stakes-winning double for the late champion arrogate boosts the stallion on the second-crop list of leading sires

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arrogate, garrett o'rourke, juddmonte farms, second-crop sires 2022, unbridled's song

With stakes winners on the West Coast and the East Coast on successive days, at Del Mar on July 28 and at Saratoga on July 29, Arrogate (by Unbridled’s Song) doubled his total number of stakes winners.

Arrogate at Juddmonte Farm in Lexington. The champion son of Unbridled’s Song died near the end of his third season at stud, and his last crop of foals are now yearlings. (Juddmonte Farm photo)

From the sire’s first crop, now three, Arrogate’s first stakes winner, Alittleloveandluck, came on New Year’s Day, then subsequent Grade 1 winner Secret Oath won the G3 Honeybee on her way to victory in the G1 Kentucky Oaks and becoming one of the best fillies of the year, and a third filly, Fun to Dream, won the Fleet Treat Stakes at Del Mar on Thursday.

Bred in California by Bob Baffert and Connie Pageler, Fun to Dream is unbeaten in two starts. The filly made her debut on May 28 at Santa Anita and won the maiden special by 6 ¼ lengths as the odds-on favorite while trained by Sean McCarthy.

Back to being trained by Baffert after his return from the wilderness, Fun to Dream made her second start in the Fleet Treat, an event restricted to California-bred or -sired fillies, and again was favored. This time, the gray filly won by 9 ¾ lengths in 1:22.67 for seven furlongs.

The dam of Fun to Dream, Lutess (Maria’s Mon), was claimed by Bob Baffert on behalf of Live Your Dream Stable for $8,000 on Feb. 17, 2012, and Lutess thus became a broodmare. Fun to Dream races for Pageler and Natalie Baffert.

The day after Fun to Dream became her sire’s third stakes winner, Artorius won the Curlin Stakes at Saratoga and became the first son of Arrogate to win a stakes.

Bred in Kentucky by Juddmonte Farms, “Artorius isn’t an overly big horse,” according to Juddmonte farm manager Garrett O’Rourke, “and he isn’t especially heavy either. He’s more of a greyhound type, very athletic. He had shins, and things like that delayed his progress.”

Now a winner in two of his three starts, Artorius is clearly progressive and drew off to win the listed Curlin Stakes at Saratoga by 4 ¾ lengths in 1:50.34. The dark bay colt was the second choice in the field of eight.

Artorius had been second in his debut on April 16 at Keeneland, then came back on June 10 to win a maiden special at Belmont, racing a mile in 1:35.07. The colt seemed notably professional in racing inside, then between horses, before going on to win his race. Furthermore, the form seems solid, with Preakness third Creative Minister (Creative Cause) finishing 6 ¼ lengths back of the winner.

The Curlin was the third start for Artorius, and the race was both a step up in class and forward in distance. And it is tempting to say that the Arrogate stock want distance, but Fun to Dream showed plenty of speed in California, racing the six furlongs in 1:09.53 before finishing the seven furlongs in quick time.

Juddmonte supplied a substantial portion of Arrogate’s book each year the gray champion was at stud, and O’Rourke has seen as many of the horse’s offspring as anyone. He said that, in addition to the farm’s 3-year-olds, “we have plenty of 2-year-olds and plenty of yearlings. I always felt our 2-year-old crop was deeper than the 3-year-olds. Some of the 2-year-olds have already gone into training.

“The pattern that I think is emerging is giving them time, and when you get a good one, it’s worth the wait. That was what we found with Arrogate himself. Shins were the problem with Arrogate at two that prompted Bob to send him back to the farm. Then when he went back to training in California, he was ready.”

After winning a maiden and a pair of allowances as a 3-year-old, Arrogate went to Saratoga for the 2016 Travers, where he scorched the earth in a memorable performance. From then through the Breeders’ Cup Classic and Pegasus to his victory in the Dubai World Cup, Arrogate was the best horse in the world.

And Juddmonte was planning for the day when he went to stud.

The farm acquired Paulassilverlining (Ghostzapper) privately from breeder Vincent Scuderi after the G2 winner had finished a good third in the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Filly Sprint, then won the Garland of Roses in December 2016. The filly promptly continued to compile a four-race winning streak, earning victories for Juddmonte in the G1 Madison at Keeneland, the G1 Distaff at Churchill Downs, and the G2 Honorable Miss at Saratoga.

Paulassilverlining ran below her best form in her final two starts, the G1 Ballerina and G1 BC Filly Sprint. Then both she and Arrogate were retired to stud in Kentucky, and Artorius was the result of the mare’s first mating. The multiple G1 winner has a 2-year-old filly named Parameter (Into Mischief) with Chad Brown, like the half-brother.

The second-crop sires all toil far in arrears of record-setting Gun Runner ($7.5 million), but Arrogate is a highly respectable third behind Keen Ice (Curlin) ($3.9 million) with $3.5 million in his sire account so far this year. Those are the only second-crop sires with more than $3 million in progeny earnings for 2022.

Arrogate has the smallest number of starters among the top 10 sires on the list; so to be ranked that highly, and with only four stakes winners, the colts and fillies winning maidens are clearly doing so in good company and for good purses. The likelihood is that we will be able to assess the stallion’s overall contribution to greater advantage in 18 to 24 months.

haskell exacta offers continuing insight on gun runner’s elevation to leading sire

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bold ruler, bull lea, gun runner, measures of sire greatness, mr prospector

With a one-two finish in the Grade 1 Haskell on July 23, Cyberknife defeating Tiaba by a head, leading sire Gun Runner (by Candy Ride) is wading into the subtle distinctions that separate truly important sires from the select few who transcend the breed and reshape the sport in their own images.

It is too early to say that, with only one crop at age three, but Gun Runner is stacking up accomplishments that bear scrutiny against the great sires of the past.

One of the most important of those accomplishments is getting multiple top-class performers. That’s what makes a sire great – highest-quality offspring – but it’s so rare and difficult to achieve.

