Tag: Bloodlines

The marquee events of the weekend at Parx produced the first Grade 1 winners for sires Always Dreaming (by Bodemeister) and Mr. Big (Dynaformer) in the Pennsylvania Derby and Cotillion, respectively.

In the Pennsylvania Derby on Sept. 23, the strongly favored Saudi Crown (Always Dreaming) broke alertly, held the lead at every call, and won by a half-length from Dreamlike (Gun Runner), who was six lengths ahead of the third-place Il Miracolo (Gun Runner).

With this success, Saudi Crown became the first graded winner and first Grade 1 winner for Always Dreaming, whose first crop are now three. Sold first as a short yearling at the 2021 Keeneland January sale for $45,000, Saudi Crown returned to the sales ring as a 2-year-old in training last spring at the OBS April sale.

At that venue, Saudi Crown flitted a furlong in :10 flat, and then the grand-looking gray was sold to Faisal Mohammed Alqatani, Pedro Lanz agent, for $240,000. Presented by Top Line Sales, the handsome colt brought the third-highest price for a juvenile by Always Dreaming in 2022. Racing for Alqatani's FMQ Stable, Saudi Crown has now won three of his five starts, with a second in the G3 Dwyer to Fort Bragg (Tapit) and in the G2 Jim Dandy to odds-on Forte (Violence) after an eventful stretch run.

Now having earned $817,085, Saudi Crown is his sire's leading earner and the standard-bearer for the stallion's offspring. Always Dreaming himself won four of his 11 starts, including the G1 Kentucky Derby and Florida Derby in a string of successes in the spring of the 3-year-old season. The handsome dark bay won the Kentucky classic in splashing fashion on a sloppy track. Subsequently, the best results for Always Dreaming were a second in the G2 Gulfstream Park Mile and a third in the G2 Jim Dandy.

Retired to stud at WinStar, Always Dreaming has covered large books of quality mares, with 213 foals of racing age from his first two crops. The stallion's other stakes winner is Grand Isle, winner of the Best of Ohio Juvenile.

Bred in Kentucky by China Horse Club (CHC Inc.), Saudi Crown is out of the Tapit mare New Narration. China Horse Club purchased the dam for $500,000 at the 2016 Saratoga select yearling sale. The gray daughter of leading sire Tapit did not get to the starting gate but produced Saudi Crown as her second foal.

At the 2021 Keeneland November sale, China Horse Club sold New Narration, then in foal to WinStar sire Yoshida, for $17,000 to Harry Landry. From two foals to race, New Narration is the dam of two winners.

It is faintly ironic that Mr. Big, the sire of the Cotillion Stakes winner Ceiling Crusher, has exactly the same number of foals of racing age (213) as Always Dreaming … but from 10 crops of racing age.

From nine starts, the son of Dynaformer won two, neither black type, and earned $70,920. Those are not “stallion credentials,” and the now 20-year-old Mr. Big has the travel miles to prove it. He entered stud at owner George Krikorian's Starrwood Farm in Kentucky in 2010, then a half-dozen years later shipped to California, where he has made a circuit of California stallion operations. Currently, he is lodged at Legacy Ranch, with a stud fee of $7,500.

The odds against any horse being a successful stallion are large; much larger than most people recognize. The odds against Mr. Big – who didn't have an exceptional race record – making a success as a stallion were so large, that the numbers won't fit on a page.

But Mr. Big did have something going for him: owner Krikorian sent him a nice mare or two every year. Even so, the horse didn't have more than seven foals in any of his first six crops.

But a colt born in 2014, from the stallion's fourth season at stud that resulted in a crop of three, made a lot of noise.

This was Big Score, who won a pair of stakes, including the G3 Transylvania Stakes at Keeneland, and placed in a half-dozen more graded races. He earned $702,792, almost exactly 10 times what his sire had earned.

That put Mr. Big on the breeding map, and the stallion now has a dozen stakes winners. Ceiling Crusher has done her part by becoming her sire's second graded stakes winner and first G1 winner.

With six victories from seven starts, Ceiling Crusher is one of five current year stakes winners for Mr. Big, who also has four racers that are stakes-placed in 2023.

Bred in California by Harris Farms, Ceiling Crusher is one of three winners from her dam, the Indian Charlie mare Palisadesprincess. Krikorian had purchased Palisadesprincess at the 2017 Keeneland November sale for $52,000 in foal to Constitution (Tapit), then resold her in the California Thoroughbred Breeders' Association January sale in 2020 for $4,500. The mare was in foal to Mr. Big, and the buyer was Harris Farms, which bred the resulting foal, Ceiling Crusher.

