classic contender from family of ruffian wins the fountain of youth

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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.

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ghostzapper is hot as a firecracker

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adena springs farm, awesome again, breeders' cup classic, frank stronach, ghostzapper, sire success

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

With another pair of graded stakes victories over the weekend – Mystical Star in the New York Stakes at Belmont and Hunters Bay in the Dominion Day at Woodbine – the 12-year-old sire Ghostzapper is having the best year of his stud career. That career began with great expectations but has felt bumps in the road because the industry has suffered from a fierce depression largely due to the state of the international economy and because his offspring did not succeed as expected from their first days on the racetrack.

When he went to stud at Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs Farm in Kentucky in 2006 for a stud fee of $200,000 live foal, Ghostzapper was one of the hottest and most highly prized stallion prospects in years. Winner of nine races from 11 starts, Ghostzapper was Horse of the Year in 2004, when he was undefeated in four starts, and ranked very highly overall according to speed figures and other methods of evaluating form and class in Thoroughbreds.

The list of horses behind him in the Breeders’ Cup Classic in 2004 provided an outstanding group. They included the previous year’s BC Classic winner Pleasantly Perfect, Horse of the Year Azeri, Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide, Belmont winner Birdstone, and other top animals. In Ghostzapper’s prep for the Classic, he won the Woodward Stakes, where he defeated the following year’s BC Classic winner and Horse of the Year Saint Liam.

Ghostzapper made only a single start in 2005, an impressive victory in the Metropolitan Handicap, and a breeding interest in both Ghostzapper and his sire were acquired by the late Jess Jackson’s Stonestreet Farm.

Therefore, when Ghostzapper retired to stand at stud in 2006, breeders lined up to breed to the handsome and well-made son of Awesome Again, who was a red-hot sire himself as a winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, sire of a winner of that race, as well as champion Ginger Punch and other fine racers.

Considering that the champion was a very fast horse, many observers expected Ghostzapper to burst out of the gate as a sire of juveniles and sprinters that showed early maturity and bags of speed. Those folk were miserably disappointed.

None were probably more surprised by the early results from the Ghostzapper stock than the people handling the horse at Adena Springs. Jack Brothers of Adena said that “To me, the biggest mystery would have been if he hadn’t begun to get good horses, but we may never know why he didn’t get them right away. He was such a brilliant racehorse and had such high speed”  – a prime reason breeders sent outstanding mares to Ghostzapper.

The results have improved year by year, and Ghostzapper, with his third crop of 3-year-olds on the track, now ranks in the top 20 stallions nationally. “The crops seem to be getting progressively better,” Brothers said, “but I don’t see any reasons we could put a definitive light on why it would happen that way.”

It might simply have been the roll of the genetic dice. To date, Ghostzapper has sired 320 horses of racing age, with 18 stakes winners (6 percent), but only four stakes winners at 2. And 10 of the stallion’s stakes winners are graded winners, such as 2012 Acorn Stakes winner Contested and Sands Point winner Better Lucky. In addition to these recent premium performers, Ghostzapper was represented last weekend also by Dwyer Stakes third Morgan’s Guerrilla and Dominion Day third Stately Victor, who won the Blue Grass two years ago at Keeneland.

One reason for Ghostzapper’s performance at stud is that he is not breeding his trademark speed so much as he is transmitting the qualities typically associated with his sire Awesome Again and grandsire Deputy Minister. Both tend to get horses that show their best at a mile or more and that frequently are better with age.

In fact, Ghostzapper himself won only a maiden at 2 and did not win a stakes until the Vosburgh very late in his 3-year-old season. During his early racing, trainer Bobby Frankel also placed Ghostzapper cautiously in shorter events that showcased the horse’s amazing speed that he was able to maintain furlong after furlong. In hindsight, Ghostzapper is breeding stock that also can maintain a steady racing rhythm but do not have his blinding speed. Few ever have.

Intriguingly, Ghostzapper is also putting a lot of versatility for surface in his foals, which win their graded stakes on dirt, turf, and synthetic. Ghostzapper stood for a highly respectable $20,000 stud fee in 2012, but with the interest he is generating from his results this year, that figure may be going up for next season.

dynaformer retrospective

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barbaro, case clay, dynaformer, leading stallion, nathan fox, sire success, three chimneys farm, wafare farm

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

Dynaformer’s heart attack on April 14 and subsequent death by humane euthanasia on April 29 put a full stop to the career of one of the breed’s most important stallions. A really big horse who tended to sire horses of similar stature, Dynaformer was one of our most important factors for mental and physical toughness, for distance racing aptitude, and for overall athletic talent.