Thirty-four years ago, Mr. Prospector (Raise a Native) had the one-two in the 1988 Haskell. In one of the great rivalries of the 1980s, Forty Niner, the previous year’s champion juvenile colt, and Seeking the Gold, a lightly raced and improving 3-year-old, showed the speed and determination that made Mr. Prospector one of the greatest sires in history.

The sons of Mr. Prospector – the chestnut and the bay – turned the 1988 Haskell into one of the best horse races in history. It was a truly thrilling event rarely matched in sport, and yet the same pair of colts came back three weeks later in the Travers at Saratoga and restaged their epic duel with the same result.

In both races, Forty Niner was the winner by a nose.

Twenty-two years earlier, Bold Ruler (Nasrullah) had the one-two finishers in the 1966 Garden State Stakes. Some bold planning in the early 1950s had allowed Garden State Park to boost the purse of their Garden State Stakes to be the richest racing event in the world for 2-year-olds. It drew big fields of the top talent to race over a mile and a sixteenth, and it stood for a generation as a championship deciding event, much in the fashion of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile today.

Coming into the 1966 Garden State, the leading colt was Successor, a full-brother to 1964 juvenile champion Bold Lad. Successor had defeated Dr. Fager (Rough’n Tumble) in the Champagne Stakes, then had a shocking reverse in the Pimlico Futurity when second by a neck to In Reality (Intentionally). Yet a success in the lucrative race in Jersey probably would clinch the divisional championship for the bay colt. (Dr. Fager did not race again in 1966 after the Champagne, which was his only loss at two.)

In the Garden State, Successor ran one of the very best races of his career and won by three lengths over the Bold Ruler son Bold Hour, who had six lengths on the colt in third. Earlier that year, Bold Hour had won the Hopeful and the Futurity; so his second in the Garden State was positively good form. As a 4-year-old, Bold Hour also won a race at Garden State Park called the Amory L. Haskell Handicap, well before that race swapped names with the Monmouth Invitational.

Successor profited from his extra racing at 2 to become the divisional champion of 1966, although he struggled thereafter. Dr. Fager, Damascus, In Reality, and Bold Hour made life tough for everyone else in the division too.

Of all the one-two finishes by great sires of the past, the greatest pairing in the greatest race came in 1948.

Juvenile champion Citation had not met the 3-year-old sensation Coaltown until the Kentucky Derby, when trainers Ben and Jimmy Jones sent both sons of Bull Lea (Bull Dog) out together on one of the worst tracks ever for the Kentucky classic. Churchill Downs that day was a muddy mess.

Coaltown possessed exceptional speed, which he had willingly displayed during his spring preps in Kentucky, and his front-running efforts at Keeneland had swayed local horsemen and observers to believe that not even Citation could cope with his kinsman’s ability to turn on the speed early and continue through to the finish.

Both owned by Calumet Farm, Coaltown and Citation ran coupled for betting and were odds-on in the field of six. The unbeaten Coaltown broke alertly and sped away to an open lead by the time he passed under the finish wire the first time. Coaltown continued to lead through quick fractions of :23 2/5 and :46 3/5, by which point Coaltown had whistled away to a six-length lead over the sloppy track.

Citation was racing in second under the capable hands of Eddie Arcaro, however, and the master jockey wasn’t going to be trapped into a speed duel with a stablemate. He understood pace far too well. Coaltown’s next two quarter-mile fractions of six furlongs in 1:11 2/5 and a mile in 1:38 brought him back to the field, and Arcaro had only to use a hand ride to catch Coaltown by the time he reached the stretch call.

Citation drew off to win “handily” by 3 ½ lengths in 2:05 2/5, and yet none of the other horses could close effectively over the tiring track. That left Bull Lea’s two great sons to take the first two positions in the Derby, and Citation went on to win the Triple Crown impressively. The next season, when Citation was on the sidelines regaining soundness, Coaltown took over as champion of the division and Horse of the Year in one of the year-end polls.

One of the barriers to clear comparisons between sires of the past and those of the present is that none of these older sires covered books nearly so large as those of the present. A book of 25 to 40 mares was considered adequate, even preferable, but stallions today are presented with a minimum of 125 mares annually, and some cover close to double that number.

Clearly, there could be some dilution of quality in the mates with such policies, as well as concentration of the top breeding stock in a smaller circle of bloodlines. But it does allow a stallion with the genetic and phenotypic excellence to be a super sire to get more top horses earlier than ever before.

Among contemporary sires, both Tapit (Pulpit) and Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday) started off far from the perceived “best” stallion prospects of their crops and had some relatively small early crops from relatively moderate mares. Even Curlin (Smart Strike) had quite a bit of commercial pushback until his early crops began to display consistent classic potential.

Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie) and Gun Runner have had the steadiest volume in their books of mares and the best results for quality among the stallions with very large books from the start of their breeding careers. Uncle Mo has proven himself both a commercial star and sire of champions, and there seems no reason to expect anything less from the chestnut newcomer to the ranks of leading sires.

report card for 2022 freshmen sires: part 1

The current crop of sires with their first runners at the racecourse this year now include five freshman sires located in Kentucky or Florida who have already been represented by a stakes winner: Justify (by Scat Daddy), Sharp Azteca (Freud), Good Magic (Curlin), Girvin (Tale of Ekati), and Free Drop Billy (Union Rags).

The leader by number of stakes winners, with two, is Justify, and the chestnut stallion stands at Coolmore’s stateside operation, Ashford Stud, outside Versailles, Ky., for a 2022 fee of $100,000.

Justify at Ashford: the chestnut son of leading sire Scat Daddy is an impressive figure at Coolmore’s Kentucky stallion station and is the current leading freshman by number of stakes winners. (Coolmore photo)

The 2018 divisional champion and Horse of the Year struck first with Statuette, a half-sister to G1 winner Tenebrism (Caravaggio). Both are out of G1 winner Immortal Verse (Pivotal). Statuette won the G2 Airlie Stud Stakes at the Curragh on June 26, and on July 14, the sire’s daughter Just Cindy won the G3 Schuylerville Stakes at Saratoga to become Justify’s first stakes winner on this side of the Atlantic.

