‘share the upside’ hits with first-crop spendthrift stallion into mischief

Tags

goldencents, harlan's holiday, into mischief, share the upside program, spendthrift farm, vyjack, wayne hughes

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

With a pair of stakes victors in the two races for colts hoping to earn a berth in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May, the Spendthrift Farm stallion Into Mischief has rocketed into a leading role among the sires of classic candidates.

The son of Harlan’s Holiday was a leading fancy for the classics himself after a good-looking win in the Hollywood Futurity, and he has a pair of appealing prospects in Goldencents, winner of the G3 Sham Stakes at Santa Anita, and Vyjack, winner of the G2 Jerome Stakes at Aqueduct.

Goldencents has good collateral form with divisional leader Shanghai Bobby (by Into Mischief’s sire Harlan’s Holiday) because Goldencents finished second to the obvious Eclipse choice in the G1 Champagne, which has been the only loss in four starts for Goldencents. The colt won his second stakes in the Sham.

The successes of Into Mischief’s late-season juveniles have increased the demand for seasons to him to such a degree that the stallion’s advertised fee is now $20,000 live foal on a stand and nurse contract.

Into Mischief was one of Spendthrift’s original Share the Upside stallions. Under this program, breeders purchased seasons to the horse for two consecutive years, and for the price of the two paid seasons, they became owners of a lifetime breeding right in the horse.

Access to the horse under those terms is looking rather salty today.

Goldencents, bred in Kentucky by Rosecrest Farm and Karyn Pirrello, was a $5,500 yearling at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky’s 2011 October yearling sale and resold at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s June auction for $62,000.

The colt’s dam is the Banker’s Gold mare Golden Works, who is now a 12-year-old. The mare was consigned to the Keeneland January sale and cataloged in Book 3 as Hip 1544, the 10th hip of the day on the last day of the sale, but she has been declared out.

That is not a surprising move, as the mare was cataloged as “not mated,” and her produce record shows two years not mated, one year not pregnant, and two foals, aged 4 and 5, listed as unnamed. Goldencents, however, is a good horse, and he has made his dam a mare of value for someone’s program.

Like Goldencents, Vyjack was bred in Kentucky. The newly minted 3-year-old is a bay gelding and is out of the Stravinsky mare Life Happened. Now unbeaten in three starts, Vyjack holds promise of greater things for his owners, Pick Six Racing, and breeder Machmer Hall.

Life Happened is a half-sister to multiple G3 stakes winner Disco Rico, and the mare is also the dam of Prime Cut (Bernstein), who ran second in the G3 Lexington Stakes at Keeneland and third in the G2 Peter Pan at Belmont in 2011. She has a 2-year-old filly by Bernstein who is a full sister to Prime Cut named Tepin, and the mare’s yearling is a filly by leading sire More Than Ready.

Vyjack sold for $45,000 at the 2011 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July selected yearling sale, then resold for $100,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale of 2-year-olds in training last May.

At the Midlantic sale at Timonium, Vyjack worked three furlongs in :34 2/5, which was the fastest work at that distance. He looked good doing it also, covering the ground efficiently with strides of approximately 24.75 feet in length and a BreezeFig that ranked him in the leading cadre of Group 1 workers at the breeze show.

Both of these young challengers for the classic preps that lie ahead appear ready to get “into mischief” for the Triple Crown.

Advertisement

innovation in the breeding biz?

Tags

economics of thoroughbred breeding, lifetime breeding rights, line of david, ned toffey, spendthrift farm, temple city, thoroughbred breeding, warrior's reward, wayne hughes

After the fall yearling sales and the broodmare and weanling auctions of the past few months, the screams of breeders could be heard round the world. They were, as a group, not very happy.

Some stallion farms in Kentucky appear to have heard this too.

A few have noticeably lowered; others have tried some different approaches to standing their stallions and involving breeders.

Among the farms getting the most breeder response for innovation is Spendthrift Farm, owned by Wayne Hughes and standing leading sire Malibu Moon.

With the new stallions that Spendthrift has stood recently, the operation has tried a program called “Share the Upside.”

Farm manager Ned Toffey said that “by participating in this program, a breeder typically breeds two mares to the stallion, pays both stud fees, and then has a lifetime breeding right in the horse. It has been well received.”

Spendthrift is standing three new stallions for the 2011 breeding season, Arkansas Derby winner Line of David, Carter Handicap winner Warrior’s Reward, and Cougar Handicap winner Temple City. Of these, the latter is least known to the general public, but he too has quite popular in this program.

Toffey said, “He has about 100 mares now, and he has been one of the most popular programs we’ve done. With Temple City, we offered a lifetime breeding right to breeders for breeding a single mare and paying the stud fee. With him, our first priority was getting mares to the horse. There are a lot of breeding theories out there, but no stallion can get a stakes winner from a mare he hasn’t bred.”

The desire to get solid representation to the stallion was allied with the family dynamics. Temple City’s sire Dynaformer started his stud career at $3,500, and his dam is a half-sister to Malibu Moon, who entered stud in Maryland at $3,000.

“With the Spendthrift stallions, the number of breeding rights varies,” Toffey said, “and we started Temple City with 60. But it was so popular that we added more, and many of the mares coming to him are breeding right mares.”

In the economic turmoil of the breeding business, Toffey believes that “breeders are more discerning in what they buy, and they have to be. You have to offer breeders value now, or it isn’t worth their while. And as with most endeavors, ownership of a breeding right encourages people to contribute to the horse’s success. All of that dovetails with Mr. Hughes’s feeling that if we don’t take care of the breeders, we’re lost.”

One of the reasons that Spendthrift can create these programs is that they “own most of the stallions outright,” Toffey said.

They are therefore sharing the wealth, in a sense, by giving breeders a stake in their own success. If programs such as this succeed, they are sure to alter the way stallion operations do business: breeding, racing, selling or buying, and standing stallions.

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.

new stallions for 2009 xi

Tags

breezefig, harlan's holiday, into mischief, obs march, spendthrift farm, wayne hughes

This is the 11th in a series of notes and impressions about the new stallions in Kentucky for 2009. The horses will be reviewed alphabetically.

Into Mischief (2005 bay by Harlan’s Holiday out of Leslie’s Lady, by Tricky Creek)

Stands at Spendthrift Farm for $12,500 live foal

A nicely balanced bay son of Harlan’s Holiday, Into Mischief was the best racer from the first crop of his sire, who has begun his stud career positively.

A high-class juvenile, Into Mischief first caught attention with his work at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales March auction of 2yos in training. Rocking through a furlong in :10 2/5, Harlan’s Holiday wasn’t the fastest worker on the day, but he did it well, scoring a very good BreezeFig of 71.

In the ring, Into Mischief brought $180,000 from Wayne Hughes, making the colt the eighth-highest lot by his sire in 2007. He proved worth every cent, winning two of his three starts as a juvenile and earning $448,800.

With his pedigree, coming from the Storm Cat line, multiple linebreedings to fast strains of Northern Dancer, and his own race record, Into Mischief should be able to produce athletes who can train early and prove useful racers.

Rugged mares with speed, such as Cutlass or Noholme sired, would be well-suited to complement the power and natural inclinations of Into Mischief.