NY Favorites, Top Sire Lines, Head to Empire State

The New York State Thoroughbred Breeding and Development Fund's incentive and rewards program continues to drive new interest and investment in New York stallions, particularly those whose pedigrees fit the race conditions and surfaces of the New York Racing Association (NYRA). Sons of champions and horses that were popular and successful in New York are debuting at stud and coming with significant mare bookings generated in part by the buyers' market at the breeding stock sales during the past three months.

Rick Burke's Irish Hill Century Farm, established by his ancestors in 1883, is located in Stillwater. In partnership with Michael Lischin and Anya Sheckley's Dutchess Views Farm, Irish Hill will stand six stallions in 2021 including New York's leading sire, Big Brown (Boundary), and New York's leading sire of 2-year-olds, War Dancer (War Front).

New to stud in 2021 and new to the roster at Irish Hill are King for a Day (Uncle Mo) and Lookin At Lee (Lookin At Lucky).

“King for a Day arrived in late December, and that was a big day for us and for breeders in New York,” said Irish Hill Century Farm stallion manager Bill Leak. “Being a son of Uncle Mo, who currently has three of the top four 2-year-old sires in the country, is definitely a big plus. He's going to provide a lot of good opportunities for New York breeders.”

King for a Day is owned by Red Oak Stable and was trained by Todd Pletcher. Earning $260,550 in seven starts, King for a Day had three wins, a second and a third. He beat Maximum Security (New Year's Day) in the Pegasus S. at Monmouth Park but ran into traffic in the GI Haskell S. four weeks later, finishing fifth. High-cruising speed is a term that has been used to describe the running style of King for a Day and that of his sire, Uncle Mo.

“With King for a Day, it's that high-cruising speed that stands out. That is what King for a Day really exceled at,” said Leak. “When you watch him race and you watch him go head-to-head with Maximum Security, that's what they do. They go out there and they just try to keep a high speed the first half of the race and slow down the least. King for a Day was the much better horse that day. He beat Maximum Security by a length.

“Uncle Mos have done really well at getting out there early with early speed in dirt races and carrying it through the finish. I think that's something at which he's going to do well, bringing that into the program in New York.”

King for a Day's dam, Ubetwereven (French Deputy), has consistently produced winners for Red Oak Stable.

“King for a Day was bred and raced by Red Oak Stable,” said Leak. “They owned the mare, and she's produced three stakes winners for them. They've got a very deep family history of breeding horses in Florida, Kentucky and now in New York. They're very committed to this stallion, making sure that he gets the right horses to start off properly as a young stallion.”

In fact, Ubetwereven was featured by TDN in June, 2019 and coined 'the gift that keeps on giving.' Rick Sacco, Red Oak's racing and operations manager, told TDN, “I bought the mare privately for Mr. Brunetti about 15 years ago off of Irv Cowan in Kentucky. We were looking to upgrade and Mr. Cowan was looking to cut back and sell some mares. I just loved her physically and loved French Deputy. She is a mare with a lot of bone, good conformation and just looked the part.

“King for a Day is her third stakes winner. We've had Ima Jersey Girl and Feel That Fire, who is the dam of Mind Control, a multiple graded stakes winner of over $1 million. King for a Day is her first stakes winner since we moved our mares to Kentucky.”

Ubetwereven has produced seven winners from nine foals of racing age. Three of those winners have captured black-type events. She'll be bred back to Uncle Mo this year.

“King for a Day's conformation, I think, is very similar to Uncle Mo. He stands over a lot of ground. He's got a lot of leg, a little bit of a shorter back–something that we've been seeing lately, that has been proven to show that high-cruising speed ability,” said Leak.

“We've been fortunate and lucky enough to have had our hands on a few Uncle Mos,” said Sacco. “And King for a Day is definitely one of the big, good-looking ones.”

Leak reports that King for a Day has been very well received by New York breeders.

“They see an opportunity here for him to bring things to their mares that maybe they haven't seen before, or they have seen before and were able to capitalize on,” said Leak. “He's a total outcross through his first four lines. So, there are opportunities for breeders to breed all sorts of mares to him. Uncle Mo and his sons have been very successful with multiple different lines of breeding.”

Continued Sacco: “Red Oak will be supporting King for a Day with at least 12 mares as of today and that number could rise to 15. Some have been recently retired from the track, a couple are from our Kentucky division, some are recently purchased and we will be attending the upcoming February Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Sale.”

Sacco added, “Red Oak looks forward to participating in every facet of the lucrative New York-bred program. There is benefit in owning a stallion in New York and receiving stallion awards, breeders' awards and rich New York-bred restricted race and stakes programs offered to owners.”

