tapit continues to strike up the beat as a broodmare sire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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hands off my tapizar: freshman sire is proving quite popular with buyers and consignors at the in-training sales of 2yos

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2yo sales, freshmen sires, Gainesway Farm, obs march sale, tapizar

OBS has turned itself into the national and international sales facility for sales of 2-year-olds in training

 

Anyone who thought he might “steal” a few Tapizars at the sales of 2-year-olds in training was surely disabused of that idea after one of the stallion’s first-crop daughters brought $800,000 at Fasig-Tipton’s auction of juveniles at Gulfstream Park on March .

Even allowing for the fact that the high-priced filly was a lovely individual who worked very well, the offspring of Tapizar appear to be following in the hoofprints of first-crop sires like Uncle Mo and Super Saver the past couple of years. The Tapizars are showing speed, good maturity, good balance, and good minds.

Those are the basics for getting young stock to the sales of 2-year-olds in training. Tapizar, like some of the better freshmen sires before, is getting the basics in a sizable proportion of his young athletes, and the professionals in the selling and buying of racing prospects have noticed.

To do that, Tapizar fills the bill for a variety of reasons. He is a bit bigger than an average Tapit, and one of the knocks on the early Tapits was that they weren’t “big enough” till the lads and lasses by the nation’s leading sire started filling up the winner’s circles around the country.

Nothing succeeds like success.

And Tapizar is one of many young sons of Tapit who are held in high esteem and who are promising good things for the future. In Tapizar, the size requirement that some buyers find irresistible is present, and that is probably due to the young stallion’s broodmare sire Deputy Minister, a champion 2-year-old of great size and class who passed on his scope and athleticism to a large number of his offspring, including champion Dehere and leading sire Silver Deputy.

The key to the Tapizars, however, is that they all seem to have ability. They are showing speed without having to be asked hard, according to consignors, and they appear to be taking their training well. We can surmise that the prospects are bright for these young horses and for their connections.

Racing cannot have too many good ones.

From the sales of horses in training at Fasig-Tipton and at OBS in March, the results for Tapizar look like this:

30 10.0 C Tapizar x Introvert Wavertree Stables, Inc. (Ciaran Dunne), Agent XXVI 185,000 Not Sold
67 10.0 C Tapizar x Lady Malkin Eddie Woods, Agent XLVII Patricia’s Hope LLC 180,000
107 10.1 C Tapizar x Midwife Paul Sharp, Agent V 70,000 Not Sold
188 10.1 C Tapizar x Princess Turandot SAB Sales (Scott A. Bergsrud), Agent II Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners 175,000
290 9.4 C Tapizar x Starlight Lady Halcyon Hammock Farm, Agent I 145,000 Not Sold
401 Out C Tapizar x Ammalu Sequel Bloodstock, Agent Withdrawn Out
435 20.3 C Tapizar x Black Chocolate Thoroughbred Champions Training Center LLC, Agent K.R.A. 150,000
508 Out F Tapizar x Diamondsareforesta Top Line Sales LLC, Agent XI Withdrawn Out
547 Out C Tapizar x Ever Appealing McKathan Bros., Agent V Withdrawn Out
574 10.0 F Tapizar x Foxy Friend Cary Frommer, Agent IV Narvick International 295,000

With seven going through the ring at OBS March, four sold for an average of $200,000, with a median price of $177,500.

Of those who sold at OBS March, the last one through the ring, Hip 574, brought the high price of the Tapizar 2-year-olds. She is a half-sister to Tap for Luck (Tapit), who was second in the G3 Tempted Stakes and third in the G2 Demoiselle. They are out of a half-sister to G3 winner Freefourracing (French Deputy), who was produced by stakes winner Gerri n Jo Go (Top Command), a full sister to major winner Five Star Flight (Haskell, Jersey Derby) and a half-sister to Whatsyourpleasure (What a Pleasure) and Larla (Singh).

We will certainly be seeing more stock by Tapizar at the upcoming sales of 2-year-olds. Barretts has a trio by Tapizar. At the OBS April sale, there are nine juveniles by Tapizar listed in the catalog, as well as an undetermined number at Fasig-Tipton Midlantic and at Barretts May because their catalogs are not yet out.

 

mr (red) smith would enjoy the feel-good tale of mr maybe and ‘forty coats’

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chuck zacney, Gainesway Farm, ghostzapper, michael hernon, mr maybe, red smith handicap, sales success

With a victory in the Grade 3 Red Smith Handicap at Aqueduct on Nov. 14, Mr Maybe became the latest stakes winner and graded winner for Horse of the Year Ghostzapper, the most successful stallion son of Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Awesome Again.

