new stakes winners are promising stars in the sky for the next crop of young racers

Tags

2yo stakes winners, churchill downs, debutante stakes, hootenanny, promise me silver, quality road, royal ascot, silver city, windsor castle stakes

With the 2014 Triple Crown in the record books, the participants are largely resting and planning to resume the fray in the heat of the summer for prizes like the Grade 1 Haskell and Travers Stakes. And now it is time to cast an eye upon the next generation of racers, those young prospects who are showing their trainers speed and early maturity.

There were good stakes in three countries over the past week that featured the younger set, with trainer Wesley Ward’s big lick at Royal Ascot coming with the 2-year-old Hootenanny, who blazed away from his competition in the Windsor Castle Stakes to win by 3 ½ lengths from 23 competitors, racing the five furlongs in :59.05.

The lanky-looking colt proved plentifully progressive and rewarded his owners, John Magnier, Michael Tabor, and Derrick Smith, with the first stakes of the Royal Ascot meeting.

Hootenanny is the first stakes winner for his sire, the Elusive Quality horse Quality Road. A really big horse of exceptional ability, Quality Road won four times at the Grade 1 level (the Florida Derby, Metropolitan Handicap, Woodward, and Donn) and was three times placed in G1s, including the Whitney at Saratoga, when narrowly defeated by champion Blame.

Quality Road came to his best form at 3, and getting such a precocious performer, on turf no less, suggests that broodmare sire Hennessy was a handy part of the equation that produced this good young performer. Although Quality Road was not a turf horse, his sire ran a record mile on the surface and has sired highweights and a classic winner on turf, like his sire Gone West. For them, all surfaces are alike, and the definitive measure is class. Quality Road stands at Lane’s End Farm for $25,000.

Here in the States, the Debutante Stakes at Churchill Downs offered a fast filly the opportunity to make a case for her quality and for her sire’s prospects as a stallion. Promise Me Silver, owned and bred by Robert Luttrell in Texas, won the six-furlong race in 1:11.49 by two lengths over the warmly regarded Unbridled Reward (by freshman sire Warrior’s Reward).

Promise Me Silver is the first stakes winner for her sire, freshman sire Silver City (Unbridled’s Song). Freshmen sires – especially those who are not household names – need their first foals to get to the track, race successfully, and show some form in black-type races if those stallions are going to be patronized by mares the following year.

Standing at Valor Farm in Texas, stakes winner Silver City has those pressures in spades. Equineline shows him with 19 foals from his first crop, and 10 have already started. Four have won, and Promise Me Silver, who was making her second start in the Debutante, is unbeaten. She is also the first stakes winner out of a broodmare by Macho Uno, who was the champion juvenile colt of 2000.

Another unbeaten 2-year-old is Conquest Tsunami (Stormy Atlantic), who has won both his starts and added black type to his résumé with a 7 ¾-length success at Woodbine. The colt is the 88^th stakes winner for his sire, who is one of the most successful Storm Cat sons. Stormy Atlantic stands at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm for $30,000.

Conquest Tsunami was bred in Ontario by Josham Farms Limited & Yvonne Schwabe Thoroughbreds. He is the first stakes winner out of the El Corredor mare Classic Neel and is the mare’s third foal. Classic Neel won the restricted Weekend Madness Stakes, ran second in the Appalachian Stakes at Keeneland, and was third in the G3 Sands Point Stakes.

All or none of these newly minted stakes winners may play a role in the classics of 2015, but it is worth noting that early signs of ability are not a bad thing in a racehorse. Just over a year ago, on June 15, a flashy chestnut colt dueled for the lead for a half-mile and finished fifth of nine in the Willard Proctor Memorial at Hollywood Park.

Hollywood Park is gone, but California Chrome was making his third start in the Proctor, and he came back the following month to win his first stakes, the Graduation, at Del Mar.

The next champion and the next classic winner are out there. We only have to find them.