Although never known as a sire of speed horses nor as a frequent fount of juvenile stars, Dynaformer did begin his career with a racer who nearly pulled a massive upset in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile of 1993. Blumin Affair, from his sire’s first crop, came from far back in the Juvenile to finish second to winner Brocco (by Kris S.). Among the fine horses behind them were top juvenile Dehere and the following year’s Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner Tabasco Cat.

As the third-longest shot on the board, Blumin Affair was not the house horse, and some people wrote off his sterling effort as a fluke, but the result was an omen for the importance of English Derby winner Roberto as a continuing influence for stamina and sturdiness in the breed. Both the winner and second were sired by sons of Roberto, and both moved up the stallion roster to become sires of great importance in Kentucky and around the world.

That was a truly unpredictable result for both stallions because neither went to stud with great hoopla or exaggerated expectations.

In the bitter times of the great bloodstock depression of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Dynaformer had gone to stud at Nathan Fox’s Wafare Farm outside Lexington for a fee of $5,000. Bred and raced by Joseph Allen, Dynaformer had been a good horse whose best victory had come in the G2 Jersey Derby at a time when the economics of breeding meant that a lot more was required to break through as a top performer and win a place at a boutique stallion farm.

In contrast, going to Wafare meant that Dynaformer was a horseman’s horse – one that breeders with an eye for a horse and a pocketful of dreams would patronize in hopes of catching lightning in a bottle.

Fox commented today that “Dynaformer was a once in a lifetime kind of horse. I was drawn to him initially because he was so closely related to a stallion that I admired at the time, Darby Creek Road. After going to see him for the first time at Monmouth, Dynaformer reminded me a great deal of old photos that I had seen of Hail to Reason. Therefore, his big, coarse appearance was a plus for me rather than a negative as it was to many others. I was very fortunate to have been associated with such a great stallion, and I am grateful to Robert Clay and everyone at Three Chimneys for caring for him and for doing such a great job in managing his stud career. Dynaformer meant a great deal to me and my family and we will never forget him.”

One of the reasons that Dynaformer meant so much to Fox and other breeders of moderate means at the time is that the sire’s first-crop performers turned out to be something special. Out of an initial crop of 47 foals, 46 raced and five won stakes. Blumin Affair carried his form forward at 3 to finish third in the Kentucky Derby, and that progression is a trait of nearly all the Dynaformers. They have some ability early, but it is a shadow to what they become at 3 and 4.

Dynaformer’s other classic-placed stock includes Brilliant Speed, third in last year’s Belmont Stakes, and Perfect Drift, who was third in the 2002 Kentucky Derby. But the brightest star of all Dynaformer’s foals was grand Barbaro, winner of the 2006 Kentucky Derby and a colt of extraordinary talent.

Barbaro, like most of Dynaformer’s stock, was sired after the stallion relocated to Three Chimneys, where he began covering for the 1995 breeding season. Dynaformer spent the rest of his life there.

Case Clay of Three Chimneys said the farm “had been impressed by the success of Dynaformer’s runners sired while standing at Wafare, and he has become one of the best stallions in the breed. One of the traits about his offspring is that they just kept improving, which brought better mares, which brought more successful performers.”

Both Fox and the Clay family have enjoyed long years of success due to the sturdiness and athleticism of the Dynaformer stock, which tend to appeal a bit more to breeders who race, rather than those primarily looking to sell yearlings.

But the stallion’s success as a sire is unquestionable. From 1,185 foals that are 3 or older, Dynaformer has 1,039 starters (88 percent), 770 winners (74 percent), and 130 stakes winners (12.4 percent). Those are the hard numbers of a highly successful sire. Born on April Fool’s Day in 1985, the rangy dark brown son of Roberto out of the His Majesty mare Andover Way was 27 at the time of his death. Although the death of Barbaro prevented us from seeing what the stallion’s most talented son might have accomplished as a sire, Dynaformer has become an important sire of broodmares, with 78 stakes winners from his daughters.

