ghostzapper lights up the sky with holiday weekend successes

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adena springs farm, awesome again, breeding success, ghostzapper, moreno, sam-son farm, starship truffles

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

The extended Fourth of July weekend was a tour de force for the stallions based in Bourbon County north of Lexington. In the Suburban Handicap on Saturday, the winner Flat Out (by Flatter) and second-place finisher Last Gunfighter (First Samurai) were both sired by Claiborne Farm stallions. Third in that race was Fast Falcon, a son of Awesome Again who stands at nearby Adena Springs Farm.

In the Hollywood Gold Cup later on Saturday in California, the winner was the grand gelding Game on Dude, another son of Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Awesome Again. The stallion stands at Adena Springs alongside his famous son Ghostzapper, the 2004 Horse of the Year and champion older horse.

The latter had the best weekend of any stallion, not only in Kentucky, but also in the whole country. Ghostzapper was represented by three graded stakes winners, and these were Grade 1 winner Starship Truffles (Princess Rooney Stakes), along with the Grade 2 winners Schiaparelli (Royal Heroine Stakes) and Moreno (Dwyer).

The fourth G1 winner for her sire, Starship Truffles ran to victory in the Princess Rooney by 3 ¾ lengths over Judy the Beauty, another 4-year-old daughter of Ghostzapper. Now a winner in stakes company three times, Starship Truffles won the Musical Romance Stakes earlier this season and earned her first black type last year with a victory in the restricted Claiming Crown Glass Slipper Stakes.

Out of the stakes-winning Not for Love mare Bobby Use, Starship Truffles is her dam’s third foal. Of the dam’s four other foals of racing age, only two have started and only the 3-year-old Lovely Daughter (Big Brown) has won.

Bred in Kentucky by Sanford and Irwin Goldfarb, Starship Truffles raced for Chasing Tail Stables. [In the late afternoon of Monday, July 15, Starship Truffles sold at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July auction of selected horses of racing age. The new G1 winner brought $1 million and now belongs to Castleton Lyons.]

The gray 5-year-old Schiaparelli is a homebred for Ran Jan Racing Inc. and is a Kentucky-bred. Out of a full sister to Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner California Flag, Schiaparelli is the first foal of her dam Cambiocorsa, who was twice a winner at the G3 level, earning $522,055 from nine wins in 18 starts.

Cambiocorsa, by Avenue of Flags, also has a stakes-placed 4-year-old filly named Vionnet (Street Sense), a winning 3-year-old filly named Moulin de Mougin (Curlin), an unraced 2-year-old filly named Alexis Tangier (Tiznow), and a yearling colt by Arch.

Schiaparelli, like Starship Truffles and G1-placed Judy the Beauty, are all out of stakes-winning mares. This is not only the highest percentage way of producing stakes winners but also seems to work especially well with Ghostzapper.

A very fast horse himself, Ghostzapper is notable for his physical development. He is a good-sized horse in height but not unusually so. For mass and power, however, Ghostzapper doesn’t have to suffer in second place to anyone. He is a brawny tank of a horse who has become even more massive since his retirement to stud.

He is clearly adding something to these good-class mares that is beneficial to their offspring, and each of them also had speed, which is always a positive quality in breeding good horses.

In contrast to the mating approach mentioned above, the winner of Saturday’s G2 Dwyer Stakes at Belmont is out of an unraced mare, and the 3-year-old gelding Moreno came home a winner by seven lengths in 1:41.07 for the eight and a half furlongs. Out of the A.P. Indy mare Danceinthesunlight, Moreno was bred in Kentucky by Southern Equine and is raced by the breeder.

The Dwyer winner is the second foal and second winner of his dam, who was bred by Sam-Son Farm from champion Dancethruthedawn, by Mr. Prospector. Dancethruthedawn won the Queen’s Plate, Woodbine Oaks, and also the G1 Go for Wand Stakes at Saratoga. She is a daughter of champion Dance Smartly (Danzig), and the next dam, Classy ‘n Smart, produced G1 winner and leading sire Smart Strike (Mr. Prospector).

Southern Equine purchased Danceinthesunlight for $675,000 at the 2008 Keeneland November auction when in foal for the first time. Danceinthesunlight did not race but produced her first foal at 4, the Forest Wildcat filly Sunlight Cat, a winner of $46,943. Following Moreno, Danceinthesunlight had a dead foal in 2011, and she has a yearling colt by Street Sense.

