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?

where are the kentucky derby winners now (at stud)?

Tags

Kentucky Derby, stallion success

All the most recent winners of the Kentucky Derby who have retired – through 2020 winner Authentic (by Into Mischief) – are at stud in Kentucky. This includes 2018 winner Justify (Scat Daddy), who stands at Ashford Stud outside Versailles, Ky. Both Justify and 2017 Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming (Bodemeister) have their first juveniles this year because Always Dreaming raced on at four, then retired to WinStar Farm.

But what of the preceding winners of the Run for the Roses?

Among the Derby winners with racers, 2016 winner Nyquist (Uncle Mo) has 4-year-olds, and he has sired eight stakes winners and 18 stakes-placed racers. One of the members of his first crop was champion juvenile filly Vequist, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Nyquist was the leading freshman sire in 2020, and he stands for $55,000 live foal at Jonabell Farm as one of Darley‘s American stallions.

The 2015 Kentucky Derby winner was American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile), also winner of the first Triple Crown in 37 years, as well as the Breeders’ Cup Classic of 2015, when he was named champion 3-year-old colt and Horse of the Year. Sent to stud at Ashford amid great acclaim, American Pharoah was the leading freshman sire in 2019 and stands for $80,000 live foal.

To date, American Pharoah has sired 24 stakes winners and 20 stakes-placed racers in the Northern Hemisphere; the horse also stands in the Southern Hemisphere at Coolmore’s satellite operation in Australia, where he has three stakes winners and two stakes-placed there from two crops of racing age. American Pharoah had several sons being trained for the classics in 2022, most notably Forbidden Kingdom, winner of the G2 San Vicente and San Felipe earlier this season before suffering an entrapped epiglottis in the G1 Santa Anita Derby.

The 2014 Kentucky Derby winner is even more widely traveled than American Pharoah. California Chrome (Lucky Pulpit) ventured to the Middle East, where he won the Dubai World Cup.

Retired to stud in 2017 at Taylor Made Farm in Kentucky, the handsome chestnut was sold to stand at Arrow Stud in Japan in 2019, when his oldest foals were yearlings. The popular winner of the Derby and Preakness stands for a fee of approximately $35,000. California Chrome is the sire of three stakes winners and five stakes-placed and has been represented by such 2022 stakes winners as Cilla (Orleans Stakes) in Louisiana and Matwakel (JCSA Challenge) in Saudi Arabia.

The 2013 winner of the Derby was Orb (Malibu Moon), who was a handsome athlete, possessed a notable pedigree, and received significant opportunities on retirement to stud at Claiborne Farm.

In 2018, the stallion’s second-crop daughter Sippican Harbor won the G1 Spinaway Stakes at Saratoga to give a much-envied top-level success. Nevertheless, Orb’s results from his initial crops at the races did not meet the high standard of success required for a commercial stallion in Kentucky, and he was sold in 2021. The bay stallion now stands in Uruguay at Haras Cuatro Pietras.

I’ll Have Another (Flower Alley) won the 2012 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, then was sidelined and eventually retired. Not long thereafter, he was sold to a group of breeders from Japan and exported to enter stud there. In 2019, I’ll Have Another was sold to American interests and was returned to the States for the 2019 breeding season and stands at Ocean Breeze Ranch in California for $10,000 live foal.

The 2011 Kentucky Derby winner, Animal Kingdom (Leroidesanimaux), began his stallion career in Australia, although he found his greatest successes in America with the Derby and then the UAE at the Dubai World Cup. But the big chestnut with the slashing stride attracted the interest of Aussie breeders, who shared him with the Northern Hemisphere, where he stood at Darley’s Jonabell Farm in Lexington. In late 2019, Animal Kingdom was sold to the Japan Bloodstock Breeders Association and began breeding mares at their Shizunai Stallion Station in 2020.

Super Saver (Maria’s Mon) won the 2010 Kentucky Derby for owner-breeder WinStar Farm, and the bay entered stud there in 2011.

In all, Super Saver sired 28 stakes winners and 31 stakes-placed runners. His best offspring included champion Runhappy (Breeders’ Cup Sprint), Letruska (Apple Blossom Handicap twice), Embellish the Lace (Alabama Stakes), Happy Saver (Jockey Club Gold Cup), and Competitive Edge (Hopeful Stakes). The Jockey Club of Turkey purchased the horse in 2019 and stands him at their stud near Istanbul for a fee of approximately $13,000.

The winner of the 2009 Kentucky Derby was a smallish bay gelding named Mine That Bird (Birdstone). Although he could not have a breeding career, Mine That Bird has had a varied and productive life. He has been the Derby winner in residence at the Kentucky Derby Museum and now is a pony horse guiding young racehorses around the track at HV Ranch in Texas.

