hanging by a thread: less is not more in sport

In winning the premier events for 2-year-old colts on each coast in the U.S. over the weekend, Corniche (by Quality Road) and Jack Christopher (Munnings) made themselves more likely candidates for further glory in the championship event at the Breeders’ Cup.

In the American Pharoah at Santa Anita, Corniche brought his unbeaten record to two, and in the Champagne at Belmont Park, Jack Christopher did the same.

Each was making his stakes debut after an impressive first-out victory. In the case of Corniche, he had won his first start at Del Mar on Sept. 4 by 4 1/4 lengths, racing 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:03.01. Jack Christopher had won at first asking at Saratoga on Aug. 28 by 8 3/4 lengths, racing 6 furlongs in 1:09.85.

That each was an obviously talented young athlete who had been training well in the morning was further proven by each being the favorite in his first start.

Likewise, each has taken the step up in distance, and Corniche won the mile and a sixteenth American Pharoah and Jack Christopher the mile Champagne. Of the two other Grade 1-winning juvenile colts, Gunite (Gun Runner), the winner of the Hopeful, was fourth in the Champagne, and Pinehurst (Twirling Candy), the winner of the Del Mar Futurity, is training up to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

Of those four, and a handful of others, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile would almost certainly be elected divisional championship. And just so, a statistical and inherently variable proposition is made to appear linear and sequential.

The development of horses is not random. A nickel claimer from Finger Lakes doesn’t show up and win the Champagne, for instance. But neither is it lacking in variability or chance. From the 1,500 most progressive premium yearling colts a year ago, we are not actually down to “just four.”

This quartet, right now, appear to be the most ready and capable of upper echelon of colts. Some of their cadre aren’t yet fully fit, or fully hardened, or mentally seasoned – for example – to tackle Grade 1 company, yet.

Some of those will get to the Grade 1 ranks. For some, it will be later this year; others will rise to the higher level at three, and a few will be persevered with and become Grade 1 performers at four and five. Much of it, so much of it, depends on what their trainers and owners think of them and how the colts respond to those perceptions.

And, even among the colts who are knocking the barn down and burning up the track right now, the difference between days or weeks, the subtleties of trips and works or feet and digestion, contribute to the final results on the racetrack at the premium level, in particular.

Looking back at the last 10 winners of the American Pharoah, for example, two won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Game Winner (2018) and Nyquist (2015) were the two, and eight did not; that did not mean they weren’t exceptionally good horses, maybe even the best of horses.

The colt for whom the race is named, for instance, won the race when it was called the FrontRunner in 2014 but was unable to race in the Juvenile due to a foot problem. American Pharoah came back the next year to become a legend. In his stead at the 2014 Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita, FrontRunner third Texas Red (Afleet Alex) had a tremendous day and won the event.

Looking at the Champagne with the same point of view, only one winner in the last decade, Shanghai Bobby (Harlan’s Holiday) in 2012, went on to win the Juvenile; so winning one of the great preps is not a simple, straight-line, sequential process to arriving at a winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and probable divisional champion.

At this level, each race is effectively a coin toss, using a handful of coins, and only the very best of the very best can overcome the odds time after time to win and win again and again. That is why we run races; to test the participants and effectively gauge their comparative abilities.

But, as we race horses fewer and fewer times, we have a less-accurate gauge of their abilities, as well as their toughness, durability, versatility, and enthusiasm for sport. This situation is contrary to the best interests of the sport, the fans, the bettors, the racetracks, the breeders, the owners, and the breed itself.

the elder stakesmen of racing give us reason to cheer

Fans of the sport and others involved in racing have to listen to a lot of foolishness from those with a dim view of the breed. Many of us can hear the darling, nasal whine of the PETA-phile: “Thoroughbreds are too fragile; they’re born to break down.”

Phooey.

Clearly, some horses are hustled off for breeding too early, frequently sound and healthy to race, but those are economic decisions; I’m not here to argue with that. Might as well fuss about the rain coming down.

The results of racing over the weekend, however, put a sizable dent in the argument for anyone suggesting that the breed isn’t sound and capable of racing at a high level well past the early years we tend to feature in the headlines.

By my count, seven 5-year-olds won stakes on the weekend, along with multiple stakes winners aged six or seven. Among the 5-year-olds were the Afleet Alex horse Tiergan (Ashley T. Cole Stakes), the Stay Thirsty horse Mind Control (Parx Dirt Mile), the Curlin mare Golden Curl (Ricks Memorial), and the Galileo horse Nayef Road, winner of the Rose Bowl Stakes at Newmarket in England.

These are solid performers, some with quite good pedigrees, and yet they are mere colts and fillies in comparison to the genuine elder stakesmen (sic) of the racing community.

Consider, for example, that Pink Lloyd won again, this for the 27th time. He’s a chestnut beast by Canada’s leading sire, Old Forester (by Forestry), and is also a Horse of the Year in that lovely racing jurisdiction north of the 49th Parallel.

Unraced at two and three, Pink Lloyd won three of five at age four, was third in the Grade 2 Kennedy Road. The next year at five, Pink Lloyd became Canada’s Horse of the Year. That was the same year that the 5-year-olds mentioned above were yearlings. Every year since, Pink Lloyd has won a Sovereign Award as champion in at least one division in his homeland.

