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Bloodlines: Red Flag Flies The Banner For Sire Tamarkuz, La Troienne Family

Becoming the seventh freshman sire to get a graded stakes winner, Tamarkuz (by Speightstown) also chalked up his first stakes winner with the victory of Red Flag in the Grade 3 Bob Hope Stakes at Del Mar on Nov. 15.

Red Flag rolled into contention at the half-mile marker after odds-on favorite Spielberg (Union Rags) and second-choice Weston (Hit It a Bomb) roasted each other with a quarter-mile in :22.73 and a half in :45.34. At the half-mile pole, Red Flag was already at Weston's throatlatch, and the red colt went on to win by 7 1/4 lengths in 1:23.56 for the seven furlongs.

This was the second victory from three starts by the progressive colt that trainer John Shirreffs described as “not a great work horse in the mornings.” That contributed to making Red Flag the second-longest price on the odds board, but such will not be the case in the future.

Nor was Red Flag the only longshot who succeeded on Sunday; the immediate success of his sire Tamarkuz was not a given. A handsome son of leading sire Speightstown, Tamarkuz proved his mettle on the racetrack, racing through his 6-year-old season and winning his best race at that age in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, when he had subsequent champions Gun Runner and Accelerate behind him.

With only 29 foals in his first crop, Tamarkuz was not warmly embraced by local breeders when the horse went to stud. Nonetheless, he is making believers.

For any young sire prospect to be commercially effective, he needs to attract 100 mares or more in his initial book. That general number is necessary for a new sire to have much chance of keeping up with the other top members of any entering stallion crop of the last quarter-century or so.

Yet Tamarkuz, from 29 foals, has 10 starters, five winners, a graded stakes winner, and he now sits in 23rd on the list of freshmen sires.

Bred in Kentucky by Elaine Macpherson, Red Flag is the second stakes winner out of Surrender (Stormy Atlantic), whom Macpherson purchased through agent Gayle Van Leer for $40,000 out of the 2014 Keeneland November sale. At the time of sale, Surrender was a 5-year-old and was carrying her second foal on a cover to the Tiznow stallion Morning Line. The foal she produced in 2015 was a filly later named Surrender Now, and two years later, Surrender Now won the 2017 Landaluce Stakes.

Red Flag is the mare's fourth foal and second stakes winner. Sent to the 2018 Keeneland November sale, Red Flag sold for $50,000 to Rosetown Bloodstock out of the Warrendale Sales consignment. Brought to the 2019 Keeneland September yearling sale, the colt resold out of the Eaton Sales consignment for $220,000 to Michael Dorsey and races for Tina and Jerome Moss.

All of Surrender's four foals of racing age are winners, and the mare has a yearling colt by Tiznow named Tiz Toujours, who was bought back for $23,000 at the 2020 October yearling sale at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky. The mare's weanling is a colt by first-crop sire Mendelssohn and already carries the name Calm Sea, and Surrender was covered by Catholic Boy in his first season at stud in 2020.

A non-winner from two starts on the racetrack, Surrender has a most distinguished family. By one of Storm Cat's most consistent sons in Stormy Atlantic, Surrender is out of the Mr. Prospector mare Beaucette, a stakes-placed daughter of the graded stakes winner Mackie (Summer Squall).

Mackie was one of seven stakes winners out of the great broodmare Glowing Tribute (Graustark). The others included Grade 1 winners Sea Hero (Polish Navy), winner of the Kentucky Derby and Travers, and Hero's Honor (Northern Dancer), winner of the G1 United Nations and Bowling Green, as well as the latter's full sister Wild Applause.

Wild Applause was the only one of Glowing Tribute's daughters to carry on in a fashion similar to her famous dam, producing four graded stakes winners: Yell (A.P. Indy), Roar (Forty Niner), Trumpets Blare (Fit to Fight), and Eastern Echo (Damascus).

Although not that successful, Mackie produced a pair of graded winners, the Grade 2 Arlington Classic winner Mr. Mellon (Red Ransom) and Grade 3 winner Seeking the Best (Seeking the Gold). This branch of the family went a bit quiet with Beaucette, but her daughter Surrender has put this branch of the great La Troienne family back in the spotlight again.

Sold out of Marcel Boussac's stud in France to E.R. Bradley nearly a century ago, La Troienne produced 14 named foals, first for Bradley and then for Greentree Stud after the dispersal of Bradley's bloodstock. Five of the great mare's foals won stakes and even more became important producers. From the champions and major performers that her family has produced decade after decade around the world, La Troienne is a touchstone of quality in international breeding.

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Bloodlines: Breeders’ Cup Future Stars Friday Was Draped In Godolphin Blue

Future Stars Friday at the Breeders' Cup at Keeneland produced a banner day for Sheikh Mohammed's Darley America at Jonabell Farm.