Big Brown (Boundary) won the 2008 Kentucky Derby, as well as the Preakness, and off those victories, the colt was acquired for stud by Three Chimneys Farm in a very expensive stallion deal. Big Brown entered stud there in 2009 for $65,000 live foal and was moved to stand in New York in 2015, the same year that his best son, Dortmund, finished third in the Kentucky Derby behind American Pharoah. The sire of 28 stakes winners stands at Irish Hill and Dutchess Views Stallions for $5,000 live foal.

Champion at two, when he also won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, Street Sense (Street Cry) progressed to win the 2007 Kentucky Derby. Retired to Darley’s stallion operation at Jonabell in 2008, Street Sense has become one of the two most successful sires among living Kentucky Derby winners, along with American Pharoah.

To date, Street Sense has sired 74 stakes winners and 50 stakes-placed runners. Among his best are Maxfield (Breeders’ Futurity, Clark Handicap), McKinzie (Los Alamitos Futurity, Malibu, and Whitney), Sweet Reason (Acorn), Call Back (Las Virgenes), Street Fancy (Starlet), and Wedding Toast (Beldame). Last season, Street Sense had Concert Tour on the classic trail, and this season he has the top 4-year-old Speaker’s Corner, winner of the recent G1 Carter Handicap.

The 2006 Kentucky Derby winner: Barbaro (Dynaformer). Let us not forget what might have been.

In 2005, Giacomo (Holy Bull) managed to win the Kentucky Derby, with subsequent Preakness and Belmont winner and divisional champion Afleet Alex third. The gray entered stud at Adena Springs, but unfortunately, Giacomo did not match his famous sire’s accomplishments at stud. Today, Giacomo stands in Oregon at Oakhurst Thoroughbreds for a fee of $2,500.

The 2004 Kentucky Derby went to the unbeaten Smarty Jones (Elusive Quality), who next won the Preakness and was then upset in the Belmont Stakes by Birdstone (Grindstone), who sired two classic winners: Mine That Bird (Kentucky Derby) and Summer Bird (Belmont).

Smarty Jones was retired after his only loss and spent his first term at stud in Kentucky at Three Chimneys Farm. The medium-sized chestnut was moved to Pennsylvania, then returned to Kentucky to stand at Calumet Farm, while shuttling to Haras la Concordia in Uruguay, and he has most recently returned to Pennsylvania and stands at Equistar Training and Breeding for $3,500.

When Funny Cide (Distorted Humor) won the 2003 Kentucky Derby, he was the first gelding to do so since Clyde Van Dusen (Man o’ War) in 1929. He added a third Grade 1 to his record with the 2004 Jockey Club Gold Cup and retired at age seven with 11 victories and earnings of $3.5 million in 2007. He moved to the Kentucky Horse Park in 2008.

The two other surviving Kentucky Derby winners, Fusaichi Pegasus (Mr. Prospector; 2000 Kentucky Derby) and Silver Charm (Silver Buck; 1997 Kentucky Derby), are pensioned from breeding.

Fusaichi Pegasus had some noteworthy successes at stud, including Grade 1 winners Roman Ruler (Haskell) and Bandini (Blue Grass). He remains a pensioner at Ashford Stud, where he was retired.

Silver Charm sired Preachinatthebar, winner of the 2004 San Felipe, and Miss Isella, a three-time winner at the Grade 2 level. Silver Charm was purchased by the JBBA and stood in Japan for a decade before returning to Old Friends, where he is a fan favorite. With the deaths of Grindstone (1996 Kentucky Derby) and Go for Gin (1994 Kentucky Derby) in March 2022, Silver Charm is the oldest living winner of the race.

Kentucky Derby success is a major accomplishment in the life of a racehorse, but it does not guarantee subsequent greatness. With the intense competition for stallion success, only a minority of such talented athletes as these become stars in their second careers.

father and son have proven themselves a tag team for ‘quality’

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bleecker street, ce ce, elusive quality, quality road

The father-son team of Elusive Quality (by Gone West) and Quality Road sired the winners of a pair of Grade 2 stakes over the weekend of March 12-13. At Oaklawn Park, Elusive Quality’s Breeders’ Cup winner Ce Ce won the Azeri Stakes in her prep for the upcoming Grade 1 Apple Blossom. At Tampa Bay, Quality Road’s daughter Bleecker Street made a point of her continuing improvement with victory in the Hillsborough Handicap.

Prior to his death on March 14, 2018, Elusive Quality had been one of the rocks of consistency and quality in Kentucky breeding. Retired to stud after winning nine of his 20 starts, Elusive Quality had shown speed of an exceptional degree, setting a track record for seven furlongs at Gulfstream with a time of 1:20.17 for owner Darley and trainer Bill Mott.

Amazingly, however, Elusive Quality wasn’t guaranteed a spot at stud, despite his obvious talent, because the massive colt had not won a stakes race until he was successful in the Jaipur Stakes and Poker Handicap, setting a new course record of 1:31.63 for a mile in the latter at Belmont.