From 36 starts to date, the gelding has won 27, with three seconds and two thirds, for lifetime earnings to date of $1,737,917.

A regular homebody who loves his Woodbine racecourse, Pink Lloyd has never raced anywhere else, and his triumph on Saturday in the G3 Bold Venture Stakes was the 9-year-old’s 24th black-type success. He practically fills a catalog page by himself.

Others among the elder stakesmen include the world traveler Benbatl, a homebred in England for Darley who races under the banner of Godolphin. Benbatl has raced in five countries (England, Germany, UAE, Australia, and Saudi Arabia).

Unraced at two, Benbatl progressed so rapidly at three that he was entered in the Derby as the winner of a maiden, although placed second in the G2 Dante Stakes in his prep for the main event, and finished a creditable fifth. The son of Dubawi won his first G1 in the Dubai Turf as a 4-year-old, then followed with another G1 in Germany and the G1 Caulfield Stakes in Australia in the span of slightly more than six months.

At times in his career, then now-7-year-old Benbatl has been ranked the highweight on year-end handicaps in England, Germany, and the UAE. The winner of 11 races so far, Benbatl has earned more than $7.8 million.

Although Pink Lloyd and Benbatl are horses of championship level who have continued to race past the typical age for modern Thoroughbreds, the majority of older races are not so exalted. They make no headlines, earn no awards, but show the spirit of their forefathers and the quality of their foremothers.

Some campaign to quite an age, and the eldest stakesman of the weekend was the Talent Search sprinter Hollywood Talent, who won the Parx Turf Monster Stakes at five furlongs in :59.51.

Age 10, Hollywood Talent won his first graded stakes in the G3 Turf Monster, and that made an even dozen victories for the gelding, who has 11 seconds and seven thirds for total earnings of $635,071.

A quick horse from the start, Hollywood Talent won his debut at Keeneland in April of his juvenile season, then was second in the G3 Bashford Manor Stakes and third in the G2 Saratoga Special. In between those races and the Turf Monster, Hollywood Talent has plied his trade in minor stakes and allowance, occasionally dropping into claiming races and then starter allowances.

Brave and fast, Hollywood Talent is an example of the Thoroughbred who is an athlete to the core, and on his day of days, he rose to the occasion and stood in the winner’s circle as a graded stakes winner and an ambassador for the breed.

a decade ago, all three u.s. classic winners came from the september yearling sale

With the end of the Keeneland September yearling sale clearly in view for Friday, readers and buyers can pause to reflect on sales past and the classic season from 10 years ago when all three Triple Crown winners walked the path of the Keeneland pagoda through the September sale of 2009.

Yes, each of the 2011 Triple Crown races – the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes – went to a different September sale yearling, and all of them were chestnuts too.

The sales season of 2009, however, was not the bustling and booming market we have seen at Keeneland, and elsewhere, this year. Instead, 2009 was the first yearling sale season fully impacted by the global economic crisis and Great Recession that began in 2008.

As a direct result, prices for some of the better yearlings were lower than expected, but two of our subject horses – Animal Kingdom and Ruler On Ice – brought $100,000 when put through the Keeneland auction. And the third, Shackleford, brought the highest hammer price of the trio at $275,000 but was bought back by breeders Mike Lauffer and Bill Cubbedge.

A big, rangy chestnut with a “turf” pedigree, Animal Kingdom (by 2005 turf champion Leroidesanimaux) was bred by a Team Valor partnership and was consigned by Denali Stud. The buyer was another Barry Irwin partnership under the banner of Team Valor International. The colt’s results were surely the best for any Team Valor partnership because Animal Kingdom was a truly world-class racer at 10 furlongs, and he won the Kentucky Derby at three and the Dubai World Cup at five.

In contrast to those who previously had perceived the colt as a turf horse, the Derby is raced on dirt, and the World Cup was on the synthetic track at Meydan in 2013.

In between those two victories, Animal Kingdom had suffered a cracked hind cannon in the Belmont Stakes, was laid off for the rest of his 3-year-old season, and had a recurrence of a bone crack after his 4-year-old season debut. Then, Animal Kingdom showed what a truly versatile animal can do.

After more than six months away from racing, the big chestnut returned to Grade 1 competition in the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Mile on turf at Santa Anita. Sent off a little-considered 10-1, Animal Kingdom rallied like a champion and finished second to turf champion Wise Dan.

Following the World Cup victory in 2013, Animal Kingdom was retired at the midpoint of his 5-year-old season to enter stud in Australia, having earned $8.3 million. He retired to stud at Arrowfield in Australia and shuttled to Darley at Jonabell in Kentucky. In October 2019, Animal Kingdom was sold to the Japan Bloodstock Breeders’ Association and now stands in Japan.

At the same 2012 Breeders’ Cup, Shackleford (Forestry) raced in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, where he finished seventh. The previous year, Shackleford had been second in the Dirt Mile, and earlier in 2012, the prancing chestnut had won the Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park.

The flashy grandson of Storm Cat had personality plus, making him a favorite with fans, and he had denied Animal Kingdom’s closing rush in the 2011 Preakness to prevail by a half-length. Amazingly enough, the Preakness was the first stakes victory for Shackleford, although he had been second in the G1 Florida Derby earlier in the year.