Whether they come from famous parents or not, whether they cost large amounts of money or smaller ones, the best horses have one thing in common: they show up on the big days and produce their best efforts. They are the big winners.

The post Bloodlines Presented By ThoroughbredAuctions.Com: Different Roads To The Same Destination For Sires Always Dreaming, Mr. Big appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Tapit, the near-white son of Pulpit (by A.P. Indy), reaffirmed his position as one of the most significant sires and pervasively important grandsires in contemporary breeding with the results of racing for 2-year-olds over the weekend. The three-time leading national sire figured closely in the pedigrees of juvenile graded stakes winners V V's Dream at Churchill Downs and Carson's Run at Woodbine.

In the Grade 3 Pocahontas Stakes at Churchill Downs on Sept. 16, the gray filly V V's Dream became the first stakes winner for her freshman sire Mitole (Eskendereya), who has a dozen winners to date from a first crop of 159 registered foals. Forty-eight of those have started, and their earnings of $979,847 place him second on the current list of leading freshmen sires.

Like Mitole, four of the five leaders stand at Spendthrift Farm: the list leader Maximus Mischief (Into Mischief; 19 winners), Mitole, Omaha Beach (War Front; 11 winners), and Vino Rosso (Curlin; 10 winners). Only third-place Flameaway (Scat Daddy; 12 winners) stands elsewhere; he is located at historic Darby Dan Farm.

Each of the top five has one stakes winner; these are early days among the freshmen sires, but the pecking order for speed is beginning to take shape.

As a factor for speed, Mitole is no surprise. The Eclipse Award winner as champion sprinter of 2019, Mitole won the G1 Metropolitan Handicap, Breeders' Cup Sprint, Forego Handicap, and two other sprint stakes during his championship season.

Yet for all his speed, Mitole raced only once at two and was third. So, it required some faith in the horse to expect his offspring would be at their best so early. The appearance of V V's Dream is a revelation of ability. The filly slipped into another gear to take the lead in the Pocahontas, then was hand ridden through the stretch to win by 8 ¾ lengths, getting the mile in 1:36.45.

Bred in Kentucky by Mark Stansell, V V's Dream is out the Tapit mare Quay, a three-time winner at three and four who earned $213,526. With earnings at that level, it's surprising the mare didn't get black type herself, and she was fourth in Smart and Fancy Stakes at Saratoga and fifth in the Kentucky Downs Ladies Sprint. From three foals to race, all are winners.

V V's Dream is the mare's first stakes winner, and Quay's dam, the Tale of the Cat mare Skipper Tale, produced four winners, including stakes-placed Quaver (Blame), who is the dam of Kathleen O. (Upstart), the winner of the G2 Davona Dale and Gulfstream Park Oaks last season.

Skipper Tale is a full sister to G3 Railbird Stakes winner Ashley's Kitty, and they have three other stakes winning siblings: Heart Ashley (Lion Heart), winner of the G3 Cicada and Miss Preakness; Indianapolis (Medaglia d'Oro), winner of the San Pedro Stakes at Santa Anita; and Cupid (Tapit), winner of the G1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita, as well as the G2 Rebel Stakes, West Virginia Derby, and Indiana Derby, earning more than $1.7 million.

The handsome gray Cupid is the point of intersection between the two graded stakes winners. The son of Tapit is the sire of Carson's Run, who came with a bold move, “ten wide into the stretch,” according to the chart, to defeat his opposition in the G1 Summer Stakes at Woodbine.

The chestnut is the first runner and stakes winner for his dam, the Henny Hughes mare Hot N Hectic, who was a winner at four. The second dam, Wicked Wish (Gold Case), is a half-sister to a pair of hickory racehorses: Wishful Tomcat (Tactical Cat), winner of the G3 Discovery Handicap at Aqueduct and $716,843, and Uncle T Seven (Freud), who earned more than a half-million.

A winner of two races and $81,410, Wicked Wish produced the even more formidably tough Rated R Superstar (Kodiak Kowboy), who has won 13 races, retired earlier this year at age 10, and has earned more than $1.8 million, with a trio of G3 stakes victories.

If Carson's Run can combine the longevity of his close relatives with his own obvious talent, he should be a colt who can provide sport of a high order.

Bred in Kentucky by Frankfort Park Farm, Carson's Run was sold by the breeders for $35,000 at the 2022 Keeneland January sale as a short yearling, then resold at the Fasig-Tipton July auction of select yearlings for $67,000, and finally at this year's OBS April sale of 2-year-olds in training, went through the sales ring for the third time. Earning a BreezeFig of 69 while working with a stride length of more than 25 feet, Carson's Run attracted the attention of serious buyers.

