Month: November 2023

With each passing season, the death of the grand gray champion Arrogate (by Unbridled's Song) at age seven looks an ever-greater loss to the breed. Having to be euthanized on June 2, 2020, near the end of his third season at stud, due to a freak spinal cord injury, Arrogate is proving himself a true classic sire whose stock show increasingly good form as they mature.

Another graded stakes winner was added to the stallion's list when Liberal Arts won the Grade 3 Street Sense Stakes at Churchill Downs on Oct. 28. The iron gray colt trailed early, then galloped on bravely through the muddy stretch at Churchill to win the mile and a sixteenth event by 2 ¾ lengths.

Now a winner in two of his five starts and placed in all, Liberal Arts had run third to West Saratoga (Exaggerator) and Risk It (Gun Runner) in the G3 Iroquois Stakes on Sept. 16 in his previous start. After finishing third in his debut at Churchill Downs in May, Liberal Arts had come back to run second in a maiden special at Ellis in July, then won his maiden at Ellis on Aug. 13, victorious by a length going seven furlongs from Otto the Conqueror (Street Sense), who has won his two subsequent starts for trainer Steve Asmussen and owner Three Chimneys Farm.

Bred in Kentucky by the father-son team of Stephen and Evan Ferraro, Liberal Arts is a March 24 foal out of Ismene, a stakes-winning daughter of the Storm Cat stallion Tribal Rule. This pedigree is fully invested in family, and Evan Ferraro noted that “my mother Richmond used to do all the stallion advertising for River Edge,” the California farm where Tribal Rule was bred and stood at stud for Marty and Pam Wygod.

After conditioning such stars as Carry the Banner (Advocator; G2 Argonaut Handicap) and Painted Wagon (Gummo; Bay Meadows Handicap, Lakes and Flowers Handicap; 2nd in the G1 San Antonio, 3rd in the G1 Santa Anita Handicap), the elder Ferraro had retired from training in 1990 but continued to attend the races, and he purchased the second dam of Liberal Arts from breeder John Harris in a private transaction about 20 years ago. Never to Excess was a winning daughter of leading California stallion In Excess, who was by Caro's high-class son Siberian Express.

“John Harris was kind enough to let me buy into this family,” Ferraro said, “and Never to Excess turned out to be a good producer for us.” The dam of Never to Excess was Margaret Booth (Well Decorated), winner of the Torrey Pines Stakes at Del Mar and a half-sister to G1 winners Cacoethes (Alydar) and Fabulous Notion (Somethingfabulous). And this was a truly enviable family to breed from.

From Never to Excess, Ferraro bred three winners, including the stakes-placed Oonga Boonga, and all were by Tribal Rule. The best of these was Ismene, the dam of Liberal Arts. At two, Ismene won the Anoakia Stakes and the California Breeders' Champion Stakes, and she was named the California-bred champion juvenile filly in 2011.

Unbeaten at two, Ismene missed her entire 3-year-old season “due to a chip in the upper capsule of her knee,” Stephen Ferraro said. “But she did come back to race well at four.” That season, the dark brown filly was second in the B. Thoughtful Stakes, the Irish O'Brien Handicap, and the California Distaff Handicap, and she raced in the 2013 Breeders' Cup Filly Sprint, although unplaced behind Groupie Doll and Judy the Beauty.

Sent to stud, Ismene promptly produced stakes winner Ismelucky (Lucky Pulpit) and stakes-placed Nardini (Acclamation). With those good black-type successes, the breeders then decided “to try a stallion in Kentucky,” Evan recalled, “and I guess we got lucky” with Liberal Arts.

Stephen Ferraro said that the dam “was good sized, and Evan was able to get us a season to Arrogate, and not only was Arrogate a fabulous racehorse, but one of the reasons we wanted to breed to him was that we got another cross to Caro through Unbridled's Song. I thought that was the key to this mating.”

It certainly has turned out fortuitously for the Ferraros.

In the meantime, though, they decided to sell the mare, and she went to the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky February mixed sale in foal to Liam's Map, also a son of Unbridled's Song. With Liberal Arts a short yearling at the time, Ismene sold for $65,000 to Mike Abraham.

And they almost sold the colt. “My dad thought about selling this colt but kept him and decided to see what he could do with a racehorse here at 80 years of age,” Evan Ferraro said.

Now the gray son of a gray champion with a number of important gray ancestors is shaping up like a colt who can keep owners and fans dreaming through the winter. Dreaming of what might be.

The seasoned owner Stephen Ferraro takes a pragmatic line: “We hope that the colt will prove to be a worthy successor in the family line. He certainly is a lot of fun.”

The post Bloodlines Presented By Walmac Farm: Liberal Arts A Capstone Horse For Ferraro Family Racing, Breeding Programs appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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