After the Preakness, Shackleford finished second in the G1 Haskell, likewise the BC Dirt Mile, then won the Metropolitan at four and ended his career with victory in the G1 Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs in 2012.

A winner of $3 million, Shackelford retired to stud in Kentucky at Darby Dan Farm in 2013 and, in 2020, was sold to the Korean Racing Authority to stand at stud in South Korea.

Just as Shackleford had done in the Preakness, Ruler On Ice (by the Fusaichi Pegasus stallion Roman Ruler) won his first stakes in the classic Belmont Stakes. Amazingly enough, it proved the only stakes the gelding ever won.

Bred in Kentucky like the two other winners of the 2011 Triple Crown races, Ruler On Ice was bred by Liberation Farm and Brandywine Farm, then sold at the September sale to George and Lori Hall.

Stakes-placed coming into the Belmont against the winners of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, Ruler On Ice was a genuine longshot to win the Belmont, and only two of the 12 racers were at odds longer than his 24.75 to 1. One of those, Isn’t He Perfect, broke to the inside sharply at the start, pushing Mucho Macho Man into race favorite Animal Kingdom, who came out of the race with an injury.

Ruler On Ice tracked the pacesetting Shackleford from the start, and when the Preakness winner tired after 10 furlongs, the son of Roman Ruler took control and held off Stay Thirsty to win by three-quarters of a length.

Subsequently, Ruler On Ice was third in the G1 Haskell, fourth in the Travers, second in the Pennsylvania Derby, and third in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Those performances confirmed the racer’s quality, and he raced to the midpoint of his 6-year-old season. Retired, he now lives on the farm of his owners near Versailles, Ky.

As with the classics a decade ago, when we look back on the September sale of 2021, someone may very well have taken home a classic winner.

the declining foal crop and the war on ‘average’

The Jockey Club announced late last week that the projected foal crop for 2022 is 18,700, and most of the racing press reported this without commentary. That number of foals is the lowest figure in more than 60 years. The trendlines appear to be giving us both clear indications of what is happening and generally why it’s happening too. Breeders are hearing what the marketplace is telling them and are responding in accordance.

For a generation, the commercial market has been pummeling breeders whose stock ranks below the median in auction sales. Typically, the prices for those foals and yearlings do not even cover the cost of on-farm production, without even considering ancillary expenses or the cost of money tied up in non-productive assets.

As a result, the number of foals that breeders are willing to produce has hit a noteworthy low point.

The last time the North American foal crop of Thoroughbreds came this low was 66 years ago in 1965 when the foal crop was 18,846, and only five years before that, in 1960, the foal crop was 12,901. So in the span of half a decade, the foal crop increased by nearly 50 percent, but the decades of the 1960s and 1970s featured exponential growth in Thoroughbred racing, and especially in breeding, with the expansion of breeding programs outside of Kentucky, Florida, and California.

Now, those regional programs are nearly dead. Many breeders are pensioning stallions, selling off mares, and not breeding for those specialty markets.

In contrast to the present trend, the foal-production boom peaked in 1986 with a foal crop of 51,296, just in time for the tax act that changed the rules for breeders and sent the market into a panic and decline. By 1995, the selloff had bottomed out with a foal crop of 34,983, more than 16,300 foals fewer than only nine years earlier.

Since then, the foal crops remained remarkably stable around the 35,000 level until 2010, when the foal crop dropped below 30,000 for the first time since the 1970s. Crop numbers have been drawing down, slowly but steadily to the present level, and one of the great factors for this direction is the continuing negative pressure from buyers.

Despite the tone of the foregoing information, there is a good market for Thoroughbreds, but it is a good market, consistent and profitable, only for premium foals and yearlings. Nobody wants an average one. Or what is perceived to be an average yearling, because every year there are graded stakes winners from every book and every session of the September sale. Perception of average-ness is not the same as being average (or below average).

At the same time that breeders are stuck with half or thereabouts of their annual foal crop in the “below-average” section of sales, the same breeders are consistently being prodded to spend more for stud fees and other services, then to accept less at the sales, because what other choice would they have.

The situation is sufficiently trying to make one wonder “what if”: what if breeders made different decisions; what if breeders formed cooperatives (or a single cooperative) to improve their economic and political impact; what if a group or several groups collectively hired trainers to train the horses that were not “sales types?” These and other choices are out there, apparently waiting for someone or a group of someones to latch onto them and bring them into operation.

By these and other avenues, there are ways out of the financial quandary breeders find themselves in, but it may not be the path that brought them here. We have, for more than 20 years, been breeding stallions to as many mares as breeders will present and as many as the horse can (hopefully) handle.

This approach, in hindsight, might be considered an overreaction to the concept of a free market, as in too much of a good thing can drown you.

Stallion syndicates, hard number syndicates that restrict access to premium stallions and control the supply of yearlings as a result, are one option. This is considerably different from the current free-for-all that seems to be sending more breeders to the poor house each year.

Instead, a syndicate with a contractual cap on seasons and members would be a return to the style of syndicates from the 1950s and ’60s and ’70s, when everyone made money in horses. And somehow the horses were even better and raced more and seemed more like fun, than what we have now.

gun runner is building a formidable lead in the freshman sire race

After his offspring won both of the Grade 1 stakes for 2-year-olds on the Labor Day weekend at Saratoga, freshman sire Gun Runner (by Candy Ride) has rebroken on his competition, and the Three Chimneys Farm stallion has a margin of more than $400,000 in progeny earnings over second-place Practical Joke (Into Mischief), who stands at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky.