Consigned by Randy Miles, Carson's Run brought $170,000 from West Point Thoroughbreds and Steven Bouchey. The consignor said that Bouchey “buys a horse from me every year, and when the West Point guys were showing so much interest in this colt, I told them they ought to get together and buy this colt.

“I didn't know I was selling them a G1 winner,” Miles smiled and shrugged.

Indeed, the good ones can come from anywhere.

The post Bloodlines Presented By Walmac Farm: All Lines Lead To Tapit Among Weekend’s Juvenile Graded Winners appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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When I mention Alfred the Great to most people, they think of the 9th century king of the Saxons who created the concept of a united kingdom that became England. But when I mentioned that to a friend from Midway, Ky., he said, “Aye, he lives down the pike a bit.”

This is Alfred Nuckols, whose Hurstland Farm is barely on the outskirts of Midway. A breeder of the old school, Nuckols has decades of experience with Thoroughbreds, and he breeds sound and athletic racehorses but infrequently sends out the top prices at the sales.

For instance, the winner of the Grade 2 Kentucky Turf Cup at Kentucky Downs on Saturday was Get Smokin (by Get Stormy), and the winner was bred by Nuckols, who sold the charming chestnut at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale for $11,000 to Mary Sullivan, and the price was “either the top price or very nearly the top for a yearling by Get Stormy that year,” Nuckols recalled.

“Mary Sullivan just loved this horse,” Nuckols said. “Once he won a stakes race on her birthday, and that made her very happy.” Sullivan had bred and raced Get Stormy, then stood him at McLean family's Crestwood Farm outside Lexington.

Certainly, Hurstland's son of Get Stormy proved an admirable racer for Sullivan. Get Smokin won his maiden in his second start, going a mile on turf at Belmont Park against eight others in a maiden special and winning by a length in 1:34.48.

Advanced to stakes company, Get Smokin placed in four stakes, including seconds in the G2 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes at Saratoga and the G3 Kitten's Joy Stakes at Gulfstream before winning the G2 G2 Hill Prince Stakes at Belmont Park.

A winner of two more stakes, including the G3 Tampa Bay, before the midpoint of his 4-year-old season, Get Smokin was laid off for eight months, until early in his 4-year-old season, and in that interim, he was sold to the present ownership: Ironhorse Racing Stable LLC, BlackRidge Stables LLC, T-N-T Equine Holdings LLC, and Saratoga Seven Racing Partners LLC.

The tough chestnut was aimed at somewhat higher-profile targets, including a trio of G1 races, by current trainer Mark Casse. But although Get Smokin did place in four graded stakes, he had not won a stakes for his new owners last year at five or this year at six, until the Kentucky Turf Cup. Get Smokin led at every call on the undulating 12-furlong course and won by a length and three-quarters from the veteran Spooky Channel (English Channel), an 8-year-old gelding possessing immense character and similar constitution to his younger adversary.

Third in the race was the comparatively juvenile Santin (Distorted Humor), a 5-year-old who is a two-time Grade 1 winner (Hollywood Derby at three and Arlington Million at four) and twice second at that level. The top three have each won more than $1 million apiece and have gross earnings of slightly more than $5 million collectively.

Bred in Kentucky by Hurstland Farm Inc. and James Green Jr., Get Smokin is the second foal of Hookah Lady. And this is a family that goes back generations in the Nuckols family.

“Dad and Charlie and I bought Sally Catbird (Alibhai) as a broodmare prospect,” Nuckols said. “We bred her daughter Clever Bird (Swoon's Son) and then sold a colt out of her to Joe Straus. That turned out to be Clev Er Tell, who won the Louisiana Derby and Arkansas Derby for Straus and Izzy Proler, and then was favorite for the Kentucky Derby till he got hurt.”

Each generation of the family produced a significant racer, with third dam Smart Queen (King Pellinore) getting G3 Saranac Stakes winner Phi Beta Doc (Doc's Leader), and a full sister to Phi Beta Doc produced champion Dayatthespa (City Zip).

Another full-sister produced multiple stakes winner Spanish Pipedream (Scat Daddy), as well as Hookah Lady (Smoke Glacken).

“Hookah Lady was a little headstrong,” Nuckols said. “She had a ton of speed, but you couldn't hold her. She would go as fast as she could for as far as she could.”

Get Stormin is the mare's second foal. A full sister to the Kentucky Turf Cup winner sold at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale for $102,000 to NBS Stable, and there won't be any more because Get Stormy died on Mar. 6 last year at age 16.

With multiple graded stakes winner Get Stormin blazing trails for the family, Nuckols said, “If you want to breed a sale horse, breed a racehorse.”