Elusive Quality was a 6-year-old when he won those stakes; he couldn’t have been more impressive, and the manner of his victories was as decisive a factor in sending the grand-looking dark bay to stud as his exceptional race times.

Even so, Elusive Quality (not to mention the sport’s fans and owners) was lucky the big rascal managed to find his spot at stud because the horse never won a Grade 1 race and both of his stakes victories were on “t – u – r – f,” a substance toward which many breeders act as if it should be eaten but not raced on by aspiring stallion prospects.

All was well with Elusive Quality, however, when his first crop began to race. They were fast, they were early, and they had class. He was off to the races and was nosed out of the freshman sire championship by fellow non-Grade 1 winner Distorted Humor (Forty Niner).

Both promptly sired classic winners. Distorted Humor got Funny Cide, winner of the 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, and Elusive Quality sired Smarty Jones, winner of the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

Overall, Elusive Quality’s champions or highweights included elite racers in the U.S., as well as Europe and Australia, and he proved himself one of the most valued and valuable sires of the last 20 years.

A primary reason for his continuing influence is the immense success of his son Quality Road as a stallion. A horse of exceptional speed like his sire, Quality Road was declared out of the classics due to a quarter crack, but he won the G1 Florida Derby at three, then returned at four to win a trio of additional G1s, including the Metropolitan Handicap and Woodward Stakes.

Standing at Lane’s End Farm outside Versailles, Ky., Quality Road has become a staple of top-tier breeding operations, and his best offspring include champions Abel Tasman (Kentucky Oaks), Caledonia Road (Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies), and Corniche (Breeders’ Cup Juvenile).

At stud, Quality Road has 2022 freshman sire City of Light, winner of the Pegasus World Cup Invitational, and last month, Quality Road was represented by Emblem Road, winner of the Saudi Cup.

Unbeaten in five starts, Bleecker Street won her second graded stakes in the Hillsborough, and she is highly regarded among the older turf fillies.

Ce Ce won the Eclipse Award as the best sprint mare in the country for 2021, when she won the Breeders’ Cup Filly Sprint, and her plan of attack for this year appears to be focused on slightly longer races, with the immediate target being the Apple Blossom, a race the mare won two years ago at four.

In addition, Ce Ce comes from a family of mares that have made winning Grade 1s a regular accomplishment. The chestnut daughter of Elusive Quality is the third generation in a row to win a Grade 1. Her dam is Miss Houdini (Belong to Me), winner of the G1 Del Mar Debutante, and the second dam is Magical Maiden (Lord Avie), who won the G1 Hollywood Starlet and Las Virgenes.

Magical Maiden was one of three stakes winners from her dam, Gils Magic (Magesterial), who also produced the extraordinary broodmare Magical Flash (Miswaki), the dam of six stakes winners. Gils Magic was such a dominant broodmare that she managed to produce Magical Mile, a graded stakes winner by J.O. Tobin, one of the most beautiful and talented racehorses but a pure pillock as a stallion.

catch lightning: morello wins the gotham and lights up hopes and dreams for small breeders

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chet blackey, classic empire, morello, robert tillyer

The weekend proved a time of positive results for second-crop sire Classic Empire (by Pioneerof the Nile). In addition to having Classy Edition finish second in the Grade 2 Davona Dale Stakes at Gulfstream, the stallion’s son Morello went a step better and won the G3 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct by 4 1/2 lengths.

After finishing his freshman sire season in fourth place behind the jet-setting Gun Runner (Candy Ride) last year, Classic Empire has now jumped into second place for 2022, about $160,000 behind Gun Runner and about $45,000 ahead of current third-place Arrogate (Unbridled’s Song).

A champion juvenile like fellow “Pioneer” stallion American Pharoah, Classic Empire just missed becoming a classic winner at three, when he lost the G1 Preakness by a head to Cloud Computing, from the first crop by Maclean’s Music (Distorted Humor).

Sent to stud the following spring at Ashford Stud, along with Practical Joke (Into Mischief) and Cupid (Tapit), Classic Empire and his fellow Ashford freshmen have proven popular with breeders and have repaid that confidence with very good performances at the sales and on the racetrack.

That trio, along with Caravaggio (Scat Daddy) – who joined them at Ashford for the 2021 season after entering stud in Ireland – would nearly have swamped the freshman sire list last season, except for a chestnut son of Candy Ride, who swept through the season with one good racer after another and led the freshman list by $2 million. The Ashford sires took four of next five spots behind Gun Runner, with only Lane’s End sire Connect (Curlin) getting in the fray and finishing third at year’s end.