Leading freshman sire Gun Runner at Three Chimneys Farm

The third- and fourth-place positions on the freshman sire rankings are taken by fellow Ashford stallions Classic Empire (Pioneerof the Nile) and Caravaggio (Scat Daddy). Then, well-separated from the leading quartet, are a six-pack of young sires who have progeny earnings within $100,000 of each other. These are Connect (Curlin) at Lane’s End, Klimt (Quality Road) at Darby Dan, Unified (Candy Ride) at Lane’s End, Mohaymen (Tapit) at Shadwell, Gormley (Malibu Moon) at Spendthrift, and Stanford (Malibu Moon) at Tommy Town Thoroughbreds in California.

The weekend results added emphasis to the unexpectedly precocious showing of the first-crop racers by Gun Runner, who was a good racer at two but improved greatly at three and thereafter. Now the sire of four stakes winners from his first crop, all graded winners, Gun Runner has had three of those stakes winners at Saratoga, the fourth at Del Mar.

A tidy four-length victory in the Spinaway Stakes at Saratoga made Echo Zulu the first Grade 1 winner for her sire, and then Gunite powered through the stretch to win the Hopeful by 5 3/4 lengths on Labor Day to become a second Grade 1 winner for Gun Runner, the 2017 Horse of the Year and champion older horse for Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC and Three Chimneys Farm.

Having Gunite as a homebred, Winchell Thoroughbreds bought Echo Zulu for $300,000 at the 2020 Keeneland September yearling sale. Echo Zulu was one of two Gun Runner yearlings that Winchell Thoroughbreds bought last year. After racing Gun Runner with partner Three Chimneys, Winchell Thoroughbreds already had several young prospects coming along last year.

David Fiske, the racing manager for Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC, said that “we had taken the position that you don’t go out on a limb with a young stallion” prior to Gun Runner. But he thought “if we were ever going to breed a bunch of mares to a single stallion, this was the one. I managed to convince Ron of this, and to his credit, Ron loves to gamble, and we ended up with 17 foals from the first crop.

“The good news was they all looked alike. None of them were bad; all looked like they’d be trainable, and of the 15 that survived to go into training, I told a fellow last year that I thought we could win with every one of them. They grew up well, kept good proportions, stayed sound, and appeared to have good minds.

“Off the results of that group, we bred another 17 mares to him the second year, didn’t sell any mares in foal, have hung onto the ones we’ve had, and we’re getting rewarded for doing that.

“Because Gun Runner is having a fairytale beginning to his stud career,” Fiske concluded.

The fairytale has only begun, but it is getting seriously exciting for all involved.

Although he improved markedly at three and four, Gun Runner was unbeaten at two in his first two starts, winning a maiden special at Churchill Downs on Sept. 11, then an allowance at Keeneland on Oct. 17. The effect of those two performances was enough for bettors to make the chestnut colt the third favorite at 4.9-to-1 in the G3 Iroquois for his third start. After laying up with the pace, Gun Runner had a narrow lead at the stretch call, then was ambushed by winner Airoforce (Colonel John), Mor Spirit (Eskendereya), and Mo Tom (Uncle Mo) to finish fourth, beaten 3 1/4 lengths by the winner.

None of those made progress comparable to Gun Runner over the coming months, who won both the G2 Risen Star Stakes and Louisiana Derby, and the son of Candy Ride finished third in the Kentucky Derby behind juvenile champion Nyquist (Uncle Mo) and subsequent Preakness winner Exaggerator (Curlin).

Subsequently third in the G1 Travers and second in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Mile, Gun Runner won the G1 Clark at the end of his second season, and of the final eight races in his career, Gun Runner lost only one, when second in the G1 Dubai World Cup to Arrogate, who performed miracles after a dodgy start to get up and win the race by 2 1/4 lengths.

After winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic and the Horse of the Year award, Gun Runner signed off on his racing career at five with a victory in the second running of the Pegasus Stakes at Gulfstream, retiring to stud at Three Chimneys. For his fourth season at stud in 2021, Gun Runner stood for $50,000 live foal. That is virtually certain to increase for 2022.

saratoga sprint stars trace back to triple crown winner seattle slew

In addition to exceptional speed, Gamine (by Into Mischief) and Yaupon (Uncle Mo) share some other factors. In pedigree most notably, both are male-line representatives of Lord Derby’s famed stallion Phalaris through his grandson Nearco, thence through Nearco’s sons Nasrullah (Yaupon) and Nearctic (Gamine).

The winners of the Grade 1 Ballerina Handicap and Forego Stakes at Saratoga descend from the epochal 20th century sire Phalaris not only in the male line but also through numerous collateral lines in their pedigrees.

And in the bottom halves of their pedigrees, their dam’s half of the pedigree tree, is the name of a Phalaris-line horse who became one of the hottest “secrets” of the 1976 racing season with his morning works at Saratoga. The dark brown, nearly black, son of the first-season sire Bold Reasoning had an unfamiliar name and was trained by a relatively unknown conditioner named Bill Turner.

