior to Secretariat and the one most like him in appearance and pedigree) had failed to handle 10 furlongs, or even nine furlongs, as Bold Lad had finished third in the 1965 Wood Memorial. In 1972, Secretariat had towered over his contemporaries for talent, and as a result of his dominance among juvenile colts, he was elected Horse of the Year, not an honor normally given to first-season racers. As a result of all the known information, Secretariat’s potential for winning the Derby was genuine, but the chance that it could fall flat was every bit as evident. That Seth Hancock could syndicate the colt in a day, before Secretariat had even started at 3, talking to professionals who knew the risks, is a testament to understanding the challenge and taking it because those involved believed.

They thought there was something special about this colt by Bold Ruler out of the grand producer Somethingroyal, and they were correct. The assumption of greatness, however, did not come to Secretariat and the people who believed in him through a series of empty blows.

There were challenges at every step of the quest that led from the colt’s seasonal debut in the seven-furlong Bay Shore to the graduation to a mile in the Gotham, the test of nine furlongs (longer than Secretariat had raced at 2), the immense uncertainty of the 10 furlongs on the First Saturday in May, the ability to step back a sixteenth for the Preakness in Baltimore, and then the highest hurdle of 12 furlongs in the Belmont Stakes that would be required to complete the Triple Crown.

The memories that come down like rain belie the distance in time of these events. Their clarity and the acuteness of the sensations they produced startles even me, because I, I remember.

(I would invite readers to post their own recollections, observations, photos, ideas, and suggestions because the memories of this horse and this time deserve our attention and careful reflection.)

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tapit trice is the tip of the classic iceberg for whisper hill

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mandy pope, Tapit, tapit trice, todd quast, whisper hill

Now a winner in three of his four starts, Tapit Trice (by Tapit) bounded into classic consideration with a dramatic come from behind victory in the Grade 3 Tampa Bay Derby.

Last at the start and 11th of 12 after a quarter, Tapit Trice was still in ninth place after three-quarters of a mile, but the gray colt swung out at least five wide around the turn, advanced notably through the stretch, and won by two lengths in the manner of a colt who will prove even better at a longer distance.

Yet another classic prospect by three-time leading national sire Tapit (Pulpit), Tapit Trice was bred in Kentucky by Gainesway Thoroughbreds, and they consigned the grand gray to the 2021 Keeneland September yearling sale, where he was purchased by Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm for $1.3 million. The colt races for Whisper Hill and Gainesway.

Todd Quast, racing manager for Whisper Hill, said that, “Tapit Trice was a good-sized yearling with plenty of scope. Mandy and I had looked through the consignments, had liked him and put a price on him, and Mandy really wanted him. She makes the final decision on the purchases. I was done at $1 million, but she kept poking me in the arm, and we got this guy. Now look where he’s taking us.”

Tapit Trice is the second foal out of the stakes winner Danzatrice (Dunkirk), who was bred in Kentucky by Glenn Justiss from the Orientate mare Lady Pewitt. Fourth in her only start, a maiden special at Woodbine, Lady Pewitt was purchased privately by Gainesway.

The operation bought the mare’s 2-year-old in training, a chestnut daughter of Dunkirk (Unbridled’s Song), at the OBS April sale in 2014 for $105,000 from Grassroots Training and Sales.

From the second crop by Dunkirk, who ran second in the G1 Belmont Stakes, as well as the Florida Derby, Danzatrice won three stakes and was fourth in the G1 Acorn Stakes at Belmont. Dunkirk’s other stakes winners include G1 Champagne Stakes winner Havana, plus Chilean G1 winners El Rey Brillante (Tanteo de Potrillos) and Leitone (Dos Mil Guineas and El Derby).

Danzatrice was the second foal from her dam, and the mare produced a gray filly by the Unbridled’s Song stallion Cross Traffic in 2016. Bred by Gainesway and sold at the 2017 Keeneland September yearling sale for $190,000, that filly was named Jaywalk and became the Eclipse Award winner as a juvenile filly in 2018. Jaywalk won four of her five starts at two, including the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and Frizette. At three, Jaywalk came back to win the G3 Delaware Oaks and was third in the G1 Ashland.

The appearance of Jaywalk in the family added quite a lift to the commercial appeal of this family, which traces to Tapit Trice’s fourth dam La Paz (Hold Your Peace), a winner of three stakes and the dam of four stakes winners, including Mission Impazible (Unbridled’s Song), winner of the G2 Louisiana Derby and New Orleans Handicap, and Forest Camp (Deputy Minister), winner of the G2 Del Mar Futurity.

The year after Jaywalk’s championship season, Gainesway consigned her half-sister to the 2019 Keeneland September sale and sold the filly by Empire Maker out of Lady Pewitt for $2 million. Named Miss Jessica J., that filly is unraced.

Tapit Trice followed suit as a seven-figure yearling in 2021, and he has followed a much different trajectory and is now a highly regarded member of the 3-year-old crop. The colt’s year-younger full sister, still unnamed, brought $1.1 million at last year’s Keeneland September sale when Tapit Trice was still unraced. The buyer?

Whisper Hill.

