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

 

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corfu confirms juvenile sales promise with sanford success

Tags

corfu, malibu moon, peace rules, sanford stakes, saratoga racing, spendthrift farm

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

The successful Spendthrift Farm stallion Malibu Moon has had a great year. Sire of Kentucky Derby winner Orb and a half-dozen other 2013 stakes winners, including such major performers as Freedom Child, More Chocolate, and Kauai Katie, Malibu Moon has continued to rise higher and higher among the nation’s premier stallions.

His 2-year-old son Corfu, now an unbeaten winner of the Grade 2 Saratoga Special on Sunday, is added evidence for the argument that the 16-year-old son of A.P. Indy is an important contributor to breeding and to the competitiveness of our sport.

But a sire, no matter how good, is only part of the equation. And it is worth noting that Corfu is out of the Forest Wildcat mare Fashion Cat, which ought to add speed to the equation, whereas Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Unbridled, broodmare sire of Orb, ought to add stamina and classic quality.

Though from different lines and physical types, both matches worked out nicely and have produced athletes of enviable talent.

And nobody was unaware of the speed inherent in Corfu, the son of Fashion Cat, after he slashed through a quarter-mile breeze at the 2013 Barretts March select sale of 2-year-olds in training in :20 4/5. That was a very quick work, but it was the smooth and professional way he went about the business that caught the eye of buyers and their advisers.

In addition to generalities about the colt’s breeze, from material supplied by DataTrack International, we know that Corfu showed a stride length of nearly 26 feet for the work, more than a foot longer than the average for a sale when the stride lengths were quite long. (An average stride length at another sale would typically be 23 feet and some fraction.)

As a result of his speed, stride length, and manner of going, Corfu scored a very good BreezeFig speed figure of 67, which placed him well within the top prospects at the Barretts sale. The nice-looking colt had caught enough attention with his display of speed that Demi O’Byrne bought him for $675,000, and the colt campaigns for Michael Tabor, John Magnier, and Derrick Smith.

Corfu is now unbeaten in two starts, with earnings of $168,000.

This promising young G2 winner is the fifth foal and first stakes winner out of the winning broodmare Fashion Cat. Nearly a decade ago, the dam had been a high-priced 2-year-old in training. She brought $630,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Florida sale of in February of 2004 when it was still held at Calder racecourse. The mare had been a $120,000 yearling the previous year at the Saratoga selected yearling sale and was clearly a nice type.

In addition to her looks and speed, Fashion Cat is a half-sister to G1 winner Peace Rules (by Jules), a winner of $3 million who scored victories in the Haskell, Blue Grass, Suburban, Louisiana Derby, and other important races. An attractively balanced and muscular chestnut, Peace Rules also ran third behind Funny Cide and Empire Maker in the Kentucky Derby and is now at stud in Korea.

That Fashion Cat’s racing career was limited to three starts, with a single victory and earnings of $29,240, was disappointing, but she showed ability and was given a chance as a broodmare with both expensive and highly accomplished stallions.

Her first foal, by Horse of the Year Ghostzapper, sold for $400,000, and the mare’s first half-dozen yearlings yielded nearly $1 million at auction. Some of the early foals showed ability. Gaucho, the Ghostzapper first foal, won three of eight starts, earning $66,430, but none among the mare’s first five offspring had advanced to win black type till last weekend.

The mare has a yearling filly by leading sire Tapit, but at some point during 2012, the mare’s owners judged that she should go through the sales, and therefore was sent to auction at the 2012 Keeneland November sale. Due to the lack of black-type production, Fashion Cat went through the ring for $35,000, selling to Bethel Ridge Stable. This spring, the mare foaled a filly by Artie Schiller.

malibu moon’s “other” classic contender skips to victory in the peter pan

Tags

ap indy male line, classic sires, country life farm, freedom child, malibu moon, spendthrift farm, west point stable

The following post first appeared at Paulick Report.

The first time I saw Malibu Moon was at the Pons family’s Country Life Farm in Maryland in the fall of 1999, just before the colt entered stud the following year.

There was not much to know about the young horse, a winner and second in his only two starts as a juvenile, but he clearly had a first-rate pedigree. And in person, Malibu Moon (by A. P. Indy) was even more impressive. Tall, scopey, strong, and blessed with considerable bone, Malibu Moon was a fine specimen, and it was easy to see the attractions that brought him to stud, even with a minimal race record.

