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Bloodlines: Northern Dancer’s Small Stature And Long Shadow

There is much to be said for pausing and considering how much the sport and the breed owes to the great sire Northern Dancer (by Nearctic).

The great little bay, who stood 15.1 hands when he was feeling especially perky, was foaled 60 years ago, on May 27, 1961, and he overcame every barrier placed before him by nature or man.

Northern Dancer, it was said, was too small a yearling to be much good; he was a May foal and would need a lot of time to be any good; he was too small to be a classic horse; he did not have the pedigree to race effectively at 10 furlongs; he was too small to make a stallion; he was foaled in the wrong country; he was by an unimportant sire; he was standing in the wrong place to have a chance to succeed at stud.

With a toss of his dramatically striped head and a flourish of his thick, black tail, Northern Dancer proved all those comments wrong. Every one.

A winner in 14 of his 18 starts, Northern Dancer had a first-rate race record, but there have been horses with even more exemplary records who were, shall we say, less successful at stud. To the contrary, Northern Dancer was even more successful, even more influential, and even more pervasive as an influence at stud.

The greatest of the good sons by Nearctic, Northern Dancer was too big to stay in Canada; mares needed access to the horse, and owner-breeder E.P. Taylor obliged by developing Windfields Farm in Maryland, which became for a time the most important breeding operation in the world due to one stallion.

The demand for the offspring of Northern Dancer had to be seen to be believed, and in the sultry weather of the July select yearling sales in Kentucky especially, the money that his stock would bring in the heady days of the 1980s bloodstock boom would make anyone swoon.

And, if a single offspring of Northern Dancer would be chosen as the wellspring of the sire's reputation and the early star of his importance to the breed, that colt would be Nijinsky.

A big, stretchy bay rather unlike his sire, Nijinsky sold as a select yearling at the Ontario yearling sale in 1968. He was from his sire's second crop and was yet an excellent representative of the Northern Dancer type in body mass and racing enthusiasm.

Trained by Vincent O'Brien and racing for Charles Engelhard, Nijinsky won his first 11 races, including the only English Triple Crown from Bahram's in 1935 to the present. That the dashing, grand colt lost his last two races was unfortunate, but it wasn't the end of the world. Nijinsky retired, as planned, to stud at Claiborne Farm and became Northern Dancer's first great son at stud.

Many others followed, and that in itself is the greatest anomaly in all the exceptions to the norm that Northern Dancer flouted.

Even very good sires rarely get more than one really good son to carry on their male-line, but Northern Dancer had at least a half-dozen very high-class sons. In addition to Nijinsky, Northern Dancer's important sons included Sadler's Wells, Lyphard, Nureyev, The Minstrel, Vice Regent, Northern Taste, Storm Bird, and Danzig. If any of those are objectionable, there are others to fill their spot, such as Dixieland Band, El Gran Senor, Try My Best, Northfields, and Northern Baby.

Son after son sired a champion, a classic winner, or winners at the level in racing around the world.

Yet for all that transformative genetic energy, only a handful of those sons have bred on to the present, as the breed has regressed to the norm of typically only one or no successful sire to carry on for a very important stallion.

Of all the Northern Dancer sons, those male lines today that stand strongest are through Sadler's Wells (especially Galileo), Storm Bird (the Storm Cat crowd, especially Into Mischief today), and Danzig.

The latter is the male-line source through Green Desert for Helvic Dream (Power), winner of the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh over the weekend. Danzig is also source of the broodmare sire line through Danehill, and there are four other Northern Dancer lines in the pedigree of Helvic Dream. Lyphard through the great racer Dancing Brave and Lomond through his G2-winning daughter Inchmurrin do their part, and Nijinsky is twice in the pedigree, first through his son Green Dancer and then through the third dam of Helvic Dream, the winning Cascassi, who is a half-sister to Diminuendo (Diesis), winner of the English, Irish, and Yorkshire Oaks, all G1.

From the perspective of history, the more Northern Dancer we find in a pedigree, the better. Genetically, he's as close as we've come in breeding to something that's all good.

So on this May 27, take moment. Heave a sigh. Think of past glories and the little bay horse who could.