But the essence of Dynaformer, from his days as a $5,000 stallion to this season, when he stood for $150,000, is that he was the working horseman’s stallion whose offspring became solid-gold performers.

hymn book becomes eighth g1 winner for arch in donn

Tags

arch, claiborne farm, hymn book, shug mcgaughey, sire success, stuart janney iii, types of racehorses

The following post appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

The winner of Saturday’s Grade 1 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream was Hymn Book, who scored by a nose over Mission Impazible (by Unbridled’s Song). The homebred son of Arch, bred and raced by Stuart Janney III, has progressed so much over the past 18 months that he was able to defeat two classic winners (Shackleford and Ruler on Ice) in the Donn, as well as one of the very best older horses from last year, Flat Out (Flatter).

In fact, Hymn Book signaled the direction his form was taking with a solid second to Flat Out in last summer’s G2 Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park. Although beaten by 6 1/2 lengths in the Suburban, Hymn Book was in the mix with the better horses last season, and as the year progressed, so did his form.

In October, Hymn Book won the Firethorn at Belmont, and the following month, he ran a salty second behind To Honour and Serve in the G1 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct. Clearly, the dark brown gelding out of Vespers (Known Fact) was taking steps in the right direction, and the Donn was his seasonal debut as a 6-year-old.

Improvement with age tends to be one of the qualities associated with the progeny of Hymn Book’s sire, the Kris S. stallion Arch, who stands at Claiborne Farm, and among Arch’s other upwardly mobile sons and daughters we find champions Arravale, Pine Island, and Blame.

Blame and Hymn Book are contemporaries; both are now 6. But whereas Blame showed himself a racer of high ability through the latter half of his 3-year-old season and progressed to championship level as a 4-year-old, at that time Hymn Book was still getting his act together.

An important change in moving Hymn Book forward as a racehorse was gelding him. In comments following the Donn, trainer Shug McGaughey said that Hymn Book wouldn’t have become a really good horse without being gelded, and now Hymn Book has made all the steps from maiden special winner to G1 winner.

Hymn Book is the eighth G1 winner by his sire, and the progeny of Arch generally show a preference for going two turns, as well as improving with maturity. In the extent of his improvement with age, Hymn Book is most like Les Arcs, another Arch gelding who became one of the early stars for his sire.

Racing primarily in Europe, Les Arcs progressed to win a pair of G1s at 6: the July Cup and Golden Jubilee Stakes in 2006. The same year, he was the highweight older horse in England from five to seven furlongs.

That Les Arcs was a sprinter also points out the range of talents that Arch can impart to his offspring. They are not dead-head plodders who only get into the game once the field has gone 10 or 12 furlongs. They can have some pace, can finish with power, and tend to act on turf or on dirt.

Prior to last fall, when Hymn Book won the Firethorn and ran so well in the Cigar, most of the gelding’s success had come racing on turf. One of the reasons that he would seem a natural for that surface is his broodmare sire Known Fact, who inherited victory in the 1980 2,000 Guineas on the disqualification of Nureyev. A good sire of 54 stakes winners, Known Fact got numerous horses with versatility who showed form on turf, including stakes winner Vespers, the dam of Hymn Book.

A winner in six of her 33 starts, Vespers won two restricted stakes and ran third in three more for earnings of $261,494. She is one of two stakes winners out of the Deputy Minister mare Sunset Service. The other is a full sister named Database.

Hymn Book is the first foal of his dam, and she had two blank years after, not bred and barren. Vespers has a 3-year-old colt by Eddington named Temako, a juvenile colt by the leading young sire War Front named Surging, and a yearling filly by Malibu Moon named Lunar Evening.

tapit knocking on the door at the top of the stallion game

Tags

leading stallions, san fernando stakes, sire success, Tapit, tapizar

The following article appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

With a sassy victory in the Grade 2 San Fernando Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday, Tapizar has returned to a position of prominence that he occupied a year ago following a sharp success in the G3 Sham Stakes.

Unfortunately for the colt and owner-breeder Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC, the dashing bay son of Tapit went off the rails in his next start, the G2 Robert Lewis Stakes. Following the Lewis, Tapizar was found to have chipped a knee, which was treated surgically, and naturally, the colt took some time to recuperate and return to racing at his proper level.