Quast said, “We already liked Tapit Trice enough last year to reach back in and buy her too,” even though the colt didn’t make his debut until Nov. 6, when he finished third in a maiden special at Aqueduct. The gray is unbeaten since.

In addition to Tapit Trice as a classic prospect, Whisper Hill also has Shopper’s Revenge (Tapit out of multiple G1 winner Stopchargingmaria), who is pointed for the Louisiana Derby next, and Classic Catch (Classic Empire), who has won a maiden special and an allowance and is expected to race next in the Wood Memorial.

Lurking in the shrubberies is homebred Magical Song (Tapit out of champion Songbird), and that 3-year-old filly is entered in a maiden special at Oaklawn on Mar. 17.

What a year it may be for Whisper Hill.

champion forte leads a pair of classic prospects from famous female families

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forte, hill 'n' dale farm, la troienne, raise cain, violence

You could say it was a Hill ‘n’ Dale Weekend. Not only did the farm’s stallion Violence (by Medaglia d’Oro) have two graded stakes winners in classic preps, but John Sikura’s operation also is co-breeder of Slip Mahoney (Arrogate), who was a good-looking second in the Grade 3 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct behind the Violence colt Raise Cain.

The Gotham winner was unexpected, starting at 23-1 odds, but the star turn on a very positive set of results for Violence was last season’s champion juvenile colt Forte, who was odds-on at 1-2 for his seasonal debut in the G2 Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream.

The handsome dark bay or brown looked full value for those odds as he sat handily behind the pace, swooped four wide on the turn, and left his rivals with no recourse as he ran on through the stretch to win by 4 ½ lengths from Holy Bull Stakes winner Rocket Can and Cyclone Mischief (both by Into Mischief).

Bred in Kentucky by South Gate Farm, Forte was sold as a weanling for $80,000 at the 2020 Keeneland November sale and then resold as a yearling at Keeneland’s 2021 September sale for $110,000 to Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable.

The striking colt is the first foal of his dam, the multiple stakes winner Queen Caroline (Blame), and this is a family that was developed over generations while in the Frances Genter family stable. This is the immediate female family of champions Essential Quality (Tapit) and Folklore (Tiznow).

A colt of considerable elegance, Forte comes from one of the most distinguished female families in the Stud Book, that of La Troienne (Teddy), who was bred in France by Marcel Boussac and imported as a broodmare carrying her first foal by Col. E. R. Bradley. The mare proved a success beyond the scope of that word in ordinary usage.

La Troienne produced five stakes winners, including the exceptional filly Black Helen and the champion and classic winner Bimelech (both by Black Toney). The distribution of Bradley’s bloodstock came with the purchase of all of the Bradley broodmares and foals by Robert J. Kleberg (King Ranch), John Hay Whitney (Greentree Stud), and Ogden Phipps.

Phipps got La Troienne’s daughter Baby League, the dam of Horse of the Year Busher, and for Phipps, Baby League produced Striking (War Admiral), winner of the 1949 Schuylerville and Broodmare of the Year in 1961. Her branch of this family produced Forte.

La Troienne herself went to Greentree, and she is buried in their equine graveyard, which is now part of Gainesway Farm. Bimelech likewise went to stand at Greentree, and other parts of the mare’s legacy were distributed among the purchasers and went on to play significant roles in racing’s continuing story.

Although La Troienne did not win, she was highly tested against high-class fillies. A winner of the Oaks in 1904, however, is the ancestress of this year’s Gotham Stakes winner. A racer of exceptional character who found lasting admiration among the racing public, Pretty Polly (Gallinule) won 22 of her 24 starts and is generally regarded as one of the greatest racers ever.

This chestnut paragon is the female-line ancestor of Raise Cain. The Gotham winner is out of the Lemon Drop Kid mare Lemon Belle, who is a half-sister to Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner Unrivaled Belle (Unbridled’s Song), the dam of champion Unique Bella (Tapit).

Raise Cain is the first stakes winner of his dam, and she has a 2-year-old colt by Frosted (Tapit) and a colt at side by Constitution (Tapit) who was foaled last month.

Bred in Kentucky by Rock Ridge Thoroughbreds LLC, Raise Cain sold for $180,000 by Andrew Warren at Keeneland’s September yearling sale two years ago; returned to auction at the OBS June sale last year, Raise Cain was bought back at $65,000 and races for Andrew Warren and Rania Warren.

Should both of these colts make the rest of the journey to Louisville for the Run for the Roses, they will not lack for classic connections in their ancestral lines.

candy man rocket keeps it sweet for famed sire

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bill mott, candy man rocket, candy ride, donato lanni, scott kintz

The highweighted miler in his homeland of Argentina and unbeaten in three starts, including the Grade 1 Pacific Classic, in the U.S., Candy Ride (by Ride the Rails) has proven himself a source of speed that carries at least a mile, as well as a fountain of quality and racing enthusiasm.

With more than 100 stakes winners to his credit so far, Candy Ride had another pair in the winner’s circle on Feb. 25, with the promising and progressive Confidence Man in the G2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., and the lightly raced 5-year-old Candy Man Rocket in the listed Gulfstream Park Sprint.