Morello — shown as a 2-year-old at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale in May 2021, ran a furlong in :10 1/5 and sold for $250,000. He was one of 39 juveniles in training by Classic Empire that sold last year. (ThoroStride / Matt Goins photo)

The indications were positive for Classic Empire after last year’s sales of juveniles in training, when 39 sold for an average of $135,154 and a median of $77,000. From those elite juveniles come both Classy Edition ($550,000 at Fasig-Tipton Midlantic in May) and Morello ($250,000 at the same sale). Both juveniles sold out of the Sequel Bloodstock consignment of Becky Thomas.

Bred in Kentucky by Robert Tillyer and Dr. Chet Blackey, Morello had gone through the sales ring profitably as a weanling ($140,000 at Keeneland November) and yearling ($200,000 at Fasig-Tipton select), and he brought one of the top 10 prices among the two-year-olds by his sire last year.

At the Midlantic sale, Morello worked a furlong in :10 1/5, showing a stride length of slightly more than 25 feet and doing it so well that he earned a very good BreezeFig of 71.

Now unbeaten in three starts, Morello is the first stakes winner for his dam, Stop the Wedding (Congrats), and the first graded stakes winner for Classic Empire, as well.

How Morello came to be bred is a tale of a “Pioneer,” Kentucky Derby second Pioneerof the Nile, who sired a first-crop colt named Social Inclusion who reignited this family in the commercial marketplace.

Farm manager for Dixiana and partner in a couple of broodmares, co-breeder Tillyer recalled that “Social Inclusion’s dam, Saint Bernadette, got to a point where she wasn’t commercial, because buyers are prejudiced against older mares. Then we sold Social Inclusion for $60,000, which was profitable but not maybe what I thought he was worth, and we sold Saint Bernadette. Then, he started working bullets in California, and I knew I’d made a mistake.”

Breeders spend their time staring into crystal balls, trying to foresee the future of trends and horses, and the partners in Saint Bernadette went to work trying to buy her back. Tillyer recalled that “the mare hadn’t gotten in foal to the stallion they bought her for, and I was able to buy her back for Chet and myself, bred her to Pioneer, and sold the colt for $475,000 to China Horse Club and Maverick Racing at the 2016 Keeneland September sale.”

Yes, that was the season after a bay son of Pioneerof the Nile became the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. Nice timing.

Later named Road to Damascus, he was stakes-placed and is now a paddock companion at Trackside Farm outside Versailles, Ky. That placement was engineered by co-breeder Blackey, who is a well-known vet and includes Trackside among his clients.

Blackey continued, “When Social Inclusion was heating up in Florida, broke a track record, and was the subject of a multi-million dollar offer from a major racing enterprise, we had managed to buy back his mother and went looking for one of her half-sisters, a mare named Stop the Wedding.

“She was very attractive but on the racetrack had one win from 25 starts. We managed to buy her anyway.”

Blackey’s bloodstock partner said, “I found Stop the Wedding located down in Florida, called up the owner and asked if he would consider selling, and purchased the mare. She foaled Two To One (Yesbyjimminy) in Florida, was shipped to Kentucky, and was bred to Bodemeister,” another son of Empire Maker, the sire of Pioneerof the Nile.

“By the time that Morello came along, Stop the Wedding was nearly in the same position as her half-sister some years ago when she produced Social Inclusion. She was nearly non-commercial because she hadn’t had the big stakes horse. She’d had some really nice horses, but for one reason or another, they hadn’t fulfilled their potential on the racetrack.

“Since Stop the Wedding was becoming non-commercial,” Tillyer said, “we ran her through the Keeneland January sale in 2020, bought her back for $11,000 in foal to Cairo Prince (Pioneerof the Nile), and gave Nicky Drion a third for boarding interest.”

The mare’s foal of 2019 had sold the previous fall. He was a tidy chestnut colt now named Morello.

Tillyer said: “As a weanling, Morello was a really cool horse, really good mind, beautiful body; he had a lot of personal attention and was very smart, very good to be around. Social Inclusion was pretty feisty; Morello is more of a laid-back horse.”

When the partners sent him through the ring at the Keeneland November sale, he was from the first crop by champion Classic Empire, from the Pioneerof the Nile group of sires that has been so successful with this family. The marketplace liked everything it saw and paid $140,000 for the colt.

Blackey said: “This foal Morello was gorgeous, and that was why we went back to Classic Empire with the mare in 2021. A lot of breeding is doing the best you can and trying to get lucky. Breeding back to the same horse is risky because you never know how they’ll turn out, no matter how good the weanling or yearling looked.”

With a full sibling to Morello coming soon, the partners are set to get lucky.

Blackey eloquently summarized the situation: “To play on the level we play, it is catching lightning in a jar. We’ve bred a lot and raced several through the years, and win, lose, or draw it’s fun, but it’s a lot more fun to win.”

not this time is a lot of fun for albaugh family stables, both racing and breeding

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albaugh family stable, epicenter, giant's causeway, jason loutsch, not this time

Although primarily considered a “turf horse” by breeders for most of his career at stud, the tremendous sire Giant’s Causeway is having an exceptional run of success on this side of the Atlantic wet spot.