Seattle Slew, his trainer, and the members of the Slew Crew did not stay unfamiliar.

The burly, dark-coated colt was delighting clockers at Saratoga with works that allegedly included at least one three-furlong move in :33 and change that was reported as a time more expected from an unraced 2-year-old.

Clockers, who are paid something less than brain surgeons, were as reluctant as anyone to let a good thing go by without making the most of it, but Seattle Slew was one of the worst-kept secrets of the Saratoga backside that summer of 1976.

A knock in a stall kept the colt from starting at the Spa, but when he was unveiled at Belmont Park on Sept. 20, Seattle Slew was the favorite at 5-to-2. He won by five lengths.

The colt’s next race was a solid allowance victory on Oct. 5, but Seattle Slew’s third start came only 11 days later in the Champagne Stakes at a mile. Favored at slightly more than even money, Seattle Slew was quickly away from the gate, made every pole a winning one, and cruised home the victor by 9 3/4 lengths.

That race elevated ‘Slew’ to a sports celebrity, and even among fans relatively removed from the racetrack, the colt became a focus of great interest to professionals and novices alike.

A champion at two after those three dominating performances, Seattle Slew returned at three to win his prep races and the Triple Crown without defeat, then lost the Swaps Stakes to J.O. Tobin (Never Bend) and did not race again until four.

Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old in 1977, Seattle Slew returned to racing from a 10-month layoff in May 1978 with a new trainer, Doug Peterson. The dashing colt had lost none of his ability but managed to lose the Paterson Handicap to Dr. Patches (Dr. Fager), who was in receipt of 14 pounds, and as a result, Seattle Slew was not favored in his next start, the Marlboro Cup, where he met 1978 Triple Crown winner Affirmed (Exclusive Native) for the first time.

Although not favorite for the only time in his career, Seattle Slew raced to victory in the Marlboro Cup over nine furlongs in patented style, going to the front and setting quick, steady fractions and maintaining them throughout. The half-mile was :47, the six furlongs in 1:10 1/5, the mile in 1:33 3/5, and the finish at nine furlongs in 1:45 4/5. Affirmed was second by three lengths and simply could not gain on his competitor.

So Harbor View Farm sat out the Woodward Stakes, where Seattle Slew performed the same sort of summary execution, racing in front the whole way and winning by four lengths in 2:00 for the 10 furlongs. The very high-class multi-surface performer Exceller (Vaguely Noble) was second, 6 3/4 lengths ahead of the third horse.

When the champions reconvened in two weeks for the Jockey Club Gold Cup at 12 furlongs, Seattle Slew set off to do the same thing again, but Affirmed’s saddle slipped, and Harbor View Farm’s chestnut champion raced to the fore (along with stablemate Life’s Hope) and challenged Seattle Slew head to head through the first three-quarters of the Gold Cup with fractions of :22 3/5, :45 1/5, and 1:09 2/5.

Those fractions finished both Affirmed and Life’s Hope, but Seattle Slew kept on as Exceller closed the gap between, then raced ahead by at least a half-length at one point in the stretch. Seattle Slew, under Angel Cordero, came back and missed winning the race by a nose.

A winner in 14 of 17 starts, Seattle Slew had proved his speed and gameness to fans, historians, and notably to breeders, many of whom supported him well when he went to stud the following spring at Spendthrift Farm.

From the champion’s first crop came champions Landaluce and Slew o’ Gold, from his second crop came champion and classic winner Swale. A success from the start, Seattle Slew has become an important factor for strong bodies, solid bone, and high speed in the racehorse.

tripoli becomes the first g1 winner on dirt for turf champion and leading sire kitten’s joy

A victory in the Grade 1 Pacific Classic made Tripoli the first Grade 1 winner on dirt for the important sire Kitten’s Joy, one of the two top-tier sons of El Prado (by Sadler’s Wells) at stud in Kentucky. The other is Darley‘s Medaglia d’Oro, a top-class dirt racer who sires elite racers on dirt and turf.

Kitten’s Joy, an exceptional turf champion here in the States, has sired 14 G1 winners on turf, and his importance in that regard is such that he is one of the most consistently popular sires in the country for European breeders and buyers. With performers such as Hawkbill (Eclipse Stakes), Roaring Lion (Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and Irish Champion Stakes), and Kameko (2,000 Guineas) abroad, there is no question that the success which Kitten’s Joy has shown in America also translates directly into exceptional form overseas.

Based at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms outside Paris, Ky., Kitten’s Joy stands for $60,000 live foal this year, and he has high-class young sons at stud in Kentucky (G1 winners Oscar Performance at Mill Ridge; Divisidero at Airdrie; Big Blue Kitten and Real Solution at Calumet), in Japan (Hawkbill at Darley Japan), and in Europe (G1 winners Kameko at Tweenhills and Bobby’s Kitten at Lanwades). Roaring Lion unfortunately died after one season at stud, and his only crop are now yearlings.

An imposing individual who combines substance and scope in his physique, Kitten’s Joy gets turf performers so consistently that Tripoli made his first 11 starts on that surface, winning two. Switched to dirt three races back, the handsome chestnut has won two and finished a close second to Express Train (Union Rags) in the G2 San Diego Handicap in their prep for the Pacific Classic.