Lookin At Lee was second in the 2017 Kentucky Derby | Coady

Also new to Irish Hill and Dutchess Views is Lookin At Lee. The 2017 GI Kentucky Derby runner-up (from post one at odds of 33-1) to Always Dreaming (Bodemeister) earned $1,343,188 for L and N Racing, a four-way partnership composed of Lee, Andy and Michael Levinson, and Don Nelson. The winner of the Ellis Park Juvenile S. at two and the Downs At Albuquerque H. at age five–trained throughout his career by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen–was fourth in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita.

In the first leg of the Triple Crown, Lookin At Lee beat Classic Empire (Pioneerof the Nile), to whom he was runner up twice as a 2-year-old, as well as Battle of Midway (Smart Strike), Tapwrit (Tapit), Girvin (Tale of Ekati), Practical Joke (Into Mischief) and others in that talented field.

“It was so exciting and special,” said Lee Levinson. “Since Risen Star [Secretariat, in 1988], no horse that started in the Kentucky Derby from post position one before Lookin At Lee had finished in the top three.”

The Levinsons bought Lookin At Lee as a yearling for $70,000 at the first horse sale they ever attended.

“He was in Book 1 at Keeneland,” said Levinson. “We liked the way he looked and we liked that his family on both sides has proven winners. We would have paid more.”

As for what Lookin At Lee brings as a young sire, Levinson said his soundness and health while being consistently competitive at that level of racing throughout his career stands out most dramatically. His pedigree on both sides is a close second.

“After the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, he went on and competed in exclusively graded stakes for his 3-year-old campaign, racing in eight graded stakes over five months,” said Leak. “He's a very durable horse, and I think that's one thing he brings to the New York program–durability–as well as a high performance level.”

“The New York breeders' program is one of the better ones,” said Levinson. “And with a horse like him who stayed so healthy, ran in all three Triple Crown races and had no leg issues through these long campaigns, we thought he could really make a name for himself in New York.”

Lookin At Lee was bred in Kentucky by Ray Hanson and is out of a Langfuhr mare, Langara Lass. His sire, Classic-winning Lookin At Lucky, is also the sire of five-time Grade I winner Accelerate and Kentucky Derby winner Country House, who are both at stud.

“It took 23 years of Mr. Hanson breeding this family and refining it to get to this point where he got Lookin At Lee,” said Leak. “Not only did he get Lookin At Lee, but he also got his half-brother, Blended Citizen [Proud Citizen], who's a multiple Grade III stakes winner, and also his half-sister Battlefield Angel [Proud Citizen], who produced Manny Wah [Will Take Charge], who ran in the Breeders' Cup Sprint this year.”

Manny Wah won the Duncan F. Kenner S. his first time out in 2021, bringing his lifetime earnings to $501,888.

“Lookin At Lee's conformation is very classic. Durability is what you see when you see him,” said Leak. “He stands up straight. He's got good feet, good bones. He's got a great shoulder, a nice back, and a good motor to go with it.”

At Irish Hill, breeders are showing interest in Lookin At Lee and the Levinsons have sent a number of mares to the farm.

“We're expecting a lot of good support for Lookin At Lee,” said Leak. “The Levinsons bought mares in the breeding stock sales this season that are here and that are going to be foaling and bred back to Lookin At Lee. We've also gotten good support from the local breeders already committing mares to Lookin At Lee.”

As for the 7-year-old's adjustment to life on the farm, he appears calm and confident.

“Lookin At Lee is really easy to be around. He's got a great personality,” said Leak. “He's a very smart horse who is willing to be a participant in whatever it is you want him to do.”

Added Asmussen: “He's a lovely horse. He's a talented, sound horse that will be a good addition to the New York breeding program.”

The post NY Favorites, Top Sire Lines, Head to Empire State appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Checking In With Big Brown, Paul Pompa’s Biggest Star

The dispersal of the late Paul Pompa Jr. at the Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale has given the racing world a chance to reflect on the life of the accomplished owner and breeder, but the most notable monument to Pompa's success on the racetrack stands in a paddock outside Stillwater, N.Y.

Big Brown took Pompa to the cusp of a Triple Crown in 2008, and he brought home the Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old male. Pompa bought the son of Boundary for $190,000 at the 2007 Keeneland April 2-year-olds in training sale, and he accumulated partners in the horse following the colt's 11 1/4-length debut triumph as a juvenile at Saratoga.