Journalist and racing scribe Red Smith, for whom the handicap was named, would be proud of the winner because there is a story to go with the gelding’s victory by four and a quarter lengths.

Bred in Kentucky, the gray went through the sales ring for the first time as a weanling in the 2011 edition of the Keeneland November sale. The youngster sold for $3,000, but that is only a snip of the story.

Gainesway Farm’s Michael Hernon recalled that he had seen the colt in the back ring at Keeneland, liked him, and followed him to the ring. He said that Mr Maybe “was a gray; so he threw to the dam and to her sire With Approval. Then the second dam was by the gray Caro.”

Caro was also the sire of Gainesway’s grand old stallion Cozzene and of the farm’s famous broodmare Winning Colors, winner of the 1988 Kentucky Derby.

Hernon also noticed that “he was a foal-share between breeders Stonestreet and our friend Rob Whiteley. This was a strong colt, was unlikely to be reserved because of the foal share. Also, I thought he was possibly a little advanced in placement at the sale, and he was medium-sized, at best. So when I went to the ring, I had a reasonable budget, and I remember the bidding opened at a thousand, and I made one bid, expecting there would be continued bidding. And it never materialized.”

Instead, Hernon picked up a future graded stakes winner for $3,000.

The lucky buyer “signed the ticket ‘Forty Coats,’ after a character from an Irish television series back in the day. He traveled around, wore several coats, though not 40, and was a bit wild-looking, and yet went around doing good deeds.”

Hernon’s good deed earned its reward the next year. The future stakes winner improved with maturity, as might be expected from his pedigree, and Mr Maybe “certainly grew up a lot and continued to grow,” Hernon said. “Trainer Chad Brown calls him a big teddy bear.”

Mr Maybe as a yearling at Gainesway Farm

The colt’s two first dams were both stakes winners, and the pedigree has a strong tint of turf and stamina, which Mr Maybe’s physique suggested would be his trump cards, as well.

Reading the colt’s physical type and need to progress, Hernon did not push to put the well-pedigreed young animal in a sale too early in the year.

“I nominated him to the October sale at Fasig-Tipton,” Hernon said, “because I wanted to give him every opportunity to strengthen and to stand out for perceptive buyers to see.”

The little gray weanling became a notably bigger gray yearling, and Hernon said that Mr Maybe began with “a strong body, good bone, and I put him in the Fasig October sale to give him a chance to stand out a little. Then my friend and go-to guy Chuck Zacney bought him. I had already bought Chuck One Smokin’ Lady (by Smoke Glacken), who went on to win stakes and placed in graded stakes. So Chuck was looking for a few more nice racehorses, and he sent me five names for the October sale, and of those, one name jumped off the page. So I called him up and told him that the Ghostzapper colt was mine, and he said that as long as I could recommend him, that was fine with him.”

Zacney proved the most tenacious bidder for the Ghostzapper colt, getting him for $85,000, and Mr Maybe won his second start, then went through a series of close efforts, always earning a check in his subsequent starts. When his form seemed improving this fall, Zacney sold Mr Maybe privately to Michael Dubb, Head of Plains Partners LLC, and Highclere America.

Winner of his last three starts, Mr Maybe won the Red Smith for those partners, and they are the latest beneficiaries of the “Forty Coats” trail of good deeds.

Mr. Smith would surely approve.

leading sire tapit made a huge impression with buyers at fasig-tipton’s saratoga select yearling sale

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Gainesway Farm, michael hernon, saratoga sales, Tapit

America’s leading sire, Tapit, took over the 2015 Saratoga select yearling sale, with four of his first session yearlings bringing a gross of $4,350,000 for an average price that’s just a bit more than $1 million.

The sleek, silvery-gray son of Pulpit entered stud in 2005, and his chief claim to fame at the time was victory in the Grade 1 Wood Memorial. Such a victory was nothing to sneeze at, but with dozens of stallion prospects filling slots at farms around the Bluegrass, Tapit was somewhat overlooked.

What was the big deal, anyway? He wasn’t by Storm Cat.

Fifteen years ago, the best thing a stallion prospect could be was “sired by Storm Cat,” with a G1 victory or two on his race record.

For one thing, these sire prospects usually fit the Storm Cat type, which the sales market loved. A powerfully built horse himself with great length through the body, Storm Cat was a power horse who sired the same, and after he proved more than capable of getting winners at the highest level, breeders and buyers drove the market to prize the deep shoulders and massive quarters that were so distinctive in his stock.