A good horse on turf, Tripoli is evidently better on dirt. With victory in the Pacific Classic, he became the seventh G1 winner for Tapit as a broodmare sire. Is the latter fact a telling point? Probably.

An unequivocal factor for both speed and for stamina, Tapit loves grass. Eats it every day.

His racers, however, are not widely tested on turf racing. Some have excelled, but with their pace and handy way of going, they tend to do quite well on dirt, and they aren’t most trainers’ first thoughts for “turf horses.” While their action and overall aptitude indicates that the Tapit stock should be as good on firm turf as over dirt, they don’t shape like horses who would prefer racing over a bog.

Bred in Kentucky by Blue Devil Racing Stable LLC, Tripoli is the second foal of Love Train, who is one of her sire’s 283 black-type horses. A winner of three races from 10 starts and $146,499, Love Train was third in the Lightning City Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs and is a half-sister to stakes winner Starfish Bay (Elusive Quality), who is the dam of stakes winner Blind Ambition (Tapit).

Love Train was bred by Gainesway and sold at the 2011 Saratoga select yearling sale for $250,000. An elegant filly with quality, typical of the Tapit fillies, Love Train showed enough ability for Blue Devil Racing to bring her back to Kentucky and put her in the broodmare band. Bred to high-quality sires annually, Love Train did not excite the commercial market with her foals, except for a chestnut colt by Kitten’s Joy.

A good-sized colt with much of his sire’s muscularity and robust stance, Tripoli was a very good yearling, and he sold like it. Bringing $450,000 at the 2018 Keeneland September sale from the Lane’s End Sales consignment, Tripoli sold for the fifth-highest price by a yearling of his sire that season.

Aside from the colt later named Tripoli, however, Love Train proved herself a noncommercial broodmare, and for the 2020 Keeneland November sale, she was entered and sold for $70,000 to Barry K. Schwartz. Although listed as in foal to leading sire Union Rags, the mare does not show a reported foal of 2020 and may have been empty at the time of sale.

Now that Tripoli has made good, both the sire and dam can bask in some of the reflected glory of their son’s G1 success.

high oak is flying high for parke and valkyre stud, as well as freshman sire gormley

The freshmen sires of 2021 are pipping like chicks ready to break out of their shells. They’ve incubated long enough, and breeders, owners, and stallion managers are ready to see the results, as well as the racing public. After a year for gestation and a further two and half years of growth and preparation, the first-crop racers by these new sires are coming to the races, and some are getting their pictures taken.

Nine freshmen sires have had a black-type winner so far. Ashford’s formerly Irish-based Caravaggio (by Scat Daddy) leads the group with three stakes winners, and Horse of the Year Gun Runner (Candy Ride) leads by earnings with a pair of stakes winners from his base at Three Chimneys. Unified (Candy Ride) stands at Lane’s End and is in the mix with a pair of stakes winners also.

Practical Joke (Into Mischief; Ashford), Mohaymen (Tapit; Shadwell), Shaman Ghost (Ghostzapper; Adena Springs North), Bal a Bali (Put it Back; Calumet), and Eagle (Candy Ride; Valor Farm) each have one black-type winner, and Gormley (Malibu Moon; Spendthrift) is the latest to join the group of stakes sires after his High Oak won the Grade 2 Saratoga Special by 4 1/4 lengths over Gunite (Gun Runner) on Aug. 14.

Bred in Kentucky by Catherine Parke, High Oak is the fifth named foal and first stakes winner for his dam, the Elusive Quality mare Champagne Sue. Parke said, “When you get a super good-looking colt, and it goes to a trainer like Bill Mott, the sky’s the limit,” and High Oak came along just when his dam needed the boost from a high-class stakes winner.

“This is such a good-looking, strong mare. She’s a full 16.1 with a big, strong hindquarter, and she reproduces those looks. She’s had several nice-looking foals,” Parke said, “including her first,” a Mineshaft colt who sold for six figures as a yearling and a 2-year-old, then won four races in Japan and earned $428,185.

Aside from that, Champagne Sue might be thought a hard-luck mare. “She had a barren year, then lost a foal,” Parke recalled. “We had a couple of years when I’d have given up on her, but for that pedigree.”

Champagne Sue is a half-sister to G3 Affirmed winner Golden Itiz (Tiznow) and G2 Prioress winner Sapphire n’ Silk (Pleasant Tap).

The latter is the dam of two stakes winners, and all told, the second dam, Golden Tiy (Dixieland Band), has five daughters who have produced stakes winners. Most importantly, one of the winning half-sisters is Silk n’ Sapphire (Smart Strike), whom Parke bought in 2008. The mare produced Grade 1 winner Shared Account (Breeders’ Cup Filly Turf) and Grade 3 winner Colonial Flag (Pleasant Tap).

Parke bought Champagne Sue in 2010 and sold High Oak as a foal in 2019 for $37,000, the fifth-highest price for a weanling by Gormley. The colt resold as a yearling at Keeneland September for $70,000, the ninth-highest of 75 Gormley yearlings. Champagne Sue is back in foal to first-season sire Instagrand (Into Mischief).