The post Bloodlines Presented By Walmac Farm: ‘Alfred The Great’ Breeds Another Budget-Priced Score With Get Smokin appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Was anyone cheering as hard for Nutella Fella in the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga as racing man and sports gambler “Mattress Mack” McIngvale?

Jim McIngvale bought and raced the winner's sire, champion sprinter Runhappy, a bay son of Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver (by Maria's Mon). McIngvale had famously backed Runhappy at good odds in the 2015 Breeders' Cup Sprint and saw his stable star roar to victory in track-record time and earn an Eclipse Award as top sprinter.

When Runhappy went to stud at historic Claiborne Farm outside Paris, Ky., McIngvale backed his horse just like he backs his selections for championships anywhere. To the hilt.

Through the sponsorship of races, as well as advertising in television and online media, McIngvale kept his horse's name in front of the public, as well as breeders, buyers, and trainers.

Now, with Runhappy's fourth crop racing at two, the sire has his first Grade 1 winner in Nutella Fella, and McIngvale is all in with Nutella, the product. The colt was scarcely under the wire when the promotional guru was on the internet with jars of the hazelnut and cocoa cream spread in front of him, offering congratulations to all those connected to this year's Hopeful Stakes winner, including sire Runhappy.

The 11-year-old bay stallion stands at Claiborne Farm for a stud fee of $15,000 and has all but grabbed Grade 1 glory before. Runhappy's first-crop star Following Sea won the G2 Vosburgh and was second in the G1 Haskell and G1 Cigar Mile; the stallion's second-crop star Smile Happy won the G2 Alysheba this year, as well as the G2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at 2, then in between finished second in the G1 Blue Grass Stakes.

The unbeaten Nutella Fella, however, was not going to be denied his Grade 1, but even that success came perilously close to being a shot in the rough.

Trainer Gary Contessa said, “This is such a nice colt, but he is absolutely claustrophobic at the gate. There is something about being in the gate that really gets to him. Before he came to me, he was scratched at the gate more than once. The day of the race [his debut] at Delaware [July 26], he was bad in the paddock, bad on the track, bad at the gate.”

In that race, Nutella Fella broke last, worked his way through the field, came outside late, and won by 2 1/4 lengths from the race favorite Linzer (Street Sense), with the third horse 7 1/2 lengths farther back.

Contessa noted: “I advise Bell Gable Stable, and the owner Nick (Beaver) said 'This colt's coming to you,' and I got him the day after he won at Delaware; I've had him five weeks and he's training like a champ … but he's a maniac at the gate.

“For this colt, talented as he is, to make this kind of racehorse,” Contessa continued, “credit the NYRA gate crew; Hector (Soler, NYRA's head starter) spent hours with this guy because this colt was the worst kind of bad actor at the gate. He'd figured out that he could flip and go home. So, he was sitting back on his hind end, going onto his back, just awful.

“But they kept working with him, and a couple weeks ago, they tried a new device on him, put it on him so that it put a little pressure on his withers, they got him in the gate, and then he took a deep breath and relaxed. You could see him take that breath and relax, because I was standing there in front of the gate, and I said, 'We've got him.' We broke him of that bad habit, and I don't believe it could have happened without the gate crew.”

So Nutella Fella's behavior before the Hopeful, fidgety and uncooperative, was pretty good for him. Contessa said, “This colt wants to be a racehorse, handles himself well and professionally in the race, but he will be continuing his gate schooling. He'll probably be at the gate 25 times between now and the Champagne [the next projected start for Nutella Fella]. That's his Achilles' heel, but we couldn't give up on him because he had trained as well as any graded stakes colt I'd ever had.”

Bred in Kentucky by the Lyster family's Ashview Farm and Colts Neck Stable, Nutella Fella is the second foal of Krissy's Candy (Candy Ride). The dam had sold for $210,000 at the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale to Mike Ryan, agent for e Five Racing, and Stephen Lyster claimed the filly out of her third start, a maiden claiming event at Churchill Downs in November 2017, for $50,000.

Ashview had acquired the second dam, G2 Adirondack Stakes second Unbridled Beauty (Unbridled's Song) for $135,000 at the 2011 Keeneland November sale in foal to Harlan's Holiday. The third dam is a full sister to champion sprinter Housebuster (Mt. Livermore).

As a yearling, Nutella Fella brought only $12,000 at the 2022 Keeneland September yearling sale, and his dam has a yearling colt by Preakness Stakes winner War of Will (War Front) to sell at the September sale that begins next week. The mare has a weanling colt by G1 winner Yaupon (Uncle Mo) and was bred back to Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie).

This pedigree has its fair share of champion sprinters. And who bred Runhappy? The Lysters at Ashview.

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