It’s good news for racing, as well as for his owner and for the sire Tapit, that the handsome and robust colt appears to be back in top form and ready to make a sizable impression on the older division this season.

Already the sire of champions and multiple G1 winners, Tapit is a truly top young sire, and he only needs a tiny push to be ranked at the top of the tree with the very best in the world. From the evidence to date, the stock to give him that nudge are already on the track.

Not only is last season’s multiple G1 winner Zazu a star for her sire, but Tapit also has one of the best Triple Crown prospects in Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Hansen, a near-white colt who was named champion 2-year-old at last night’s Eclipse Awards and is one of the most striking and easily identified colts in the 3-year-old division.

Now Tapit has Tapizar reasserting himself to claim an important position among the older horses with a season full of premium racing ahead.

That is a bonus for Winchell Thoroughbreds, which bought and raced the elegantly bred Tapit, an 11-year-old son of the important stallion Pulpit and the Unbridled mare Tap Your Heels. The latter is a stakes-winning half-sister to champion sprinter Rubiano. Both are grays with speed and class, and they are out of the Nijinsky mare Ruby Slippers, also a gray.

Tapizar did not get the family’s graying gene, but he inherited a lot of the talent of his immediate family. Tapit was a good horse at 2, winning the Laurel Futurity, and was even better at 3 with a victory in the Wood Memorial. Despite an abbreviated career, Tapit appears to be one of the more consistent factors in breeding for both speed and soundness.

Along with his bay coat, Tapizar inherited his mass and size largely from his dam, Winning Call, and broodmare sire, Deputy Minister, a champion at 2 and a leading sire and broodmare sire. Tapizar is a tall, brawny beast who prefers to take the race to his competition early and stretch away from them furlong after furlong. He appears to possess the combination of balance and power that allows him to take the starch out of his competition and reduce the race to a competition on his own terms, and if Tapizar proves capable of producing these efforts consistently as the distances stretch out toward 10 furlongs, he is going to become a very salty customer in his division.

Tapizar is already the best horse produced by his dam, but he is making her look good now. Tapizar is yet another high-quality racehorse produced from the Carols Christmas family that has had such success in the Winchell breeding and racing program.

Carols Christmas, a daughter of Whitesburg, was a cornerstone producer for Winchell Thoroughbreds, and her best-known offspring was Olympio, a chestnut son of Naskra who was tough as hickory and won four derbies at 3: the Arkansas, American, Hollywood, and Minnesota, as well as running second in the Super Derby.

Carols Christmas also produced G2 Del Mar Debutante winner Call Now, who is the second dam of Tapizar. The 20-year-old Call Now has produced a pair of stakes-placed runners, including Tapatia (by Tapit).

Other descendants of Carols Christmas include Cuvee (Carson City), winner of the G1 Futurity Stakes, and Pyro (Pulpit), winner of the G1 Forego, second in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and third in the G1 Travers.

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.

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).

havre de grace shines brightly for porter and jones

Tags

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quality before quantity: havre de grace

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broodmare success, carson city, easter bunnette, havre de grace, saint liam, saratoga racecourse, sire success, success in breeding, woodward stakes

One of the great female families lies behind Saturday’s Woodward Stakes winner Havre de Grace. The daughter of Horse of the Year Saint Liam and the Carson City mare Easter Bunnette traces to the great producers Toll Booth (third dam and producer of seven stakes winners) and Missy Baba (fourth dam and producer of six stakes winners).

Toll Fee (Topsider) was one of Toll Booth’s seven stakes winners, and although Toll Fee failed to produce a stakes winner herself, four of her daughters have produced a graded stakes winner to date. Aside from Havre de Grace, the pick of them is Riskaverse, who won thrice at the premium level.