Winner of the G1 FrontRunner in 2016 and the G1 Santa Anita Derby in 2017, Gormley covered his first book of mares in 2018 at Spendthrift and was immensely popular with breeders, many of whom scooped up seasons that gave them a lifetime breeding right in the horse. To secure a breeding right, mare owners had to sign up to breed a mare to the horse at a stud fee of $12,500 for the first two seasons. Of those, 57 completed the program and now own a lifetime right in an upwardly mobile freshman sire. Typical of the A.P. Indy sire line, Gormley is a sizable, lengthy horse who performed best at a mile and up, and a large part of his foals seem to be cast in this type with good size and scope.

High Oak won the Special going 6 1/2 furlongs and looked stronger at the end than at the midpoint of the Saratoga Special, which suggests he could improve when racing at longer distances.

In addition to Gunite’s second in the Saratoga Special, champion Gun Runner is one of three freshmen sons of leading sire Candy Ride with a stakes winner. Both Unified and Gun Runner have a pair of stakes winners. Eagle is the third son of Candy Ride, and he stands in Texas at Valor Farm. His daughter Eagle Express won the Pan Zareta division of the Texas Stallion Stakes at Lone Star. Eagle has eight foals in his first crop, whereas Gun Runner has 103 and Unified has 88.

Unified’s daughter Behave Virginia won the Debutante Stakes at Churchill Downs on June 26, with Gun Runner’s daughter Wicked Halo third. Unified added his second stakes winner on Aug. 15 when Roger McQueen won the Ellis Park Juvenile, and Gun Runner’s son Costa Terra was third.

Last weekend, Gun Runner had his first two stakes winners when both Wicked Halo and Pappacap won. At Saratoga on Aug. 8, Wicked Halo won the G2 Adirondack Stakes by 3 ½ lengths, and the previous day, Pappacap won the G2 Best Pal at Del Mar by 4 3/4 lengths. Thanks to this positive stakes activity, Gun Runner sits atop the freshman sire standings with $802.863.

While Candy Ride is riding high with three well-regarded freshmen, both Tapit (Mohaymen and Divining Rod) and Malibu Moon (Gormley and Stanford) have two sons each in the top 15 at this point.

The lengthening distances and increasing competition will continue to illuminate the merits of the sires and their offspring, while providing fascinating racing in the coming months.

sunday silence fit the bill, at least for yoshida

(A loyal reader made a query about Sunday Silence and whether the horse’s color affected the perception of breeders. The response to that question, and a bit of further amplification, is below.)

The winner of the 1989 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, Sunday Silence (by Halo) is mostly remembered in the U.S. as the great challenger of 1988 juvenile champion Easy Goer (Alydar). The winner of a maiden at 2, Sunday Silence rose to prominence swiftly at 3, winning an allowance, the San Felipe, and then the Santa Anita Derby as his prep for the big event in Kentucky.

An exceptionally high-class racehorse who appealed greatly to fans for his volatile character and independence, the color of Sunday Silence didn’t affect his appeal to people. The horse had inherited the color of his sire, Halo, who had been a high-priced sales yearling sold to Charles Engelhard and later became a high-class racehorse and sire. Among racing fans, Sunday Silence had a tremendous following, but among breeders, the attitude was quite a lot more reserved. This wasn’t related to his coloring, which could be seen as an indication of inheriting quite a lot of the better Halo genetics; the drawback to Sunday Silence as a stallion prospect was 1) the breeding economics of the day and 2) the fairly obscure, non-commercial names in the bottom half of the pedigree that represented his dam.

The Reagan tax reform act of 1986 hit the horse business (and several other areas of investment) very hard because it changed the way that losses in horses, housing, real estate, and some other things could be written off against income on taxes. As a result, prices in those areas plummeted because so many people were bailing out, and horses were awash in the marketplace. People with the money to breed racehorses were very uncertain about how much it would cost them and how much it would impact their overall “wealth” to do so.

As a result, there was a serious depression in prices at sales and consequently in the private market for stallion shares. When, in 1990, Easy Goer was retired, he was not syndicated; he was retained as wholly owned by Ogden Phipps, his breeder. The same year, when Arthur Hancock tried to syndicate Sunday Silence and needed to do so for his own economic stability, he was able to get a positive response from only a couple of stalwart, essentially home-breeding operations, W.T. Young at Overbrook and Josephine Abercrombie at Pin Oak Stud. As a result, Zenya Yoshida, who already owned a quarter-interest in the horse, was able to offer enough money (about $11 million gross) to buy Sunday Silence outright and take him to stand in Japan at his Shadai Farm.

That changed the history of Japanese racing and breeding forever.

The second point of concern among breeders was the pedigree of Sunday Silence’s dam Wishing Well. She was a good racemare, winning a dozen races from 38 starts, but she had a pedigree that was contrary to fashion and familiarity. Her sire was the good Promised Land horse Understanding (who won the Stuyvesant Handicap but sired only two stakes winners). The sires of the next three dams were Montparnasse (Gulf Stream), Hillary (Khaled), and Free France (Man o’ War). Very few Kentucky stallions had such a pedigree and certainly no other highly successful stallion had a pedigree with so many unfamiliar names. Fear and uncertainty ruled.

Yoshida, on the other hand, was looking for a high-class racehorse who was an outcross for his great Northern Dancer sire Northern Taste (Northern Dancer) and for the many other Northern Dancer-line mares that were being purchased to breed in Japan. Sunday Silence fitted those requirements perfectly.

And so, history was made.