*The preceding article was first published earlier this week at Paulick Report.

Advertisement

a sign of things to come

Tags

adele dilschneider, churchill downs, claiborne farm, pocahontas stakes, Pulpit, sign

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

The races at Churchill Downs on Sunday for 2-year-olds not going to the Breeders’ Cup revealed some promising young athletes, including the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes winner Uncaptured (by Lion Heart), now the winner in five of six starts, and the unbeaten winner of the G2 Pocahontas Stakes, Sign.
 
The latter is a daughter of Pulpit owned and bred by Adele Dilschneider and Claiborne Farm. Whereas Uncaptured was a multiple stakes winner coming into the Iroquois, Sign was only the winner of a maiden.

Her début, however, was not just any maiden special. Sign had a massively impressive success at Saratoga, sprinting to victory at six furlongs by 11 3/4 lengths on Aug. 26. The filly had not raced since, according to trainer Al Stall, because she was training at Keeneland before going to the Spa for her début, and “we thought she trained better on the dirt than on the polytrack.”
 
As a result, Sign did not race either at Turfway in September or at Keeneland in October. While awaiting the Pocahontas, Sign had a half-dozen official workouts at Churchill Downs. With her promise obvious from that impressive début and her readiness clearly in print from her work schedule, fans made Sign the 4-5 favorite for the Pocahontas, and the bay filly won by four lengths from the City Zip filly Gal About Town.
 
The unbeaten graded stakes winner is the second foal of her dam, the stakes winner Cross. The winner of three races from 14 starts, Cross was bred and raced by Adele Dilschneider and Claiborne, and the mare won the restricted Hidden Light Stakes and $126,207.

Descending from one of Claiborne’s bluest-blooded families, Cross is one of two stakes winners by her sire Mighty (Lord at War). A grand-looking yearling that Seth Hancock selected at the sales in 1998 with the goal of racing and standing as a stallion, Mighty came close to hitting the brass ring like Arch had done previously.
 
A winner of $705,432, Mighty won the G3 Iroquois Stakes at 2, then hinted at classic prospects with a victory in the G2 Louisiana Derby the following year. Those hopes did not bear fruit, but the son of Lord at War took a turn as a stallion, getting 63 foals and two stakes winners.
 
Cross is one of two stakes winners out of her dam, the Rahy mare Lateral. Bred to Arch, Lateral also has produced G2 American Derby winner Lattice.
 
Sign’s fourth dam is the major-league producer Alluvial, an unraced daughter of the great broodmare sire Buckpasser. A member of one of Claiborne’s best producing families, Alluvial became the dam of multiple champion Slew o’ Gold (Seattle Slew) and Belmont Stakes winner Coastal (Majestic Prince).
 
Alluvial is out of Claiborne’s champion 3-year-old filly Bayou (Hill Prince), and this family traces through Bourtai and Escutcheon to the imported mare Affection, who was bred in France.
 
Alluvial’s best produce was Slew o’ Gold, a son of Seattle Slew, and the mating that produced Sign brings Seattle Slew blood back to Alluvial’s family through the Triple Crown winner’s two strongest first- and second-generation descendants: his son A.P. Indy and grandson Pulpit.
 
While one would not want to make too much of this realignment of pedigree influences, with Seattle Slew in the third generation and Alluvial in the fourth, the female families of Pulpit and Cross have been part of the bedrock of Claiborne breeding for generations.
 
Pulpit’s dam Preach was a G1 winner at 2 and has produced 10 winners from the same number of starters, but Pulpit stands out as her best performer. Winner of the Blue Grass and fourth in the Kentucky Derby, Pulpit was from the first crop by A.P. Indy and marked his sire as a coming factor for classic quality.
 
Preach is a daughter of Mr. Prospector and G3 winner Narrate (Honest Pleasure), and her third dam is Monarchy (Princequillo), winner of the 1959 Arlington Lassie and a full sister to Horse of the Year Round Table.
 