Just Cindy is a homebred for Clarkland Farm, which bred the filly from the stakes winner Jenda’s Agenda (Proud Citizen). A winner in four of her eight starts, Jenda’s Agenda is out of G2 Molly Pitcher winner Just Jenda (Menifee), and this family traces back to fourth dam Fulbright Scholar (Cox’s Ridge), winner of the Busher at Aqueduct and a half-sister to G1 winner Bachelor Beau (Raised Socially). Fulbright Scholar became a major producer with three stakes winners: Seeking Regina (Seeking the Gold), Tutorial (Forty Niner), and Oxford Scholar (Seeking the Gold).

Just Cindy is the first foal from Jenda’s Agenda, and the leggy bay filly went to the Keeneland September yearling sale last year as part of the annual Clarkland Farm consignment. When the bidding stalled at $140,000, the breeders brought her home and have been amply repaid. Unbeaten in two starts, Just Cindy has earned $165,710 and now has a value that is … well, let’s say, substantially higher.

Whereas Justify has the most stakes winners to date, the first freshman sire with a 2022 stakes winner was Girvin, whose daughter Devious Dame won the Astoria Stakes on June 9. Based in Florida at the O’Farrell family’s Ocala Stud, Girvin became a minor celebrity and a quality surprise this spring with his first juveniles in training. They looked the part of enterprising racehorses and sold like it. The horse stands for $6,000 live foal in 2022.

Two recent freshmen sires with stakes winners are Sharp Azteca, who stands for a 2022 stud fee of $5,000 at Three Chimneys Farm near Midway, Ky., and Good Magic, who stands for a current season fee of $30,000 at Hill ‘n’ Dale at Xalapa in Bourbon County north of Paris.

Sharp Azteca is among the newer members of the fraternity for sires of stakes winners. On July 9, Tyler’s Tribe won the Prairie Gold Juvenile at Prairie Meadows. The gelded son of Sharp Azteca won the race by 8 ½ lengths. The Iowa-bred is now unbeaten in two starts and was the top-priced yearling at $34,000 in the 2021 Iowa Thoroughbred Breeders’ October sale. Tyler’s Tribe was bred by Clifton Farm and Derek Merkler from Impazible Woman (Mission Impazible).

On the same day at Pleasanton racetrack in California, Good Magic’s daughter Vegas Magic won the Everett Nevin Stakes by a nose from Fumano’s Girl, with a colt a length back in third. Bred in Kentucky by Machmer Hall, Vegas Magic is out of multiple stakes winner Heidi Maria (Rockport Harbor). The juvenile filly sold for $130,000 at last year’s Keeneland September sale, then resold as a 2-year-old in training earlier this year at the OBS March sale for $100,000.

The fifth freshman with a stakes winner is the Spendthrift Farm sire Free Drop Billy, whose daughter Free Drop Maddy won the Texas Thoroughbred Association Futurity on July 17, making the son of Union Rags the latest sire to get a 2022 stakes winner. Bred in Louisiana by Clear Creek Stud, Free Drop Maddy sold for $10,500 as a yearling, then resold earlier this year at the Texas 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale for $200,000. Second on debut at Churchill Downs, Free Drop Maddy won her second start, in the TTA Futurity, by 1 ¾ lengths as the slight favorite.

In other points of interest among the leading freshmen, the list leader by number of winners is Sharp Azteca with 12 from 27 starters. The son of Freud has the second-highest percentage of winners from starters, behind only Girvin, who leads freshmen by percentage of winners at 50 percent, five winners from 10 starters.

A point of particular irony among the leaders on the freshman list is Bolt d’Oro, who stands at Spendthrift along with Free Drop Billy. Despite not yet having a stakes winner, Bolt d’Oro is the overall leader by earnings with $476,249.* The son of Medaglia d’Oro has only a modest lead over Justify at this stage, with eight winners, and none has come back to win a second race. Yet.

The stallion’s son, Owen’s Leap, was second in the Bashford Manor Stakes at Churchill Downs on July 4, and the stock by Bolt d’Oro, despite being very quick and early to train, appear likely to improve notably as they find distances beyond six furlongs through the late summer and fall.

These sires should help make some exciting sport.

*Current stats as of July 18, 2022

top european fillies continue challenging the colts successfully for g1 honors

One of the everlasting assets of racing in North America, both in the States and in Canada, is the extensive and fairly lucrative racing program restricted to fillies.

This allows breeders and owners to place their fillies in conditions that allow them to race effectively and win. Overall, the filly restricted races make owning fillies a sound financial decision, and the program allows breeders to evaluate the athletic potential of fillies, especially those who are a cut or two below the best, and then to use the racing test as a means for selecting good broodmare prospects.

In Europe, this is not so consistently the case. Not only is the purse structure quite meager for races that are not sponsorship events, but to a notably greater degree, fillies and mares have to compete against colts if they want a share of the rewards.

The upside of that situation is that fillies more often prove their ability to compete and win in open company, even at the Group 1 level. Over the past weekend, a pair of fillies did just that.

On July 9 at Newmarket, the 4-year-old filly Alcohol Free (by No Nay Never) showed speed in advance of her coltish comrades to win the Group 1 July Cup at six furlongs. This race was the fourth victory at the G1 level for the talented racer. Previously, she had won the Cheveley Park at two, the Sussex and Coronation Stakes last year at three, and the July Cup was her first success at the premier level this season from four starts that also include a third in a G2 and a fourth in the G1 Lockinge behind the top colt Baaeed.

The following day at Deauville, Tenebrism (Caravaggio) thumped the colts in the G1 Prix Jean Prat at seven furlongs. This was the third victory and second G1 from five lifetime starts for the highly talented filly. She won the G1 Cheveley Park last year as an unbeaten juvenile.

