secretariat: fifty years ago

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bold ruler, Kentucky Derby, secretariat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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candy man rocket keeps it sweet for famed sire

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

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

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

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

He had all the bells and whistles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

tapit continues to strike up the beat as a broodmare sire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

in the days of raise a native

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the oracle has spoken: champions dream becomes the first stakes-winning colt from the first crop by justify

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champions dream, conor foley, jeff weiss, justify, nashua stakes, oracle bloodstock, rosedown racing

“This colt was kinda small when I bought him,” said pinhooker and consignor G.W. Parrish when I was inspecting the gray colt that he had purchased out of the 2021 Keeneland September sale and had trained up to working a quarter-mile for the OBS March sale in :20 4/5.

The colt had turned in a very good work, showing a stride length of 25.3 feet and earning a BreezeFig of 73. In addition the colt was speeding up through his work, attracting further notice for that as he worked around the turn.

In addition to a quick work, the colt was from the first crop by champion Justify (by Scat Daddy) and out of a graded stakes winner by Tapit. Even so, Parrish had acquired the colt for only $25,000 as a yearling.

“I brought him down here and put him in training, and he never missed a day, never did anything wrong,” Parrish continued. “He’s turned into a really nice colt.”

Most everyone else thought so too, and the gray son of Justify brought $425,000 from Rosedown Racing Stables, which is the entity owned by commercial real estate developer Jeffrey Weiss. The owner sent his new colt to trainer Danny Gargan, and the colt, named Champions Dream, won his debut going seven furlongs at Saratoga on Sept. 3 by 2 ¼ lengths.

Conor Foley of Oracle Bloodstock, along with his team, had selected the gray colt for Weiss at the March sale and said “he was one of the best horses in the sale. We loved him and were tickled to bits to get him for Jeff Weiss, although I was surprised by the price. I believe everyone expected him to go for more.

“Danny thought this was a nice colt very early, and Champions Dream then won his maiden at Saratoga comfortably, which is the right way.”

A month later, Champions Dream had a rough trip in the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes and finished fifth, but in his next start, on Saturday at Aqueduct for the G2 Nashua, Champions Dream was organized and on cue, winning his first stakes by three-quarters of a length over Full Moon Madness.

Bred in Kentucky by John Oxley, Champions Dream is the fifth stakes winner for Justify from a first crop of 176 foals. That represents 3 percent of his foals to date, but the achievement is most notable for a quartet being graded or group winners. Of the five, four are fillies; Champions Dream is the sire’s first stakes-winning colt, so far.

Justify’s first book of mares included about 40 major stakes winners and dozens of mares who had produced high-class racers from around the world. One of the quality racemares sent to Justify was Dancinginherdreams (Tapit), winner of the G2 Golden Rod Stakes at two. The elegant gray filly also ran second in the G2 Forward Gal and Davona Dale Stakes at Gulfstream but didn’t win another stakes.

Cast in the beautifully balanced mold of her distinguished sire Tapit, Dancinginherdreams was medium-sized and elegant, and her Justify colt was definitely in the type of his dam and Tapit. Having grown well over the winter, adding strength and standing about 15.3 as a 2-year-old in training, Champions Dream had the profile and phenotype of a miler who would develop well at two and possess the potential to be a challenger as a 3-year-old.

How different from his massively constructed sire Justify, who combines the immense strength and muscularity of broodmare sire Ghostzapper with the scope and height of Scat Daddy. Justify is a tank; Champions Dream is a sport vehicle.

That difference is not a bad thing. Champions Dream stood up to the rigors of early training and handled the preparation for the in-training sales well. He prospered under the Parrish Farms regimen and has continued to develop and improve over the summer in Gargan’s barn.

“Champions Dream showed Danny pretty early that this was an above-average colt,” Foley said, “and he keeps on doing things well. He’s going to Florida, gives us the feeling he’d like Gulfstream, and will be on the Derby trail. We’re all very excited for Jeff Weiss and his family to have a colt of this caliber.”