A G3 winner of the Sam F. Davis Stakes as a 3-year-old, Candy Man Rocket was a prospect for whom great things were expected and high hopes were held. As a 2-year-old in training, the good-sized bright bay worked a quarter-mile in :21, striding out as well as any horse on the grounds at the OBS April sale. He was fluent and strong in action, with a stride length of more than 26.5 feet and a massive BreezeFig of 73.

He had all the bells and whistles.

Selling out of the Seven K’s Training and Sales consignment of Scott Kintz and family, Candy Man Rocket was popular with buyers and their inspectors, and he sold for $250,000, with Donato Lanni purchasing the colt for Frank Fletcher.

Kintz said, “Donato loved this colt, had seen him early at the farm, and was there to buy him. That sale got amazingly strong as it went on, and Donato came by the last day of the auction and told me that Candy Man Rocket would have brought 500 or 600 thousand that last session.”

Bred in Kentucky by R.S. Evans, Candy Man Rocket was raised just outside Lexington on the Leestown Road property of Wayne and Cathy Sweezey’s Timber Town Stables.

Sent to the sales as a weanling and a yearling, Candy Man Rocket was bought back each time, then went into training with Kintz in Florida and sold to Frank Fletcher Racing for $250,000 at the 2020 OBS April sale of juveniles in training.

“I’d had some horses for Mr. Evans,” Kintz recalled, “and after the colt had RNA’d at the September sale, he called me up and said he was going to send the colt to me. The colt had some x-ray issues as a yearling, and I asked Mr. Evans what he wanted me to do with him. He said, ‘Train him,’ and that colt never missed a day, never had an issue with anything. By the time he came to the sales as a 2-year-old, he’d outgrown the radiographic changes that had shown up earlier, and he was a top-notch horse.

“When Candy Man Rocket was training, he did everything right all the time; he went too fast the first time we let him run, and I wasn’t too happy about it. But the jock said he didn’t push him, that the colt just took off. He was that fast.”

The elegant colt made his debut at Churchill Downs in November and must have learned something, despite finishing well up the track. Returned to racing in January at Gulfstream, Candy Man Rocket won by 9 ¼ lengths, then picked up the Sam Davis in his next start. Immediately considered a classic prospect, the colt went off the rails in his next pair of starts, missed nearly his entire 4-year-old season.

Clearly, the talented horse has posed some challenges for trainer Bill Mott, but the conditioner has proven equal to them, and Candy Man Rocket has too. The horse has won his two starts since his long layoff, most recently the Gulfstream Park Sprint, and Mott indicated that he would give the horse a break of several weeks before his next race.

tapit continues to strike up the beat as a broodmare sire

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Gainesway Farm, into mischief cross with tapit, pretty city dancer, pretty mischievous, Tapit

A victory in the Grade 2 Rachel Alexandra Stakes at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans moved the race record of Pretty Mischievous (by Into Mischief) to four wins from five starts, with earnings of $421,310. The filly’s sole loss came as a third in the G2 Golden Rod Stakes at Churchill last fall.

She has come along nicely from her debut win at Churchill in September, and at each step in the progression from maiden to graded stakes winner (accepting the placing in the Golden Rod as a thoroughly creditable effort), Pretty Mischievous has shown evidence of greater strength and maturity.

She is a very nice filly, and both trainer Brendan Walsh and owner-breeder Godolphin must be well-pleased with the result of this mating.

Bred in Kentucky by Godolphin, Pretty Mischievous is the second foal of the G1 winner Pretty City Dancer (Tapit), whose most important success came in the 2016 Spinaway Stakes at two. Pretty City Dancer won Saratoga’s premier race for juvenile fillies in a dead heat with another daughter of Tapit, Sweet Loretta, who won four of her six starts, including the Schuylerville at Saratoga and the Beaumont Stakes at Keeneland.

A lovely gray, Pretty City Dancer was bred in Kentucky by Gainesway and was presented by them at the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale, where she sold for $825,000 to John Oxley. The filly won the 2016 Spinaway and ran second in the 2017 Forward Gal Stakes. At the end of the filly’s 3-year-old season, Oxley retired her, bred her to Medaglia d’Oro the following spring, and sold her at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November sale. There, Godolphin bought the young mare for $3.5 million.

The foal Pretty City Dancer was carrying at the time of sale is the now 4-year-old Ornamental, and she is the winner of a maiden special.

Godolphin is not the only breeder to have noticed that matching Tapit mares with Into Mischief is a productive cross. This month alone, Interpolate, winner of the Ruthless Stakes at Aqueduct on Feb. 5, and Rocket Can, winner of the G3 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream on Feb. 4, are other stakes winners bred on the cross of Into Mischief with daughters of Tapit. In the Rachel Alexandra, odds-on favorite Hoosier Philly, who ran third after an eventful trip, is bred on the same cross. She was unbeaten coming into the Rachel Alexandra, including among her victories the Golden Rod last year over Pretty Mischievous.