Both Monarchy and Round Table were bred by Claiborne from Knight’s Daughter, an English-bred mare by Sir Cosmo that Bull Hancock imported in the 1950s to mate with Princequillo. Knight’s Daughter was named Broodmare of the Year in 1959.
 
These great families have the potential to produce stock with the ideal qualities of speed and staying power. In unifying these lines, both top and bottom, perhaps the winner of the Pocahontas is a sign of great things to come.

motor city becomes first stakes winner for kentucky derby winner street sense

Tags

bc juvenile, champion racehorses as sires, churchill downs, curlin, darley at jonabell, expectations of stallion prospects, freshmen sires, Kentucky Derby, lantern hill farm, miss netta, motor city, shawgatny, stallion success, star of gdansk, street cry, street sense, suzi shoemaker

The following post appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

When a classic winner who was a champion 2-year-old retires to stud, the expectations are naturally high because few horses excel at the highest levels at 2 and 3. But Street Sense was one of those horses.

Third in the G1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland before sailing up the rail to victory in the BC Juvenile at Churchill Downs, Street Sense echoed that form six months later with a narrow loss in the G1 Blue Grass at Keeneland, followed by a well-earned victory in the Kentucky Derby over the Danzig racer Hard Spun and eventual 3-year-old champion Curlin.

Striking early and winning at the top class were important considerations for Street Sense’s prospects as a stallion, and when he was purchased for stud by Darley, he became the well-regarded understudy for his now-famous sire.

The good-looking son of Street Cry was from his sire’s first crop, and Street Sense is one of the reasons that Street Cry is a major international sire. As a big, rangy horse, Street Cry was a staying juvenile who matured well to win the Dubai World Cup at 4, but something less than the world was expected of him.

However, when the stallion delivered a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner and 2-year-old champion in Street Sense, Street Cry became a much different horse in the estimation of breeders. And when Zenyatta rose to the top of the class as a 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old, Street Cry became one of the most sought-after stallions in the world.

One of the peculiarities of breeding is that, even if a stallion does not have an unusual number of stakes winners, having really good stakes winners puts a shine on his reputation that little can dull. And that is the case with Street Cry.

The next challenge for the stallion’s escalating reputation is to get sons who sire good horses, and in Street Sense, Street Cry has a son who shares many of the sire’s best qualities and who appears to be passing them along.

In Street Sense, we have a high-class staying 2-year-old who is much like his sire in racing aptitude, although notably more refined and elegant in physique. The Street Sense stock showed surprising maturity and speed in the premium sales of 2-year-olds in training earlier this year, with a fair number of winners (8) to date.

So it is especially noteworthy that Street Sense had his first stakes winner, Motor City, on Sunday in the G3 Iroquois Stakes at Churchill Downs. The gelding was already graded stakes-placed after a third in the Arlington-Washington Futurity in September. In that race, Motor City finished a head in front of the Johannesburg colt No Spin, who also won a stakes over the weekend, and the form lines look reliable.

A Street Sense filly, Miss Netta, closed from last to finish third in the G1 Frizette Stakes at Belmont Park on Oct. 8, and she has been entered in Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs.

Clearly, the Street Sense stock is improving with maturity and showing better form as the distances increase. Those are qualities that will serve the sire’s reputation and will encourage breeders to continue supporting him.

And that’s important because good stallions need good mares, which is half the story with Motor City.

Motor City was bred and is raced by Lantern Hill Farm, located outside Midway, Ky. Motor City is the 12th foal out of the Danzig Connection mare Shawgatny, who was bred by Lantern Hill, sold as a yearling at the Keeneland summer sale in 1991 for $320,000, then repurchased as a broodmare for $40,000 in the 2002 Keeneland November sale, carrying a filly by Gulch.