The stallion division took the bows with freshman sire Nyquist (by Uncle Mo) as the sire of Vequist, who was the winner in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, and the broodmare side of the operation scored with the victory of the homebred Essential Quality (Tapit) in the G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

Both 2-year-olds are likely selections at the Eclipse Awards as leaders of their divisions on the racetrack.

Vequist propelled her sire, champion juvenile colt and Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist, to the top of the freshman sire list, where he is virtually certain to stay with almost double the earnings of second-place Not This Time (Giant's Causeway). The third-place freshman sire is Laoban (Uncle Mo), who was recently purchased and moved from New York to WinStar Farm in Kentucky, where he will stand alongside the fourth-place freshman Outwork (Uncle Mo).

So, three of the top four freshmen are sons of Uncle Mo, and of the six freshmen sires who have sired a graded stakes winner, two are by Uncle Mo (Nyquist and Laoban), and two are by Giant's Causeway (Not This Time and Brody's Cause). The other two freshmen sires of graded winners are Hit It a Bomb (War Front) and Texas Red (Afleet Alex).

The most common denominator among the elite half-dozen? All but Laoban were top-class performers at two, four winning a Grade 1 and Not This Time finishing a close second in the G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile to divisional champion Classic Empire.

Prior to the winning the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, Vequist had won the G1 Spinaway Stakes at Saratoga and finished second in the G1 Frizette Stakes to Dayoutoftheoffice (Into Mischief), who was second at Keeneland on Friday. Vequist's record show two victories from four starts, more than $1.2 million in earnings.

Later on Friday at Keeneland, the homebred Essential Quality remained unbeaten in three starts with a smooth effort in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile over Hot Rod Charlie.

Unlike Vequist, who was the fourth choice at 6.6-to-1, Essential Quality was second choice only to the previously unbeaten Jackie's Warrior (Maclean's Music), who was the odds-on favorite at .9-to-1 and finished fourth.

The Juvenile was the second Grade 1 victory for Essential Quality, who had previously won the Breeders' Futurity, and a 4 1/4 length margin over Jackie's Warrior probably will push the son of Tapit over the top for the Eclipse. If so, Essential Quality would be the second champion juvenile colt for his sire, who has been three times the leading sire in North America.

The first champion 2-year-old colt by Tapit was Hansen, a handsome and well-balanced gray who went to stud at Ashford, then was sold off to Korea before his first foals had arrived. In 2019, Hansen was the leading sire of juveniles in Korea and second on the overall list to perennial leader Menifee. In 2020, Hansen is currently the leading sire overall in Korea.

Additionally, if Essential Quality gets the Eclipse as champion colt, he would be the first Eclipse Award winner as top 2-year-old colt bred by Darley. Midshipman, a son of Unbridled's Song and already a G1 winner, was acquired by Darley as part of a massive package deal with the Stonerside operation of Robert and Janice McNair. The colt subsequently won the 2008 Juvenile, the Eclipse Award, and stands at Darley today.

Darley also stands Frosted, a freshman sire son of Tapit, and stood the now-deceased Elusive Quality (Gone West), who is the broodmare sire of Essential Quality through his stakes-placed daughter Delightful Quality.

Seven times second or third in stakes, Delightful Quality earned $253,900, and Essential Quality is the mare's fourth foal. Her second foal, the unraced Indelible (Tiznow), had sold for $130,000 as a broodmare at the 2019 Keeneland November sale. On Nov. 8, two days after her half-brother won the Juvenile at Keeneland, Indelible resold for $1.6 million, in foal to Nyquist, at the Fasig-Tipton November sale. The young mare brought the 11th highest price of the auction, and the buyer was Nobutaka Tada.

Delightful Quality has a yearling filly by Uncle Mo and was barren this year. She was bred back to Nyquist in 2020 but lost the pregnancy.

Darley bred Delightful Quality and has bred all her foals to date. This mare is a half-sister to champion juvenile filly Folklore (Tiznow), and both are out of the Storm Cat mare Contrive. A blocky and substantial mare greatly in need of scope, Contrive produced a near-carbon copy of herself who became the leading 2-year-old filly of 2005 with a pair of Grade 1 victories, including the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies.

Shortly thereafter, Darley acquired Contrive for $3 million at the 2005 Fasig-Tipton November sale in foal to BC Classic winner Pleasantly Perfect (Pleasant Colony). Contrive produced nine foals for Darley, and six were fillies, including Divided Attention (A.P. Indy), who won the listed Ladies Handicap and was second in the G3 Tempted Stakes at two.