More than a decade later, Malibu Moon is a household name for those of us with an interest in racing and breeding, and the stallion stood at Spendthrift Farm in 2013 for a fee of $70,000 live foal for owner-breeder Wayne Hughes.

If one wanted to criticize the stallion, the hole in his sire record was the absence of a classic-winning colt. And then Orb filled the blank with a flourish in the Kentucky Derby. The bay colt will next carry the Janney family’s red and white silks in this Saturday’s Preakness as he attempts to win the second jewel of the Triple Crown for Janney and the Phipps Stable.

Should Orb succeed at Pimlico, he will attempt to complete the elusive triple, and there he will meet another son of Malibu Moon, Freedom Child. The latter won the Grade 2 Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park on Saturday by 13 1/4 lengths in the time of 1:49.09 on a sloppy racetrack, and he will be one entry given due consideration in three and a half weeks when the final classic is run.

Bred in Kentucky by Spendthrift Farm, Freedom Child went to the Saratoga select yearling sale in New York conducted by Fasig-Tipton two years ago and brought a final bid of $350,000 from St Elias Stable and West Point Thoroughbreds, with Spendthrift retaining a percentage of the colt.

Spendthrift Farm’s general manager Ned Toffey said, “We own a third of the horse. He was a really big, obvious-looking sort of yearling. He is correct, had a big, easy walk. We thought he would do well as a sales yearling and then were able to stay in for a piece. To their credit, West Point gave him plenty of time because he was a big, growthy colt. He was probably at the training center a little later and finished later than some horses.”

Good size and growthiness is not uncommon among the A. P. Indy-line stock, and Freedom Child got some of that from the other side of his pedigree too.

The dam of the Peter Pan winner is the 10-year-old Deputy Minister mare Bandstand. A winner in one of her 10 starts on the racetrack, Bandstand sold to Spendthrift for $520,000 (pre-depression bucks) at the 2007 Keeneland November sale. The mare was carrying her first foal to a cover by the Unbridled stallion Eddington, and Freedom Child is the mare’s third foal, third winner, and first stakes winner.

Toffey said, “We bought her based primarily on her pedigree and her looks. She is good-looking and is a good-sized mare with length. We’ve been pleased with the foals she’s produced, and Freedom Child has combined those looks with graded stakes success.

“We bought her carrying Eddie’s Band (Eddington). He looked to have a world of ability, and we saw the horse work bullet after bullet, but that hasn’t translated into much success,” with a single win from 16 starts to date.

Freedom Child was a May 18 foal, and Bandstand did not have a foal the following year. Toffey said, “You wouldn’t normally take a May foal to Saratoga, but that tells you what sort of individual he was. The yearling full sister is really nice, but we haven’t decided what to do with her yet.” The mare has a yearling bay filly by Malibu Moon and is carrying her 2013 foal on a cover to Tizway (Tiznow). “She would be bred to Malibu Moon, although we might just end up waiting till next year because she is a mare who tends to go long on her pregnancies,” Toffey said.

Bandstand is out of Grade 1 winner City Band, one of the very best racing daughters of the important stallion Carson City (Mr. Prospector). Showing her best form at two, City Band won the G1 Oak Leaf Stakes and G3 Golden Rod, and then finished second in the G1 Hollywood Starlet in 1996. As a broodmare for Overbrook Farm, City Band produced stakes winners Weather Warning (Storm Cat) and Foolishly (Broad Brush) and is the second dam of G3 winner American Lion (Tiznow), who is at stud in Kentucky at Darby Dan Farm.

orb shines brightly on historic kentucky derby traditions

Tags

breeding classic winners, Kentucky Derby, lady liberty, malibu moon, ogden mills phipps, orb, shug mcgaughey, stuart janney iii, unbridled

The following post first appeared in Paulick Report last week.

On Kentucky Derby day, no sun shined brightly. Instead, it was a dark and rainy day, but there was an Orb who shined nonetheless. That was a dark bay colt gleaming with water and streaked with mud from the sloppy Churchill Downs surface.

The fire within that lit the Derby winner’s eyes, that powered the remarkable stroke of his stride, is part of a legacy from his famed forebears, which include classic winners A.P. Indy (Belmont Stakes) and Unbridled (Kentucky Derby).

The Derby winner’s pedigree is part of a long history of dedication to Thoroughbred breeding and racing that can be read in the Paulick Report’s owner-breeder story. It is part of the breeders’ continuing search to find the best bloodstock and breed the best racehorses.