The future looks bright for this progressive young athlete, and if he proves as high-class and tough as Nashua himself, Champions Dream should bring a lot of smiles and dreams.

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

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juvenile champions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

naughty gal and the broodmare sire influence of unbridled’s song

Unlike the situation with his sons, which are not well represented with stakes winners in the male line, the daughters of Unbridled’s Song are treasures as producers. It is also noteworthy that daughters of the sons of Unbridled’s Song are making a mark.

Among those representing Unbridled’s Song in the broodmare sire line over the weekend, the Grade 3 Troy Stakes at Saratoga went to Golden Pal (Uncle Mo), who is out of Lady Shipman (Midshipman); the Lure Stakes, also at Saratoga, went to Dynadrive (Temple City), who is out of Harbingerofthings (Rockport Harbor); the Incredible Revenge Stakes at Monmouth went to Bay Storm (Kantharos), who is out of Stormy Regatta (Midshipman); the Indiana First Lady Stakes went to Climber (Divining Rod), who is out of Gazeley (First Defence); and the Searching Stakes at Laurel went to Music Amore (Mshawish), who is out of the Unbridled’s Song mare Rhapsody Queen.

Five stakes winners in a weekend is a pretty good haul, and these are not the only ones out there. Would any of them, however, have greater promise than Naughty Gal?

At Saratoga in the G3 Adirondack Stakes, Naughty Gal (by Into Mischief) won by 2 ½ lengths as the race favorite. A winner of her maiden in her second start at Churchill Downs on July 4, Naughty Gal now has won two of her three starts.

The only difference between the latter and the five stakes winners above is that Naughty Gal’s broodmare sire is a full brother to Unbridled’s Song named Spanish Steps, and Naughty Gal is the first graded winner out of a Spanish Steps mare.

Bred in Florida by Loren Nichols, Naughty Gal is out of Conway Two Step, who was a stakes winner at two in the Brave Raj Stakes and twice stakes-placed at three, earning $102,605. Nichols bought Conway Two Step for $11,000 as a broodmare prospect at the OBS winter sale in January 2013.

To date, the mare has produced five winners from seven to race, including Naughty Gal’s full brother Good Clean Fun, who was a $475,000 yearling at the 2018 Saratoga select sale. Nichols sold the Adirondack winner as a weanling at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November sale for $200,000; the filly was bought back for $240,000 at last year’s Keeneland September sale and then sold at the OBS March auction of juveniles in training earlier this year for $350,000 to Holy Cow Stables, which races the Adirondack winner.

Naughty Gal is the sixth filly in succession to win stakes for this female family, extending back to fifth dam Distonia, a Uruguayan-bred filly foaled in 1964 who won the Premio Carlos Zuluaga in Venezuela. Imported to race in the States, Distonia produced Ruddy Belle Handicap winner Distant Voyage (Admiral’s Voyage), who produced Starfire Voyage (Fire Dancer), winner of the Discovery Stakes at Tampa and the dam of multiple stakes winner Nancy’s Glitter (Glitterman).

The latter was a smashing 2-year-old stakes winner, taking the laurels in the My Dear Girl, Susan’s Girl, and Desert Vixen stakes among her five victories as a juvenile, when she earned just shy of a half-million. As a producer, Nancy’s Glitter had only one stakes winner, Conway Two Step, but she also produced a pair of stakes-placed racers, including Glittering Tax (Artax), the dam of three stakes winners. Among those, Glittering Tax foaled G1 winner Miss Temple City and G3 winner Pricedtoperfection, both by Temple City (Dynaformer).

Now a third granddaughter of Nancy’s Glitter has become a graded stakes winner. Since producing Naughty Gal, Conway Two Step has a yearling filly by Malibu Moon (A.P. Indy) and a filly of 2022 by Omaha Beach (War Front). The mare was bred back to Practical Joke (Into Mischief) for 2023.

Naughty Gal is the 112th stakes winner and 52nd graded winner for Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday), who represents the most vibrant branch of Storm Cat in contemporary breeding.

gerrymander and the importance of class in the dam

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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

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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?