In 2019, the son of Storm Cat had champion Bricks and Mortar, who was the country’s best turf horse and yet, despite winning 11 of 13 starts, was “only a turf horse” and was allowed to be exported to Japan, where they sometimes race on turf, unlike the U.S. Oh, do we have turf races here?

Last year, the Giant’s Causeway stallion Protonico sired Medina Spirit in the sire’s first crop, and that Grade 1 winner also finished first in the Kentucky Derby, although he was disqualified from that victory on Feb. 21.

Also entering stud in 2017, like the dark brown Protonico, was another son of Giant’s Causeway, the dark brown Not This Time. A half-brother to Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Liam’s Map, Not This Time is out of the noted broodmare Miss Macy Sue (by Trippi).

Both young sires were bred in Kentucky by the Albaugh Family Stables LLC, and that entity faced the predictable dilemma of any breeder who races and sells: which to keep and which to sell. They chose well in selling Liam’s Map, who brought $800,000 as a yearling to St. Elias, then raced for Teresa Viola Stables and West Point Thoroughbreds.

The decision to sell the gray colt looked like a smart one from a business perspective until he was a 4-year-old and won three of his four starts, earning the majority of his $1.3 million in racetrack earnings and a spot at stud. There he retired to a positive reception as a stallion at Lane’s End Farm, where Liam’s Map sired champion Colonel Liam and numerous other stakes winners.

The sale of Liam’s Map prompted Dennis Albaugh to say “not this time” to the idea of selling Miss Macy Sue’s good-looking son of Giant’s Causeway and instead retained him for the family stable.

And that’s how the colt got his name.

Racing for Albaugh Family Stables, Not This Time won two of his four starts, earning $454,183. That doesn’t appear to be an unequivocal success, but one of the starts that the dark brown colt lost was the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, when he was two lengths behind Classic Empire at the stretch call and lost by a neck after Classic Empire “dug in gamely to fend off Not This Time,” according to the official race chart.

Not This Time came out of the Juvenile with a soft-tissue injury to his right foreleg and never raced again. He retired to Taylor Made Farm, which bought a 50 percent stake in the colt, for the 2017 breeding season at an initial stud fee of $15,000 live foal.

Jason Loutsch, family member and racing manager for Albaugh Stables, said “I’m a huge fan of Giant’s Causeway, and we really wanted to stay in on Not This Time [as a stallion]. We kept half the horse in the deal with Taylor Made. We thought it would be a great partnership for us and for the horse, and they’ve done a great job of promoting him.”

From his first crop, foals of 2018, Not This Time sired Grade 1 winner Princess Noor and ranked third among freshman sires of 2020 behind the leading Uncle Mo sons Nyquist ($2,424,083) and Laoban ($1,559,748) with $1,557,138. A third son of Uncle Mo, Outwork, was fourth on the list.

As part of the plan to support Not This Time, Loutsch said, “Dennis and I went to the January sale and bought 10 mares that we thought would match well with him. We bought the mare who produced Princess Noor and then bred three other good racers from those mares, one of which is now the dam of Simplification.”

[Albaugh Stables sold both mares, the dams of Princess Noor and Simplification, in foal to Not This Time. Not This Time/AFS bought the stakes-placed Simply Confection (Candy Ride) at the 2017 January sale as a broodmare prospect for $90,000, did not get a foal from her in 2018, then sold her in the 2019 Keeneland November sale, in foal to Not This Time, for $80,000 to France Weiner, agent. That foal is Simplification, bred by France and Irwin Weiner.]

In the meantime, Princess Noor was impressing anyone paying attention to freshmen sires and high-performing juveniles. She won her first three starts like a champion, then as favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, finished fifth. Princess Noor came back in the Starlet and was pulled up after three-quarters and vanned off. She never raced again but sold in foal to Into Mischief to Katsumi Yoshida for $2.9 million.

Of course, one swallow does not a summer make, but Not This Time catapulted himself to the top of his division among second-crop sires with 13 stakes winners in 2021 and gross progeny earnings of $5.4 million, first among second-crop sires and first as the overall leading sire by percentage of stakes winners to runners (10.3).

Loutsch said that, as the result of racing Not This Time and retiring him to stud, “We’re having a lot of fun right now, and it’s only going to get better.

“As a result of his initial success, his mare quality has stepped up, and this year’s book has stepped up another level too.”

The stallion’s volume of stakes winners from his first two crops have pushed the horse’s stud fee to $45,000 for 2022, and this year, Not This Time is ranked 11th nationally among all sires, with three stakes winners and $1.2 million in earnings after 50 days.