Part of that tradition is Claiborne Farm, which has raised Thoroughbreds for the Phippses and Janneys for decades. Claiborne also stood Bold Reasoning, a grandson of the Phipps family’s great stallion Bold Ruler. In the first year of his brief career at stud, Bold Reasoning became the sire of Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, the sire of Horse of the Year A.P. Indy, who was bred by Will Farish in partnership and stood his entire stud career at Farish’s Lane’s End Farm, where the grand old stallion still resides.

Now pensioned, A.P. Indy has proven a landmark stallion, both because of his individual accomplishments as a sire and because he has been a major force in reviving Claiborne’s greatest male line of Nasrullah and Bold Ruler and putting it again on the pinnacle of American breeding.

With Princess of Sylmar winning the Kentucky Oaks on Friday and Orb succeeding in the Derby, the A.P. Indy male line won both classics. This is the glittering hallmark of quality that has made the A.P. Indy male line the preeminent source of classic ability in North America.

The sire of Princess of Sylmar is Coolmore’s Majestic Warrior, a son of A.P. Indy whose first foals are 3 and who stands at the operation’s Ashford Stud outside Versailles, Ky. The Kentucky Derby winner is by Malibu Moon, a thoroughly proven son of A.P. Indy who stands at Wayne Hughes’ Spendthrift Farm north of Lexington.

Bred and raced by Hughes, Malibu Moon showed exceptional speed and precocity, winning a 5-furlong maiden special before injury sent him into retirement. He had shown such speed that he found a spot at stud in Maryland at the Pons family’s Country Life Farm. After the success of his first two crops to race, including champion juvenile Declan’s Moon, Malibu Moon moved to Kentucky, and his star has risen year after year.

Ned Toffey, general manager of Spendthrift, noted that the high class and natural ability of the stock by Malibu Moon have continued to elevate the stallion’s status, crop after crop, and the stallion’s stud fee has risen in similar fashion. From 11 crops of racing age, Malibu Moon has 67 stakes winners to date.

This season, Malibu Moon has a book of about 150 mares, and one of them is Lady Liberty, the dam of Orb, and a daughter of Unbridled.

Toffey said, “I like the mating that produced Orb because it incorporates some of the suggestions that I’ve made to breeders, that they look to add scope and try to lighten up the resulting foal. That’s what I see in Orb. He’s a good-sized, strong horse, but he’s not what I’d call heavy.”

In physical type, Orb clearly takes a good deal from his dam and her celebrated sire Unbridled, a truly big horse with tremendous scope and bone. He was a stakes winner at 2, then improved out of sight at 3 under the handling of trainer Carl Nafzger, winning the Kentucky Derby, finishing second to Summer Squall in the Preakness, and winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic in the fall.

As a stallion, Unbridled exceeded even what he proved on the racetrack.

At stud, Unbridled sired the winners of all three Triple Crown races: Grindstone (Kentucky Derby), Red Bullet (Preakness), and Empire Maker (Belmont Stakes). The stallion also sired winners of many other G1 races, including multiple Breeders’ Cup victors, and now, as the broodmare sire of Orb, Unbridled has added a second classic to add to Preakness victory by Shackleford (by Forestry out of the Unbridled mare Oatsee).

Unbridled, representing a strain of Mr. Prospector that is essentially classic, is out of a mare by the important French-bred stallion Le Fabuleux. After early success at stud in France, Le Fabuleux was imported to Kentucky to stand at Claiborne in the 1960s by A.B. “Bull” Hancock Jr., and one of the shareholders in that syndicate and consistent supporters of the stallion was Ogden Phipps, the father of Orb’s co-breeder and -owner, Dinny Phipps.

Among the most successful breeders to use Le Fabuleux was Tartan Farms, which bred Unbridled and sold him at the Tartan Farms dispersal to Frances Genter, who raced the colt, then retired him to stud at Gainesway Farm.

When Unbridled hit the brass ring with a first crop that included Kentucky Derby winner Grindstone and major winner and sire Unbridled’s Song, overseas interests came calling with the intent to purchase and potentially export Unbridled.

A group led by Rich Santulli thwarted that effort, buying a controlling interest in the horse and sending him to spend the rest of his career at Claiborne, where he sired Lady Liberty, the dam of Orb.

With his performance last Saturday, Orb glittered with a hard, gem-like flame that reflected the time, tradition, and generations of commitment that produced him.

malibu moon is one of the signs that bloodlines are a-changin’

Tags

a.p. indy, lane's end, male line success, malibu moon, orb, sires of stallions

The following article was first published last week as part of the Paulick Report Special to the OBS March sale.