In fairness to all, up until his first crop came to the races in 1994, nobody — at least among the Kentucky commercial breeders — expected Sunday Silence to be a serious success. He was too rangy and lean and atypical of the “commercial type” that has come to dominate American racing and breeding.

Genetics and character predominated in the success of Sunday Silence and gave racing and breeding in Japan an unquestionable boost in excellence and in worldwide acceptance of that athletic ability. In a sad twist of fate, Zenya Yoshida did not live to see the horse’s great success, dying in 1993.

The Sunday Silence line is not well-represented outside of Japan, but one high-class grandson, by Sunday Silence’s important son Heart’s Cry, stands at WinStar Farm in Kentucky. The horse’s named is … Yoshida.

the legend of grey flight continues with bella sofia

There once was a mare named Grey Flight.

A foal of 1945, the gray daughter of English Derby winner Mahmoud (by Derby winner Blenheim) sold at the 1946 Saratoga select yearling sale. The filly was so fine that she brought $45,000, the highest price for a filly at the Saratoga sale 75 years ago.

Smiles surround Mahmoud after winning the 1936 Derby at Epsom. The gray colt is led in by his owner, the Aga Khan, and jockey Charlie Smirke is patting the colt on the neck in appreciation of the racing success.

The buyer was the Wheatley Stable of Gladys Mills Phipps, and Grey Flight went on to become a stakes winner at 2 and 3, earning $68,990. Better at two, when she was ranked fourth among the fillies on the Experimental Free Handicap, Grey Flight won the Autumn Days Stakes at Empire City racecourse and was second or third in a half-dozen more stakes that year, including the Frizette and the Spinaway.

Grey Flight’s connections to Saratoga do not end with her sale there and good effort in the Spinaway. Most notably, the mare’s daughter Bold Princess won the 1962 Schuylerville Stakes at Saratoga, and Grey Flight’s son What a Pleasure won the 1967 Hopeful there.

Quite a few of Grey Flight’s further descendants have won major events at the Spa over the decades, and on Aug. 7, Bella Sofia won the Grade 1 Test at Saratoga, and her fourth dam is a mare named Clear Ceiling.

Like Bold Princess and What a Pleasure, Clear Ceiling is out of Grey Flight, and all three are by the Horse of the Year and great sire Bold Ruler. When Wheatley Stable retired Bold Ruler to stud at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky, the decision was made to keep the horse, arguably the fastest son of the great sire Nasrullah, as a privately owned stallion by the breeder.

Although the common practice of the time was to syndicate prominent sire prospects, Mrs. Phipps was a woman of independent mind and fortune, and she certainly loved her horses. By keeping Bold Ruler privately owned, Wheatley took a risk by losing the profits from a syndication; the benefit of keeping him private was that Wheatley was able to arrange foal-shares for its increasingly popular sire with some of the best broodmares in the country.

As luck would have it, however, Wheatley had two of the best broodmares in the breed already in their band at Claiborne: Grey Flight and her champion daughter Misty Morn (Princequillo).

In all, Grey Flight produced nine stakes winners, including three by Bold Ruler, and Misty Morn produced five stakes winners, including four by Bold Ruler. Two of those were the champions Bold Lad (champion juvenile colt of 1964) and his full brother Successor (champion juvenile colt of 1966). Misty Morn had been one of the mares in Bold Ruler’s first book, and she produced the filly Bold Consort, who won the 1963 Test Stakes.

One of Grey Flight’s foals by Bold Ruler who didn’t win a stakes was Clear Ceiling, a filly born in 1968. From 17 starts, Clear Ceiling won five races, and she became an important producer when sent to stud.

Her best racer was 1,000 Guineas winner Quick as Lightning, who proved the only winner of a top-class race bred on the cross of Horse of the Year Buckpasser to a daughter of Horse of the Year Bold Ruler.

Clear Ceiling’s second and third stakes winners were Stratospheric and Infinite, by the Phipps stallion Majestic Light (Majestic Prince). Tragically, both Quick as Lightning and Stratospheric died before producing foals, but Infinite, winner of the Garden City Stakes and third in the Diana and the Yellow Ribbon, did manage to produce the minor stakes winner Polish Treaty (Danzig), as well as the three-time winner Option Contract (Forty Niner).

Option Contract is the second dam of Bella Sofia and produced the solid stakes winner Shake the Dice, who earned $523,851, and the stakes-placed Love Contract (Consolidator), who is the dam of this year’s winner of the Test.

Bella Sofia is the third foal of her dam, following winners by Bullet Train and Overanalyze. Now a winner in three of her four starts, Bella Sofia has immediately brought a degree of attention to her sire, Awesome Patriot, that was missing before.

Retired to stud in Kentucky at Spendthrift Farm, Awesome Patriot (Awesome Again) is a full brother to 2013 Preakness winner Oxbow, who has his best racer to date in 2021: Hot Rod Charlie, who was home first in the G1 Haskell (then disqualified), second in the G1 Belmont Stakes, and winner of the G2 Louisiana Derby earlier in the year.

Bella Sofia is undoubtedly the best racer to represent Awesome Patriot and is the sire’s fifth lifetime stakes winner from five crops of racing age. Now standing at stud in Ohio, Awesome Patriot is notable for his part in reviving the G1 quality in this branch of the historic female line of Grey Flight.