And a victory in the Cheveley Park Stakes is not the only point of similarity between these two talented fillies. Each is by a son of the late and much-lamented leading sire Scat Daddy (Johannesburg), and both sons are part of the Coolmore international circle of stallions.

No Nay Never, winner of the G1 Prix Morny at two, won four of his six starts and was second in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. Sent to stud at Coolmore in Ireland, No Nay Never is one of the most powerful horses imaginable, with tremendous muscular development, and he has been a roaring success from his first crop of racers. Alcohol Free was a member of her sire’s third crop, foals of 2018. No Nay Never stands in Ireland for a fee of 125,000 euros.

A gray son of Scat Daddy out of a Holy Bull mare, Caravaggio had an extraordinary reputation on the gallops and won seven of his 10 races, including the G1 Phoenix Stakes at two and the G1 Commonwealth Cup at three. Caravaggio entered stud at Coolmore in Ireland, then the horse was transferred to Coolmore’s Kentucky stud, Ashford, in 2020 and has proven popular there, as well as with Irish breeders.

Tenebrism is a member of her sire’s first crop and is one of his three group winners to date. Caravaggio stands at Ashford for $35,000 live foal.

Descending from the Scat Daddy male line branch of Storm Cat and possessing a high turn of speed and precocity have distinguished this pair of accomplished fillies. In addition, they have some distinguishing characteristics, notably in their female families.

Bred in Ireland by Churchtown House Stud, Alcohol Free is from a good family but not one of particular distinction of late. There isn’t a racer of G1 caliber in the female line until the fifth generation. There, Special Account (Buckpasser) is a full sister to champion and major producer Numbered Account. The recent relative quietness in the family was one reason the filly brought only 40,000 euros at the 2018 Goffs November foal sale. The filly’s top-tier racing performances have caused a major advance in that valuation.

Tenebrism, on the other hand, is out of multiple G1 winner Immortal Verse (Pivotal), who was the highweight filly at three in England over seven to 9.5 furlongs. Immortal Verse won the G1 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, then won the G1 Prix Jacques le Marois and was third in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes against colts.

Bred in Kentucky by Merriebelle Stables and Orpendale/Chelston/Wynatt, Tenebrism is the best foal of her distinguished dam, and the second dam is a listed winner by Sadler’s Wells and a half-sister to Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Last Tycoon (Try My Best) and to German highweight Astronef (Be My Guest).

Tenebrism joined the party as highweight juvenile filly last year in England and Ireland, and both she and Alcohol Free are outstanding indicators for the continuing influence of Scat Daddy.

charge it has the potential to change up and recharge the racing for seasonal honors

Winning the Grade 2 Dwyer Stakes by an emphatic 23 lengths put Charge It (by Tapit) back in the picture as one of the leading 3-year-old colts of the season and shined the spotlight on his pedigree, especially his second dam Take Charge Lady (Dehere).

Twenty years ago, Take Charge Lady was one of the leading 3-year-old fillies of her crop, having won the G1 Ashland Stakes at Keeneland in April. Later in the year, the filly would win the G1 Spinster; the previous year, Take Charge Lady had won the Alcibiades, and she won a second Spinster at Keeneland as a 4-year-old.

A striking bay, Take Charge Lady clearly loved Keeneland, and she was an athletic prospect who proved a strong sales yearling, bringing $175,000 at the 2000 Fasig-Tipton July sale for breeder William Schettine and selling to trainer Kenny McPeek, agent.

Take Charge Lady raced for Select Stable, winning 11 of her 22 starts and earning $2.4 million. She was second seven times, including in the 2002 Kentucky Oaks, and oddly enough, of the filly’s four unplaced races, three were sixth-place finishes in the Breeders’ Cup: in the Juvenile Fillies, then the next two runnings of the Distaff.

Retired at the end of her 4-year-old season, Take Charge Lady was bred to leading sire Seeking the Gold (Mr. Prospector) and sold in 2004 at the Keeneland November sale. She brought $4.2 million from Eaton Sales, which has bred her foals. A top-class race filly, Take Charge Lady has proven, if anything, an even better broodmare.

Like her dam Felicita (Rubiano), Take Charge Lady has produced three stakes winner, but those from Take Charge Lady all won G1 stakes. Will Take Charge (Unbridled’s Song) was the victor in the Travers and Clark Handicap, was second in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and was named champion 3-year-old colt; Take Charge Indy (A.P. Indy) won the Florida Derby; and As Time Goes By (American Pharoah) won the Beholder Mile.

In addition to the three G1 winners, other descendants from Take Charge Lady have earned high rank. Charming, the Seeking the Gold foal the mare was carrying at the 2004 November sale, brought $3.2 million at the 2006 Keeneland September sale, and she has produced a pair of Grade 1 winners: Take Charge Brandi (Giant’s Causeway) and Omaha Beach (War Front). Take Charge Brandi won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and the Starlet and was named champion juvenile filly. Omaha Beach won a trio of Grade 1s: the Malibu, Santa Anita Sprint Championship, and Arkansas Derby.

Seven years after producing Charming in 2005, Take Charge Lady foaled a filly by Indian Charlie, and she sold for $2.2 million as a Keeneland September yearling to Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm. Named I’ll Take Charge, this filly didn’t race until she was three, when she won a maiden special at Belmont Park in her second start, then was third in her three subsequent starts at three and four, earning $82,400.

Todd Quast, general manager of Whisper Hill, said that “I’ll Take Charge was a really good filly, better than the race record would indicate, and we were happy to keep her for the broodmare band. She’s matured into a broodmare upwards of 16.3 hands and gets a big, upstanding foal.

“The mare’s second foal was Charge It. He was a really nice colt from day one, and he was the colt that we decided not to sell that year. Due to a couple of small things, Charge It didn’t ship to Todd Pletcher’s barn until October of his 2-year-old year. He had an eye infection that we had to clear up so that it didn’t pose a long-term problem, and it delayed him. Then, Todd had high praise for Charge It from the start because he started outworking some very nice horses.”