Shawgatny’s second foal for Lantern Hill was the stakes-winning filly Satulagi (by Officer), and all the mare’s subsequent foals from Lantern Hill have been winners.

The mare is a full sister to group stakes winner Star of Gdansk, who was also second in the Irish 2,000 Guineas and third in both the Irish Derby and English Derby.

Shawgatny is two years younger than her famous brother, and with his obvious class on the racecourse, she brought the highest price of 29 Danzig Connections sold at auction in 1991. On the racecourse, Shawgatny was in the frame six of her seven starts, with a victory, four seconds, and a third.

on fire baby lights up pocahontas for sire and dam

Tags

broodmare success, chance in breeding, churchill downs, Gainesway Farm, juvenile performance, on fire baby, ornate, pocahontas stakes, smoke glacken, speed in the thoroughbred

By a champion sprinter in Smoke Glacken and out of a mare who now has produced three stakes winners, On Fire Baby is the right sort, and she is proving that matching a mare by the powerful juvenile champion Gilded Time to juvenile G1 winner Smoke Glacken is the type to type mating that produces success.

Not only is Gainesway sire Smoke Glacken a consistent stallion who produces athletic individuals with good speed and some versatility, but the dam was a good-class performer herself. A stakes winner with seven victories from 29 starts, Ornate, the dam of On Fire Baby, was a rugged racer with talent.

From that good racing career, Ornate has excelled beyond the norm and has placed herself at the top of the producing daughters of the very handsome stallion Gilded Time (a son of the Damascus stallion Timeless Moment). Now the dam of three stakes winners, Ornate produced G2 winner High Heels (by E Dubai) as her first foal. Then the mare produced the listed stakes winner French Kiss (Hussonet) as her second foal.

On Fire Baby is the mare’s fifth foal, following non-winners by Yonaguska and Cherokee Run. Ornate’s sixth foal is the E Dubai filly Shoe Queen, and she is the sixth filly out of the mare.

Ornate produced her first colt this year, a bay by Tiznow, who represents a markedly different physical type than the mare’s previous mates. Time will tell whether that is the best avenue for this mare, but it should also be a more commercially appealing match than even some of the earlier, highly successful ones.

The mare’s produce record is below:

1st Dam: ORNATE, b, 1997. Bred by Totier Creek Farm (KY). Raced 3 yrs in NA, 29 sts, 7 wins, $177,972 (ssi = 2.77). Won Pleasant Temper S.($80,000, 1998, FTKJUL, yrlg; $48,000, 1997, KEENOV, wnlg)
	2004: HIGH HEELS, b f, by E Dubai. Raced 2 yrs in NA, 17 sts, 3 wins, $484,636. Won Fantasy S. (gr. 2); 2nd Falls City Handicap (gr. 2), Chilukki S. (gr. 2), Gardenia Handicap (gr. 3), Honeybee S., Anna M. Fisher Debutante S.; 3rd Kentucky Oaks (gr. 1), Golden Rod S. (gr. 2). 2005: FRENCH KISS, b f, by Hussonet. Raced 4 yrs in NA, 35 sts, 4 wins, $284,513. Won Pippin S.; 3rd Azeri Breeders’ Cup S. (gr. 3), Anna M. Fisher Debutante S. 2006: Lustful, b f, by Yonaguska. Raced 3 yrs in NA, 7 sts, 0 wins, $6,205. 2007: Barren. 2008: Elaborate, b f, by Cherokee Run. Raced 1 yr in NA, 1 sts, 0 wins, $6,000. 2009: ON FIRE BABY. At 2: Won Pocahontas S. (gr. 2). 2010: Shoe Queen, ch f, by E Dubai. 2011: Unnamed foal, b c, by Tiznow.