With the success of Essential Quality, Darley has another top horse from this famous family that extends back to the great broodmare La Troienne. The French-bred La Troienne crowned the family's roll of juvenile honor with her best son Bimelech, the champion 2-year-old of 1939 and a champion and multiple classic winner the following year.

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Bloodlines: Top Breeders’ Cup Distaff Contenders Have More In Common Than Meets The Eye

The Breeders' Cup Classic annually draws the most attention from various media and the most betting interest from fans. But the Breeders' Cup Distaff is a race of premium, if sometimes unrecognized, merit, and this year's event should be one of the great ones with 2018 champion 3-year-old filly Monomoy Girl (by Tapizar) and 2020 pro-tem champion filly Swiss Skydiver (Daredevil) as the headline racers against a fleet of Grade 1 performers.

Both these outstanding horses share common characteristics. On the most superficial level, they are both chestnuts; both have speed and can carry it at least nine furlongs.

More emphatically, they possess the character and assertive attitudes so common among dominant racers. We have only to watch how each of these elite performers asserts herself through the stretch drive of their races to see that attitude in action.

In terms of pedigree similarities, Swiss Skydiver and Monomoy Girl descend in the male line from Eclipse through Bend Or, thence through Phalaris and his grandson Nearco, and then each is linebred multiple times through the deeper generations of their pedigrees to Phalaris in his various branches.

A foal of 1913, Phalaris was bred and raced by Lord Derby, who then put the dark brown racer to stud and reaped rewards and glories that even the avid admirers of Phalaris could not have predicted.

As a racer, Phalaris was quite a good horse. Strong and athletic, he won 16 of 24 starts, with three more efforts in the money, and he showed both high speed and the brawny determination to carry high weights successfully.

The best-known victories of Phalaris came with a pair of successes in the Challenge Stakes at Newmarket. The horse raced during the great social and economic upheaval of the Great War, during which many of the race meetings around England were suspended, but the English managed to uphold some traditions in the wake of the devastation from across the channel.

In 1916, when Phalaris was three, Lord Derby won the 1,000 Guineas with Canyon, by the Stanley House stallion Chaucer (St. Simon), and Phalaris began his 3-year-old season with a third place in the Craven Stakes, then was unplaced in the 2,000 Guineas. The colt won three races later in the season, then progressed notably in his next two seasons.

When assessing Phalaris's performances at four, which included carrying heavy weights and giving away chunks to the competition, the Bloodstock Breeders' Review made the following statement: “Phalaris inspires one with the belief that he is destined to make a great name for himself when he goes to the stud….”

That season, Phalaris won seven races in a row, after finishing second in his seasonal debut, and then lost his final start when unplaced in the Cambridgeshire Handicap.

At five, Phalaris won four of his five starts, at five, six, seven, and eight furlongs, but racing fans wouldn't recognize the names of those races because of the restrictions on sport. Begun when Phalaris was a yearling, World War I bracketed the horse's racing career and ended in 1918 after the retirement of Phalaris. Despite the limitations of a racing career during wartime, Lord Derby sent the good-looking horse to his Stanley House stud, where Phalaris stood alongside classic winner and classic sire Swynford (John o' Gaunt) and his half-brother Chaucer (St. Simon).

Phalaris was an immediate success and led the English sire list in 1925 and 1928. He sired classic winners Manna (Derby and 2,000 Guineas), Colorado (2,000 Guineas), Fairway (St. Leger), and Fair Isle (1,000 Guineas). Lord Derby also bred the classic-placed Pharos, who became a leading sire, getting Nearco among many others. In addition, Lord Derby bred the high-class juvenile Sickle, whom he sold to Joseph Widener to stand at Elmendorf Stud in Kentucky, and his full brother Pharamond, whom Lord Derby sold to Hal Price Headley and who stood at Beaumont Stud.

Sickle is the branch of Phalaris that produced Native Dancer, Raise a Native, Mr. Prospector, and Alydar. Pharamond founded the branch of Phalaris known today mostly through Tom Fool and his great son Buckpasser.

Sickle is the only branch today that holds up as a serious competitor to the dominion of the Nearco branch, which comes to us through Hail to Reason, Halo, More Than Ready; through Nasrullah, Bold Ruler, Secretariat, Seattle Slew, A.P. Indy, and Pulpit; through Northern Dancer, Danzig, Galileo, and many others. Swiss Skydiver is the Hail to Reason branch through More Than Ready's son Daredevil; Monomoy Girl is Nasrullah's branch through Tapit's son Tapizar.

Each of these exceptional racers, like much of their competition, have multiple lines of Phalaris in their extended pedigrees, and like the great founder of this great Thoroughbred family, they have speed, strength, and the determination to win.