Charge It made his debut on Jan. 8 at Gulfstream, finishing second, then returned to win a maiden on Feb. 12. His next start was the G1 Florida Derby on April 2, and the colt finished second. Charge It’s fourth start was the Kentucky Derby, in which he apparently displaced his soft palate and finished 17th. The Dwyer was the gray colt’s fifth start, and he earned a Beyer speed figure of 111 in the race, which is the highest fig of the year for any 3-year-old.

Charge It is the second foal from I’ll Take Charge, and her first foal, the Medaglia d’Oro filly Charging Lady, was third in a maiden special earlier on Saturday. Charge It is the second prominent racer of 2022 by Tapit from an Indian Charlie mare; Metropolitan Handicap winner Flightline is the other.

I’ll Take Charge foaled a colt by Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday) earlier this year, and the mare is back in foal to Tapit.

Charge It is the 154th stakes winner for three-time leading national sire Tapit and the 96th graded stakes winner by the gray marvel. A year ago, Tapit had the leading juvenile colt of 2020 return and win the Belmont Stakes; Essential Quality went on to win the Jim Dandy and Travers, then was elected champion of his division.

In an even more open division this year, a similar result would cause some hootin’ and hollerin’ at Whisper Hill.

gerrymander and the importance of class in the dam

Tags

into mischief, joe estes, stallion success

Let us then praise good broodmares. Theirs is the more dangerous and less celebrated part of the breeding equation. Yet without them, even the best stallions do not shine as brightly or accomplish so much.

Take, for example, leading sire Into Mischief (by Harlan’s Holiday), who had his 50th graded stakes winner when Gerrymander won the Grade 2 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park on June 25.

A very good sire from the beginning of his career at stud, the bay titan from Spendthrift Farm really excelled when breeders recognized that here was a significant sire and began filling his book with mares of greater quality and potential.

From the stallion’s first four books of mares, he had crops of 41, 26, 37, and 37 foals that resulted in a strong showing from his first crop with seven stakes winners (17 percent). Only three, one, and two stakes winners came from the next three crops, but when that first crop of runners, which included three stakes winners at 2 in 2012, showed their stuff, both in early training and on the racetrack, breeders sent the horse a massive book of mares in 2013 for the foals of 2014, which resulted in 162 foals and 17 stakes winners.

Into Mischief has never since had fewer than 15 stakes winners per crop, and his genetics haven’t changed. Nothing changed except the volume and class of mares coming to him.

The result of those changes is the swelling tide of stakes winners and top performers from Spendthrift’s super sire. The leading sire in the country by gross earnings for three seasons, Into Mischief has become the best American sire in the male line descending from his great-grandsire Storm Cat (Storm Bird).

Twenty years ago, Storm Cat stood astride the world of breeding like colossus, the world his subject. Yet today, that line of Northern Dancer has gone quiet, significantly because several of the best sons of Storm Cat have not had a top stallion son here in the States. Storm Cat’s son Harlan, however, got a top sire son in Harlan’s Holiday, who was a step away from greater acclaim when he died while shuttling to Argentina.

Into Mischief has more than filled that gaping loss, getting sounder and somewhat more versatile stock than Harlan’s Holiday, and no stallion in the country is more acclaimed or more expensive to use than this successor to Harlan’s Holiday.

One of the stallion’s 174 foals of 2019, Gerrymander was bred in Kentucky by Town & Country Horse Farms and Pollock Farms. She is the second G2 winner out of the Hard Spun mare Ruby Lips, who ran third in the G3 Tempted Stakes at 2. Ruby Lips also produced Lone Rock (Majestic Warrior), who won the G2 Brooklyn.

Ruby Lips is a half-sister to a pair of stakes winners, including Like a Gem (Tactical Cat), who has produced a pair of stakes winners herself, including Hard Not to Like (Hard Spun), a three-time G1 winner (Diana, Gamely, and Jenny Wiley). The Mother Goose winner’s third dam, Likeashot (Gunshot), produced three stakes winners, including G1 winner Firery Ensign (Blue Ensign), winner of the Young America Stakes. This is the family of G2 Saratoga Special winner Run Away and Hide (City Zip) and Davide Umbro (In the Wings), winner of the G2 Premio Parioli (Italian 2,000 Guineas).

From four starts as a juvenile, Gerrymander won the Tempted Stakes, now a listed race, and was second in the G1 Frizette. The Mother Goose is her first victory of 2022, from a pair of starts.

As the newest graded winner for her sire, this filly helps to point out the significance of the research into stakes production and opportunity among sires and dams that was done by Joe Estes over his decades as the editor of The Blood-Horse from the early 1930s.

From the racing test, as Estes termed it, the chief researcher and his associates proved that fillies succeeded as broodmares in a direct line of rank according to their racing class: groups of stakes winners doing better than the groups of stakes-placed mares, which were better than plain winners, etc.

The primary detraction from this important application of research and statistics is that the better race fillies tend to go to the better stallions.

By applying the data from the other direction, how a stallion fares with lesser or better racing mates, the consensus is clear. Racing class does improve breeding success, and we can see the results clearly from the improvement in volume and class of stakes winners when better and better books became available to Into Mischief.

northern dancer’s influence sweeps into the future with high-class performers, including graded winner stolen weekend

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northern dancer inbreeding, stolen weekend, war front

With thousands of airline flights canceled across the country over the past holiday weekend, many would-be vacationers can identify with the subject of this week’s column: Stolen Holiday.

This highly pedigreed daughter of leading sire War Front (by Danzig), however, isn’t a taker. She’s a giver, and she gave an impressive front-running performance in the Grade 3 Eatontown Stakes at Monmouth Park on June 18. The bay 5-year-old led at every call under Jose Lezcano, and after she had set opening fractions of :25.51 and :25.10, the message was clear to those chasing her: come with your running booties on.