There is a pattern to the stallion spotlights for the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s March sale of selected 2-year-olds in training. Both are by the great sire A.P. Indy (1989 b. h. by Seattle Slew x Weekend Surprise, by Secretariat), and the pattern represents the fundamental shift in breeding toward the Bold Ruler – Nasrullah male line coming through Seattle Slew’s champion son A.P. Indy.

An outstanding racehorse who was named Horse of the Year in 1992, A.P. Indy became a landmark stallion, gifted for imparting classic quality, size, and stamina. And among several excellent contemporary sires, his greatest accomplishment has been the foundation of a group of high-class stallion sons, including the recently deceased Pulpit (and his best stallion son Tapit), Bernardini, Congrats and his full brother Flatter, Horse of the Year Mineshaft, and Malibu Moon.

Among these most successful members in the ranks of his best sons, there is one further common denominator. Except for Bernardini, each is out of a mare by Mr. Prospector (1970 b. h. by Raise a Native x Gold Digger, by Nashua).

If there was anything that A.P. Indy needed as a sire, it was a finer edge of speed burnished with a boot-leather toughness. The grand old son of Raise a Native seems to have supplied that time after time.

Malibu Moon inherited a full dose of speed and class from his famous forebears, and he hit the big time as a stallion with the unbeaten champion juvenile, Declan’s Moon, from his sire’s second crop. Declan’s Moon won the G1 Hollywood Futurity and the then-G2 Del Mar Futurity at 2, as well as the Santa Catalina early at 3.

The stallion’s other G1 winners include Ask the Moon (Personal Ensign), Devil May Care (Mother Goose, CCA Oaks), Eden’s Moon (Las Virgenes), Funny Moon (CCA Oaks), and Life at Ten (Beldame and Ogden Phipps).

As a tribute to the quality of speed and early maturity among many of Malibu Moon’s foals, he has more juveniles cataloged for the OBS March sale than any other sire. The 11 are Hips 15, 48, 55, 120, 137, 173, 177, 244, 317, 328, and 343. Earlier this month, a colt by Malibu Moon brought the highest price of $675,000 at the Barretts sale of 2-year-olds in training. [The sales results were: 15 :10 3/5, late scratch; 48 :10, $185,000; 55 out; 120 :10 2/5, $370,000; 137 :10 3/5, $145,000; 173 :10 3/5, $65,000 RNA; 177 :10 4/5, late scratch; 244 :21 1/5, $130,000; 317 :10 1/5, $130,000; 328 :10 2/5, $85,000 RNA; 343 :10 1/5, $485,000.]

As the prestige and success of Malibu Moon’s progeny has continued, he has earned an increasingly high stud fee, now at $75,000 live foal, and an increasing select book of mares. And this year, the stallion’s son Orb recently won the G2 Fountain of Youth Stakes and is among the favored prospects for the Triple Crown.

classic contender from family of ruffian wins the fountain of youth

Tags

a.p. indy, classic contenders, fountain of youth, malibu moon, orb, ruffian, shenanigans, sire success, violence (horse)

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

The result of Saturday’s Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream confirmed two colts of classic caliber, although second-place finisher Violence (by Medaglia d’Oro) will not be continuing the trek toward Louisville and the Kentucky Derby due to a fracture to the medial sesamoid of his right foreleg.

The winner, Orb, placed himself among the leaders of the classic prospects with a determined late rally that prevailed by a half-length after a mile and a sixteenth in 1:42.24, and the top pair were 6 3/4 lengths ahead of third-place Speak Logistics (High Cotton).

Bred in Kentucky by Stuart Janney III and the Phipps Stable, Orb is a bay colt by the important A.P. Indy stallion Malibu Moon out of the Unbridled mare Lady Liberty.

Every season, Malibu Moon has a colt or two who flirts with the classics, and that is to be expected from a representative of the most classic male line in American breeding, descending from Nasrullah and Bold Ruler to Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew and his leading son A.P. Indy.

With speed, strength, and quality, the 16-year-old Malibu Moon sires stock that are popular at the sales, and they are popular with breeders who race their own with a goal of winning the premium races. The 16-year-old stallion currently has such prominent offspring as Kauai Katie (G2 Forward Gal), More Chocolate (G2 La Canada), Eden’s Moon (G1 Las Virgenes in 2012), and Prospective (G2 Tampa Bay Derby and G3 Ohio Derby in 2012).