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Bloodlines Presented By ThoroughbredAuctions.Com: American Pharoah, Contrail Put Global Triple Crowns In Spotlight

It was a big weekend for Triple Crown winners.

Just weeks after getting his first Grade 1 stakes winner with Harvey's Lil Goil in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland, America's Triple Crown winner, American Pharoah (by Pioneerof the Nile), picked up a second Group 1 winner, this time with the juvenile colt Van Gogh, who won the Criterium International at Saint-Cloud racecourse in France.

Van Gogh was winning for the second time in seven starts, after finishing second in the G2 Juvenile Stakes and G3 Tyros Stakes, both at Leopardstown, as well as another second in the G3 Autumn Stakes at Newmarket. All along, the bay son of American Pharoah has given the impression of wanting to race farther, and he was moved up to a mile in the Autumn Stakes and the Criterium International.

The latter race, however, was raced over heavy going that placed a further premium on strength and stamina. In a display that earned the colt his highest rating yet, he won by six lengths, and the race commentary indicated that the colt extended his lead well in the last furlong and won comfortably.

In winning the race at Saint-Cloud, Van Gogh became the 11th stakes winner for his sire. Nine have shown their form by winning stakes this year at three, and seven have won stakes on turf.

Coolmore's Adrian Wallace said that “I think it's only a matter of time before American Pharoah's record on dirt matches or excels his record on turf. But, that said, Bob Baffert did tell us that he thought the horse would have thrived on turf and would have loved to have tried him on it.”

Both last year, when the sire's first crop were two, as well as in their racing of 2020, the progeny of American Pharoah have excelled on turf.

“Winning on grass does make him more internationally appealing,” Wallace said, “and the word is pretty good on his young horses in Australia, where his first crop are 2-year-olds.”

And the sire just had his third winner of a barrier trial, an important proving ground for young racehorses in Australia and New Zealand.

The “Pharoahs” have excelled on turf, except in Japan. There, American Pharoah has the two top colts racing on dirt in Café Pharoah and Danon Pharoah.

Café Pharoah has won four of his five starts, including the G3 Sirius Stakes and Unicorn Stakes, and his only loss was the Japan Dirt Derby, which was won by Danon Pharoah.

Worldwide, the American Pharoah racers have shown their form on a variety of surfaces, from conventional dirt to the varieties of turf, mud, and heavy ground. They have shown speed, as well as stamina, as we saw with both Pista and this weekend with Van Gogh.

An emphasis on stamina came into play in the highlight of the Triple Crown in Japan as Contrail (Deep Impact) won the Kikuka Sho (St. Leger equivalent) by a long head (officially a neck) to become the third unbeaten winner of the Japan Triple Crown. The colt's sire, Deep Impact (Sunday Silence), was the second, and the first racer in Japan to have this distinction was Symboli Rudolf.

Contrail had been an impressive, even cozy-looking, winner of the Tokyo Yushun (Derby) over 2,400 meters, and the chief question about the dark brown colt was not his high class but whether he would be suited by the distance, as the Kikuka Sho is raced over 3,000 meters (about 1 mile and 7 furlongs).

Away well, Contrail raced in the first third of the field of 18 until midway of the bend leading into the stretch. At the 400-meter mark at the top of the stretch, Contrail drifted a bit wide for the run to the wire, and he was shadowed by the 23-to-1 Aristoteles (Epiphaneia) all the way to the wire. Contrail held onto the advantage over Aristoteles, with Satono Flag (Deep Impact) another 3 1/2 lengths back in third.

From the results of this race, Contrail is better suited to races at 1,800 to 2,400 meters, where his turn of foot is more decisive, and that may be where his connections choose to campaign him in the future.

Those are important decisions to make in placing horses where they can perform most effectively, and such decisions apply also to the offspring of American Pharoah.

Typically, they are big-framed horses, and several of them appear to have grown into substantial individuals, especially the colts. This is a blessing that cuts both ways. They improve at two, then continue to add muscle and potential strength at three. Mass is important to an athlete because it is an expression of muscle strength, but the extra muscle can be a challenge for trainers to manage because it adds more weight.

And that may be one important reason that the American Pharoah stock have shown their form on turf, which is a more forgiving surface for strongly made horses.

Another consideration is that many sound judges, when evaluating the American Pharoah stock, have seen them as animals that should prosper with time and be better as they got old, as we have seen with the G1 winner at Keeneland and also with Pista, the winner of the G2 Park Hill Stakes at Doncaster on Sept. 10.

If the colts' improvement matches those fillies, then we sporting enthusiasts should really have something to anticipate, with American Theorem, who was second in the G1 American Pharoah of 2019, and Monarch of Egypt, second to subsequent classic winner Siskin in the G1 Phoenix Stakes in Ireland last fall, set to continue racing next season at four.

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