havre de grace shines brightly for porter and jones

Tags

alice chandler, amerigo, barbaro, bc classic, beldame, bernardini, breeding the racehorse, cacti, churchill downs, desert love, diesis, diminuendo, early life of havre de grace, enjoyment of sport, equine management, famous broodmares, famous families, havre de grace, headley bell, larry jones, louisville, mill ridge farm, missy baba, nancy dillman, rick porter, saint liam, sale of havre de grace, sale topper, saratoga select sale, sharpen up, sire success, stonegate farm, successful breeder, toll booth, toll fee, woodward stakes

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

Owner Rick Porter and trainer Larry Jones aren’t hiding their light under a bushel basket. The Saint Liam filly Havre de Grace is their bright and shining light, and they have mapped out an ambitious and exciting program that they hope will earn their bay filly a national championship over the next couple of months.

Already a Grade 1 winner, Havre de Grace took the next step up the ladder with her impressive victory over colts in the G1 Woodward Stakes at Saratoga on Saturday. The expected next steps are the Beldame at Belmont Park, where Havre de Grace could cement domination over fillies, and then the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs, where victory would bring a likely selection as Horse of the Year.

Whether Havre de Grace races for all the marbles in the BC Classic on Saturday or in the event restricted to fillies and mares on Friday, she will be performing on the biggest stage near the home of breeder Nancy Dillman, whose Stonegate Farm is in Jefferson County, Ky., like Louisville and Churchill Downs.

When Dillman got into Thoroughbred breeding in the 1970s, one of her early broodmares was the Tom Rolfe daughter Cacti. A chestnut out of Vanity Handicap winner Desert Love (by Amerigo), Cacti produced European classic winner Diminuendo as her second foal.

Winner of the English Oaks, Irish Oaks, and Yorkshire Oaks, Diminuendo was sired by the Sharpen Up horse Diesis, who stood his entire career at Mill Ridge Farm outside Lexington. The breeder said, “And that’s when I developed my relationship with Alice Chandler. We’ve been with Mill Ridge many a year. Diminuendo was such a lovely, classy filly, and, my, she was a tough filly too.”

Even though Dillman had produced a major racehorse from her breeding program almost immediately, she did not try to expand and produce 10.

Dillman does not want to overproduce. She said, “I don’t like to have more than four or five mares. That’s a good number for us. We only have 45 acres here, and it is easy to accumulate horses. We reseed every year, and we have good pastures because we work at it every year.”

On good pastures, a breeder can grow strong and athletic horses, and the point of living on a beautiful farm is not to have a factory.

Instead, Dillman said, “I run a nursery. The mares go to Mill Ridge months before their due dates, and they stay there to be bred and 60 days after they are declared in foal before I move them the hour drive back to Louisville. We have the mares and foals, wean the foals, and sell yearlings through Mill Ridge at the sales. Depending on my numbers, if I have a lone colt, like the Bernardini this year, he gets sent to Mill Ridge in December. He runs with the young men and gets strong there. The fillies stay here. The year Havre de Grace was born, I had three fillies: a Medaglia d’Oro, a Kitten’s Joy, and the Saint Liam.”

They were all nice yearlings, Dillman said, but the bay daughter of Horse of the Year Saint Liam was the leader of the pack.

All three went through the September sale, and Porter acquired the Saint Liam filly, later named Havre de Grace, for $380,000. Dillman put the two other fillies in training and has the multiple winner Megadream (by Medaglia d’Oro) training at Belmont.

The Bernardini colt mentioned above is a half-brother to Havre de Grace, and he sold at last month’s Saratoga select sale for $1.2 million to John Ferguson, agent for Godolphin. He and Havre de Grace are out of the Carson City mare Easter Bunnette, whom Dillman acquired at the sales through Mill Ridge.

Dillman recalled a conversation she had at the 2003 Keeneland November sale with Alice Chandler and her son, Headley, who now runs Mill Ridge. “I was talking to Alice and also to Headley about the mares in the consignment, and this one was out of such a grand family,” she said. “One of the families you cannot get into. But Easter Bunnette is not a great big strong mare, and she didn’t walk well at all. It was going to turn a lot of people off. So I just kept bidding, and eventually they let me have her.”

