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Bloodlines Presented By Gary Contessa’s Integrity Bloodstock: A Banner Night For Adcock Family’s Red River Farm

In the Louisiana Cup series at Louisiana Downs over the weekend, one breeder's named came up again and again. Jay Adcock, who operates Red River Farm in northwestern Louisiana, was co-breeder of four of the six winners and stood the sire of a fifth.

The Red River Farm stallion Bind (by Pulpit) is now deceased, but he swept the juvenile stakes with Mirabeau and Chu Chu's Legacy; Is Too (Midshipman) won the Louisiana Cup Distaff; and Budro Talking (Tale of Ekati) won the Louisiana Cup Turf Classic. Farm stallion Calibrachoa is the sire of Saltee Stark, winner of the Louisiana Cup Sprint.

Adcock, contacted while working with horses at the farm, said that the weekend successes were “kind of surreal. You don't just get up in the morning and think, 'I'm going to be involved with four or five of the winners today.' That's not how this game works.”

Due to work on the farm and COVID-19 restrictions, Adcock's son Brandon represented the farm at Louisiana Downs for the Cup races.

“Realistically,” the younger Adcock said, “From nine horses that Red River bred or co-bred entered in the six races, it looked like we had a real good chance to win one. The Bind filly Mirabeau looked like our best chance of winning, then Budro Talking because he'd had some tough luck. Mirabeau is pretty nice. She looks like the best 2-year-old in Louisiana right now.”

In contrast to the juvenile filly Mirabeau (by Bind), who can do no wrong, the 5-year-old gelding Budro Talking (Tale of Ekati) could find trouble in a walkover. Jay Adcock said, “Budro Talking has had bad luck, and [trainer Karl] Broberg got frustrated and entered him for $17,500, and this kid [trainer Keith Austen] claimed him. [Broberg] didn't think anyone would claim the old horse, but this kid raced him twice and has now won both,” including the Louisiana Cup Turf Classic.

A winner of eight races from 24 starts and $221,184, Budro Talking had not won a stakes since he was a 2-year-old but has become a popular horse on the Louisiana racing circuit. It was not always so.

“I gave Budro away” at the yearling sale, co-breeder Hume Wornall said. “That was the only way to get the colt a new home. At the Fasig-Tipton October sale, Michael Netherland had bought another Louisiana-bred colt from me, and then this colt [Budro Talking] couldn't get a bid. Netherland took him, sold him as a 2-year-old for $20,000 at the Texas sale of 2-year-olds in training, and he's been in half the barns in Louisiana since then. Watching Budro race, you gotta love him. The horse likes firm grass and has one run; he slings wide and hauls down the stretch.

“The boy that has Budro Talking now is a young trainer and he's the fellow's first stakes winner; so he's probably got a life home there, and he's only a 5-year-old,” Wornall continued.

One of the benefits of the Louisiana-bred program is that even if a breeder has to give away a yearling, he might make some money if the horse is a good racer. Brandon Adcock said that “even a small breeder who has a limited financial window can breed a nice horse, and even if it sells for a loss at the sales, then there's a chance make a profit if the horse succeeds at the racetrack. There's a financial incentive to breed a nice horse, even if it's not a profitable sales horse.

“Three of our four horses that won Louisiana Cup races brought real modest sales prices,” the younger Adcock continued. “Budro didn't make a sales horse; the two 2-year-olds, [Mirabeau, Louisiana Cup Juvenile Fillies; Chu Chu's Legacy, Lousiana Cup Juvenile], were by our stallion Bind, and neither of those was a big price at the yearling sales.”

Mirabeau was a $5,000 yearling who has now won four of five starts and earned $105,350; Chu Chu's Legacy brought only $4,000 as a yearling; he's now won three of four starts, $90,800. The fourth Adcock-bred winner was Is Too, who was a private sale.

Brandon Adcock noted that “Mirabeau was a nice yearling, and when I saw her this weekend at Lousiana Downs, I could see that she has grown into a beautiful filly. She looks a little bigger than Chu Chu, and both are a lot like their sire, Bind. He was the nicest stallion that I've ever been around. He was bred and raced by Claiborne Farm and had the best manners you could imagine. He was easy to handle around mares, the vet, the farrier. Nothing fazed him, and he was powerful, big stallion. He could have been a bear if he'd wanted to.

“Unfortunately, we had to put him down because of complications from a snakebite. Two or three years ago, the vets thought that a snake had bit Bind on a leg, and we sent him to the clinic. They were able to improve the situation some, but we had to keep his leg bandaged. He was such a generous individual that he let us do whatever we needed to do to help him, but eventually, he developed laminitis, and the only solution was euthanasia.”

Even without the fine young sire, Red River Farm has plenty to continue with in the dams of the four Louisiana Cup winners. Smittystown (Speightstown), dam of Mirabeau, has a Mo Tom foal of 2020 and was bred back to Maximus Mischief. Bond's Babe (Johannesburg), dam of Chu Chu's Legacy, has a Mo Tom filly and was bred back to Tapiture. American Placed (Quiet American), the dam of Budro Talking, has a Good Samaritan and was bred back to Takeover Target. Tensas Salt (Salt Lake), the dam of Is Too, has a Broken Vow and was not bred in 2020 after seven foals in a row.