Tapit is proving himself as important a broodmare sire as he is a sire of racers, and he was the leading broodmare sire by number of stakes winners (26) in 2022, finishing in a tie with Giant’s Causeway (Storm Cat). The wave is rolling on even stronger this year, with a half-dozen stakes winners already, and Tapit is second in earnings behind Distorted Humor (by Forty Niner), the broodmare sire of 2023 Pegasus winner Art Collector (Bernardini).

In addition to his stakes winners this year by Into Mischief, Tapit is also the broodmare sire of Hit Show (Candy Ride), winner of the G3 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct and a winner in three of his four starts.

As a broodmare sire or as a sire, Tapit does not match simply a few sire lines. The grand gray denizen of Gainesway Farm’s fabled stallion complex matches a broad spectrum of lines and types. If a mare is big and coarse or rangy and unfurnished, Tapit will bring their offspring back toward the norm, and one of the remarkable qualities of Tapit as a sire is how much he can do to improve the proportions and functionality of broodmares.

As a sire and obviously also as a broodmare sire, Tapit works to normalize leg lengths, body lengths to height, and frame to overall substance. You might say he imparts a good deal of quality and overall balance because that is the visual effect.

Those are good things to add to a mating, and Tapit is a generally dominant force in normalizing the characteristics of his mates.

With Tapit’s two best sons (multiple champion Essential Quality and Horse of the Year Flightline) retired to stud for 2022 and 2023, the best results from Tapit as a sire of stallions is yet to come, but his daughters have given an indication of what can result from judicious matings. There will be more to this story.

pair of graded stakes winners make a real nice week for nursery place

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happy broadbent, hopkins, jim wilhite, john donaldson, john mayer, litigate, nursery place

Breeding two horses that win graded stakes in less than a week is a notable success, made more notable by the fact that John Mayer’s Nursery Place is a relatively small operation. Nursery Place, in partnership with Happy Broadbent and Jim Wilhite, bred the 5-year-old Hopkins (by Quality Road), who won the Grade 3 Palos Verdes Stakes at Santa Anita on Feb. 5, and the farm is one of three partners that bred the 3-year-old Litigate (Blame), who won the G3 Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay six days later. (Editor’s note: The Jockey Club lists Nursery Place as sole breeder of Hopkins.)

Both horses were raised and sold by Nursery Place, as well, and through several decades of work in breeding and raising horses, as well as selling them, Mayer and his associates have developed a reputation for producing good horses.

As a result, the right buyers will have a look at them, and both the graded winners sold out of the Nursery Place consignments. Mayer said, “We were well-paid for them, and now we just hope that they keep on doing well for their owners.”

Bred in Kentucky, Hopkins is the second stakes winner and fourth stakes horse out of the Salt Lake mare Hot Spell, who was second in a stakes at Golden Gate. Her other stakes winner is Saratoga Heater (Temple City), and she has a pair of stakes-placed racers in Of a Revolution (Maclean’s Music), who was second in the G2 Gallant Bob and third in the G3 Swale, and Malocchio (Orb), who ran second in the Sorority at Monmouth.

With those kinds of relations, people came to see Hopkins when he was presented as a yearling, and they clearly liked what they saw because the powerful bay brought $900,000 at the 2019 Keeneland September yearling sale. Expected to travel to Dubai for the upcoming Golden Shaheen Stakes, Hopkins races for SF Racing LLC, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stables LLC, Stonestreet Stables LLC, Golconda Stable, Siena Farm LLC, and Robert E. Masterson.

The Palos Verdes was the third victory in seven starts for Hopkins, who has a trio of seconds. His only unplaced effort was a sixth in the G2 San Antonio on Dec. 26.

His dam will be bred to first-year sire Olympiad (Speightstown) this year. On selecting the mating, Mayer noted that “a good many years ago, a wise man told me to breed quality older mares to promising young sires and my nice young mares to proven, older sires.”

With that philosophy, Mayer planned matings for his nice young Mineshaft mare Salsa Diavola. “We started her off like she was a good mare, with the mating to Ghostzapper,” Mayer said, “but it was the third foal (Litigate) who got her off the mark” with a stakes winner.

Bred in Kentucky by Nursery Place, John Donaldson, and Happy Broadbent, Litigate has now won two of his three starts, earning $182,590 for owner Centennial Farms. The bay was well-received at the 2021 Keeneland September yearling sale and sold for $370,000 to Centennial for one of its partnerships. Litigate was the top-priced yearling colt for his sire in 2021.

Now, Litigate is the second stakes winner of 2023 for his sire, who ranks as a top value sire in the Kentucky stallion market at $25,000 live foal. The stallion has Litigate on the Kentucky Derby trail, and his other stakes winner of 2023 is Godolphin’s Wet Paint, who will be pointing for the Kentucky Oaks in similar fashion to last year’s winner Secret Oath (Arrogate), who took the path from Oaklawn Park to Churchill.

The partners’ faith in Blame has paid off further. Litigate’s dam Salsa Diavola is in foal to Blame and “is due in a couple of weeks,” Mayer noted. The partners haven’t decided who to send her to in 2023 … yet.

“I’ve been partners with these fellows for 25 years,” Mayer said. “In doing this sort of thing, you develop relationships, and ours has worked very well. We normally buy young mares and sell them in foal. We got lucky, and it didn’t work out to get Salsa Diavola sold,” when she was bought back for $130,000 carrying her first foal to Ghostzapper.