The production records of Havre de Grace’s sire and dam follow:

Sire: SAINT LIAM, b, 2000. Champion Older Horse, Horse Of The Year. Raced 3 yrs in NA, 20 sts, 9 wins, $4,456,995 (ssi = 22.24). Won Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. 1), Stephen Foster Handicap (gr. 1), Donn Handicap (gr. 1), Woodward S. (gr. 1), Clark Handicap (gr. 2); 2nd Woodward S. (gr. 1), Whitney Handicap (gr. 1), New Orleans Handicap (gr. 2), Iowa Derby; 3rd Oaklawn Handicap (gr. 2).
	Lifetime: 1 crop, 90 foals, 74 Rnrs (82%), 58 Wnrs (64%), 12 2yo wnrs (13%), 7 sw (8%).
	1st Dam: Easter Bunnette, ch, 1998. Bred by Fox Ridge Farm, Inc. (KY). Raced 2 yrs in NA, 11 sts, 3 wins, $36,851 (ssi = 1.31).
	2003: Barren. 2004: Dynabunny, dk b/ f, by Dynaformer. ($62,000, 2005 KEESEP yrlg) Raced 1 yr in NA, 5 sts, 0 wins, $1,852. 2005: Rapid Boy, b c, by Deputy Minister. ($175,000, 2006 KEESEP yrlg) 2006: Pentecost, b c, by Dynaformer. ($450,000, 2007 KEESEP yrlg) Raced 3 yrs in NA, 10 sts, 1 wins, $19,760. 2007: HAVRE DE GRACE. ($380,000, 2008 KEESEP yrlg) At 3: Won Fitz Dixon Cotillion S. (gr. 2); 2nd Go for Wand S. (gr. 2), Alabama S. (gr. 2), Delaware Oaks (gr. 2); 3rd Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic (gr. 1). At 4: Won Woodward S. (gr. 1), Apple Blossom H. (gr. 1), Obeah S. (gr. 3), Azeri S. (gr. 3); 2nd Delaware H. (gr. 2). 2008: Barren. 2009: Easterette, ch f, by Hard Spun.  ($350,000, 2010 KEESEP yrlg) Unraced in NA, Eng and Fr. 2010: Unnamed foal, b c, by Bernardini.  ($1,200,000, 2011 FTSAUG yrlg). 2011: Barren.

all american: new ky stallions for 2011

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all american, ben walden, brigadier gerard, darby dan, john galbreath, leading freshman sire, paul mellon, roberto, rokeby stable, shuttle stallions, sire success, vinery

All American* (2005 dk b by Red Ransom x Milva, by Strawberry Road)

Darby Dan $10,000

* All American will stand his first Northern Hemisphere season at stud this year.

This is a big horse with many of the traits associated with his sire, the successful Roberto horse Red Ransom. Bred and raced by Darby Dan founder John Galbreath, Roberto was a top-class juvenile in Ireland. The following season he won the Derby at Epsom from subsequent Arc de Triomphe winner Rheingold, and Roberto had his best day on the racecourse when Braulio Baeza guided him to a front-running victory over the great Brigadier Gerard in the Gold Cup at York.

Although the ‘Brigadier’ was a more successful racehorse, Roberto proved trumps at stud, getting classic winners and champions from the start and becoming a major influence in international breeding.

Red Ransom, surprisingly, was not one of his sire’s most successful racing sons. Bred and raced by Paul Mellon’s Rokeby Stable, Red Ransom won two of his three starts but never appeared in a stakes. Red Ransom was one of the most highly regarded non-stakes winners and went to stud in Kentucky at Vinery.

The stallion’s natural ability and Ben Walden’s promotional ingenuity propelled Red Ransom to leadership as top freshman sire of 1994, and he never looked back, siring classic winners and champions.

A foal of 1987, Red Ransom sired All American in Australia rather late in the sire’s career. All American is a dark brown horse with the trademark heavy top that Red Ransom possessed. The muscle mass from such a body gives a horse tremendous energy reserves and frequently great speed through power. The downside, however, is increased demands for soundness and rugged bone.

All American competed successfully in his homeland. In 2008, he won the G3 Skyline Stakes, then was second in the G1 Blue Diamond and third in the G1 Ascot Vale. In 2009, All American graduated to victory in the G1 Cantala Stakes.

Physically quite robust, All American has excellent power through his hindquarters, and he is set a bit higher behind like a drag racer. All this adds speed to the package.

Standing 16.2, All American has a great depth through the heart, girthing more than 79 inches. He is a big, rugged horse with a good head and appealing eye.

A bit of trivia: If you look at his photograph on the Darby Dan website, you’ll notice he also has a strawberry brand on his left shoulder.