Dillman purchased Easter Bunnette for $450,000 as a 5-year-old, carrying her first foal to a cover by Dynaformer. This is the same cross (Dynaformer over Carson City) that produced Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, who had been born earlier that year and was a weanling at Mill Ridge at the time of the sale.

Out of stakes winner Toll Fee, Easter Bunnette was a winner on the racetrack, like Dillman’s other star producer Cacti. Of greater import is that Easter Bunnette’s second and third dams were both named Broodmare of the Year. Second dam Toll Booth (Buckpasser) produced seven stakes winners, and third dam Missy Baba (My Babu) produced six.

The great production records took a skip with Toll Fee, but her daughters are breeding on, with The Bink (Seeking the Gold) having produced G1 winner Riskaverse, two other daughters have produced G3 winners, and now Easter Bunnette has her star in the firmament.

Dillman recalled Havre de Grace as a yearling: “She was a big, strong, good-looking filly. She was always very smart, always very alert, and the leader of her group. She was a big, strong, stand-up yearling, but I believe she’s grown into something more than I expected.”

regret gave star power to kentucky derby spectacle

Tags

ben brush, breeding in new jersey, broomstick, churchill downs, great racing mares, harry payne whitney, historic racehorses, Kentucky Derby, national museum of racing and hall of fame, old rosebud, regret

In retrospect, the effect of Regret winning the 1915 Kentucky Derby was central to the event becoming a national classic. The filly’s victory put the race and its winner in the national spotlight for newspapers through the next two years of her racing career, and it confirmed for Eastern stables that the Derby was a prize worth competing for and one they had a fair chance of winning.

In a contemporary report on the race from the Thoroughbred Record, the writer noted that “the daughter of Broomstick and the granddaughter of Ben Brush furnished a spectacle for more than 40,000 persons at Churchill Downs that will not soon be forgotten. Dashing to the front with the rise of the barrier, she made every post a winning post and came on to [earn] laurels that were rightfully hers.”

The race was already a major spectacle before the success of Old Rosebud the previous year, but the escalating enthusiasm for the Derby in Kentucky made it a central test on the program for most stables.

Owner Harry Payne Whitney said that “this is the greatest race in America at the present time, and I don’t care if she never starts again. The glory of winning this event is big enough, and Regret can retire to the New Jersey farm any time now. I told [stable trainer] Rowe I didn’t care if she never won another race if she could only land this one.”

That is a serious endorsement of the race and of Whitney’s own enthusiasm for winning it.

The chestnut filly was a picture after the race, here painted by the journalist: “Regret pulled up remarkably fresh after her long journey. When she came back into the charm circle before the judges’ stand she was still full of run. When the wreath was placed around her neck and Jockey [Joe] Notter boosted up on her bare, sweaty back the cheering which had accompanied her victory was a mere whisper in comparison to the ovation she received when the idea that the unattainable had been attained and that a filly had conquered the princes of the turf and won a Kentucky Derby.”

The New Jersey-bred daughter of Broomstick continued her remarkable career on the track, winning nine of 11 starts, and was elected to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1957.

pace in the kentucky derby

Tags

animal kingdom, benefits of pace and speed, boojum's bonanza, calumet farm, churchill downs, Kentucky Derby, pace, pace in the kentucky derby, pace profile and racing type, tim tam, Triple Crown

In another contentious post at Boojum’s Bonanza, the Boojum has suggested that the pace of the Kentucky Derby was atypical of the Churchill Downs classic, which is usually run at a ridiculously fast pace that burns up many of the horses involved in the early part of the race to the unexpected benefit of some deep closers.

Yet in this year’s renewal, the time for the first six furlongs was slower than Tim Tam’s Derby of 1958, which was run on a nasty gumbo of a racing surface, and the slowest six furlongs since 1947.