Stolen Holiday clearly had hers. The third and fourth quarters were raced in :23.61 and :22.37, with the final sixteenth in :05.71. In a beautifully ridden example of “waiting in front,” the Eatontown showed a pace profile very similar to a European event (steady early, fast late), and nothing got closer to Stolen Holiday than her stablemate Vigilantes Way (Medaglia d’Oro), who won this race a year ago and was a length behind at the wire this time.

Bred in Kentucky by Orpendale (one of the Coolmore associated entities), Stolen Holiday was sold for $750,000 out of the Denali Stud consignment at the 2018 Keeneland September yearling sale. The Eatontown was the mare’s first stakes victory and her fourth success from 10 starts.

Owned by Annette Allen, wife of Joe Allen, who bred and raced War Front, Stolen Holiday was unraced at two, then won a maiden from a pair of starts at three. Patience paid off, however, and the athletic filly has progressed steadily for trainer Shug McGaughey to work through some conditions, place second in the Sand Springs Stakes at Gulfstream, and now become a graded stakes winner.

That credit on her record is extremely important because Stolen Holiday is the fourth stakes winner out of her dam, the Sadler’s Wells mare Silk and Scarlet. The mare’s earlier stakes winners are Minorette (Smart Strike), winner of the G1 Belmont Oaks; Eishin Apollon (Giant’s Causeway), winner of the G1 Mile Championship in Japan; and Master of Hounds (Kingmambo), winner of the G1 Jebel Hatta in the UAE and the G2 Topkapi Trophy in Turkey.

This is a family that has shown excellence quite literally all around the world, and that is surely a good part of the reason for the strong price paid for this mare as a yearling.

The dam of this quartet of achievers is Silk and Scarlet, winner of the G2 Debutante Stakes in Ireland and currently living in Kentucky at Ashford Stud. The mare’s most recent foal is a yearling filly by Justify likely to go in the September sale, and the mare was covered by Justify for 2023.

Silk and Scarlet is one of two stakes winners out of Danilova (Lyphard), and the unraced Danilova is a daughter of Ballinderry (Irish River), winner of the G2 Ribblesdale and third in the G1 Yorkshire Oaks. Ballinderry produced a pair of stakes winners, and the better of those was Sanglamore (Sharpen Up), winner of the G1 Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby) and second in the G1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

Ballinderry herself is one of five stakes winners out of the marvelous mare Miss Manon (Bon Mot). In addition to Stolen Holiday’s third dam, Miss Manon produced Lydian (Lyphard), winner of the G1 Grosser Preis von Baden and G1 Gran Premio di Milano; Sharpman (Sharpen Up), winner of the Prix Omnium, second in the G1 French 2,000 Guineas, third in the G1 French Derby; Mot d’Or (Rheingold), winner of the G2 Prix Hocquart and third in the G1 Grand Prix de Paris; and Miss Summer (Luthier), stakes winner and dam of multiple G1-placed Most Precious (Nureyev).

Stolen Holiday’s pedigree in itself is fascinating, and not least among its elements is that Northern Dancer, a foal of 1961, figures twice in her third generation. The 1964 Kentucky Derby winner is the grandsire of Stolen Holiday in the male line; he is also the sire of her broodmare sire Sadler’s Wells. Northern Dancer appears twice more in Stolen Holiday’s pedigree: in the sixth generation as the sire of Triple Crown winner Nijinsky and in the fourth generation as the sire of the second dam’s broodmare sire Lyphard.

The four presences of Northern Dancer are noteworthy, but the pair in the third generation are remarkable.

It is rare to find a horse from 60 years ago so close up in a contemporary pedigree, but Northern Dancer is no ordinary Thoroughbred. The repetition of his name in this pedigree is a reminder of the vast difference the small, Canadian-bred bay has made in the breed.

Inbreeding to a horse of lesser genetic significance would likely be discouraged but not so with the great little bay. Certainly, inbreeding to Northern Dancer 3×2, 3×3, and 3×4 has succeeded on the racetrack as seen with this mare, as well as with classic winners Enable and War of Will, G1 winners Hit It a Bomb, Brave Anna, Roly Poly, US Navy Flag, and others. The next question is whether horses with this kind of close-up inbreeding to Northern Dancer make a significant mark as breeding stock in the coming years.

in belmont stakes victory, mo donegal leads exacta for classic breeders

Tags

ashview farm, Belmont Stakes, colts neck stables, donegal racing, mo donegal, uncle mo

The results of the 2022 Belmont Stakes produced a double of different kinds for both the sire of the winner Mo Donegal (by Uncle Mo) and for the breeders, the Lyster family’s Ashview Farm and Richard Santulli’s Colts Neck Stables, which bred and sold the winner, as well as the runner-up, Nest (Curlin).

With a winner of the Belmont, champion juvenile Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie) has his second classic winner. The bay stallion’s first came from his first crop in 2015 champion juvenile Nyquist, who won the 2016 Kentucky Derby.

One of 25 stakes winners (16 percent of foals) from Uncle Mo’s first crop, Nyquist was unbeaten at two, winning all five of his starts, including victories in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity, Frontrunner, and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. The next season, the well-conformed bay progressed enough to win his first three starts, including the G1 Florida Derby and the Kentucky Derby. Nyquist was third in the Preakness, then fourth in the Haskell and sixth in the Pennsylvania Derby before retiring to stud at Darley‘s Jonabell Farm in Lexington.

Mo Donegal comes from the seventh crop by Uncle Mo, who stands at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud outside Versailles, Ky., where Uncle Mo has sired 1,054 foals aged three and up. From those, the stallion has 768 starters (63 percent), 521 winners (43 percent), and 77 stakes winners (7.3 percent). Had the percentage of stakes winners for subsequent crops been able to match the extraordinary results of the first, Uncle Mo would have the highest stud fee of any sire in the country, and as it is, he stands for $160,000 live foal on a stand and nurse contract.