Since then, the mare has become a graded stakes producer, like nearly everything in her family, tracing back through her dam Miss Salsa (Unbridled), the dam of G3 winner Pacific Ocean (Ghostzapper); her dam Oscillate (Seattle Slew), dam of stakes winner and sire Mutakddim (Seeking the Gold); her dam G1 winner Dance Number (Northern Dancer), the dam of champion juvenile Rhythm (Mr. Prospector); her dam champion Numbered Account (Buckpasser), dam of G1 winner and leading sire Private Account (Damascus); then back through multiple top producers to Numbered Account’s fifth dam La Troienne (Teddy), dam of champion Bimelech and several major producing lines, and herself a half-sister to Prix de Diane winner Adargatis (Asterus).

This is the family that keeps coming back, generation after generation. Litigate is the latest.

Mayer said that “this sort of success is great for my kids and for the people on the farm; it jazzes them up. But you can’t live on the expectation of having a week like that, not if you want to survive. There has to be something in it, day to day, that gets you out of bed and provides some kind of personal reward. Because, at the core, it’s just farming.

“But it has been a real nice week.”

oscar performance filly shows she is ready for the limelight with a victory in the forward gal at gulfstream

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bo bromagen, mill ridge farm, oscar performanc, price bell, red carpet ready

“We might never have known how good this filly was on dirt,” Price Bell pondered at Fasig-Tipton on Monday, where I quizzed him about the latest graded stakes winner for Mill Ridge Farm’s young sire Oscar Performance, “if only Churchill Downs had had a turf race for her.”

Oscar Performance is getting graded stakes winners from his first crop of racers, now 3, and he represents a branch of Sadler’s Wells and El Prado, through Kitten’s Joy, that is gaining new respect among breeders by showing versatility for quality performance on turf or dirt. (Photos by Z / courtesy of Mill Ridge Farm)

Sometimes you’re lucky; sometimes you’re good. The filly in question, Red Carpet Ready, is both.

Already the winner of the 2022 Fern Creek Stakes at Churchill on Nov. 26, Red Carpet Ready was making her 3-year-old debut in the Grade 3 Forward Gal at Gulfstream and is now unbeaten in three starts. The good-looking dark bay had won her first start by 10 last year, racing six furlongs on dirt at Churchill, then had come back in the 6 ½-furlong Fern Creek, and the seven furlongs of the Forward Gal posed no problem. After attending the pace to the half-mile, Red Carpet Ready punched away to a 2 ½-length lead and maintained her dominance while ridden out through the finish.

Lucky as Red Carpet Ready is, her owners – Glenn Bromagen and Patrick Lewis – may be even luckier. Bromagen had gone to the Saratoga select sale in 2021 with a plan: “I had identified the horses I wanted at Saratoga, and Oscar Performance was the level of sire power that I thought I could buy there. I thought $200,000 was enough to buy probably the best Oscar Performance, as opposed to being what you’d pay for a bottom-level yearling by a more established sire.”

Red Carpet Ready certainly qualified as a top yearling for her sire. Beautifully balanced and proportioned, she had a very good shoulder and hindquarters, as well as a lovely, athletic walk. Yet, “when she was in the ring,” Bromagen recalled, “from the pacing I felt I was bidding against the reserve. Then when I pulled up at $170,000, I thought she went RNA and was heading out to Mill Ridge to ask about buying her. And as I was going out, I saw Deuce Greathouse signing the ticket.

“That was a sinking feeling, but I went up to Deuce and asked who he was going to send her to. He said he wasn’t sure because he’d bought her on ‘spec,’ and I said I really liked her.

“He said, ‘Well, you can buy her from me.’ I asked how much he wanted: $190,000. You know, I was prepared to go to $200,000 for her; so I bought her, and she’s been a wonderful filly at every step of the way.”

The buyer noted that Greathouse went back and bought the full sister in last year’s Saratoga sale for $65,000. “He may be the smartest of us all,” Bromagen said. “My partner Patrick Lewis had been talking about getting into the game, called me up after I’d bought this filly, and this is his first flat-racing Thoroughbred. I’ve ruined him because now he thinks the game is easy” with an unbeaten filly who’s just won a graded stakes.

Bred in Kentucky by Lynn Schiff, Red Carpet Ready is the second winner from three foals to race out of Wild Silk, an unraced daughter of champion 2-year-old colt and Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense (by Street Cry) and the stakes-winning A.P. Indy mare Spun Silk.

Although no granddaughter of Arlington Million winner Kitten’s Joy (El Prado) and Street Sense would qualify as “sprint bred,” there is certainly plenty of speed in this filly’s heritage. The speed begins with her sire, who must have given his jockey a whiplash when racing a mile in record time of 1:31.23 to win the G3 Poker Stakes at Belmont.

The filly’s third dam is stakes winner Spunoutacontrol (Wild Again), a half-sister to leading sire Tale of the Cat (Storm Cat) and European highweight Minardi (Boundary), as well as to the dam of champion Johannesburg (Hennessy). The fourth dam of Red Carpet Ready is a full sister to G1 winner Preach (Mr. Prospector), the dam of leading sire Pulpit (A.P. Indy).