The ability of his offspring has made Malibu Moon the current 2013 leader among all sires in North America, and after seasons of similar success, mares of proven excellence regularly fill his book for a fee that is $70,000 in 2013.

Four years ago, when Orb was conceived, Malibu Moon’s profile was nearly as high, and the Fountain of Youth winner’s dam was sent to him in the elusive quest for classic speed.

Orb’s dam, Lady Liberty, did not win black type on the racetrack, but there can be few mares who showed more ability without gaining some level of stakes success. From 23 starts, Lady Liberty won four times, was second four times, and third in four for earnings of $202,045. In stakes competition, she was twice fourth and twice fifth, including a fifth in the G1 Ogden Phipps Handicap of 2003 behind Sightseek.

Orb is the fourth foal of his dam, whose first foal is the Alphabet Soup gelding Cause of Freedom, who has won $105,834. The mare’s second foal is a nonwinner, the third is unraced, and Orb is a major step in the right direction.

Lady Liberty slipped in 2011 and 2012 but has already produced a half-brother to the Fountain of Youth winner by Claiborne stallion Flatter (A.P. Indy).

The family of Orb has a lengthy history at Claiborne Farm, just like the Janneys and Phippses. Orb and his dam Lady Liberty come from the famous family of champion Ruffian (Reviewer), whose dam Shenanigans (Native Dancer) is the fourth dam of Lady Liberty. Shenanigans also produced the important sire Icecapade (Nearctic) and the useful sire Buckfinder (Buckpasser), as well as the winner Laughter (Bold Ruler).

The latter is the third dam of Lady Liberty and was a cracking producer in her own right. The dam of five stakes winners, Laughter ranks as one of the best producing daughters of her great sire Bold Ruler. The best of her foals was Wood Memorial winner Private Terms, a good horse who started at the same odds for the Kentucky Derby as the victorious Winning Colors but finished ninth behind a field that included champion juvenile Forty Niner (second), 3-year-old champion colt Risen Star (third), and the major G1 winners Proper Reality (fourth), Brian’s Time (sixth), and Seeking the Gold (seventh). By the end of his career, Private Terms had won a dozen races and earned more than $1.2 million, then went on to become a good stallion.

Of Laughter’s five stakes winners, only one was a filly, and that was Steel Maiden (Damascus), who is the second dam of Lady Liberty. The family goes a little cold at this point, as Steel Maiden produced only one stakes winner, G2 winner Mesabi Maiden (Cox’s Ridge), the dam of Lady Liberty, and Mesabi Maiden has not produced any stakes horses.

One of the eccentricities of Thoroughbred families, however, is that they tend to get cold for a time, but if persevered with and bred to quality, they can come back. With a stretch finish that keeps on coming, Orb is the kind of colt who could light up a grand old family.

ap indy center stage as sire of classic sires

Tags

a.p. indy, allen paulson, bernardini, bold ruler, congrats, daring bidder, dialed in, dinard, diversity in breeding, eliza, gulfstream park, holy bull stakes, male lines in thoroughbred breeding, malibu moon, mineshaft, nasrullah, Pulpit, quality and stamina in racing, Seattle Slew, secretariat, storm cat, Tapit, weekend surprise

The following post was published earlier this week at Paulick Report.

Everywhere you look, it’s coming up Indys. And at Gulfstream Park on Sunday, the first two places in the Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes were filled by Dialed In (by Mineshaft) and Sweet Ducky (Pulpit). Both are grandsons of classic winner and champion A.P. Indy, the 22-year-old son of Seattle Slew and the Secretariat mare Weekend Surprise.

Nor are Dialed In and Sweet Ducky a rarity. Day after day and week after week, sons and grandsons of 1992 Horse of the Year A.P. Indy are filling the winner’s circles of major races across the country.

And whether we think of this as the Nasrullah/Bold Ruler line or the Bold Reasoning/Seattle Slew line through A.P. Indy, the reestablishment of this male line as a major influence has been one of the important developments in breeding over the past decade and a half.

Part of this importance comes from the fact that about the time A.P. Indy became a fledgling sire of stallions, much comment was being made about how the lines of Raise a Native (especially through Mr. Prospector and Alydar) and Northern Dancer (especially through Storm Cat) were going to swamp all their competition and about how the breed would be poorer for the lack of diversity.

Then along came the tide of success that has propelled A.P. Indy to this pinnacle today.