The slowness of the times is not a direct indicator of quality or the lack of it, however. Tim Tam not only won the Preakness but also might have given Calumet Farm its third Triple Crown but for fracturing sesamoids late in the Belmont and finishing second.

One of the peculiarities of the pace for this Kentucky Derby, however, is that it “was more typical of a race on artificial or turf than dirt, which might have helped those horses who had never run on dirt before,” the Boojum asserts.

One of those horses was Animal Kingdom, who coped well with the conditions but might have caught a break in the way the race shaped up.

The big chestnut colt will almost certainly encounter much different conditions both in the Preakness and in the Belmont, and his ability to adapt and excel will determine whether he can ascend to the most difficult heights of equine stardom.

cotter is second-time lucky in the wood memorial

Tags

aqueduct racetrack, bellamy road, ben walden, churchill downs, dianne cotter, george steinbrenner, homebred racehorses, kentucky, kentucky derby preps, liberation farm, pauls mill, Rob Whiteley, sales of 2yos in training, Seattle Slew, silver charm, stallion management, stallion success, stallion syndication, toby's corner, wood memorial, woodford county

The following article was posted earlier this week at Paulick Report.

In a telephone interview with owner-breeder Dianne Cotter after her colt Toby’s Corner won the Grade 1 Wood Memorial on Saturday, the breeder said “luck is often better than skillful planning.”

That is important for breeders, as well as punters, to remember in this joyous season of the Triple Crown. Luck can certainly change your life.

For Cotter, the luck has shown up several times. Specifically with Toby’s Corner, Cotter bred both the Wood Memorial winner and his sire, Bellamy Road, who won the race in 2005 by 17 ½ lengths and equaled the Aqueduct track record with a clocking of 1:47.16 for nine furlongs in one of the most impressive Kentucky Derby preps ever.

The previous spring, Cotter had sold Bellamy Road as a 2-year-old in training to George Steinbrenner, and the colt started as the favorite for the classic at Churchill Downs but finished seventh. There was a reason. Bellamy Road injured a suspensory that kept him on the sidelines till Saratoga, when he returned to run second in the Travers and had a recurrence of the suspensory issue.

The premature termination of the horse’s racing career eventually proved a benefit for stallion manager Ben Walden, who syndicated and stood Bellamy Road at stud.

Walden stands the stallion at Pauls Mill in Woodford County south of Versailles, Ky., and said that “Bellamy Road was the apple of my eye the year he was on the Derby trail. His victory in the Wood was such a head-turning effort, but I never imagined I would get Bellamy Road.”

The farms looking to acquire the near-black son of Concerto dwindled after the Travers, however. Walden said, “Mr. Steinbrenner kept Bellamy Road in training after he repulled the suspensory in the Travers and took him to the farm, where the suspensory was pinfired. Those pinholes became infected after the horse went into swimming therapy, and then I heard he was on the market as a stallion.

“So John Stuart and I went to meet Mr. Steinbrenner at the Yankees spring training camp, and to our surprise, the horse was quite affordable. We put together a syndicate to purchase Bellamy, and he became the first stallion at Hurricane Hall.

“After the ownership at Hurricane Hall went different ways to pursue our dreams, we brought Bellamy Road to Pauls Mill, where I built only four stallion stalls to invoke restraint on myself.”

The change of location made no difference to Bellamy Road, who has continued to be supported by a loyal following of breeders since his retirement. In the wake of the stallion’s sterling successes with his freshman racers last year, the demand for Bellamy Road’s stud services increased to the point that his book was closed early on at a stud fee of
$15,000 live foal.

Walden said, “We have a very good syndicate behind the horse,” and among those with substantial interests in the horse are the Steinbrenner family, which owns 10 shares (20 percent of the syndicate), and the Liberation Farm of Rob Whiteley, who bred the first stakes winner by the stallion.