A G1 winner four times, Oscar Performance won three of his four starts at two, including the G3 Pilgrim and the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. He followed up with Grade 1 victories in the Belmont Derby, Secretariat, and Woodbine Mile, among other graded successes. The handsome bay out of the Theatrical mare Devine Actress earned $2.3 million for Amerman Racing LLC and retired to stud at Mill Ridge Farm, where he was syndicated into 40 shares and entered stud at a fee of $20,000 live foal.

With five graded stakes performers from his first crop so far, Oscar Performance is booked full with a limit of 140 mares for 2023 and stands for the same fee ($17,500 to those who have previously bred to the horse).

art collector adds an objet d’art to an historic family line

Rather than being 15-1, there was a day when winning the Grade 1 Pegasus at Gulfstream Park would have been the expected result from Art Collector, a handsome son of champion racehorse and sire Bernardini (by A.P. Indy).

At the midpoint of the horse’s 3-year-old season, few if any of his contemporaries were rated more highly than Art Collector, winner of four straight races and both the Blue Grass Stakes and Ellis Park Derby during the weird summer of 2020, when Covid-19 had derailed the scheduling for the Triple Crown.

That year, the Preakness Stakes was raced last of the series, after Tiz the Law (Constitution) had won the 2020 Belmont Stakes over nine furlongs in June and Authentic (Into Mischief) had clipped the Belmont winner in the Kentucky Derby on Sept. 5. Authentic was the favorite for the Preakness, raced on Oct. 3, with Art Collector the second choice, but both were upset by the swashbuckling filly Swiss Skydiver (Daredevil), with Authentic second and Art Collector fourth.

Then Art Collector went a bit off the path, but he has kept on racing and winning at the highest level. From 21 starts, the horse has won 11 races, and it’s either won or done for Art Collector because he has nine off the board, with a second only in his debut. (The horse actually finished first in yet another but was disqualified due to a medication positive prior to being transferred to Bill Mott’s training stable.)

One of the fascinating things about Art Collector is that he has remained in training, remained sound, and has retained his level of ability through the beginning of his 6-year-old form. He came back at four to win a trio of races culminating in the G1 Woodward Stakes, then returned last year, after a debacle in the G1 Saudi Cup, to win a listed stakes at Saratoga and then the G2 Charles Town Classic. The Pegasus was his seasonal debut.

This winner of $4 million was bred in Kentucky by Bruce Lunsford from a family of historic vintage and classic character.

The Pegasus winner is out of the stakes winner Distorted Legacy (Distorted Humor), also bred by Lunsford, and Distorted Legacy won the Sky Beauty Stakes at Belmont and was stakes-placed three times. She showed the best form of her career with a second in the G1 Flower Bowl Invitational and with a fourth in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Filly Turf, beaten a length by Perfect Shirl (Perfect Soul).

Distorted Legacy is one of four stakes horses out of Bunting (Private Account). Bunting had won a maiden at Saratoga as a juvenile, then proceeded to race competitively in graded stakes at three, placing second in the G1 Ashland at Keeneland and in the G2 Black-Eyed Susan at Pimlico in 1994. Then, Lunsford and partners purchased the 3-year-old filly out of the Greentree racing stable dispersal at the 1994 Keeneland November sale for $500,000, with Seth Hancock signing the ticket, and Bunting won an allowance and placed in two others for her new owners before retiring to stud the following spring.

There, she met with immediate success from her mating to leading sire Storm Cat. The resulting colt was named Vision and Verse, and he became a graded stakes winner. The scopy bay came home first in the G2 Illinois Derby, but he gained even more notice for seconds in the G1 Belmont Stakes and the Travers. Both of those seconds were to Lemon Drop Kid (Kingmambo) by a head and three-quarters of a length, respectively. After earning slightly more than $1 million, Vision and Verse was sent to stud in Kentucky at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm.

Bunting’s second foal for Lunsford was the Broad Brush mare Broadway Express, who won twice and placed second in the 2000 Sam Houston Oaks. Bunting also produced Performing Diva, a full sister to Vision and Verse who ran second in the 2005 Alcibiades Stakes at Keeneland. Then in 2007, Bunting foaled Distorted Legacy.

Bunting was a daughter of the Hoist the Flag mare Flag Waver, winner of the Rampart Handicap and the third stakes winner out of Bebopper (Tom Fool). The mare’s previous stakes winners were leading sire Stop the Music (Hail to Reason), winner of the Champagne Stakes (on the disqualification of Secretariat for nudging the other colt out of his way) and the Dwyer; and Hatchet Man (The Axe), winner of the G1 Widener and Haskell, as well as the Dwyer. Both were successful sires, especially Stop the Music, sire of Belmont Stakes and Travers winner Temperence Hill, who was champion 3-year-old colt; the G1 winners Dontstop Themusic (Spinster, Vanity), Music Merci (Del Mar Futurity), and Cure the Blues (Laurel Futurity), plus G2 winner Play On, also second in the 1984 Preakness.