Part of the manner of that continuing success has come from the outstanding match that A.P. Indy proved with Mr. Prospector, who is the broodmare sire of both Mineshaft and Pulpit.

And A.P. Indy (and his sons, in particular) have proven to be excellent crosses with other important lines. For instance, Dialed In is out of the mare Miss Doolittle, who is by none other than Storm Cat.

And whereas Storm Cat’s sons ruled the waves in volume over the past decade and a half, how many are still viable at the top level? Certainly Giant’s Causeway is the heir to his sire’s legacy on many fronts. And then … there is Tale of the Cat. And without being negative about it, the Storm Cat wave of influence has followed the pattern of all those that have come before it: strengthening, cresting, then flattening out.

That is the pattern already followed by the Bold Ruler branch of the Nasrullah line. First the sire, then the son seemed all powerful. And in the 1970s, the only male line that seemed to figure was Bold Ruler, except for that little matter of Raise a Native (Mr. Prospector, Alydar, Exclusive Native, Affirmed, and so forth) and then Northern Dancer (Nijinsky, Danzig, Nureyev, and, abroad, Sadler’s Wells).

The male-line influences come and go, mostly being integrated into the inner workings of pedigrees and being none the less important for that.

But the full force of A.P. Indy’s rise is expanding. First Pulpit, then Malibu Moon, and recently Pulpit’s son Tapit have put the A.P. Indy stock at the peak of success, and only last year the top freshman sire Congrats and the impressive new sire of classic prospects, Bernardini, are both sons of A.P. Indy.

Just as he did on the racecourse, A.P. Indy has answered every challenge with greater success.

His elegant and scopy son Mineshaft was much the same. Excelling in his Horse of the Year campaign at age 4, Mineshaft has sired racehorses with classic aptitude that come to hand in the spring of their 3-year-old season.

In Mineshaft’s first crop, he had Cool Coal Man, who won the Fountain of Youth, and in his third crop was Fly Down, who won the Peter Pan and ran second in the Belmont and Travers, then was third in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. While most of Mineshaft’s stock shows its form at distances from eight to 12 furlongs, the stallion’s son Discreetly Mine won the King’s Bishop at Saratoga and has joined his sire at Lane’s End for the 2011 breeding season.

Dialed In won the Holy Bull at a mile, and the good-looking colt is out of the quick mare Miss Doolittle, a daughter of champion juvenile filly Eliza (by Mt. Livermore). Allen Paulson bred Eliza from the Bold Bidder mare Daring Bidder, who produced five other stakes horses. The mare’s other top-class performer was Santa Anita Derby winner Dinard (by Paulson’s Strawberry Road).

This family has tended toward speed, but when matched with the right balance of stamina, it can produce stock worthy to challenge for the classics.

 

congrats locking up freshman sire title

Tags

a.p. indy, bernardini, bluegrass cat, bold ruler line, breeding in kentucky, claiborne farm, cloverleaf farms, congrats, freshman sire title, horse breeding in florida, leading sires, malibu moon, mike o'farrell, ocala stud, Pulpit, rokeby stable, Seattle Slew, Tapit, turbulent descent, vinery

The following post appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

Victory in the Hollywood Starlet not only made Turbulent Descent a Grade 1 winner for owner Blinkers On Racing and for breeder Ocala Stud, but the success also made the filly’s sire, Congrats, a virtual lock as the leading freshman sire of 2010.

The grand-looking son of A.P. Indy and the Mr. Prospector mare Praise had been in a tight duel for the title with the Storm Cat horse Bluegrass Cat (standing at WinStar) and Preakness winner Bernardini (Darley), who is also a son of Horse of the Year A.P. Indy.

But when Turbulent Descent coasted home from her competition at Hollywood Park, Congrats pulled off to a lead of about a quarter-million dollars over the others. With only 14 days left in the year, that is probably enough to ensure the title for Congrats.

Belmont Stakes winner A.P. Indy has been looking more and more like the leading conduit for premium talent through such sons as Pulpit and Malibu Moon, as well as grandson Tapit, but having both Congrats and Bernardini fighting for the title of top freshman clearly puts Seattle Slew’s branch of the Bold Ruler line in the national forefront.

Such results are not accidental.

Both these horses are outstanding athletes and were given every chance to present their best qualities.

Bred and raced by Claiborne Farm, Congrats won the G2 San Pasqual Handicap, ran second in the G1 Santa Anita Handicap, and was third in the G1 Hollywood Gold Cup. Near the end of his racing career, the big bay sold to Cloverleaf Farms in Florida, where he entered stud in 2007.