In contrast, Tapit is a more balanced horse. On the medium side of large, Tapit and his sons or daughters generally have plenty of muscle, but they don’t look like weight lifters.

I well recall when inspecting foals nearly a decade ago, and Gainesway’s Michael Hernon told me how good the Tapit foals were and urged me to look at them. Right he was. They were smooth, elegant, and tightly muscled little athletes.

Then and now, the Tapit stock are full of activity. They are not dead on a shank when a handler leads them out of a stall to show or walks one up and down a show ring for the umpteenth time.

The stallion’s first foals looked like and acted like little racehorses, and size (wrongly) was the chief knock on Tapit’s early offspring. The foals look like foals, and the yearlings look like yearlings, not 2-year-olds before training.

Buyers and perhaps trainers have had to accustom themselves to the Tapit type, which is notably different from the Storm Cat type, but both are good.

There is a smoothness and quality to the Tapits that suggests a superior type of miler, and plenty can carry their innate speed around two turns.

For instance, Tapit’s son Tonalist won the Belmont Stakes and Jockey Club Gold Cup last year, and the stallion’s son Frosted won the Wood Memorial and then finished second behind American Pharoah in the Belmont Stakes this year.

The classic success of some of Tapit’s stock is important because nearly all of them have speed, that most important quality in top-class Thoroughbreds. But racing 10 and 12 furlongs effectively is a badge of honor and accomplishment that makes Tapit and his offspring much more desirable around the world.

And that was one of the things we saw in the buying at the first session of the Saratoga sale.

At the sale on Monday evening, four of the five lots sold, with only the filly, Hip 24 out of Wow Me Free, being bought back at $950,000. The session’s highest-priced lot went for $2 million to El Capi Racing, a partnership of Venezuelan investors, Hip 34 (out of Appealing Zophie) sold to a partnership of Americans for $1.2 million, and Hip 49 (out of Carriage Trade) was purchased by John Ferguson at $750,000 for Godolphin.

Godolphin, not incidentally, bred and races Frosted, who finished second, beaten a half-length by Texas Red, in the Jim Dandy as his prep for the G1 Travers, and when international racing operations purchase yearlings, they envision them going on to do the grandest things.

They also consider the big picture of breeding and the potential of sons and daughters of Tapit as breeding stock.

Important developments in this regard at the Saratoga sale include Hip 62, a fetching Medaglia d’Oro colt out of graded stakes winner Dancinginherdreams (by Tapit). The colt sold for $500,000 to Todd Quast, agent.

And two yearlings from the only American crop by Tapit’s champion son Hansen were consigned by Crestwood Farm for breeder Kendall Hansen. The filly out of Where Woody Bea (Hip 20) sold for $250,000 to Skychai Racing, and the colt out of Airizon (Hip 29) sold for $200,000 to West Point Thoroughbreds.

More important than the exact prices, both yearlings looked the part as quality racing prospects.

If Hansen’s first-crop performers, or the young racers by Tapit sons like Trappe Shot, Tapizar, and Flashback strike the top, then what we saw Monday night was only the tip of the iceberg in the demand for Tapit.

 

**The demand for yearlings by Tapit continued on Tuesday evening. The two-day results for the sire are below.

24 F TAPIT x WOW ME FREE WARRENDALE SALES AGENT III NOT SOLD ($950,000)

34 C TAPIT x APPEALING ZOPHIE DENALI STUD (CRAIG & HOLLY BANDOROFF) AGENT II BRIDLEWOOD FARM, ECLIPSE TB PARTNERS, ROBERT LAPENTA $1,200,000