Greentree bred all the foals out of Bebopper and raced them. The operation acquired this family with the purchase of the French-bred Bebop (Prince Bio), a stakes-placed half-sister to 1954 Oaks winner Sun Cap (Sunny Boy) and 1952 Prix Jean Prat winner La Varende (Blue Moon). Another of Bebop’s daughters, the stakes-placed Stepping High (No Robbery), is the dam of Peter Pan Stakes winner Buckaroo, the sire of 1985 Kentucky Derby winner Spend a Buck.

The family had shown its classic quality in Europe, and the pursuit of the classics was clearly Greentree’s intention in acquiring and breeding the mares the way they did. Lunsford has followed suit, and it has paid off with quality racers and now a Pegasus champ.

in the days of raise a native

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john franks, kentucky scenic, monique rene, raise a native, ronique

A walk through the wintry wonders of Kentucky pastureland this morning, with ice coating the fence boards and the stems of any hardy shrubs and plants, brought to mind an outing with a mare in 1985.

In the early spring, probably the first week of April or a bit earlier, I had the opportunity to ride along with a maiden mare going to Spendthrift Farm to be bred to Raise a Native (by Native Dancer). The man didn’t have to ask me twice.

The mare going to the shed was Monique Rene (Prince of Ascot), a winner of 29 races from 45 starts, including the Pan Zareta Handicap twice, the Chou Croute Stakes, the Mardi Gras Handicap, all at the Fair Grounds, earning $456,250. Well as she raced elsewhere, Monique Rene loved Louisiana Downs, which was pretty much the home track of owner John Franks, and there she won the Valencia, Victoria (twice), Sugarland (twice), Creole State, Suthern Accent, Honeymoon, Diplomat, and Southern Maid. The red mare was fast and game; fans loved her.

She had been a lot of fun for Mr. Franks, and he reciprocated by sending her to some of the best stallions available. For her first match, I was told that he had purchased the season to Raise a Native for $400,000. If that seems impossible today, remember that these were syndicated stallions in the days before syndication agreements allowed essentially bottomless books.

If a breeder wanted a season to a stallion of significance, he had to pay the price, whatever that was.

So, I vaulted into the passenger seat of the box truck, and we headed out to cross Fayette County on a cold morning that looked so much like this one. A freezing rain had coated the timber with a thin layer of ice, and it made a memorable morning even more lovely to look at. The temps must have risen to slightly above freezing by the time we were on the way because the roads were clear. Even the smaller ones held no hazard for a careful driver.

Even so, we went at only a steady pace because we were well ahead of time and arrived to unload the muscular chestnut mare in good time for her to be checked by the breeding crew and take a place outside the old Spendthrift breeding shed. John Williams ran the stallions and breeding shed for Spendthrift; it was a smooth-running machine, nothing out of place.

With Monique Rene being a maiden, I’m sure they jumped her with a teaser, but I don’t recall that. I only remember Raise a Native. He would have been 24 by this time, but he was still such a beast. He pranced into the breeding shed, ears up, tail swishing. He looked like the boss, and he surely was.

Although Raise a Native was no longer a youngster, he took maybe 30 seconds to cover, then was snorting like a train coming round the bend, arching his neck. He was so full of energy and character that you could see why people were drawn to him, and he sired some tremendous athletes. As he walked out of the shed, he flashed his long red tail from side to side as he went, and the morning lit him up in the bright red chestnut that was “Raise a Native red” and must have belonged to his grandsire American Flag, as well as his sire Man o’ War and Fair Play.

Reloading a well-traveled mare like Monique Rene took minutes, and then she was on the road again. Pronounced in foal by the veterinarian and returned to Louisiana, she delivered a red filly about 11 months later that Mr. Franks named Ronique. As a racehorse, Ronique did nothing. She made six starts, finished third once, and earned $700.

Although the young mare’s racing career added nothing to the sportsman’s immense racing stable, as a broodmare, Ronique more than made up for that. Her best racer was the Kissin Kris gelding Kiss a Native, who was nearly as prolific a winner as his granddam. He won stakes at 2, 3, 4, and 7, was second in the G1 Donn at 5, earned $1.1million, and was the 2000 champion 3-year-old in Canada.

Much later, in 2007, I acquired Ronique. No longer a broodmare, Ronique was not a sedentary old codger. That long-bodied red rebel would have run a 3-year-old to death. She was, without a doubt, the most active older mare I’ve ever encountered. My sympathies to her trainer Harold Delahoussaye and groom when she was stuck in a stall on the racetrack.

According to Equibase, Ronique had raced from June 1989 to January 1990, and from what I saw of her hyperactive personality on the farm, they surely gave up on the racing option with her because she was mentally unsuited to spending life in a stall.

Her foals, or at least most of them, did not have that difficulty, and certainly Kiss a Native had a very long career. Ronique spent the rest of her life on the farm with me, and perhaps it was fitting that, being there at the beginning, I was there for her at the end.

lecomte stakes winner instant coffee runs to his heritage

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lecomte, lexington, umpire, wild man from borneo

The victory of Instant Coffee (by Bolt d’Oro) in the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes at the Fair Grounds brings more than hopes of classic glory to the talented colt. It also reminds us of the fast and furious rivalry between Lecomte and Lexington, both sons of the great 19th-century American racehorse and sire Boston (Timoleon).