After the end of the 2007 breeding season, Cloverleaf closed its Florida operation, moved its mares to Kentucky, and initially shifted Congrats to Journeyman Stud with Brent Fernung, who had selected the stallion for Cloverleaf and managed his introduction to Florida breeding.

Before long, however, the Cloverleaf stallions, including Congrats, shifted to Vinery Florida, where Congrats remained at stud until his recent move to Kentucky.

The decision to move the stallion to the Bluegrass looks like an even better idea after the result of the Hollywood Starlet, as Turbulent Descent is the freshman sire’s second G1 winner, a distinction shared with Bernardini.

But Congrats will stand the 2011 season for a fifth of Bernardini’s stud fee, and Kentucky breeders have not been slow to take advantage of the opportunity.

According to several breeders and their advisers, Vinery has had to turn down more than 100 mares for the horse and literally could stand him to 250 to 350 mares, perhaps more.

One of the mares who has secured a season to Congrats is Roger’s Sue, the dam of Turbulent Descent, and she will ship up from Ocala Stud in Florida.

Ocala Stud is operated by lifelong horseman Mike O’Farrell, who said that he bred the unraced Forestry mare Roger’s Sue to Congrats because “I really liked the mare’s first foal by Golden Missile (by A.P. Indy), and Congrats is by A.P. Indy. I thought I’d go back to the well, and I thought Forestry and her family would suit Congrats. It would add some speed to go along with the classic quality. And Congrats was a grand-looking horse with a terrific pedigree.”

Graded stakes winner Congrats is the best performer from four starters out of the Mr. Prospector mare Praise. This is a wonderful family that Claiborne bought into at the Rokeby Stable dispersal with the purchase of the Northern Dancer mare Wild Applause, one of seven stakes winners out of the great broodmare Glowing Tribute.

Already the dam of Futurity winner Eastern Echo and graded stakes winner Blare of Trumpets for Rokeby, Wild Applause produced Roar (Jim Beam and Swale Stakes) and Yell (Davona Dale) for Claiborne, as well as Praise.

The mare immediately produced Flatter, winner in four of his six starts and third in the G2 Washington Park Handicap, and Congrats for Claiborne. The farm stands the year-older Flatter, who has sired 15 stakes winners to date, including Super Derby winner Apart.

When Ocala Stud brought Turbulent Descent to the 2-year-old sales at the Ocala Breeders’ Sale in April, she sold her for $160,000, the second-highest price for a juvenile in training by Congrats.

O’Farrell said the filly “has a great mind and worked as well as any 2-year-old we’ve had. Greg Gilchrist was the one who bought her at the sales, but he retired from training. She was the first one he bought from us, but she has turned out to be a good one.”

This Turbulent Descent has been good to everyone.

who would match zenyatta best?

Tags

a.p. indy, bernardini, congrats, distorted humor, galileo, hypothetical matings, kingmambo, malibu moon, mating the champion, montjeu, Pulpit, zenyatta

No doubt, Jerry and Ann Moss have ideas of their own about which stallion best suits their great mare, but we denizens of the blogosphere who have watched and cheered and posted about Zenyatta are happy speculators in this fascinating game we term “horse breeding.”

As a broodmare prospect, Zenyatta has nearly everything we could hope for. She has immense athletic ability, is by a good sire, is out of a very good broodmare, and has a distinguished female family on both sides of the pedigree.

The two characteristics that most concern me about her broodmare potential are her size and relative lack of speed. The mare simply must not be bred to too large a stallion because Zenyatta will put plenty of size in her foals. She needs no help there. But she does need a bit more lick out of the gate.

So stallions such as AP Indy; his outstanding sons Pulpit, Malibu Moon, and Bernardini (even Congrats); and Distorted Humor offer proven speed, as well as classic potential.

There’s no getting around it. Zenyatta is the classic type. Big, rugged, and scopy, the mare has been begging for 10 furlongs (or farther), and ran her two best races in the BC Classic at that distance.

If Kingmambo were still breeding, he would be another to consider for the mare and would not be a factor for increasing size or diminishing speed. The fact that Kingmambo raced in Europe and tends to get horses well suited to turf racing and going middle distances is not a problem, either.

Zenyatta would have excelled over turf courses. I could see her rumbling mightily up the straight at Epsom or stretching out and gassing her opponents over the sweeping expanse at Doncaster.