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Bloodlines: Rombauer’s Success Blends Speed In Female Family With Classic Branch Of Mr. Prospector Line

Becoming the fifth Grade 1 winner by his sire Twirling Candy, Rombauer rocked the racing world back on its heels with a 3 ½-length victory in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md., on Saturday.

Furthermore, if we consider classic success the pinnacle of Thoroughbred achievement, then Rombauer appeared to add another dimension to his pedigree, especially to his quality female family, which has proven itself one of the fastest in the world.

The Preakness winner's dam, the unraced Cowboy Cal mare Cashmere, is a half-sister to the tremendous sprinter California Flag, a winner five times at the G3 level sprinting. The gelded son of Avenue of Flags (by Seattle Slew) earned $1.2 million making an exhibition of speed, won the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint, and set a course record at Santa Anita for 6 ½ furlongs.

California Flag's full sister was the highly talented Cambiocorsa. She won half of her 18 starts, earning more than a half-million, and becoming the victor in a pair of G3 races. Despite those significant accomplishments, she has shown even more at stud.

And one of the most fascinating things about Cambiocorsa is that she has translated her speed into performers who race with distinction at longer distances than she excelled at herself.

Cambiocorsa is the dam of four stakes winners, and two of her stakes-winning daughters, Moulin de Mougin (Curlin) and Schiaparelli (Ghostzapper) won at the G2 level. Also, both of them showed their form at distances beyond sprints. Moulin de Mougin won the G2 John C. Mabee at Del Mar, and Schiaparelli won the G2 Royal Heroine at Hollywood Park.

As daughters of stallions who each won a Breeders' Cup Classic at 10 furlongs, Moulin de Mougin and Schiaparelli had reason to show form over longer distances than their dam, but some families do not move up when bred to classic sires. Instead, some families lose both speed and class, becoming lesser performers at distances short or long.

Rombauer winning the Preakness

In addition to the racetrack successes of these two fillies, their half-sister Vionnet, by Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense, ran third in the G1 Rodeo Drive. A stud, Vionnet has produced the outstanding Roaring Lion (Kitten's Joy), who won a quartet of G1 races in England and Ireland at distances from 8 to 11 furlongs. Roaring Lion was placed at the top of the handicap rankings in Ireland and England for performers from 9 ½ to 11 furlongs.

That is a sharp upgrade in distance and level of achievement from “just” being a good-class sprinter family.

Now Cashmere, a half-sister to Cambiocorsa and California Flag, has done her part by producing a U.S. classic winner in Rombauer. Since she was unraced, we don't know the racing class of Cashmere, but it would appear to have been useful, at least, because she has four winners from four runners, with three of them earning well into six figures, and a pair have black type, with Cono (Lucky Pulpit) being stakes-placed.

It might seem surprising that the classic winner for this family came from Twirling Candy (Candy Ride), whose best victory was the G1 Malibu at seven furlongs. The horse also won a trio of G2 races at nine furlongs, as well as placing a close second in the G1 Pacific Classic at 1 1/4 miles. From the start, moreover, Twirling Candy has shown that his stock are not limited to sprints, and his best go a mile or more.

In addition to siring last year's winner of the Queen's Plate in Canada (One Bad Boy), Twirling Candy has G1 winners Gift Box (Santa Anita Handicap), Concrete Rose (Belmont Oaks), Finley'sluckycharm (Madison Stakes), and now Rombauer.

A good-sized horse with scope and good bone, Twirling Candy has sired 26 stakes winners to date and has progeny earnings of more than $34 million from seven crops of racing age.

The stallion also comes from the most classic branch of the Mr. Prospector male line, through the great stallion's son Fappiano. This is not the omnipresent Fappiano branch through Kentucky Derby winner Unbridled, who sired winners of each of the Triple Crown races, and that has added glories to the sport such as Triple Crown winner American Pharoah.

Instead, this is a branch of Fappiano through Cryptoclearance, one of the toughest of racehorses, through his grandson Candy Ride, an elite sire whose son Rock Your World won the G1 Santa Anita Derby and was one of the favored colts in the Kentucky Derby.

Instead of success there, the male line has prospered through the rapidly progressing Rombauer and his rising tide of a female family.

