aruna has historic connections to sheepshead bay

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aruna, belmont park, class in the dam, flaxman holdings, kittiwake, producing test of broodmares, racing test of broodmares, sheepshead bay racetrack

The following post first appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

The Grade 2 Sheepshead Bay Handicap and the winner of its 2012 renewal, the Mr. Greeley mare Aruna, figure in a great deal of racing lore and bloodstock history.

Created in 1959 and first run at Jamaica Racecourse in New York, the Sheepshead Bay Handicap commemorates one of the most important early American racetracks. Built by the members of the Coney Island Jockey Club on land adjacent to Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay began racing in 1880, and over the next decade, management there inaugurated such historic and enduring events as the Suburban Handicap in 1884 and the Futurity Stakes in 1888.

In 1886, the track became the first to have a modern turf course, set inside the dirt oval, and it is fitting that Belmont racetrack, which inherited most of Sheepshead Bay’s great races, also hosts the Sheepshead Bay Handicap raced over 11 furlongs of turf.

This year’s winner was the Niarchos family’s Aruna, a dark brown daughter of Mr. Greeley and the Unbridled mare Surya. Like Aruna, Surya and her dam, the Nureyev mare Wild Planet, were bred and raced in the name of the Niarchos family’s Flaxman Holdings.

In addition, all three are stakes winners, and in an unusual succession of excellence, Aruna’s first six dams are all stakes winners.

Preceding Wild Planet is the Sir Ivor mare Ivory Wings, who won the Prix des Tuileries in France, as well as placing third in the G1 Premio Lydia Tesio in Italy. Returned to the States, Ivory Wings was less impressive, winning the highly unimportant Ruffian Handicap (not the one at Belmont) as a 5-year-old in 1983. Still, it was more black type, and the mare had a marvelous pedigree. Furthermore, Ivory Wings had been a good sales yearling herself, and as the second live foal out of the wonderful racemare and producer Kittiwake (by Sea-Bird), she became her dam’s second black-type performer and first stakes winner.

When Kittiwake’s second and third stakes winners came upon the turf, named Larida (Northern Dancer) and Miss Oceana (Alydar), the prospects and evaluation of Ivory Wings soared. Larida won “only” a G2 stakes and a pair of G3s, once against colts, but she was also G1-placed and was by the great little horse himself. Miss Oceana was a better racehorse, was one of the two top performers in Alydar’s first crop, along with Althea, and won a half-dozen G1 stakes.

At the Newstead Farm dispersal of 1985, Miss Oceana brought $7 million and Larida brought $4 million from Carl Icahn in the name of his Foxfield Farm. Grand as they were, they never saw the day when they were worth more.

This was a truly extraordinary family, however, and Kittiwake, a winner of the 18 races and $338,086, produced three stakes winners and another stakes-placed runner from her first five foals. Under the guidance and management of the Hardins of Newstead Farm, the lovely daughter of Sea-Bird never put a hoof wrong, but following her fifth foal, she produced only one stakes winner from eight more foals.

Kittiwake was a major winner at 3, 4, and 5. She won eight stakes, and among her additional placings was a second in 1972 Sheepshead Bay Handicap.

She was the first foal and first stakes winner out of the major stakes winner Ole Liz, who also produced the multiple G3 winner Oilfield (Hail to Reason) and the minor French stakes winner Beaconaire (Vaguely Noble). Ole Liz had been a cracking stakes winner by Double Jay, winning six of her 12 starts as a 2-year-old, including three stakes.

Ole Liz is the fifth dam and stakes winner behind Aruna, and her dam, the Roman mare Islay Mist, is the sixth. Islay Mist was a useful stakes winner who earned her credits with a success in the 1952 La Centinela Stakes. She was one of two stakes winners out of her dam, the Eight Thirty mare Lovely Evening, who was unraced.

Although a disappointment for failing to make the course, Lovely Evening was otherwise a good representative of her dam, the major winner Misty Isle, a daughter of leading sire Sickle who became a major taproot broodmare after a stellar racing career.

Bred and raced by Joseph Widener, Misty Isle won a half-dozen stakes, with the most important probably being the 1940 Matron Stakes at Belmont Park, but historically, the most interesting race she won was the Hyde Park Stakes at Arlington Park, as she defeated colts, including future Triple Crown winner Whirlaway, in the five and a half furlong race.