And, as it happens, two stallions standing in Ireland would be extremely tempting mates for Zenyatta. Both are Epsom Derby winners by Sadler’s Wells standing at Coolmore: Montjeu and Galileo.

The Montjeu stock have the reputation of being rather “hot,” which might be too much of a good thing. Galileo, on the other hand, is consistent as a sire of classic stock who have speed, some early maturity, and plenty of quality.

Which stallions would be on your list for Zenyatta?

malibu moon bucks the trend of modern stallions

Tags

a.p. indy, class in stallions, declan's moon, life at ten, malibu moon, spendthrift farm, sweet august moon, versatility in stallions, wayne hughes

The article below appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

As stallion prospects, horses who do not win stakes manage to succeed as sires only at a rate of less than 1 percent, and in the present state of Thoroughbred breeding, where better stallions have been receiving books in excess of 100 mares for nearly two decades, the opportunities are even more miniscule for a horse without a stakes record to make the grade as a sire.

Given these odds, the accomplishments of the outstanding A.P. Indy stallion Malibu Moon shine even brighter.

Winner of a salty maiden special as a 2-year-old at Hollywood Park in 1999 and second in his only other start, Malibu Moon went to stud the following year as a 3-year-old in Maryland at the Pons family’s Country Life Farm. A big, good-looking colt when I saw him on a sunny winter afternoon in Maryland, Malibu Moon has grown into a powerful and very handsome stallion.

But beauty is as beauty does in breeding, and over the past decade, Malibu Moon has exceeded all the hopes of Wayne Hughes, who raced him, and of the syndicate members and breeders who have supported him since he was transferred to Kentucky, where he now stands at Hughes’ Spendthrift Farm.

Malibu Moon moved to Kentucky because he got good horses from the beginning. Sire of a good horse in his first crop named Perfect Moon, winner of the Hollywood Juvenile Championship and Best Pal Stakes at 2, Malibu Moon sired a champion in his second: Grade 1 winner Declan’s Moon.

Subsequent winners at the top level include such current stars as Devil May Care (Frizette and Mother Goose), Funny Moon (Coaching Club American Oaks), and Life at Ten (Ogden Phipps Handicap).

In Saturday’s Delaware Handicap, Life at Ten won her sixth race in a row, and among her beaten competition was Funny Moon in third. On the same day and a continent’s breadth away, Sweet August Moon won the A Gleam Handicap at Hollywood Park.

The span between his major winners on Saturday is symbolic of the versatility of the stallion’s stock. He sires top 2-year-olds, older horses, fillies, colts, sprinters, and routers. He even has a good steeplechaser.

Such versatility is not common in stallions, but it is an indicator of one thing: exceptional natural athleticism.

Given the volume of natural talent and success by the offspring of Malibu Moon, the next question to be asked is whether he is getting sons.

To date, the answer is “no.” But there is a reason for that. The stallion’s top three money-winning sons are all geldings!

Although he now stands for $40,000 on a live foal contract, Malibu Moon went to stud at a very modest stud fee, and his early sons’ job was to race and win, not to be stallion prospects. Now that their sire is fully established, the importance of his sons as stallion prospects is much greater, and presumably some of the best will retain their bits till they have proven their class on the racetrack and then will have a chance at stud.

The most promising of the stallion’s later sons is Tampa Bay Derby winner Odysseus. The grand-looking chestnut was bred in Kentucky by Haymarket and Lakemont Stable. Sold for $110,000 at the Fasig-Tipton yearling sale at Saratoga in 2008, Odysseus resold to Padua in 2009 for $250,000 at the Ocala Breeders Sales Company’s March auction of 2-year-olds in training from the consignment of Nick de Meric.

Like Odysseus, the stallion’s major winners this weekend also went through public auctions. Bred in Kentucky by Nickelback Farm, Life at Ten sold for $35,000 as a Keeneland September yearling in 2006. She is out of the winning Rahrahsixboombah (Rahy) and her third dam is Belle o’ Reason, by Hail to Reason, and a half-sister to the important sire Relaunch.

Sweet August Moon was bred by Maple Leaf Farm in Pennsylvania, and she sold to Tony Bowling and Bobby Dodd for $50,000 at the Keeneland September sale in 2006, then resold for $400,000 as a 2-year-old in training at the Ocala Breeders Sales Company’s March auction in 2007. Sweet August Moon is out of the winning Royal Academy mare Silent Academy.