effectively, there’s only one male line left in the thoroughbred

Tags

darley arabian, ormonde, sire lines

Most of the sources of information about the Thoroughbred declare that there are three founding fathers of the breed. These are the three lines that were still active when bloodstock writing became important toward the middle and end of the 19th century. There are actually quite a few more stallions who played a part in the early formation of the breed, and many of them are still in pedigrees, far back and of little specific consequence to horses today.

As has become increasingly clear over the past century, the “three lines” is pretty much a thing of the past also. At least in the male line. That spot is nearly the private preserve of the Darley Arabian – Eclipse – Bend Or – Phalaris set of horses that make up about 90 percent of the male line in Thoroughbreds today.

Ormonde was unbeaten in 16 races. The greatest son of Bend Or might have become as significant a force in breeding, except for his small number of foals: 8 born in England, with about 18 or 20 born in each of his spells at stud in Argentina and California. The male line from Ormonde, through Orme, Flying Fox, Ajax, Teddy, Sir Gallahad III and his full brother Bull Dog, accounted for some of the grandest racehorses of the 20th century, including Triple Crown winners Gallant Fox, Omaha, and Citation. Ormonde was euthanized at Menlo Stud Farm on May 21, 1904, aged 21.

Although the Godolphin Arabian is still out there, the best lines have nearly all retreated into the inner reaches of pedigree, and Man o’ War’s branch of the line through In Reality – Relaunch – Tiznow seems destined for the history books unless something quite unexpected happens to resurrect the line. Again.

The line from the Byerly Turk has been lingering for a century, and it lost its last great chestnut hope when Precisionist, a champion sprinter who stayed 10 furlongs and was tough as hickory, proved all but sterile at stud.

Regarding sire lines, however, the “influence” of those lines is still around. These three and all those others that have died out in male line are still represented among the internal lines of pedigrees, so long as the performance of those strains continues to justify people using them. It’s all about probability and opportunity.

The hard fact is that most stallions or stallion prospects do not have the genetic consistency to sire a reasonable proportion of good, highly successful racers. That’s the probability side that allows horses like Danzig, Mr. Prospector, and Phalaris to come up trumps when they aren’t world champions. Instead, they are pretty good racehorses but are genetic champions.

Opportunity is the other side of the coin. Without a fair number of reasonably good mares, a stallion cannot have consistent, high-quality success. It wasn’t a hindrance that Phalaris became a miracle sire when based at Stanley House; nor did standing at Claiborne prove a barrier to Danzig. Mr. P started in Florida, where he was widely appreciated for speed and pedigree, and with immediate success, Mr. P went to Kentucky to stand at Claiborne for the rest of his long career at stud.

As a result of the chance association of genes and overall tendency for this to regress to the mean, most stallion prospects fail; most male lines die out. It’s not a popularity contest, at least not when the runners come to the races.

So the effect of male lines dying out is inevitable. The male line is the most competitive position in a pedigree. Only the most successful contemporaries continue in the male line. The preference of breeders for the most successful stallions means that lesser sires will not get sons, will die out in the male line. Both of the lesser male lines were tenuous more than a century ago. Then Hurry On in Europe and Fair Play in the States set the Godolphin Arabian line alight once more.

With broad representation for those three lines among horses going to stud, as well as the ones before them, the lines would not die out as easily. They would simply lie in abeyance until the next genetically gifted sire came into service. But in the practical world of breeding horses, the earliest lines died out quickly because so few stallions were actively important; nobody cared much at the time, nor should they have done. The majority of those old sires, and many more modern ones, still continue along the internal lines of descent. Probability has winnowed out the population in the male line, however.

So a perceived lack of diversity is not that, in fact.

The three lines that survived did so by chance. They sired good racers who sired good racers, whose grandsons sired a great racer, etc. The odds of chance decree that most will lose, but contrarily, they decree that some will win. Someone will win the Derby every year, no matter how little deserving compared to Ormonde, Hyperion, or Sea-Bird.

Advertisement

influence of classic winner unbridled is pervasive, includes recent graded stakes winner messier

Tags

empire maker, pioneerof the nile, sire lines, unbridled

Twenty years after the death of Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Unbridled (by Fappiano), the influence of the towering bay stallion proliferates through the breed.

In the Grade 3 Bob Hope Stakes at Del Mar on Nov. 14, the trifecta all descend from the 1990 Kentucky Derby winner. The winner was the highly touted Messier (Empire Maker), now a winner in two of his three starts. Second was Forbidden Kingdom (American Pharoah, by Pioneerof the Nile, by Empire Maker), and third was Winning Map (Liam’s Map, by Unbridled’s Song).