A winner in nine of his 11 starts, Ghostzapper was not a remarkably precocious horse, showing improvement as he was brought along to his best under the handling of Bobby Frankel and reaching a peak at 4 when he was Horse of the Year.

Not surprisingly then, most of Ghostzapper’s offspring have shown improvement with age, and reinforcing his robust physique with additional speed from the mare is likely to add some finesse and potential for high class.

With his female family, Moreno not only adds speed but also considerable finesse and the highest class from this powerhouse bottom line.

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good karma and good racers with smart strike

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haskell, lane's end, leading sires, lookin at lucky, mark frostad, patrick lawley-wakelin, sam-son farm, smart strike

The following article appeared earlier this week on Paulick Report.

The Mr. Prospector stallion Smart Strike has good karma with Monmouth Park. Fourteen years ago, Smart Strike won the Philip H. Iselin Handicap at the New Jersey track. It was one of his six victories from eight starts, but the Iselin was the most important. The race gave Smart Strike the all-important Grade 1 success that guaranteed him a spot at stud in Kentucky at a major farm where he would have a serious chance to succeed as a sire.

In the Iselin, Smart Strike ran a Beyer Speed Figure of 115, which was impressive as it looked, with champion Serena’s Song among the beaten field. At that point, Smart Strike had won six races in a row, and with his pedigree, he was an instant stallion prospect of great significance.

The bay stallion has made the most of his opportunities: getting Horse of the Year Curlin, champion turf horse English Channel, perennial leading sprinter Fabulous Strike, and last year’s champion juvenile colt Lookin at Lucky.

There is a notable amount of versatility in that stud record. Much more so than we typically see among contemporary sires, most of whom tend toward specialties.

If Smart Strike has a specialty, it might be in siring winners of the Preakness Stakes, as both Curlin and Lookin at Lucky have won the Pimlico classic.

Unraced since his victory in the Preakness, Lookin at Lucky polished up the family karma at Monmouth with a facile victory on Sunday in the Haskell. That race was a G1, but that point made much less difference to the handsome bay, as he was already a multiple winner at the premier level.

The Haskell, however, established Lookin at Lucky as the leader of his age group because he defeated Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver, as well nearly every other 3-year-old colt with pretensions to dominating the division.

All these things are good news for breeders coming to the yearling sales this year with stock by Smart Strike. As a leading sire and sire of champions, the fillies and colts by Smart Strike will get their fair share of lookers.

But, as with some other top stallions, it took the proof of racing performances before buyers would shell out major money to purchase Smart Strike yearlings, in particular. Many of them can appear somewhat immature at that stage, and the stallion tends not to sire the really big, thick yearlings with strongly defined muscles that the sales market rewards with premium prices.

Even without the unequivocal backing of the commercial market, Smart Strike has become a successful sire because he passes along enough of the proper athletic tools, which he possessed himself.

When I spoke last year with Smart Strike’s trainer, Mark Frostad, he said the horse was “cut out to be a top-class 3-year-old but didn’t win a stakes until he was 4 because he was injured at 3 – tore a tendon where it attaches to the foot, which required time to heal, and he was out for a year.”

The stallion’s breeder, Sam-Son Farm, raced the bay colt produced by their tremendous broodmare Classy ‘n Smart (by Smarten), and Sam-Son stayed involved with Smart Strike after they chose to syndicate him and send him to stud at Lane’s End for the 1997 breeding season.

Patrick Lawley-Wakelin, who is the bloodstock adviser to Sam-Son, said that “Mark Frostad said Smart Strike was going to be a good stallion. Sam-Son ended up keeping 10 shares in the horse, and that was an awful lot to keep because it was a big commitment on our part, and Mark was the architect of that.”

This family has also been a goldmine of top performers for the Sam-Son operation of the late Ernie Samuel, with such premium racers as Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner Dance Smartly, an older half-sister to Smart Strike.

Lawley-Wakelin said, “Mark has done an extraordinary job with this family. We have worked on the matings and work to produce racehorses, which he trained, then kept the successful fillies, and put them into the broodmare band to produce more racehorses. It’s very rare these days for trainers to be involved in the bloodstock side of the business. For me, this has been the best job in the country because we not only planned the matings but raced the offspring for generations” of horses.

lookin at lucky: pedigree of fortune

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

This story appeared earlier this week at PaulickReport.com.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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