The 11th G1 winner for Uncle Mo, Mo Donegal was bred in Kentucky by Ashview and Colts Neck, and they sold the bay to Jerry Crawford, agent for Donegal Racing, for $250,000 at the 2020 Keeneland September sale.

The Belmont Stakes winner is out of Callingmissbrown, a Pulpit mare that the Lysters acquired privately for their breeding partnership, and she “is a beautiful mare who has a beautiful foal,” said Gray Lyster. The quality and balance of the dam no doubt helped when Ashview brought the Uncle Mo colt to the 2020 Keeneland September yearling sale and sold him for a quarter-million, then brought the mare’s 2021 yearling, a filly by leading sire Into Mischief, to the Keeneland sales last year.

By the hot sire but out of a mare who hadn’t at that time produced a black-type winner, Callingmissbrown’s 2021 September yearling brought $500,000 from Frankie Brothers, agent, and Litt/Solis. To bring twice what Crawford paid for the mare’s Uncle Mo colt a year before, this filly was quite nice.

Clearly, being by Into Mischief put a bull’s eye on the filly among discerning horsemen, she looked the part, and she brought a premium for it. Now named Prank, the Into Mischief filly has had a pair of official breezes at Saratoga.

The family that produced Mo Donegal also accounted for Canadian classic winner Niigon (Unbridled), winner of the 2004 Queen’s Plate. He was out of Savethelastdance (Nureyev), who also produced Sue’s Last Dance (Forty Niner), the third dam of the classic winner and dam of Pozo de Luna (Famous Again), champion juvenile colt in Mexico, and Island Sand (Tabasco Cat). The latter earned $1.1 million with victories such as the G1 Acorn Stakes, as well as a second in the G1 Kentucky Oaks.

Island Sand has produced a pair of stakes-placed winners, including Grade 1-placed Maya Malibu (Malibu Moon), second in the G1 Spinaway, and a daughter of leading sire Pulpit (A.P. Indy), Callingmissbrown, who won two of her four starts and is the dam of Mo Donegal.

The second foal of his dam, Mo Donegal has won four of his seven starts, including the Belmont, Wood Memorial, and Remsen, with a pair of thirds. The colt has been out of the money only in the Kentucky Derby, when fifth after a difficult trip.

Callingmissbrown “is a dark bay mare with no white on her legs but has a small star on her forehead like Mo Donegal,” Lyster said, “and she’s by Pulpit, whom we love as a broodmare sire.” Unfortunately, the mare lost a “beautiful Curlin colt four days after the Wood,” he noted, “but is now pregnant at 20 days gestation to Uncle Mo.”

Could there be “Mo” classic prospects in the future for this partnership?

galileo put the stamp of classic performance on the breed, as well as in the record books

There were a trio of classics over the weekend of June 3-5: at Epsom, the Oaks on June 3 and the Derby on June 4, then the next day at Chantilly, the Prix du Jockey Club. Those might as well have been held as benefits for the great stallion Galileo (by Sadler’s Wells).

Vadeni (by the Galileo classic winner Churchill) won the latter, and Desert Crown (by the Galileo G1 winner Nathaniel) won the Derby. The Oaks went to Tuesday, a daughter of Galileo himself.

A son and daughter of Galileo’s greatest racing son, Frankel, were third in the Derby (Westover) and the Oaks (Nashwa), and Frankel is the sire of this year’s Irish 1,000 Guineas winner Homeless Songs.

So the train of Galileo’s successes continue to increase for his own record of performance, as well as amplify his influence on the breed today and into the future.

At this point, Galileo is the sire of 3,140 foals, 2,371 starters, 1,608 winners, 354 stakes winners, 238 group stakes winners, and 94 G1 winners.

Galileo died almost a year ago on July 10 at his home at Coolmore Stud in Ireland, but his influence continues. The great sire’s number of G1 winners is poised to punch through 100 in the coming months. That will surely happen; it’s only a matter of time till we find which horse is the memorable 100th.

Tuesday was the 94th G1 winner for her sire, and she is the third G1 winner from the Danehill Dancer mare Lilly Langtry, a winner of the G1 Matron Stakes and Coronation Stakes. The other G1 winners for the mare are last season’s Irish 1,000 Guineas winner Empress Josephine, as well as 2016 1,000 Guineas and Oaks winner Minding. All three are by Galileo.

Minding had an exceptional career, winning nine of 13 starts, among them seven G1 races, including the pair of classics mentioned above and the Moyglare Stud Stakes, Fillies Mile, Pretty Polly, Nassau, and Queen Elizabeth II.

A hearty campaigner, Minding had quite a lot of speed and precocity for a Galileo, seemed to prefer eight to 10 furlongs, and both the rider Ryan Moore and trainer Aidan O’Brien noted that Tuesday appears to hold considerable promise for staying farther than her sisters or high-class dam did.

In winning the Oaks, Tuesday became the most recent classic winner for Galileo, and he has sired a winner of a universally recognized classic in every crop, except that of 2006. That is a phenomenal perspective on the great sire’s record at stud, but in more respects than that, Galileo has exceeded expectations.

His sire, Sadler’s Wells, was a classic winner and major son of the great sire Northern Dancer. Yet at stud, Sadler’s Wells exceeded all reasonable expectations to become the leading sire in Europe for more than a decade. Yet for all his immense success, Sadler’s Wells had never sired a winner of the Derby at Epsom after many years at stud, entering stud at Coolmore in the mid-1980s, and yet Sadler’s Wells had written breeding history with the exploits of his offspring. By 2000, Sadler’s Wells was unequivocally the most important European-based sire since his own great-grandsire Nearco.

Then in 2001, Galileo won the Derby. High Chaparral followed the next year with a second Derby for Sadler’s Wells.

One hex had been broken, and one more hoodoo was yet to be vanquished.