Through Grade 1 winner Pioneerof the Nile, the sire of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and champion juvenile Classic Empire, Empire Maker would hold a moderate advantage as the most vibrant branch of the Mr. Prospector line through Fappiano. The other challenger from the Unbridled clan is the one from Unbridled’s Song, who has two useful sons at stud in champion juvenile Midshipman and in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Liam’s Map, sire of Grade 1 winners Juju’s Map (Alcibiades and second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies) and Colonel Liam (Pegasus Turf and Turf Classic) this year.

A tremendous talent on the racetrack, Empire Maker sired Kentucky Derby seconds Pioneerof the Nile and Bodemeister while standing at Juddmonte Farm, was sold to Japan, then was repatriated to stand in Kentucky again, this time at Gainesway Farm, where he sired recent graded stakes winner Messier. (Gainesway photo)

Empire Maker’s branch of Unbridled is much more classic and more consistent in aptitude with the great classic sire Unbridled than the branch from Unbridled’s Song, which flirted with levels of speed hard to believe and sometimes hard to keep sound as a result.

Breeders and buyers love both types, though.

The commercial market almost decided that Empire Maker was too classic for American racing, and then, just when the stallion was sold to Japan, Empire Maker enjoyed a resurgence in American racing and breeding with the classic aptitude of Pioneerof the Nile and his famous sons.

That brought Empire Maker back to Kentucky for the final years of his term at stud, and he has had some bright spots, both on the racetrack, as well as at the sales. Yet overall, students of bloodlines tended to love Empire Maker more than the intuitive match makers of big, beautiful yearlings.

In Messier, there is a pleasing match of pedigree elements which produced a good sales yearling. Bred in Ontario by Sam-Son Farm, Messier was sold as a yearling at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton select yearling auction for $470,000. That was a strong price for an Empire Maker yearling in 2020, and Messier has a profile in keeping with the best colts from this line: developing good stakes form late at two, before accelerating their improvement the next year to challenge for the classics.

This is the pattern of development that Empire Maker himself showed under the patient training of Bobby Frankel. After being third in the Remsen Stakes at the end of his juvenile season, Empire Maker progressed to win the G1 Florida Derby and Wood Memorial, and he was favored for the Kentucky Derby. In the classic itself, however, Empire Maker finished second behind Funny Cide, then came back in the Belmont to win at the classic 12-furlong distance.

Never out of the money in eight starts with winnings of nearly $2 million, Empire Maker possessed the racing class and physical quality and depth of pedigree to make breeders believe they could breed classic winners, and the only real knock against Empire Maker and his stock is that they are probably too classic for the American racing program, with its tedious over-emphasis on racing at distances from six to eight furlongs.

Even so, Empire Maker has sired 67 stakes winners, including 37 graded winners, and all those positive qualities attracted some splendid mares to Empire Maker, including stakes winner Checkered Past (Smart Strike), the dam of Messier.

Messier is the fifth generation of this family bred by Sam-Son Farm, including his third dam Catch the Ring (Seeking the Gold), who was champion 3-year-old filly in Canada and then the dam of Canada’s champion juvenile filly Catch the Thrill, a full sister to Messier’s second dam, Catch the Flag (both by A.P. Indy).

Sam-Son bred Catch the Ring, her two stakes-winning full siblings, and three stakes-placed racers from stakes winner Radiant Ring (Halo), winner of 11 races and $775,478. Radiant Ring was the best stakes winner that Sam-Son bred from the stakes-placed Gleaming mare Gleaming Stone, who was bred in Kentucky by Nuckols Bros. in 1976.

In addition to the stamp of the Sam-Son Farm breeding program, the other great influence on Messier is Mr. Prospector himself. Not only does the colt trace to the great stallion son of Raise a Native in the male line, but the colt’s broodmare sire is Smart Strike, a son of Mr. Prospector who led the national sires rankings twice. And the third dam is a daughter of the fine broodmare sire Seeking the Gold, whose daughters are more dominant in America but whose male line through Dubai Millennium and his classic son Dubawi is one of the most important in Europe.

giant’s causeway has proven himself the classic link for the storm cat line

Tags

giant's causeway, sire lines, storm cat

Under the best of circumstances, sire lines are nebulous things. They come and go. They seem almost as thin and vaporous as clouds. Just think how the Bold Ruler line, or his sire Nasrullah’s line, has risen in visibility and important, then departed from sight and reappeared again like a friendly ghost.