Aruna traces back past Misty Isle through other good mares to her 13^th dam Sallie McClelland (by Hindoo), who won the 1891 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga. The previous year, Sallie McClelland had won a trio of stakes, including the Surf Stakes at Sheepshead Bay racecourse.

Racing, the most marvelous of sports, reveals gems of tradition and renewal in ways that even we writers cannot make up.

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mr greeley adding glory to his record as an important sire

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aruna, bc sprint, crusade, desert stormer, gone west, jamaica stakes, middle park stakes, Mr. Greeley, Rob Whiteley, sire lines, sire success, sires of multiple g1 winners, spinster stakes, stallion evaluation, suzie picou-oldham, versatility among stallions, western aristocrat

The following post appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

The late sire Mr. Greeley earned his ranking as one of the best sires in the world the old-fashioned way: he earned it.

Retired to stud for 1996 with good looks, a good pedigree, and speed as his primary credentials, the son of Gone West made his mark as a sire of international importance by getting sound and athletic individuals who were highly competitive in many different racing environments and on all surfaces.

That was nowhere more evident than in the results of racing over this weekend, as offspring of Mr. Greeley won a trio of G1s, on synthetic at Keeneland and on turf at Belmont in the Jamaica and at Newmarket in the Middle Park.

The juvenile Crusade won the Middle Park well enough while staying on over the rising ground at Newmarket to suggest he will get a mile. His year-older kinsman Western Aristocrat won the Jamaica, and the 3yo has followed a pattern of racing and development similar to Spinster Stakes winner Aruna. Both began their racing abroad, found success, then were repatriated for G1 victory. In the case of Western Aristocrat, he was a winner in his début last season in England, then group-placed before reaching the States.

The 4-year-old Aruna returned to her homeland last year and has finished first or second in every start since. The dark bay scored a G1 for the first time in the Spinster, but she was already a winner at G2 and G3 level, as well as second in the G1 Diana at Saratoga .

Stakes winners of this quality have populated the stallion career of Mr. Greeley, who went to stud as “only” a G3 winner, although he was also a head second to Desert Stormer in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in his final start.

Suzie Picou-Oldham, now with Darby Dan Farm but with Dixiana when Mr. Greeley retired to stud, recalled the stallion.  She said, “When he first came off the track, he had a beautiful shoulder and a nice frame, but he was not the broad, heavy-bodied horse he came to be when he was a stallion. He had a very good disposition and was a very cooperative horse to work with.”

Mr. Greeley made stallion promotion seem easy with first the physical appearance and then racing success of his early stock. Picou-Oldham recalled that, “as a stallion, it was obvious he was going to stamp his foals because a lot of them came out looking more like Mr. Greeley the stallion than Mr. Greeley the young racehorse.

“They would have a lovely top line, a toned shoulder, and a big and muscular hip.

“We started him out at $10,000 in 1996. He was an easy sell because of his looks, his sire was being sought after, and he was a very handsome horse. He had a look and a presence that you want in a horse.”

One of the breeders who was attracted to Mr. Greeley as a young stallion with great promise was Rob Whiteley, owner of Liberation Farm.

Whiteley described Mr. Greeley as a “prototype of what I’ve always tried to produce: a well-balanced athletic miler with speed who had versatility on different surfaces and whose offspring can carry their speed beyond an optimal distance.

“I was lucky enough to be able to breed quite a few mares to him when he was still affordable for me, and I discovered that in addition to what he passed on to the offspring, he could help out the mares with a little extra leg and a little help with the knees.”

Although Whiteley summarized Mr. Greeley as a “great loss for commercial breeders,” the stallion had priced himself out of the market for most breeders before his death. The stallion’s fee reached $125,000, then the international financial markets collapsed in 2007, forcing stud fees down precipitously.

In contrast, the quality of mares bred to Mr. Greeley remained high, and the stallion’s impact on breeding is continuing through his sons and daughters. In addition to his sons El Corredor and Whywhywhy, the daughters of Mr. Greeley have been especially successful. Last weekend, Zazu (by Tapit) won the Lady’s Secret Stakes at Santa Anita, and she is out of the Mr. Greeley mare Rhumb Line, whose first foal is the group stakes-placed Art Princess and whose third is multiple G1 winner Zazu.

So far, Mr. Greeley has sired 57 stakes winners to date from 1,424 foals, including his 2-year-olds, yearlings, and weanlings. There will be no further offspring from the powerful chestnut stallion, but as this weekend’s racing shows, there will be more glory.