The sire’s chief earner for 2022 is Epicenter, who won the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes at the Fair Grounds on Feb. 19. The bay colt had been one of his sire’s 13 stakes winners last year, picking up the Gun Runner Stakes at the Fair Grounds on Dec. 26, and in his 3-year-old debut, Epicenter led nearly the entire race for the Lecomte Stakes, losing to Call Me Midnight (Midnight Lute) at the wire.

Bred in Kentucky by Westwind Farm, Epicenter is out of the Candy Ride mare Silent Candy. Winchell Thoroughbreds purchased the colt for $260,000 at the Keeneland September yearling auction of 2021 from the consignment of Bettersworth Westwind Farms.

Now a winner in three of his five starts, Epicenter has earned $410,639. He is one of the sire’s three stakes winners this season, with Just One Time winning the G2 Inside Information winning on Jan. 29 and Simplification winning the Mucho Macho Man on New Year’s Day. The latter came back on Feb. 5 and was second in the G3 Holy Bull Stakes.

With horses like Epicenter, Simplification, stakes winner Howling Time (bullet work at Gulfstream on Feb. 19), recent Oaklawn allowance winner Chasing Time, recent Gulfstream allowance winner In Due Time, and others, Not This Time and those closely associated with him are going to have a very exciting spring.

bonanza weekend for breeding partners ashview farm and colts neck stables

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ashview farm, bryan lyster, colts neck stables, mo donegal, nest, rich santulli

Results from the graded stakes for juveniles at Aqueduct on Saturday, Dec. 4, proved a double success for the breeding partnership of the Lyster family’s Ashview Farm and the Colts Neck Stables of Rich Santulli.

In the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes, Mo Donegal, a son of champion juvenile and leading sire Uncle Mo (by Indian Charlie), was the victor by a nose from Zandon (Upstart), and in the G2 Demoiselle, Nest (Curlin) won by a neck from the Firing Line filly Venti Valentine.

Both of the Kentucky-bred juveniles were foaled and raised at Ashview, which markets is yearlings as organically grown athletes. The marketplace gave a warm reception to those farm-fresh yearlings: Mo Donegal sold to Jerry Crawford of Donegal Racing Stables for $250,000 at the 2020 Keeneland September sale; Nest brought $300,000 at the same sale and races for Repole Stable, Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, and Michael House.

As financially and professionally rewarding as those young horses have proven for the farm, Bryan Lyster said that “having bred these two with Mr. Santulli is one of the best things imaginable. He’s been right by our side from the mid-1980s, and it’s very satisfying that we had a day like that together.

“He’s been a longtime client and my dad’s best friend. In the last seven to eight years, we have bought a number of mares together.”

The partners own 12 to 15 mares, and breeding a pair of graded stakes winners from a small group of mares is an exceptional accomplishment. Then again, the mares who produced these young athletes are rather special too.

Nest is the fifth foal out of her dam, the A.P. Indy stakes winner Marion Ravenwood, and the Demoiselle winner is a full sister to Idol, who won the G1 Santa Anita Handicap earlier this year, as well as a half-sister to Dr Jack, who also earned black type this season.

In the space of nine months, Marion Ravenwood has become the dam of a pair of graded winners, both by the 2007 and 2008 Horse of the Year, and a multiple stakes-placed racer by Pioneerof the Nile. The three siblings have made their dam a very valuable producer, and the 4-year-old Idol also played a role in Ashview’s acquisition of Marion Ravenwood.

Bryan Lyster said, “We bought Marion Ravenwood carrying the Pioneerof the Nile, and we were impressed with her Curlin foal, which is now Idol. At the time we planned the mating that produced Nest, we were hoping for a yearling who had the look of Idol.”

The partners bought Marion Ravenwood for $400,000 from My Meadowview Farm LLC. The following spring, the mare produced a colt by Pioneerof the Nile, and Ashview sold the resulting foal for $250,000 as a November weanling. Named Dr Jack, the colt has placed third in the Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth and the Bourbon Trail Stakes at Churchill, earning $125,857 from seven races in the last eight months.

Lyster noted that neither Marion Ravenwood nor Callingmissbrown, the dam of Mo Donegal, will have a yearling for next year. That’s rotten luck, but the breeders have been on the receiving end of the good luck, especially this year, and Marion Ravenwood “will be going back to Curlin. We’re hoping to get her in foal early and have been big supporters of Curlin, going back to his first year.”

In fact, Callingmissbrown, the dam of Mo Donegal, is in foal to Curlin for next year, and Lyster said, “Since Mo Donegal is only the mare’s second foal, I’d say the win on Saturday would tilt the scales toward a certain sire” for her mating next year.

A Pulpit mare that the Lysters acquired privately for their breeding partnership, Callingmissbrown “is built like a tank. I wouldn’t call her big in height, 16 hands or so, but she has a tremendous hip.”

