ghostzapper is hot as a firecracker

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adena springs farm, awesome again, breeders' cup classic, frank stronach, ghostzapper, sire success

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

With another pair of graded stakes victories over the weekend – Mystical Star in the New York Stakes at Belmont and Hunters Bay in the Dominion Day at Woodbine – the 12-year-old sire Ghostzapper is having the best year of his stud career. That career began with great expectations but has felt bumps in the road because the industry has suffered from a fierce depression largely due to the state of the international economy and because his offspring did not succeed as expected from their first days on the racetrack.

When he went to stud at Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs Farm in Kentucky in 2006 for a stud fee of $200,000 live foal, Ghostzapper was one of the hottest and most highly prized stallion prospects in years. Winner of nine races from 11 starts, Ghostzapper was Horse of the Year in 2004, when he was undefeated in four starts, and ranked very highly overall according to speed figures and other methods of evaluating form and class in Thoroughbreds.

The list of horses behind him in the Breeders’ Cup Classic in 2004 provided an outstanding group. They included the previous year’s BC Classic winner Pleasantly Perfect, Horse of the Year Azeri, Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide, Belmont winner Birdstone, and other top animals. In Ghostzapper’s prep for the Classic, he won the Woodward Stakes, where he defeated the following year’s BC Classic winner and Horse of the Year Saint Liam.

Ghostzapper made only a single start in 2005, an impressive victory in the Metropolitan Handicap, and a breeding interest in both Ghostzapper and his sire were acquired by the late Jess Jackson’s Stonestreet Farm.

Therefore, when Ghostzapper retired to stand at stud in 2006, breeders lined up to breed to the handsome and well-made son of Awesome Again, who was a red-hot sire himself as a winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, sire of a winner of that race, as well as champion Ginger Punch and other fine racers.

Considering that the champion was a very fast horse, many observers expected Ghostzapper to burst out of the gate as a sire of juveniles and sprinters that showed early maturity and bags of speed. Those folk were miserably disappointed.

None were probably more surprised by the early results from the Ghostzapper stock than the people handling the horse at Adena Springs. Jack Brothers of Adena said that “To me, the biggest mystery would have been if he hadn’t begun to get good horses, but we may never know why he didn’t get them right away. He was such a brilliant racehorse and had such high speed”  – a prime reason breeders sent outstanding mares to Ghostzapper.

The results have improved year by year, and Ghostzapper, with his third crop of 3-year-olds on the track, now ranks in the top 20 stallions nationally. “The crops seem to be getting progressively better,” Brothers said, “but I don’t see any reasons we could put a definitive light on why it would happen that way.”

It might simply have been the roll of the genetic dice. To date, Ghostzapper has sired 320 horses of racing age, with 18 stakes winners (6 percent), but only four stakes winners at 2. And 10 of the stallion’s stakes winners are graded winners, such as 2012 Acorn Stakes winner Contested and Sands Point winner Better Lucky. In addition to these recent premium performers, Ghostzapper was represented last weekend also by Dwyer Stakes third Morgan’s Guerrilla and Dominion Day third Stately Victor, who won the Blue Grass two years ago at Keeneland.

One reason for Ghostzapper’s performance at stud is that he is not breeding his trademark speed so much as he is transmitting the qualities typically associated with his sire Awesome Again and grandsire Deputy Minister. Both tend to get horses that show their best at a mile or more and that frequently are better with age.

In fact, Ghostzapper himself won only a maiden at 2 and did not win a stakes until the Vosburgh very late in his 3-year-old season. During his early racing, trainer Bobby Frankel also placed Ghostzapper cautiously in shorter events that showcased the horse’s amazing speed that he was able to maintain furlong after furlong. In hindsight, Ghostzapper is breeding stock that also can maintain a steady racing rhythm but do not have his blinding speed. Few ever have.

Intriguingly, Ghostzapper is also putting a lot of versatility for surface in his foals, which win their graded stakes on dirt, turf, and synthetic. Ghostzapper stood for a highly respectable $20,000 stud fee in 2012, but with the interest he is generating from his results this year, that figure may be going up for next season.

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blame is first claiborne stallion from rough shod family since ridan

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apalachee, blame, blue grass stakes, breeders' cup classic, breeding families, claiborne farm, florida derby, moccasin, nantallah, nureyev, ridan, rough shod, sadler's wells, thatch, thomas girdler, thong

Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Blame will be the first stallion that historic Claiborne Farm has stood from the Rough Shod family in 56 years, when the outstanding colt Ridan (1959 b h by Nantallah x Rough Shod, by Gold Bridge) went to stud there.