By the time Big Brown retired to Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky., for the 2009 breeding season, he had won seven of eight starts and earned over $3.6 million on the racetrack. He stood his first six seasons at Three Chimneys before being relocated to New York in 2015.

Prior to the move, Big Brown was responsible for the most expensive 2-year-old sale graduate of 2012 (the $1.3-million Darwin from his first crop), and the betting public's second choice in the 2015 Kentucky Derby (Grade 1 winner and classic-placed Dortmund), but the loudest fireworks were spaced too far apart to meet the expectations set upon his arrival in Kentucky.

New York was the site of Big Brown's only defeat on the racetrack, when he failed to clinch the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes, but his full-time residency in the state has gotten off to a positive start on the track and in the breeding shed.

Big Brown will stand the 2021 breeding season at Irish Hill & Dutchess Views Stallions in Stillwater, N.Y., where his oldest New York-sired runners recently turned five.

His first crop of New York-sired runners saw two horses earn points on the Kentucky Derby trail, in G3 Jeff Ruby Steaks winner Somelikeithotbrown and G3 Withers Stakes runner-up Not That Brady. Somelikeithotbrown, in particular, has carried the banner for Big Brown's first class of New York-sired runners, highlighted by a win in last year's G2 Bernard Baruch Handicap at Saratoga.

“Big Brown's been a huge addition to Irish Hill,” said stallion manager Bill Leak. “To have a Kentucky Derby winner stand anywhere is just an honor to be a part of, and we've enjoyed every aspect of that. Him being such a classy horse on top of it, it's just a thrill to work with him every day. It's why we're here, to work with horses like that.

“On the business side, he's been a huge boon for Irish Hill,” Leak continued. “We've had some really good mares and really good owners because of Big Brown. We've built some really good relationships, and we look forward to building more in the future, all because of him.”

Leak described Big Brown as an easy keeper at his new farm, where he moved in 2017 after Irish Hill Century Farm and the stallion's previous residence Dutchess Views Farm merged their stallion operations. Big Brown is owned by Andrew Cohen's Sunrise Stallions.

When Big Brown arrived at the farm, Leak said managing the politics of introducing a new stallion into the ecosystem was one of the biggest challenges, as it is for any stallion.

“You just take your time,” he said. “It is a learning process. It took us a while to figure out he didn't like being near certain horses, and we needed to alter his turnout schedule, where he got turned out or where other horses got turned out, just to learn his personality. Stallions are so territorial. They've really got to be careful about who's around them, and he's such a proud horse, we had to be careful about what other horses were near him.”

Though he's further removed from the spotlight than he was a decade ago, Irish Hill Century owner Rick Burke said Big Brown maintains a fan following in his new digs, especially during the Saratoga meet, when visitors descend upon the area from around the country.

“He loves attention,” Burke said. “Him and Bellamy Road, they know they're the big dogs on the block. When they walk into that breeding shed, they just know what to do. They have a lot of presence to them.”

Despite having two horses from his first New York crop make noise on the Derby trail, and Dortmund coming into his own shortly after his sire moved north, Burke said those runners didn't move the needle as much as one might expect in terms of drawing mares. Getting winners in Saratoga, such as Somelikeithotbrown's Bernard Baruch, grabbed the attention of New York breeders.

“It can make a stallion like him,” Burke said. “It can reinvigorate where people see his name a lot, having a big Saratoga meet.”

Big Brown was also well-represented in 2020 by Funny Guy, whose three stakes wins last year included the John Morrissey Handicap at Saratoga. He also finished second in the G2 Vosburgh Stakes.

Funny Guy and Somelikeithotbrown helped lead Big Brown to the top of New York's sire list in 2020 by both winners and earnings, notching 57 winners and more than $2.7 million made on the racetrack, respectively.

“He's a textbook quality horse,” Leak said. “Him being the number-one sire in New York is not a surprise, I don't think. He's just shown it throughout his career that he's just that kind of animal.”

Once Big Brown went off to stud, Pompa's most successful tie to the stallion came as a breeder. In Big Brown's second year at Three Chimneys, Pompa's program produced Coach Inge, who sold to Repole Stables as a 2-year-old and went on to win the G2 Brooklyn Invitational Stakes in 2015. He followed that victory with in-the-money efforts in the G2 Suburban Handicap and G1 Woodward Stakes.

Popma's biggest triumph with a Big Brown runner of his own was the homebred Send It In, who won nine of 18 starts, highlighted by the G3 Excelsior Stakes in 2017.

The post Checking In With Big Brown, Paul Pompa’s Biggest Star appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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