49 C TAPIT x CARRIAGE TRADE HUNTER VALLEY FARM AGENT JOHN FERGUSON $750,000

51 C TAPIT x CHARMING LEGACY (IRE) WINTER QUARTER FARM AGENT HARTLEY/DE RENZO THOROUGHBREDS $400,000

70 C TAPIT x DRESS REHEARSAL (IRE) FOUR STAR SALES AGENT EL CAPI RACING LLC $2,000,000

156 F TAPIT x ITHINKISAWAPUDYCAT TAYLOR MADE SALES AGENCY AGENT XXI OUT

160 F TAPIT x PRINCESS ARABELLA LANE’S END AGENT CHEYENNE STABLES LLC $750,000

177 F TAPIT x ROSE OF KILLARNEY GAINESWAY AGENT IX NOT SOLD ($500,000)

182 C TAPIT x SAVVY SUPREME TAYLOR MADE SALES AGENCY AGENT LXVII AL SHAQAB RACING $700,000

197 C TAPIT x SOMETHINABOUTLAURA PARAMOUNT SALES AGENT IX CRUPI’S NEW CASTLE FARM INC $400,000

tonalist strikes the right note for his sire tapit with a peter pan victory

Tags

Gainesway Farm, stallion success, Tapit

This is turning out to be a career year for one of the best stallions in the world. Now internationally respected, Tapit has been a revelation in the stallion ranks since his first crop, which included champion Stardom Bound and others. With the annual gains in his status as a sire of the first caliber, the stud fee for Tapit’s services has also risen, and the demand for his offspring at the sales has climbed in similar fashion.

The current crop of 3-year-olds is from the second book of mares after Tapit had champion Stardom Bound, and it became evident that he was a sire to reckon with. With each succeeding crop, the stallion’s books of mares have improved so that Tapit is covering more mares every year that are thoroughly high-class producers and prospective producers. And the 2014 3-year-old crop has been even better than those before. Nearly every week produces another major winner or stakes performer by Tapit, who ranks as the leading sire in the country this season with more than $5 million in progeny earnings so far.

In 2014, Tapit has nine stakes winners to date, with two winning at the Grade 1 level. The spring favorite for the Kentucky Derby was G1 Florida Derby winner Constitution, by Tapit, but the handsome colt went on the sidelines before the classic. The stallion’s daughter Untapable looked awfully good winning the Kentucky Oaks to add a classic and another G1 to her sire’s list of credits.

The stallion has a trio of G2 stakes winners, and the latest of these came in last weekend’s G2 Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park. The lightly raced and highly regarded Tapit colt Tonalist won by four lengths in a performance that brought out highly positive revie

Tonalist is out of the Pleasant Colony mare Settling Mist, and he is considered a serious candidate for the Belmont Stakes next month. With a pair of victories from only four starts, it wasn’t uncommon seasoning that put Tonalist on the map for the longest classic.

Instead, the colt put himself in the mix with a bold move up the rail early in the Peter Pan and then by stretching out and galloping his opponents to bits to win in 1:48.30.

With that performance, the colt’s connections – owner Robert S. Evans and trainer Christophe Clement – and pedigree all suggest that stamina and class are trumps in his makeup. He should be well-suited to the challenge of a classic, and part of the reason for that is the depth and quality of the other half of his pedigree, aside from the excellence of Tapit.

Tonalist is the fifth foal and first stakes winner for his dam, a winning daughter of the important broodmare Toll Fee. A stakes winner by Topsider (Northern Dancer), Toll Fee was bred in Kentucky by John Schiff and won seven of 39 starts for earnings of $333,917. She was a high-class mare who produced nothing of her own ability, although The Bink (Seeking the Gold) was multiple stakes-placed and produced G3 winner Cozzy Corner (Cozzene) and Riskaverse (Dynaformer) as her first two foals. Riskaverse won three times at the G1 level and was second or third in five more for earnings of $2.1 million.

Another daughter of Toll Fee, the Carson City mare Easter Bunnette, produced an even more famous race mare, champion Havre de Grace (Saint Liam). Winner of three G1 races (Woodward, Apple Blossom, and Beldame), Havre de Grace won $2.5 million at the races, then sold for $10 million at the Fasig-Tipton November sale in 2012. Havre de Grace produced her first foal earlier this year, and it was a filly by Tapit.

In addition to these noteworthy relations, the third dam of Tonalist, likewise for Havre de Grace and Riskaverse, is the exceptional Buckpasser mare Toll Booth, who foaled seven stakes winners. One of them was Toll Fee, but the mare’s best was her first stakes winner Plugged Nickle (Key to the Mint), although her last stakes winner Christiecat (Majestic Light) was not far off that mark.

Plugged Nickle won four G1 races — the Florida Derby, Wood Memorial, Vosburgh, and Laurel Futurity. The robust bay was a staying 2-year-old who made his potential evident with victories in the Laurel Futurity and Remsen Stakes late in his juvenile season, and he followed through with successes in the classic preps of 1980.

Coming into the Kentucky Derby, Plugged Nickle had won six of his last seven races, but that did not prevent him from finishing seventh in the Derby won by Genuine Risk (Exclusive Native), and he ended the season as the highest-ranked sprinter following his Vosburgh victory.