So let’s not make too much of the “line” part. In a rational sense, it all comes down to the individual, and certainly one of the individuals who has made the Storm Cat line is Giant’s Causeway.

When we think of sons of Storm Cat, Giant’s Causeway is the one. Both as racehorse and sire, Giant’s Causeway is a massive presence in the résumé of his famous sire – a bit ironic because the chestnut champion is distinct from Storm Cat in many ways.

Certainly as a sire of international import, Giant’s Causeway is the most recognizable and most successful of the many sons of Storm Cat at stud, but the lead sire for Coolmore’s Ashford Stud is atypical from many other sons of Storm Cat by siring a large percentage of horses who prefer a distance and show their best form with maturity.

Those are admirable traits, even if they diverge somewhat from the “typical” Storm Cat tendencies of speed and early maturity. The salient quality about Giant’s Causeway stock is class, and from nine crops now age 3 or older, he has 129 stakes winners. What puts him at the top of the list of leading American sires in 2012 is stakes performance and especially graded stakes winners. To date, he has 62 graded or group stakes winners around the world.

And just like his sire, Giant’s Causeway was a success from his first crop. That group included classic winners Shamardal and Footstepsinthesand, and both have sired high-class performers in their own right.

They are also important for the perception of Giant’s Causeway as a sire of sires, the test that separates very good sires from the great ones. Both were from the year Giant’s Causeway stood in Ireland, and from his American crops, he has several young stallions, including Claiborne sire First Samurai, who last year had G1 winner Executiveprivilege, a finalist in Eclipse Award voting as leading juvenile filly of 2012.

As expected, then, Giant’s Causeway is also greatly preferred at the sales, and at Keeneland January, he is covering sire of five mares (Hips 141, 333, 605, 749, and 753), has a half-dozen daughters entered (Hips 90, 224, 302, 317, 373, and 568), and is the sire of a single short yearling (Hip 213).

new kentucky stallions for 2012: cape blanco

Tags

ashford stud, cape blanco, galileo, new kentucky stallions of 2012, sire lines

This is part of a series of profiles of horses who entered stud in Kentucky for the 2012 breeding season. The profiles will be linked to the page listing this group in its entirety.

Cape Blanco (2007 ch h by Galileo x Laurel Delight, by Presidium) Ashford $17,500

My first response to Cape Blanco was to his presence and scope. He is a robust, lengthy specimen who stood a shade over 16 hands when I inspected him. The big chestnut possesses plenty of substance through the girth, taping more than 77 inches around, and he has the robust bone and sinew one associates with a tough horse capable of campaigning for several seasons, which Cape Blanco did.

A good-sized, rangy chestnut, Cape Blanco proved the most popular stallion in the country in 2012 by the number of mares bred to him. The son of leading international sire Galileo covered 220 mares this season in Kentucky.
 
Galileo, the most popular stallion son of the great sire Sadler’s Wells, stands at Coolmore in Ireland, and Coolmore’s American stud, Ashford, is the Northern Hemisphere base for Cape Blanco.
 
Ashford regularly produces some of the highest covering figures in the States, and in 2012, five of the seven stallions who covered the most mares stood at the farm. Following Cape Blanco were Scat Daddy (217) in second, Uncle Mo (211) in fourth, Majestic Warrior (167) in sixth, and Giant’s Causeway (166) in seventh. Kitten’s Joy (213) and Wilburn (169) were the only non-Ashford stallions in the leading seven.

In addition to his good looks and famous sire, Cape Blanco attracted mares because of his athletic prowess. The winner of nine races from 15 starts and more than $3.8 million, Cape Blanco won the Irish Derby and Irish Champion Stakes at 3, when he was the highweighted colt in Ireland.
 
The following season, Cape Blanco won the G1 Arlington Million, Man o’ War, and Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Stakes in the U.S. That’s a very good race record and earned him an Eclipse Award as outstanding grass male, but under typical circumstances, breeders would stare at Cape Blanco’s record and say, “Can’t use him. He’s a turf horse.”
 
That did not happen with Cape Blanco.
 
In part, that is testament to the power of Coolmore as a kingmaker in the stallion business. But also, there is a rising tide surrounding Coolmore’s star sire Galileo. Not only is Galileo an outstanding stallion represented by the world’s leading racehorse, Frankel, but Galileo also is proving himself a sire of sires.
 
Breeders were well ahead of the curve on this. And this year, although long after the covering season began here, the first top sons of Galileo at stud have proven their mettle as sires in Europe. Galileo’s English Derby winner New Approach has a slew of stakes horses racing from his first crop of 2-year-olds, and the second-crop sire Teofilo has group stakes horses performing from his first 3-year-olds.
 