Frank Mitchell is author of Racehorse Breeding Theories, as well as the book Great Breeders and Their Methods: The Hancocks. In addition to writing the column “Sires and Dams” in Daily Racing Form for nearly 15 years, he has contributed articles to Thoroughbred Daily News, Thoroughbred Times, Thoroughbred Record, International Thoroughbred, and other major publications. In addition, Frank is chief of biomechanics for DataTrack International and is a hands-on caretaker of his own broodmares and foals in Central Kentucky. Check out his Bloodstock in the Bluegrass blog.

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Bloodlines: English Channel’s Stature As A Leading Sire Grows On Racetrack, If Not In Auction Ring

Is there a less-appreciated upper-tier sire in the country than English Channel?

Channel Cat's victory in the Grade 1 Man o' War Stakes was a reminder of the excellence that the stallion imparts to his offspring and that English Channel showed emphatically during his own racing career.

The 19-year-old son of Smart Strike and the Theatrical mare Belva proved himself a hickory racer, winning 13 of 23 starts over four seasons and $5.3 million. At the races, English Channel began his career the right way: winning his debut at 2 at Saratoga.

The horse then proceeded to win four of his first five starts at 3, including the Grade 3 Virginia Derby, and he also placed second in a pair of G1 races, the Secretariat at Arlington and the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational at Belmont.

English Channel returned to the races at 4 to win a trio of G1 stakes: the Turf Classic at Churchill Downs, the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont, and the United Nations at Monmouth Park. Then the horse returned at 5 and did the same thing. And this time, a trio of G1s, the Turf Classic at Belmont and the United Nations, plus the Breeders' Cup Turf run at Monmouth Park, brought English Channel the Eclipse Award as champion male turf horse.

And a turn at stud.

English Channel's sire, Smart Strike, could not have been hotter at the time. He was the leading sire in North America, due not only to English Channel but also to Curlin, who was elected champion 3-year-old colt and Horse of the Year in 2007 after G1 victories in the Preakness, Jockey Club Gold Cup, and Breeders' Cup Classic.

The cachet of a stallion like Smart Strike – himself a son of the great Mr. Prospector – who could sire such good horses brought considerable attention to his sons and then sent them to stud with lordly expectations of success.

Yet, aside from their sire, high racing class, and chestnut coats, two horses could hardly be more different than English Channel and Curlin.

The latter is a brawny beast who left some breeders wondering whether he might not be too massive a specimen to breed on successfully. Time and the proof of elite racing class have disproven those concerns.

The exact opposite concern was held for English Channel, who came to stud looking so racy, lean, and elegant that some breeders wondered if he would produce enough muscle and mass in his stock to make them high-class racehorses.

Time and the test of the racecourse have proven that English Channel can sire those top horses, with 30 graded stakes winners to date, which is more than half of all his 58 stakes winners. They come in a range of sizes, colors, and shapes that has tended to bewilder the commercial market, which values consistency very nearly as much as quality.

A stallion of similar character is the broodmare sire of Channel Cat: Kitten's Joy. A champion turf racer like English Channel, Kitten's Joy throws a wild array of physical types, from the lean-bodied sort who remind us of whippets to the hulking powerhouses similar to himself.

Yet both Kitten's Joy and English Channel are very good sires, especially of turf horses, and in part that is because a turf horse has to have some level of pace to succeed. It is a great gift if the racer possesses a first-rate change of pace like these two champion turf performers, but the ability to get up to the lead and tough it out to the wire is evidence of a grand racing character and a hardy constitution.

Channel Cat possesses these in spades. He relied upon his strengths so effectively that he made the Man o' War a considerable test of stamina (starting with an opening quarter mile in :22.69) and then refused to be swamped for speed in the final three furlongs, which he ran in :35.85.

In addition to his own genetic contribution to the greatest game, English Channel has succeeded because breeders, especially the owner of Calumet Farm, have believed in the stallion and have supported him with quality mares. For a stallion who does not often get the “sales type” of yearling, this is an essential support system, and the sport is all the richer for it.

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Bloodlines: Kentucky Derby Winner Medina Spirit’s Pedigree Not As Obscure As It Might Seem

The lyrics of Dan Fogleberg's song Run for the Roses, “the chance of a lifetime in a lifetime of chance,” are well understood in assessing Medina Spirit, the winner of the 2021 Kentucky Derby. By measures of pedigree fashion, economic success, or marquee appeal, the dark brown son of Protonico and Mongolian Changa (by Brilliant Speed) was not a star.