Christiecat won the G1 Flower Bowl, as well as the Diana when it was rated a G2. She was a tall and impressively built mare with scope and quality who appreciated distance and turf.

With produce like these and others, Toll Booth was elected Broodmare of the Year, and one of her half-brothers was leading sire Raja Baba.

The excellence of this family continues, and as part of it, Tonalist may hit the right note for the classics.

**The preceding article first appeared in Paulick Report earlier this week.

what’s wrong with the 2yo sales?

Tags

becky thomas, eddie woods, Gainesway Farm, keeneland racetrack, kip elser, malibu moon, mt brilliant farm, robert lapenta, Tapit

There’s clearly nothing wrong with the way that Hip 55 sold at Monday’s Keeneland April sale of juveniles in training. By Malibu Moon out of Tap Your Heels, and therefore a half-brother to leading sire Tapit, Hip 55 brought $1 million from Gainesway, Mt. Brilliant Farm, and Robert LaPenta, and the beautifully balanced, quick, and grandly pedigreed chestnut colt is a shining example of what can go right at the sales.

Overall, however, the select sales of 2-year-olds have been a bloodbath for sellers this season, and Becky Thomas, who has Sequel Bloodstock, noted that “this is obviously not the same market as last year.”

As seen at Fasig-Tipton’s Florida sale last month, a handful of major buyers can be relied upon to purchase elite juveniles for large sums, and Thomas said that there is “strength at the top of the market but nothing underneath. Even yearlings bought for a lot of money can’t be expected to bring good prices.”

Simply buying a really nice yearling apparently won’t make that horse a super-select 2-year-old sales horse unless “you work fast, vet good, look right, have sire power, and all the stars align,” according to consignor Eddie Woods.

The selected juvenile sales are the first auctions held by Barretts, Fasig-Tipton, Ocala Breeders’ Sales, and Keeneland, and yet “selected” doesn’t appear to be good enough for buyers in the current flux of the market.

“Partly, it’s because some of them haven’t progressed as much as we’d have hoped when we nominated them for these sales,” Woods concluded.  ”But there’s a lot of money for them if you have what the buyers want. They’ll pay a lot for them, but there’s not a lot of depth in that pool, and you have to have everything.”

If the consignors did not bring horses who had everything that the top of the market wanted, there was not a lot of support underneath.

Thomas said, “There’s a shortage of buyers, especially in the middle market. Trainers who’ve bought from me for years tell me that they don’t have as many buyers with money. There was no more middle market at OBS, but there was a broader base of buyers because of the greater catalog.”

The OBS March catalog was about the size of all three other select sales combined but posted the strongest stats of the four opening sales of the season.

The stats for the Keeneland April sale were tough to take. Of 125 2-year-olds cataloged, 65 breezed, and 38 sold. Not surprisingly, the gross was down to $8.7 million, but the high prices pulled up the average to $230,763 and the median to $200,000.

Consignor Kip Elser said that the sale was “solid, not spectacular, but I’ll have sold everything I brought here. It’s a very demanding market at every level. You just have to keep after it.”

Among the other constructive comments from consignors was the observation from Thomas that “we’ve got to get track management to slow the tracks down. As a consignor, you can’t take a horse for a client that he paid $100,000 for and not run him fast. You can’t tell the jock, ‘Go slow!’ The fastest horse is the fastest horse, and buyers pay for that.

“But it doesn’t matter if the track puts the fastest horse at :10 3/5 or even slower. I think I speak for every consignor that we’d like to do away with the clock at the breeze shows and go to an open gallop for everything. That would be better for the horses, as well as the buyers and sellers.”

Those comments come after the fastest breeze show in history. Keeneland’s track was extraordinarily quick for last week’s breeze show on Thursday, and Elser described the situation: “Weather conditions: really cold weather that produced frost deep in the track surface, a hard rain, and a strong tailwind produced this year’s times. They’re not a reflection on anything else.”

Then Elser added his perspective on the responsibility of all parties to provide the best conditions for these young athletes. He said, “With all the added scrutiny, we need a surface that is kind to the individual, and this surface has been kind, and I’m sure that Keeneland is working very hard to make sure that next year’s surface will be just as kind. The surface doesn’t have to be as fast.”

Keeneland will have a new track surface and drainage system for the fall meeting this year, and that will be the surface that any future juvenile sale horses will work over.

*This story was first published at Paulick Report on Tuesday, Apr. 8. In the five days since, several comments relating to this topic have been published in other outlets, although principally at PR and at Thoroughbred Daily News.