Those qualities no doubt helped when Ashview brought the mare’s 2021 yearling, a filly by leading sire Into Mischief, to the Keeneland sales a couple months ago.

By the hot sire but out of a mare who hadn’t produced a black-type winner till last Saturday, Callingmissbrown’s 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.

Bryan said, “The half to Mo Donegal was so smooth and so athletic in every other way that buyers really wanted her.” Being by Into Mischief put a bull’s eye on the filly among discerning horsemen, and she brought a premium for it.

The good work and careful planning that produced a bonus success for Ashview and Colts Neck on the weekend is set to pay off with long-term dividends over the coming seasons from the siblings to these major winners.

classic sire with a profound ‘impact’

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dee majesty, racing in japan, sunday silence

You might expect that the greatest certainty in the classics for 2016 is that a son of Uncle Mo will win the Kentucky Derby or that a son of Galileo will win the English Derby. But no, the greatest certainty in classic racing is that Shadai’s great son of Sunday Silence, Deep Impact, will have more runners in the Japan Derby than any other sire and that one of them is likely to win the race.

More than any other son of Kentucky Derby winner Sunday Silence (by Halo), classic winner Deep Impact has captured the imagination of the racing public in Japan, both during his excellent racing career and during his near-legendary time at stud.

Dee Majesty led the trifecta of sons by Deep Impact (by Sunday Silence) in the Satsuki Sho

 

Deep Impact was a star on the racetrack, winning 12 of his 14 starts. The winner of his only start at 2, Deep Impact was the best horse in Japan as a 3-year-old and 4-year-old. He won the Japanese Triple Crown, consisting of the Satsuki Sho (2,000 Guineas), Tokyo Yushun (Derby), and Kikuka Sho (St. Leger) in 2005, winning at distances from 2,000 meters to 3,000 meters (approximately 10 to 15 furlongs). Then this outstanding racehorse won four more G1 races as a 4-year-old and retired to stud at Shadai’s prestigious breeding complex on the Northern Island of Hokkaido.

A grand-looking horse by Japan’s favorite stallion, Deep Impact had exceptional opportunities, and he has made the most of them. The stallion ran true to his pedigree, being by classic winner and Horse of the Year Sunday Silence out of a high-class G1 filly in Europe, and Deep Impact stayed as well as that pedigree suggested or a little better. At stud, he has been a force for high class and for stamina, although some of his best offspring have shown top form at distances as short as a mile.

In previous seasons, the now 14-year-old Deep Impact has sired winners of the Japan Cup, the classic events for 3-year-olds, and the primary G1 races for all-ages. With 79 stakes winners so far, the classic winners by Deep Impact include Gentildonna (Japanese Oaks), Kizuna (Japanese Derby), Mikki Queen (Japanese Oaks), and Harp Star (Japanese 1,000 Guineas).

The most recent classic winner by Deep Impact came on April 17, when Dee Majesty won the Satsuki Sho (Japanese 2,000 Guineas) by 1 ¼ lengths from a pair of previously unbeaten Deep Impact colts: Makahiki and Satono Diamond. Dee Majesty has won three of five starts and is now unbeaten in two starts in 2016.

Bred in Japan by Masaru Shimada, who also races the colt, Dee Majesty is the first stakes winner out of the unraced Hermes Tiara, a daughter of Florida Derby winner and Preakness Stakes second Brian’s Time (Roberto).

Hermes Tiara is a half-sister to two stakes winners, and their dam Shinko Hermes (Sadler’s Wells) is a full sister to English Oaks winner Imagine and a half-sister to Generous (Caerleon), winner of the English Derby, Irish Derby, and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

This family has been producing top performers around the world, and its classic qualities match well with those of Deep Impact.

Deep Impact is out of the major European winner Wind in Her Hair (Alzao), winner of the G1 Aral-Pokal in Germany and second in the Oaks at Epsom. The mare has produced four stakes winners, including Deep Impact’s full brother Black Tide, who was a G2 stakes winner and is now a sire.

The second dam is the fairish racer Burghclere (Busted), although she is better known as half-sister to Height of Fashion (Bustino), who was highweight 2-year-old filly in England in 1981 and won the 1982 Princess of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket. At stud for Sheikh Hamdan, Height of Fashion produced five stakes winners, most notably Nashwan (Blushing Groom), winner of the 2,000 Guineas, Derby, Eclipse, and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

This is a high-quality classic family, and Deep Impact’s third dam is Highclere, one of two classic winners by Queens Hussar (the other being Brigadier Gerard). Highclere won the 1974 1,000 Guineas and Prix de Diane for Queen Elizabeth II. The stallion’s fifth dam is Hypericum, who won the 1945 Dewhurst and 1946 1,000 Guineas for owner-breeder King George VI.