One of the things that’s made Bellamy Road successful is his natural athletic brilliance, and Walden noted that “horses with brilliance have been good to me, and that is the quality this horse had in spades.”

A big, rangy horse who had great speed, Bellamy Road carried his speed at least 10 furlongs, and Walden emphasized how important that consideration is to racing and to breeding horses at a high level. “We need to be able to breed to horses with the dream of going to the Kentucky Derby,” he said, because that is the greatest two minutes in sports.

Cotter bred one horse who had the talent to make the race in Bellamy Road, and now she has the chance to go to the Kentucky Derby herself as the owner and breeder of the stallion’s first Grade 1-winning colt.

And her connection to this Wood Memorial winner goes back generations.

“We bought the third dam of Toby’s Corner (the Poker mare Bumble) at the OBS January sale because my husband liked Poker and wanted a Poker mare,” Cotter recalled.

As the broodmare sire of Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew and of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Silver Charm, Poker enjoyed a reputation for siring broodmares with potential. Bumble did little as a producer but did foal two winners, including Mrs. Bumble, the second dam of Toby’s Corner.

Mrs. Bumble produced three winners, including Brandon’s Ride, who was named for family, like many of the Cotter-bred stock. Brandon’s Ride was a winner from six starts but became something notably better as a producer. Four of her first five foals have won, and two are stakes winners.

By far, the most important is Toby’s Corner. The chestnut colt was born May 4, 2008, and Cotter said that “he’s still really immature,” but clearly quite talented nonetheless.

Following the birth of Toby’s Corner, “his dam was not bred for two years,” Cotter said, “because you couldn’t sell them. So we bred only Bellamy Road’s half-sister, Miss Tullamore Dew,” in 2009 and 2010.

Just last week, however, Brandon’s Ride made the journey to Kentucky, where she will be bred to Bellamy Road.

 

life at ten takes on ‘business as usual’

Tags

bc ladies classic, breeders' cup friday, churchill downs, errors in sports, life at ten, responsibility for racing, uncertainties of racing

The furor around Life at Ten’s non-performance in the BC Ladies Classic (don’t get me started on that name) has started to die down. Most of the bettors whose money was squandered have taken their lumps and either moved on in disgust or completely moved on to slots.

I was there at Churchill on Breeders’ Cup Friday, freezing in the dark and having a great time. A friend with me also had placed a goodish bet on Life at Ten; then I saw her “warming” up before the race. Clearly, something was amiss, I advised my racing buddy, and he scooted over to the windows and changed his bet.

Part of what I do to earn a living in racing includes looking at racehorses and evaluating their action. And there were plenty of other people at Churchill who could have seen what was going on (whether the mare was tying up or whatever), and they should have taken action.

As one who looks at a lot of horses every year, I don’t especially need anyone to look after my interests at the track, but most track patrons do. They need professionals to oversee the conduct of racing. That’s why racetracks have stewards, video cameras, outriders, ambulances, on-track veterinarians, and so forth.

Unfortunately, the professionals that day failed. And the sport took a lick to the head that was not necessary. The only bright spot is that Life at Ten appeared not to be damaged from the bad situation of trying to race when she was genuinely uncomfortable. But a lot of people lost a lot of money for no good reason, and the professionals who should have scratched the mare at the gate have mostly stayed in their fox holes waiting for the storm to blow over.

That seems to be the “professional” answer. But over at the Paulick Report, Ray has begun posting a daily reminder that the investigation into this incident has not rendered a conclusion. Read the latest here.

have a look

Tags

churchill downs, Kentucky Derby, reader response

In a response about this week’s update to the styling and layout of Bloodstock in the Bluegrass, reader and occasional commentator Tinky suggested visiting a photo website.

The photo that Tinky referred to is one of Churchill Downs on Derby Day in 1901. It’s a scene of startling quality and clarity. You can even count the bricks, if you’re inclined.

And get a look at those hats. I’d fit right in.