In Saturday’s TDN, 2yo sale consignor Ciaran Dunne of Wavertree Stables penned the following open letter:

Wavertree Stables Inc., has been part of the U.S. 2-year-old sales market for the past 20 years. It is safe to say that juveniles and the juvenile market have been very good to us.

We were there when an 11-second workout garnered high fives on the back side and we were present last week when we saw a 2-year-old colt breeze in :9 2/5 seconds. This can be seen as a progression in the quality of stock, training, riders and track conditions that have occurred as the 2-year-old market has grown; it is also something, we have been a willing part of–for better or worse.

However, another facet of our industry has mutated to Frankenstein-like proportions and is something to which we will no longer be party. The days of how far our horses breeze being dictated by the gaggle of stop watches in the grandstand are over. Our breezes shall finish at the wire.

Starting at the OBS Spring Sale, our riders will be instructed to drop their hands and rise up in the saddle and allow our horses to gallop out in a natural fashion upon finishing their workouts.   It is in no one’s best interests, least of all our horses, to keep pushing these boundaries. How far is more dangerous than how fast in our opinion.  I have listened to and seen much written on this topic of late and would encourage all prospective buyers to leave their stop watches at home if they are serious about slowing these things down.

Then in the TDN for Sunday, the letters to the editor picked up on Dunne’s declaration, with such as the following matching the consignor:

TERRY FINLEY, WEST POINT THOROUGHBREDS:   This letter is in response to Ciaran Dunne’s declaration that his 2-year-olds in training will not be urged in any way after the wire in their breezes.

In a show of approval, West Point Thoroughbreds commits to the following for the upcoming training sales:

We will no longer use ANY gallop out times in our selection process (pushing these 2-year-olds to, in essence, breeze a half mile is just plain wrong). We will not use a stopwatch in any form and ask other buyers to do the same.

We ask all consignors at the upcoming sale to not urge their horses after the wire.

We will take a very negative view of consignors who have their breeze riders use any physical or verbal means to cause horses to maintain or increase their speed after the wire.

We’ve talked to a large number of 2-year-old buyers and sellers. Every single person felt this was the right thing to do for the horses involved.

Simple, straightforward changes that will allow all of us to take better care of horses.

To commit to this movement email a note to the following email address: nogallopouts@gmail.com

 

tapit beating the drum of success across the country

Tags

Gainesway Farm, Tapit, winchell thoroughbreds

The Gainesway Farm stallion Tapit is one of the best stallions in the world, and he didn’t need a lot more good news after the positive performance of his son Tapiture in winning the Grade 3 Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park on President’s Day.  But the handsome gray had a pair of important winners over the last weekend in February as well.

At the Fair Grounds in New Orléans, the stallion’s daughter Untapable was an impressive winner of the G3 Rachel Alexandra Stakes by 9 ½ lengths, and at Gulfstream Park, the 2013 classic contender Normandy Invasion set a new track record of 1:33.13 for a mile in his long-awaited comeback.

Less than 10 months ago, Normandy Invasion was shaping up as a challenger for the classics after closing nearly eight lengths to be a three-quarter-length second in the G1 Wood Memorial behind race favorite Verrazano. Normandy Invasion, a striking bay with scope and quality, trained well at Churchill Downs leading up to the Kentucky Derby and seemed to combine the prime factors of improving form and tactical speed in a way that made him a serious contender for the classic on the first Saturday in May. 

So it proved.

The lightly raced colt made an even better effort in the Kentucky Derby than he had in the Wood Memorial, holding a forward position early, taking a narrow lead by the mile pole, and then holding it in a pitched battle, before tiring to finish fourth. He was a length and a nose from second, although Derby winner Orb finished two and half lengths clear of his nearest pursuer.

Initially given time after the draining effort of competing in the Derby, Normandy Invasion had a foot abscess that extended his time away from racing, and owner Rick Porter of Fox Hill Farm commented after the Gulfstream allowance that “we thought giving him the year off after the injury was the right thing to do. It’s hard to give them that much time off, but it turned out better than we thought it could. You can see how much weight he put on.”

Bred in Kentucky by Betz, Kidder, Gainesway, Graves, D.J. Stable and Cole, Normandy Invasion sold for $230,000 at the 2012 Keeneland April sale of 2-year-olds in training.

Unlike Normandy Invasion, the two stakes stars for Tapit — Untapable and Tapiture — race for their breeder Winchell Stables LLC. Both the filly and the colt descend from stock that the Winchell family has owned for generations, and both dams are multiple stakes producers for the operation.