At stud, the sons of Sadler’s Wells had been generally disappointing until Galileo and the two years older Montjeu began to get major results. Montjeu (Sadler’s Wells) – who had won the 1999 Prix du Jockey Club, Irish Derby, Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, and the 2000 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes – sired a pair of Derby winners in Motivator (2005) and Authorized (2007); Galileo followed with his first Derby winner in 2008 (New Approach), and the Sadler’s Wells male line took its place at the top rank of breeding in Europe.

Although none of the other sons were as good this pair, El Prado became a leading sire in North America and continues to influence racing here with his sons Medaglia d’Oro and Kitten’s Joy.

Montjeu sired four winners of the Derby before dying at 16 in 2012, and Galileo has sired a record five winners of the classic at Epsom: New Approach (2008), Ruler of the World (2013), Australia (2014), Anthony Van Dyck (2019), and Serpentine (2020).

Galileo has three further crops of foals that may include more classic winners, perhaps even more winners at Epsom.

Whether that proves to be the case or not, the brave bay’s place in the history of the breed is secure.

piggott put his stamp on the breed through the exploits of his derby winners and other classic successes

Tags

federico tesio, lester piggott, nijinsky

The legendary jockey Lester Piggott, who died in Switzerland on May 29, exerted an unexpected influence on breeding due to his mastery of the craft of race riding, and its components of pace, balance, and timing.

The Long Fellow’s mindfulness in the saddle allowed him to maintain his composure under pressure, and those qualities were of special value in the most prestigious races, such as the Derby Stakes, and the Derby’s importance to the Thoroughbred is paramount. The great breeder and trainer Federico Tesio famously remarked that the winning post of the Derby had exerted greater influence on the breed than any other single factor.

Piggott rode nine winners of the Epsom classic, beginning in 1954 as an 18-year-old with Never Say Die (by Nasrullah), and that fact alone is an indicator of the importance of this rider to the development of modern breeding.

The Maestro’s subsequent winners of the Derby were Crepello (Donatello) 1957 (in which year he also won the Oaks with the Queen’s Carrozza), St Paddy (Aureole) 1960, Sir Ivor (Sir Gaylord) 1968, Nijinsky (Northern Dancer) 1970, Roberto (Hail to Reason) 1972, Empery (Vaguely Noble) 1976, The Minstrel (Northern Dancer) 1977, and Teenoso (Youth) 1983. Piggott retired for the first time in 1985, and yet his influence on the breed has lived on through the accomplishments of many of those classic winners at stud.

In particular, Piggott was effective at evaluating a horse’s turn of foot and knowing when to ask for it to get the most effect in a race. This is especially important at Epsom, with its gradients and turns, and the rising ground to the finish has found the bottom of more than one doubtful stayer. So a rider who understands the course and who understands the horse he is riding is a serious asset in the quest for classics. This made Piggott the most sought-after jockey in racing.

Once the young riding star had proven his talents in the classics of the 1950s, Piggott was able to pick and choose from the prospects for the race, and he was known to accept rides on horses from differing stables and then to ride them in the classic preps with as much interest in evaluating their capacity to cope with Epsom as with winning the race at hand. This practice was not always popular with owners, trainers, or punters.

As a regular rider for the stable of the great trainer Vincent O’Brien, Piggott rode the first two Derby winners by the 1964 Kentucky Derby winner Northern Dancer (Nijinsky and The Minstrel), and it is famously reported that, after Piggott’s split with that elite outfit, their hot favorite El Gran Senor (Northern Dancer) had just finished a close second to Secreto (Northern Dancer) in the 1984 Derby, and Piggott walked through the unsaddling area on his way to the jockey’s room and remarked archly, “Missing me yet?”

In addition to helping showcase the importance of Northern Dancer and his adaptability to the European racing environment, Piggott was a great evaluator of a horse’s ability. He said of the only English Triple Crown winner from 1935 to the present that “Nijinsky was one of those horses you could win on really easily yet – and this is hard to understand – he never felt as good to ride as he actually was.”

Sent to stud at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky, Nijinsky became the first great stallion son of his famous sire and an immense influence on the classics, both in Europe and the States. Nijinsky sired three winners of the Derby (Golden Fleece 1982, Shahrastani 1986, and Lammtarra 1995); and two grandsons of Nijinsky – Kahyasi (Ile de Bourbon) 1988 and Generous (Caerleon) 1991 – won the Epsom classic during this period.

Although many of the sons and daughters of Nijinsky were sent to race in Europe, the stallion’s foals were just as effective in the U.S., and Ferdinand won the 1986 Kentucky Derby, as well as the 1987 Breeders’ Cup Classic, and was named Horse of the Year that season, as well.

Prior to the 1970 Derby, there had been no shortage of speculation that the 12 furlongs would find out the stamina of Nijinsky. He was, after all, by that small American stallion who hadn’t stayed the distance in the 1964 Belmont Stakes. As the classic and subsequent racing proven beyond question, Nijinsky himself was eminently suited to the full classic distance.

In that race, Piggott rode the bay son of Northern Dancer and Flaming Page for speed, which he showed with a flair up the rising ground to the winning post at Epsom, then again in subsequent starts at the Curragh and Ascot. Piggott rode Northern Dancer’s second Derby winner, The Minstrel in 1977, who needed a strong rider to get the most out of him over the full classic distance, but that is what his jockey supplied.

In Piggott’s Derby victories immediately prior to the one with The Minstrel and the rider’s final success in 1983, both Empery and Teenoso were colts who needed to make the classic as strong a test of stamina as possible because they possessed strength and stamina far in excess of acceleration. Realizing their needs, Piggott controlled the pace and the race, bringing them home victorious. Piggott could not make either of them a good sire – they were both lamentable – but his tactical understanding and ability to adapt to what the horse required gave them as much opportunity as they could hope for.

Adaptability and presence of mind made Piggott a masterful competitor for the classics, and he won more of them than any rider in history, even though “it’s easier to lose a race than to win ’em, y’know.”