But in the Grade 1 classic at Churchill Downs, the colt who cost $1,000 as a short yearling, by an under-appreciated sire and out of a mare who was given away, bucked the odds, flattened the probabilities, and looked like several million dollars as he led from early 'till late and won the Kentucky Derby by a half-length from Mandaloun (Into Mischief).

On pedigree, Medina Spirit is not poorly or even quite obscurely bred. Neither could it be said that his parents are trend setters in bloodstock, at least not until the first Saturday in May.

The colt's sire is the beautifully pedigreed Protonico, a dark bay son of leading sire Giant's Causeway out of the A.P. Indy mare Alpha Spirit, a daughter of Chilean champion and U.S. G1 winner Wild Spirit (Hussonet). The latter won a trio of G1s in her homeland for owner-breeder Haras Sumaya, which also bred Alpha Spirit and Protonico, and in the U.S., Wild Spirit won the G1 Ruffian, was second in the G1 Apple Blossom and Personal Ensign.

Protonico's race record likewise was nothing to sneer at. A three-time winner at the Grade 3 level, the son of Giant's Causeway stepped to win the G2 Alysheba at Churchill Downs in 2015 as a 4-year-old. In addition, he also ran second in the G1 Clark Handicap at Churchill at three and was third in the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont at five.

Perhaps the prejudice against “turf horses” put Protonico in the wrong category, even though he could make a good claim as one of his sire's best dirt performers.

The colt represents the Storm Cat branch of Northern Dancer through the former's best stallion son Giant's Causeway, and this is the second year in a row that a descendant of Storm Cat won the Kentucky Derby after Authentic last year, who comes from Storm Cat through Harlan, Harlan's Holiday, and Into Mischief.

Whereas agent Gary Young was charged with finding his client a Protonico, and Medina Spirit was the result, the dam's side of the Derby winner's pedigree wasn't a commercial model either until her son began racing.

From the first crop of the Dynaformer stallion Brilliant Speed, Mongolian Changa was a big, scopey yearling who appealed to trainer Wayne Rice, and he purchased the filly for $9,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale in 2015. Racing only at two, Mongolian Changa won a maiden special at Presque Isle in August of her juvenile season and earned $25,970 in six starts.

A reported bowed tendon having ended the filly's career at that point, Mongolian Changa was sent to Protonico at Taylor Made Farm in 2017, and Gail Rice bred the Kentucky Derby winner from the mare in 2018. Then as part of a divorce, Rice sold the colt as a short yearling for $1,000 to Christy Whitman, who brought the colt back as a 2-year-old in the June sale of horses in training last year that was postponed to July due to the pandemic.

At that sale, Medina Spirit rocked his three-furlong breeze in :33 flat and earned the highest BreezeFig at the distance last year for his performance at the sale. Neither the time nor the fig brought a rush of buyers to Whitman's barn, but the dark brown colt is a study in how a horse should look when breezing. The breeze video can be seen here.

Gary Young, as agent, acquired the colt for Amr Zedan's Zedan Racing Stables. Zedan had wanted to buy a juvenile by Protonico because he's good friend to the owner-breeder of Protonico, Oussama Aboughazale.

Aboughazale owns Haras Sumaya near Santiago, Chile, and is a primary player in the drama that brought Medina Spirit into being and to prominence. In addition to urging his friend to purchase a Protonico 2-year-old, Aboughazale bred and raced the sire, as well as the dam and second dam.

Although at least one Grade 1 victory is nearly a requirement for a term at stud in Kentucky, the owner of Sumaya Stud wanted his horse to stand in Kentucky and backed him each year with mares. That is a difficult push commercially, however, and the horse stood his first season at Taylor Made Farm, where Medina Spirit was conceived, then stood his second season in 2018 at Darby Dan, and has since been resident at Castleton Lyons on Iron Works Pike north of Lexington.

Castleton's farm manager, Pat Hayes, said that the farm had received more than two dozen requests for seasons in the two days after the Kentucky Derby, and breeders are clearly not having trouble identifying Protonico now that Medina Spirit is a household name.

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