Lecomte and Lexington were foaled in 1850, the year that California entered the Union, and each was a racehorse of very high quality. Lecomte was unbeaten until his defeat by Lexington, and Lexington met his first and only defeat from Lecomte.

Lexington won the Great State Post Stakes from Lecomte, then the latter turned the tables in the 1854 Jockey Club Purse. At these races, the interstate rivalry was so intense that tens of thousands of dollars, probably hundreds of thousands, changed hands on the results. The deciding race was the 1855 Jockey Club Purse, when Lexington won the first four-mile heat and Lecomte was withdrawn from the second.

After Lexington had defeated Lecomte the second time, the bay son of Boston was retired due to failing eyesight and went to stud that year in Kentucky at W.F. Harper’s stud near Midway, Ky., for a covering fee of $100, $1 to the groom. Robert A. Alexander of Woodburn Farm had gone to England to purchase bloodstock, there met Lexington’s owner Richard Ten Broeck, and purchased the horse for $15,000, an American record price for a horse at that time.

As talented a racer as Lexington was, he proved even more important as a sire. He was the leading sire in the country 14 times in a row, with an additional two more sire titles for 16 total. The great blind stallion died at Woodburn in July 1875 at the age of 25, and his skeleton was preserved and is at the Kentucky Horse Park.

Lexington was lionized in print and illustration, as in this lithograph of the horse in racing trim on his retirement to stud in Kentucky.

An interesting facet of Instant Coffee’s pedigree is that both these great rivals figure in the pedigree of the Lecomte Stakes winner.

The role of Lexington is not a surprise. He is present in essentially all pedigrees. Among other notable connections, Lexington is the sire of 1865 Travers winner Maiden, the sixth dam of Nearco (Pharis), and Mumtaz Mahal (The Tetrarch) has Lexington twice in her sixth generation because her second dam, Americus Girl, is by Americus, who was inbred 3×3 to Lexington through Norfolk and his full sister The Nun.

So Lexington is pervasive in pedigrees the world over, but the same cannot be said for Lecomte.

After Lexington ambled off to stud, the chestnut Lecomte raced on, although he, like his sire Boston, covered mares while still remaining an active racer. Lecomte was bred in 1855 and 1856, then after defeats from a horse named Pryor (Glencoe), was sold to Lexington’s former owner Richard Ten Broeck toward the end of 1856.

From breeder-owner Thomas Jefferson Wells, Ten Broeck purchased not only Lecomte for $10,000 but also his younger half-sister Prioress (Sovereign). Together with Pryor, the two offspring of the great producer Reel shipped to England as Ten Broeck’s troika to take on the best of English racing.

For Pryor and Lecomte, the trip was a disaster. Lecomte had a sore ankle and could not stand a proper training regimen; Pryor fell ill on the trip overseas and never recovered his form. Lecomte suffered colic and died on Oct. 7, 1857, and Pryor died 15 days later, per their obituaries in the Spirit of the Times.

The sole bright spot for this tragic expedition was that Prioress raced into a triple dead heat for the 1857 Cambridgeshire Handicap and won the run-off.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the final foals by Lecomte had been born in 1857. The best racer among these was bred in Kentucky by Ten Broeck. He was a bay colt out of Alice Carneal (Sarpedon) and a half-brother to Lexington by his great rival.

Named Umpire, this colt was taken to England by Ten Broeck, and he was notably successful, at one time the actual favorite for the Derby at Epsom. On the day, Umpire started as third choice 6-1 behind The Wizard, who had won the 1860 2,000 Guineas, and Thormanby. The bettors had the first two tagged but in the wrong order, as Thormanby won by 1 ½ lengths, and Umpire was seventh in a field of 30.

Later in 1860, Umpire raced for the St. Leger at Doncaster, with Thormanby favored, but after taking the lead, Umpire could not hold on and finished seventh behind the winner, St. Albans, as the fifth choice in a field of 15. Thormanby finished 11th.

Sound and athletic, Umpire raced on, winning the Queen’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot in 1863, by which time he was owned by Lord Coventry.

Wild Man from Borneo was a great-grandson of Lexington’s great rival Lecomte and won the Grand National of 1895.

Sent to stud, Umpire had some foals, and his son Decider earned a place in history as the sire of one of the best-named winners of the Grand National at Aintree: Wild Man From Borneo, the victor in the great steeplechase in 1895.

In the present day, however, pride of place goes to one of Lecomte’s daughters. This is the Lecomte Mare 1857 out of Edith, otherwise unnamed. She was bred by Wells and is the 15th dam of this year’s Lecomte Stakes winner Instant Coffee.

As with Instant Coffee, nearly all of the contemporary connections to Lecomte come through the Lecomte Mare’s granddaughter Mannie Gray, the dam of Correction and her full brother Domino. Together, they exerted an extraordinary influence on American breeding, especially in the first half of the 20th century, but are still present in pedigrees today.