Bred by Thomas Girdler, Ridan was a smashing racehorse, winning 13 of 23 starts, including the Blue Grass Stakes, Arlington Classic, Florida Derby, Arlington Futurity, and the Washington Park Futurity. Ridan finished second in the Preakness and Travers, third in the Kentucky Derby.

He was the second stakes winner out of Rough Shod, who sold to Claiborne when Ridan was a youngster. Claiborne bred and raced the mare’s subsequent foals, including champion Moccasin and her sister Thong, who ran second in the Alcibiades Stakes.

Moccasin produced European highweight Apalachee (Round Table), Thong produced European highweight Thatch (Forli) and major American winner King Pellinore (Round Table), Thong’s daughter Special produced the top-class international sire Nureyev (Northern Dancer), and Special’s daughter Fairy Bridge produced the great Sadler’s Wells and his brother Fairy King, both by Northern Dancer.

Claiborne bred and sold all those, except for Sadler’s Wells and Fairy King.

Special’s stakes-winning daughter Bound (Nijinsky) produced stakes-placed Liable (Seeking the Gold), who is the dam of Blame (Arch).

the shortcomings of ‘awards’

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andy beyer, blame, breeders' cup classic, champions, dave dink, horse of the year, photo finish, racing character, racing talent, ray paulick, zenyatta

As Zenyatta and Blame crossed the wire together at the end of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the clamor had not started. Which is really better? Who will win Horse of the Year? And just don’t get me started on the tiresome pun-dits of the headlines.

What is plain and undeniable is that both horses are champions and are models for racing talent and character. That is a treat for racing and a splendid opportunity for sharing the excellence of our sport with the general public.

Now, Andy Beyer elaborates slightly on his previous statement that Blame and Zenyatta share the same Beyer Speed Figure for the Classic and ran to their best form in a Q & A with Ray Paulick. Read it here.

 

So, for practical purposes, they are the same horse. Their difference in the Classic is a matter of inches, and as Dave Dink pointed out in a poetic post last week, would something so small change your mind about the quality of either of these outstanding horses?

I think not.

The shortcoming of awards and designations such as Horse of the Year is that they fail to share the glory of champions on the track in extreme competition or in the winner’s circle glistening from the exertions of their races. The result diminishes excellence by categorizing something that is transcendent.

And we miss the point if we do not recognize that racing has two champions this year, two athletes of outstanding merit and courage, and two grand horses who have proven their mettle on the course.

 

lookin at lucky: pedigree of fortune

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a.p. indy, Belmont Stakes, belong to me, breeders' cup classic, breezefigs, curlin, fasig-tipton november sale, fly down, gulf coast farms, jay kilgore, jerry bailey breeder, keeneland april sale of 2yos in training, lane's end farm, lookin at lucky, mr. prospector, native charger, native dancer, paulick report, preakness stakes, private feeling, raise a native, sam-son farm, sharp belle, smart strike, stephen got even, super saver, temple webber, unbreakable, will farish

This story appeared earlier this week at PaulickReport.com.

A month ago, neither the sponsor of this column nor the Paulick Report could have imagined the run of luck awaiting all of us in the May classics.

In the intervening weeks, the Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver was out of a mare by Lane’s End stallion A.P. Indy, the Preakness winner Lookin at Lucky is by Lane’s End stallion Smart Strike and out of a mare by farm stallion Belong to Me, the Preakness second is by Lane’s End stallion Stephen Got Even, another son of farm stalwart A.P. Indy, and farm owner Will Farish is co-breeder of the dams of both the Preakness winner and the Dwyer winner, Fly Down, a likely prospect for the Belmont Stakes.

We are “lookin at lucky” on more levels than I can count.

With a second Preakness Stakes winner, the Mr. Prospector stallion Smart Strike confirmed himself as one of the most powerful sons of his sire at stud. The stallion’s first classic winner was Horse of the Year Curlin, narrowly beaten in the Belmont Stakes before his championship success in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and Smart Strike is well represented this year with such additional racers as Strike a Deal, who won the Grade 2 Dixie Handicap on the Preakness card at Pimlico.

A beautifully pedigreed son of Mr. Prospector bred by Sam-Son Farm, Smart Strike was a high-class racehorse who nonetheless left some questions about how good he might have been. A winner in six of eight starts, Smart Strike won the Grade 1 Iselin Handicap for his most important success.

As a stallion, Smart Strike has been solid but was not an early commercial home run hitter. Lookin at Lucky’s co-breeder, Jerry Bailey, noted that the stallion’s offspring tend to improve with age, both in looks and buyer appeal.

That is not the formula for commercial success among unproven sires. However, now that Smart Strike is a proven commodity, his offspring are making better returns for breeders.