Hypericum was a daughter of English Derby winner Hyperion, bred and raced by Lord Derby, and the breeding lines of his stud, especially Hyperion, Swynford, his half-brother Chaucer, Phalaris, and the latter’s sons Fairway and Pharos cast an influence that is both broad and deep across the pedigree of Deep Impact.

love’s abounding for cupid and super sire tapit

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cupid, gladiateur, Oaklawn Park, rebel stakes, swynford, Tapit

Love’s abounding for Cupid (by Tapit) after his sharp-looking victory in the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park on March 19. The good-looking gray won his second race and first stakes from four starts and now has earned $587,500.

This effort will be enough to propel Cupid into the talk about the Kentucky Derby, but even coming out of the Bob Baffert training barn, Cupid is clearly less experienced and less tested than many of his competitors, including class leaders Nyquist (Uncle Mo) and Mohaymen (also by Tapit).

In addition, Cupid is yet another May foal in the leading tier of this crop, along with Mohaymen, who was foaled May 2. Cupid was born on May 19 and was bred in Kentucky by JKG Thoroughbreds LLC. Consigned to the Keeneland September sale in 2014 through Van Meter Sales, agent, the colt sold for $900,000 to M.V. Magnier and races for Michael Tabor, Susan Magnier, and Derrick Smith.

In addition to the colt’s good looks and marquee sire, he was a legitimate candidate to return a major sale because he is a half-brother to three other stakes winners: G3 stakes winners Ashley’s Kitty and Heart Ashley (by Tale of the Cat and his son Lion Heart), plus stakes winner Indianapolis (Medaglia d’Oro).

Their dam is the Beau Genius mare Pretty ‘n Smart, who ran third in the G2 Railbird Stakes in 2001. As a racer, Pretty ‘n Smart was considerably better than an empty stall, but as a broodmare, she has been much more. From eight foals to race, all are winners, and half are stakes winners, three at graded level.

That’s what breeders hope for when they bring home a new mare.

Pretty ‘n Smart is a half-sister to multiple G3 winner Hostess (Chester House), whose most impressive race was probably the G3 Glens Falls Handicap, in which she set a new course record for 11 furlongs at Saratoga. Till Pretty ‘n Smart and Hostess showed up, this family had gone quiet for a generation when the third dam, the Secretariat mare Office Affair, had not produced a black-type horse among her seven winners in two hemispheres.

Office Affair’s dam, however, was a much different proposition. She is Mlle. Liebe, a daughter of Buckpasser’s half-brother Bupers (Double Jay), who produced two stakes winners and two daughters who produced stakes winners.

Gladiateur, winner of the English Triple Crown, is one of numerous classic winners in the extended pedigree of 2016 Rebel Stakes winner Cupid.

 

So, Cupid has an interesting family with some good relations. Looking at the big picture of his ancestors, Cupid counts 10 winners of the English Triple Crown in his pedigree and six winners of the American. The English Triple Crown winners in Cupid’s pedigree are West Australian (won in 1853), Gladiateur (1865), Lord Lyon (1866), Ormonde (1886), Isinglass (1893), Flying Fox (1899), Rock Sand (1903), Gay Crusader (1917), Gainsborough (1918), and Nijinsky (1970). The American Triple Crown winners in Cupid’s ancestry are Gallant Fox (1930), Omaha (1935), War Admiral (1937), Count Fleet (1943), Secretariat (1973), and Seattle Slew (1977).

In working up these snippets of information, I also discovered that there have been at least 18 previous Cupids, and almost certainly others that I didn’t find.

The earliest recorded Cupid was one by the Darley Arabian back in the early 18^th century when the breeders of Thoroughbreds were largely gentlemen looking for sport, and the breed was not a canonized emblem of pedigree and certified lineage.

The Rebel Stakes winner is the youngest Cupid, although there was another one (bay filly by Fastnet Rock) foaled in 2012 in Australia.

Swynford, a superior racehorse in England and a world-class sire for Lord Derby, is the male-line ancestor of Cupid (1961), who was a very good handicapper from 6 to 10 furlongs in the early 1960s.

 

Prior to the current Cupid, one of the most accomplished was a colt by Generous out of the Foolish Pleasure mare Idyllic who won the Ballysax Stakes in 1999 as a 3-year-old and had been third in the G1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud the previous year. In addition to France and Ireland, Cupid (1996) also raced in Australia and Hong Kong and made 98 starts.

The other highly accomplished Cupid was a Vertex gelding out of Nymph (Sun Again), who was foaled in 1961. A chestnut gelding, Cupid (1961) improved greatly with age and won the Paumonok Handicap at 4, then the San Carlos Handicap at 5, when he also finished second in the Santa Anita Handicap.

As these and other Cupids will teach us, amid the slings and arrows of outrageous racing fortune, love of the horse is the one glorious certainty.