In the Southwest, Tapiture gave two pounds and a 4 1/4-length thrashing to the highly regarded Strong Mandate (Tiznow), and Tapiture is the third stakes winner out of his dam, the Olympio mare Free Spin.

A winner of $91,440 in six starts, Free Spin was clearly talented, and when matched with leading sire Tapit, she has produced stakes winners Retap, Remit, and Tapiture. Of these, the best is clearly the latter, who also won the G2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes last year at Churchill Downs.

Tapiture is one of 31 stakes winners out of Olympio mares, and one of the qualities that both Tapit and Olympio transmit is speed. Tapiture and his siblings have all shown good speed that allowed them to compete early and to take a competitive position in their races.

Olympio and his family have been a mainstay of the Winchell breeding program for decades, and Olympio’s dam, the Whitesburg mare Carols Christmas, is the third dam of Untapable. The filly’s second dam is Olympio’s half-sisters Bistra (Classic Go Go), and Untapable’s dam is the G2 stakes winner Fun House.

Fun House counted the Buena Vista Handicap among her five victories, with earnings of $432,922, and she already has produced G1 winner Paddy O’Prado (El Prado), who won the Secretariat Stakes, was second in the Blue Grass, and finished third in the Kentucky Derby. Paddy O’Prado, a sire at Spendthrift Farm whose first foals are yearlings, was the mare’s second foal, and Untapable was her sixth.

The winner of the 2013 Pocahontas Stakes at Churchill Downs and third in the G1 Hollywood Starlet, Untapable seems to be maturing well and adding strength to her speed and quality. Those will be valuable qualities as she develops and follows a path that will surely include the major spring prep races for fillies leading to the Kentucky Oaks.

Together, these young stars will help to keep Tapit’s name in the headlines during the coming weeks as the eyes of the racing public await the first classics, run the first week in May at Churchill Downs.

The preceding post was first published last week at Paulick Report.

tapit has a high-class flashback in lewis victor

Tags

bill andrade, broodmare success, flashback, Gainesway Farm, michael hernon, rhumb line, robert lewis stakes, Tapit

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

As part of a wildly successful weekend for leading sire Tapit (by Pulpit), the gray Gainesway Farm stallion had the winners of three individual graded stakes for 3-year-olds on Saturday.

Honorable Dillon won the G2 Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream, and the lovely chestnut filly Tapicat won the G3 Florida Oaks over Tampa’s turf course. But surely the most impressive was Flashback, a gray full brother to Grade 1 winner Zazu who won the G2 Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita.

Like his talented sister, Flashback was bred in Kentucky by Bill Andrade and Michael Hernon. The Lewis winner is out of the Mr. Greeley mare Rhumb Line, whom Hernon purchased at auction in partnership and from whom he has bred three stakes winners and a group-placed horse.

“She was the first broodmare that I bought for myself,” Hernon said. “Although she didn’t gain black-type herself, Rhumb Line had real ability. She was stakes quality. She also ran well in the slop, just like Mr. Greeley, and I wouldn’t be worried if Flashback caught a wet track.”

Hernon had become “aware of Rhumb Line because we had purchased a share in the stallion for Gainesway, and when I saw her at the Fasig-Tipton sale, initially, she caught the eye with an imposing physique. She came to the sale as a maiden off the track from the Mill Ridge consignment, and I bought her. Then I put in Michael Narlinger and bred her to Officer because the Narlingers were standing Officer here at the time,” and that began the mare’s sequence of breedings at Gainesway, where all of her mates reside.

When the Narlingers decided to sell Officer and move him, Hernon said, “We collectively decided to sell Rhumb Line, and I decided to try to buy her through a third party. Bill Andrade, who had bred Careless Jewel in partnership with Gainesway, had said that he would be interested in participating in another mare. He came in on Rhumb Line, and we are co-breeders of Zazu and this colt.” The partners got the mare at the 2007 Keeneland January sale for $65,000 and subsequently sold Zazu for $100,000.

With the G1 successes of Zazu, the partners chose to sell the mare. In foal to Tapit, Rhumb Line sold at the 2011 Keeneland November sale to SF Bloodstock (Gavin Murphy) for $850,000. Boarded at Woods Edge Farm, she has a colt by Tapit and is back in foal to that stallion. The mare’s two foals following Zazu are also both stakes winners: Corinthian Jewel (Corinthian) and Flashback.

