The weekend proved a time of positive results for second-crop sire Classic Empire (by Pioneerof the Nile). In addition to having Classy Edition finish second in the Grade 2 Davona Dale Stakes at Gulfstream, the stallion's son Morello went a step better and won the G3 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct by 4 1/2 lengths.
After finishing his freshman sire season in fourth place behind the jet-setting Gun Runner (Candy Ride) last year, Classic Empire has now jumped into second place for 2022, about $160,000 behind Gun Runner and about $45,000 ahead of current third-place Arrogate (Unbridled's Song).
A champion juvenile like fellow “Pioneer” stallion American Pharoah, Classic Empire just missed becoming a classic winner at three, when he lost the G1 Preakness by a head to Cloud Computing, from the first crop by Mclean's Music (Distorted Humor).
Sent to stud the following spring at Ashford Stud, along with Practical Joke (Into Mischief) and Cupid (Tapit), Classic Empire and his fellow Ashford freshmen have proven popular with breeders and have repaid that confidence with very good performances at the sales and on the racetrack.
That trio, along with Caravaggio (Scat Daddy) – who joined them at Ashford for the 2021 season after entering stud in Ireland – would nearly have swamped the freshman sire list last season, except for a chestnut son of Candy Ride, who swept through the season with one good racer after another and led the freshman list by $2 million. The Ashford sires took four of next five spots behind Gun Runner, with only Lane's End sire Connect (Curlin) getting in the fray and finishing third at year's end.
The indications were positive for Classic Empire after last year's sales of juveniles in training, when 39 sold for an average of $135,154 and a median of $77,000. From those elite juveniles come both Classy Edition ($550,000 at Fasig-Tipton Midlantic in May) and Morello ($250,000 at the same sale). Both juveniles sold out of the Sequel Bloodstock consignment of Becky Thomas.
Bred in Kentucky by Robert Tillyer and Dr. Chet Blackey, Morello had gone through the sales ring profitably as a weanling ($140,000 at Keeneland November) and yearling ($200,000 at Fasig-Tipton select), and he brought one of the top 10 prices among the two-year-olds by his sire last year.
At the Midlantic sale, Morello worked a furlong in :10 1/5, showing a stride length of slightly more than 25 feet and doing it so well that he earned a very good BreezeFig of 71.
Now unbeaten in three starts, Morello is the first stakes winner for his dam, Stop the Wedding (Congrats), and the first graded stakes winner for Classic Empire, as well.
How Morello came to be bred is a tale of a “Pioneer,” Kentucky Derby second Pioneerof the Nile, who sired a first-crop colt named Social Inclusion who reignited this family in the commercial marketplace.
Farm manager for Dixiana and partner in a couple of broodmares, co-breeder Tillyer recalled that “Social Inclusion's dam, Saint Bernadette, got to a point where she wasn't commercial, because buyers are prejudiced against older mares. Then we sold Social Inclusion for $60,000, which was profitable but not maybe what I thought he was worth, and we sold Saint Bernadette. Then, after he started working bullets in California, and I knew I'd made a mistake.”
Breeders spend their time staring into crystal balls, trying to foresee the future of trends and horses, and the partners in Saint Bernadette went to work trying to buy her back. Tillyer recalled that “the mare hadn't gotten in foal to the stallion they bought her for, and I was able to buy her back for Chet and myself, bred her to Pioneer, and sold the colt for $475,000 to China Horse Club and Maverick Racing at the 2016 Keeneland September sale.”
Yes, that was the season after a bay son of Pioneerof the Nile became the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. Nice timing.
Later named Road to Damascus, he was stakes-placed and is now a paddock companion at Trackside Farm outside Versailles, Ky. That placement was engineered by co-breeder Blackey, who is a well-known vet and includes Trackside among his clients.
Blackey continued, “When Social Inclusion was heating up in Florida, broke a track record, was the subject of a multi-million dollar offer from a major racing enterprise, we had managed to buy back his mother and went looking for one of her half-sisters, a mare named Stop the Wedding.
“She was very attractive but on the racetrack had one win from 25 starts. We managed to buy her anyway.”
Blackey's bloodstock partner said, “I found Stop the Wedding located down in Florida, called up the owner and asked if he would consider selling, and purchased the mare. She foaled Two To One (Yesbyjimminy) in Florida, was shipped to Kentucky, and was bred to Bodemeister,” another son of Empire Maker, the sire of Pioneerof the Nile.
“By the time that Morello came along, Stop the Wedding was nearly in the same position as her half-sister some years ago when she produced Social Inclusion. She was nearly non-commercial because she hadn't had the big stakes horse. She'd had some really nice horses, but for one reason or another, they hadn't fulfilled their potential on the racetrack.
“Since Stop the Wedding was becoming non-commercial,” Tillyer said, “we ran her through the Keeneland January sale in 2020, bought back for $11,000 in foal to Cairo Prince (Pioneerof the Nile), gave Nicky Drion a third for boarding interest.”
The mare's foal of 2019 had sold the previous fall. He was a tidy chestnut colt now named Morello.
Tillyer said: “As a weanling, Morello was a really cool horse, really good mind, beautiful body; he had a lot of personal attention and was very smart, very good to be around. Social Inclusion was pretty feisty; Morello is more of a laid-back horse.”
When the partners sent him through the ring at the Keeneland November sale, he was from the first crop by champion Classic Empire, from the Pioneerof the Nile group of sires that has been so successful with this family. The marketplace liked everything it saw and paid $140,000 for the colt.
Blackey said: “This foal Morello was gorgeous, and that was why we went back to Classic Empire with the mare in 2021. A lot of breeding is doing the best you can and trying to get lucky. Breeding back to the same horse is risky because you never know how they'll turn out, no matter how good the weanling or yearling looked.”
With a full sibling to Morello coming soon, the partners are set to get lucky.
Blackey eloquently summarized the situation: “To play on the level we play, it is catching lightning in a jar. We've bred a lot and raced several through the years, and win, lose, or draw it's fun, but it's a lot more fun to win.”
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