Cape Blanco’s first foals will arrive in 2013, and two mares (Hips 12 and 164) in foal to him are in the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November catalog. The first mare, A Mind of Her Own, brought $85,000, and the second, Sweetlalabye, sold for $22,000.

mr greeley adding glory to his record as an important sire

Tags

aruna, bc sprint, crusade, desert stormer, gone west, jamaica stakes, middle park stakes, Mr. Greeley, Rob Whiteley, sire lines, sire success, sires of multiple g1 winners, spinster stakes, stallion evaluation, suzie picou-oldham, versatility among stallions, western aristocrat

The following post appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

The late sire Mr. Greeley earned his ranking as one of the best sires in the world the old-fashioned way: he earned it.

Retired to stud for 1996 with good looks, a good pedigree, and speed as his primary credentials, the son of Gone West made his mark as a sire of international importance by getting sound and athletic individuals who were highly competitive in many different racing environments and on all surfaces.

That was nowhere more evident than in the results of racing over this weekend, as offspring of Mr. Greeley won a trio of G1s, on synthetic at Keeneland and on turf at Belmont in the Jamaica and at Newmarket in the Middle Park.

The juvenile Crusade won the Middle Park well enough while staying on over the rising ground at Newmarket to suggest he will get a mile. His year-older kinsman Western Aristocrat won the Jamaica, and the 3yo has followed a pattern of racing and development similar to Spinster Stakes winner Aruna. Both began their racing abroad, found success, then were repatriated for G1 victory. In the case of Western Aristocrat, he was a winner in his début last season in England, then group-placed before reaching the States.

The 4-year-old Aruna returned to her homeland last year and has finished first or second in every start since. The dark bay scored a G1 for the first time in the Spinster, but she was already a winner at G2 and G3 level, as well as second in the G1 Diana at Saratoga .

Stakes winners of this quality have populated the stallion career of Mr. Greeley, who went to stud as “only” a G3 winner, although he was also a head second to Desert Stormer in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in his final start.

Suzie Picou-Oldham, now with Darby Dan Farm but with Dixiana when Mr. Greeley retired to stud, recalled the stallion.  She said, “When he first came off the track, he had a beautiful shoulder and a nice frame, but he was not the broad, heavy-bodied horse he came to be when he was a stallion. He had a very good disposition and was a very cooperative horse to work with.”

Mr. Greeley made stallion promotion seem easy with first the physical appearance and then racing success of his early stock. Picou-Oldham recalled that, “as a stallion, it was obvious he was going to stamp his foals because a lot of them came out looking more like Mr. Greeley the stallion than Mr. Greeley the young racehorse.

“They would have a lovely top line, a toned shoulder, and a big and muscular hip.

“We started him out at $10,000 in 1996. He was an easy sell because of his looks, his sire was being sought after, and he was a very handsome horse. He had a look and a presence that you want in a horse.”

One of the breeders who was attracted to Mr. Greeley as a young stallion with great promise was Rob Whiteley, owner of Liberation Farm.

Whiteley described Mr. Greeley as a “prototype of what I’ve always tried to produce: a well-balanced athletic miler with speed who had versatility on different surfaces and whose offspring can carry their speed beyond an optimal distance.

“I was lucky enough to be able to breed quite a few mares to him when he was still affordable for me, and I discovered that in addition to what he passed on to the offspring, he could help out the mares with a little extra leg and a little help with the knees.”

Although Whiteley summarized Mr. Greeley as a “great loss for commercial breeders,” the stallion had priced himself out of the market for most breeders before his death. The stallion’s fee reached $125,000, then the international financial markets collapsed in 2007, forcing stud fees down precipitously.

In contrast, the quality of mares bred to Mr. Greeley remained high, and the stallion’s impact on breeding is continuing through his sons and daughters. In addition to his sons El Corredor and Whywhywhy, the daughters of Mr. Greeley have been especially successful. Last weekend, Zazu (by Tapit) won the Lady’s Secret Stakes at Santa Anita, and she is out of the Mr. Greeley mare Rhumb Line, whose first foal is the group stakes-placed Art Princess and whose third is multiple G1 winner Zazu.

So far, Mr. Greeley has sired 57 stakes winners to date from 1,424 foals, including his 2-year-olds, yearlings, and weanlings. There will be no further offspring from the powerful chestnut stallion, but as this weekend’s racing shows, there will be more glory.