Flashback sold as a weanling for $260,000 at the 2010 Keeneland November, and he was a good, strong colt who vetted well and showed himself impressively. Hernon said, “He was scoped seven times at the barn prior to the sale, and the underbidder was Mick Doyle, a great judge of a horse whose vetting exam consisted of asking me: ‘Hey, Michael, is this colt OK?’ I’m delighted for Gary and Mary West and their agent Ben Glass. They are great supporters of the business, and it’s great to breed a nice horse whose best races are ahead of him.”

Ben Glass recalled purchasing the standout gray colt and said, “Zazu and the other stakes winner weren’t on the page when we bought Flashback, but he was such a special-looking colt that I thought I had to have him for the Wests. Zazu came on when he was a short yearling, and we got very lucky.”

Sent to Jeff Kirk in Ocala, Fla., for breaking and early training, Flashback progressed beautifully, grew and strengthened without incident, and in early May of last year, the colt flew to California and went into training with Bob Baffert.

Glass said that Flashback “has grown into a good-sized horse, and Bob zeroed in on him immediately as a really nice colt.” Flashback has proven the veteran classic trainer correct by leaping from an impressive maiden special victory to his success in the Lewis.

One of the strengths of Tapit as a stallion is that he can get top-class offspring from various bloodlines, as seen from the weekend’s top winners. Flashback is out of a Mr. Greeley mare (Mr. Prospector line through Gone West). Tapicat is out of a Storm Cat mare (Northern Dancer line), and Honorable Dillon is out of an Argentine mare by the Blushing Groom-line stallion Shy Tom.

The stallion can produce premium offspring from differing lines because of his versatile physical qualities and traits. Buyers were responsive to the quality and promise of the Tapit offspring from the first ones through the sales ring, and the better yearlings by the stallion nowadays bring élite prices.

Bred in Kentucky by Winchell Thoroughbreds and Gainesway Thoroughbreds, Tapicat was a $725,000 Keeneland September yearling. She is out of the winning Storm Cat mare Zealous Cat, and Tapicat’s third dam is Track Robbery, who was the 1982 Eclipse champion as older mare.

Honorable Dillon was bred in Kentucky by Robert Trussell Jr. and was a $100,000 sale at last year’s Fasig-Tipton March auction of 2-year-olds in training. The colt is out of the stakes-placed Shy Tom mare Shy Greeting, who is also the dam of the Argentine champion filly Forty Greeta.

This trio promise an exciting spring for their connections, as well as for breeders using Tapit, whose colt He’s Had Enough also finished third in the Lewis and had been a closing second in last season’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile behind divisional champion Shanghai Bobby.

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.

hansen shines for tapit

Tags

ap indy male line, broodmare success, Gainesway Farm, sire success, small breeders, sons of pulpit, Tapit

There are few younger stallions who are showing as much inclination to sire class as the Pulpit stallion Tapit, and the gray stallion once again touched the brass ring with Hansen, a long-lengths victor in the Kentucky Cup Juvenile over the weekend.

The 10-year-old stallion did not receive the most élite broodmares available during his early years at stud, but he has sired some outstanding athletes from them anyway. That is what a top sire is supposed to do.

He is the most esteemed son of Pulpit at stud today, and the gray horse is getting some nice-looking sons who will likewise take a place at stud. Perhaps Hansen, out of the Sir Cat mare Stormy Sunday, will be one of them.

The mare’s produce record follows:

Sire: TAPIT, gr/ro, 2001. Raced 2 yrs in NA, 6 sts, 3 wins, $557,300 (ssi = 32.09). Won Wood Memorial S. (g1), Laurel Futurity (g3).
	Lifetime: 4 crops, 361 foals, 272 Rnrs (75%), 194 Wnrs (54%), 66 2yo wnrs (18%), 32 sw (9%).
	1st Dam: Stormy Sunday, b, 2002. Bred by Leslie R. Jacobs (KY). Raced 1 yr in NA, 4 sts, 3 wins, $33,046.
	2008: Tapanna, b g, by Tapit. Raced 1 yr in NA, 5 sts, 1 wins, $32,100. 2009: HANSEN. At 2: Won Kentucky Cup Juvenile. 2010: Unnamed foal, b c, by Corinthian.
	Broodmare sire: SIR CAT, dkbbr, 1993. Sire of 72 dams of 168 foals, 107 rnrs (64%), 65 wnrs (39%), 22 2yo wnrs (13%), 6 sw (4%).
	2nd Dam: Thinkin’strait, b, 1992. Bred by Leslie R. Jacobs (KY). Raced 3 yrs in NA, 19 sts, 2 wins, $14,042 (ssi = 0.47).