That wasn’t the case even two years ago for Gulf Coast Farms, the breeders of Lookin at Lucky, at the yearling sales, where they had to take him home for a hammer price of $35,000. But they had the wherewithal and flexibility to bring him back as a 2-year-old in training, when he made $475,000 at the Keeneland April sale of juveniles.

The backbone of that price increase was the progress that Lookin at Lucky had made from a yearling to a 2-year-old. He had grown and strengthened from an acceptable but somewhat average “nice” yearling to being what BreezeFigs guru Jay Kilgore called “the best 2-year-old I saw last year.”

His progress shown in motion analysis video at the breeze shows was manifest in graded stakes competition in the summer and fall last year, and Lookin at Lucky’s successes, added to the graded victory of his half-brother Kensei (by Mr. Greeley), made their dam, the Belong to Me mare Private Feeling, a hot property indeed.

At the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November mixed sale last fall, she sold to Live Oak Stud for $2 million as a young producer of top-level performers.

The mare was then a 10-year-old. She was bred by Farish and Temple Webber Jr., and she earned $18,245 from two victories in seven starts. That was a decent record but nothing to promote her as the dam of multiple graded stakes winners.

Private Feeling is one of those mares who require the progeny test to verify whether they will become producers of merit, and she has passed that test with high distinction.

The mare’s second dam, the Native Charger mare Sharp Belle, was a notably better racemare, winning 10 races, including the Grade 1 Monmouth Oaks.

This is a line of producers from a good-class family. Sharp Belle’s fifth dam is the stakes-winning mare Nectarine, a full sister to the great sire Bull Lea, the cornerstone of Calumet Farm’s success in the 1940s and 1950s.

In addition to these historical connections to high-class performance, there is a pedigree pattern of note in the ancestry of Lookin at Lucky. He has a half-dozen lines of the great racehorse and sire Native Dancer in his pedigree. Five of them come through Private Feeling, who also has an additional line of Native Dancer’s grandsire Unbreakable.

Native Dancer has proven an increasingly important sire over the past 50 years. He was the sire of Raise a Native, whose sons Mr. Prospector and Alydar sired international champions, and other sons and daughters of Native Dancer litter pedigrees around the world with speed and strength.

zenyatta: view of the opposition

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breeders' cup classic, zenyatta

Zenyatta confirmed in the matter of 20-odd strides what some of us had believed for a long time: that she is the superior of any horse in training in North America.

Languishing in 10th place in the Breeders’ Cup Classic midway of the turn, she catapulted into contention in the space of 20 strides (I counted), cutting through traffic faster than the holes could close and raising Trevor Denman’s blood pressure in a rousing call to the finish.

Then the situation became normal for her opposition. A view of her powerful rear end.

new stallions for 2009 iv

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breeders' cup classic, curlin, deputy minister, dubai world cup, horse of the year, lane's end, smart strike

This is the fourth in a series of notes and impressions about the new stallions in Kentucky for 2009. The horses will be reviewed alphabetically.

Curlin (2004 chestnut by Smart Strike out of Sherriff’s Deputy, by Deputy Minister)

Stands at Lane’s End for $75,000 live foal

The Horse of the Year in North America in both 2007 and 2008, Curlin is the star of the show among the sires entering stud in 2009. His race record is excellent, with victories in the Preakness, Breeders’ Cup Classic, Dubai World Cup, Woodward, and two runnings of the Jockey Club Gold Cup among his grandest achievements.

Nor does he seem less of a champion in the flesh. Curlin is a big horse, standing 16.2, but his exceptional balance makes him seem smaller until you’re standing next to him. Then the sheer muscular mass of the horse, his deep shoulders and broad chest, and the great power of his hindquarters dominate the space around this chestnut son of Smart Strike.

Curlin has a big, clear eye that adds distinction to his handsome head. His neck has good length but is not coarse or cresty. The round muscularity of his forearms is impressive, and his gaskins are more than 20 inches around. He has great length through the body and stands over an impressive amount of ground.

He is a right looking stallion.

His fault, if such matters in a racehorse of this exalted stature, is in the alignment of his forelegs. They weren’t perfect when he was a yearling, hence his sales price of only $57,000 at the Keeneland September sale when Kenny McPeek had the insight to make the purchase, and they weren’t perfect when Curlin won seven Grade 1 stakes and more than $10 million.

In type, Curlin shows a great deal of his broodmare sire, champion Deputy Minister, who was a top-class stallion and broodmare sire and has been a powerful influence in pedigrees for more than two decades. Curlin possesses the length, mass, and fine head of the best Deputy Minister stock, and the Horse of the Year may well add further luster by proving a sire equal to his looks.