Jay Adcock said, “I'm going to breed those mares that went out of state this year to a stallion here in Louisiana, and those will go to one of my stallions,” such as Takeover Target (Harlan's Holiday) or Grade 1 winner El Deal (Munnings). The breed-back rule for Louisiana has recently been changed so that breeders will be able to take mares to out-of-state stallions every year, rather than the previous every-other year option.

Breeders such as Adcock, who stand stallions as well as raise state-bred racing prospects, are uncertain what the future holds for that part of their breeding operations. But for today, the Adcock family and their Red River Farm will bask in the bright sunshine of the winner's circle in front of the home folks.

The post Bloodlines Presented By Gary Contessa’s Integrity Bloodstock: A Banner Night For Adcock Family’s Red River Farm appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Bloodlines Presented By Gary Contessa’s Integrity Bloodstock: Galileo’s Grandkids Now Make Their Mark

This is not another article exclaiming that racers by the legendary Galileo (by Sadler's Wells) won all the Group 1 stakes over the weekend. Indeed, from 10 G1s on Saturday and Sunday, they won “only” four of those: marvelous Magical (Irish Champion), Search for a Song (Irish St. Leger), Mogul (Grand Prix de Paris), and Shale (Moyglare Stud Stakes).

Instead, this is an article about how the Galileo daughters and a particular son of the old boy are doing.

The son is English Derby winner Australia (out of Oaks winner Ouija Board), who sired his first Group 1 winner in Galileo Chrome, the winner of the Group 1 St. Leger at Doncaster. The oddly-named Galileo Chrome – who's a plain bay – galloped comfortably to the outside of the well-regarded Pyledriver for most of the mile and three-quarters and 115 yards, then maneuvered through traffic, and finished fastest to win the longest classic.

A winner in his three prior starts, including the Yeats Stakes at Navan on his last outing, Galileo Chrome is a progressive colt who appears to have a lot of scope and can only improve for greater maturity and strength.

In addition to the winner of the St. Leger, Australia sired Cayenne Pepper, who won the G2 Blandford Stakes at the Curragh from Galileo's daughter Amma Grace. Also this weekend, Australia had the third-place racer behind Shale in the Group 1 race mentioned above.

Shale and other daughters of Galileo are broodmare prospects of a high order, and they tend to go to some of the better sires around the world. Over the past weekend, one daughter of Galileo was the dam of the winner of the G1 Grosser Preis von Baden, Barney Roy, and another daughter produced Ghaiyyath, who was second to Magical in the Irish Champion.

Barney Roy's dam, Alina, was unplaced in a pair of starts, whereas the dam of Ghaiyyath is Nightime, winner of the 2006 Irish 1,000 Guineas. The simple statistics of racing success, with about 3 percent stakes winners to foals, mean that far more of any stallion's racers will fail than will succeed at a high level. Therefore, some nice prospects and subsequent producers will show little on the racetrack.

Another of the great sire's non-winning daughters produced Pista, this year's winner of the Park Hill Stakes, which is the filly equivalent to the St. Leger.

In her third victory from four starts, Pista has risen rapidly since winning a maiden at Galway in early August to become a listed stakes winner and now a group winner.

Bred in Kentucky by Lynch Bages Ltd. and a $675,000 yearling at the 2018 Keeneland September sale, Pista is out of Mohini, a daughter of the Storm Cat mare Denebola, who was the highweight 2-year-old filly in France in 2003 after victory in the G1 Prix Marcel Boussac.

That proved the high point of Denebola's racing, but she has three stakes-producing daughters, including Beta Leo (A.P. Indy), who is the dam of Senga (Blame), winner of the G1 Prix de Diane.

And the sire of Pista?

American Pharoah.

Four Star Sales's Tony Lacy acted as agent for the Heider family in the purchase and recalled the process that led to the acquisition of Pista. He said, “We'd been looking at the first-crop yearlings by American Pharoah and had been very impressed. They were largely big, athletic prospects with scope and great minds. With their bone and toughness, I thought they might be very effective on turf.

“And this prolific family, that had been developed in the Niarchos family stud for generations, had a lot of turf excellence that I'd seen first-hand during my time working in France. This is the family of the highweight filly Coup de Folie, her full brother Machiavellian” (both by Mr. Prospector), who was a highweight on the European handicaps and then a leading sire, “and it goes right on back to a half-sister to Northern Dancer.”

Yeah, nice family.

As an individual, Lacy noted, “This filly was a big yearling who turned into a growthy 2-year-old, and we decided not to race her at 2 because she wasn't ready. Even early at three, she didn't show much promise until the late spring and early summer, and then she began to come on so strongly that Joseph O'Brien (who trains the filly) became optimistic about her debut. Pista, however, walked out of the gate and raced greenly.

“Joseph said the penny dropped after the first race, and in her second start, Pista jumped off nicely, laid up with the pace, and powered away to win her maiden” by 6 1/2 lengths at Galway. “Then we stepped her up to a listed race against colts,” Lacy continued, “in the Vinnie Roe Stakes at Leopardstown.”

The elegant filly won again, this time while competing at a mile and three-quarters and winning from Sunchart (Teofilo) and Dawn Patrol (Galileo), who ran eighth and sixth respectively in the St. Leger. So that is positive form suggesting that Pista could have beaten at least half the field in the classic.

Another reason that the connections, including the trainer, were quite pleased with the effort at Leopardstown is that Pista “is so laid back on the gallops that she doesn't show what she's capable of till she's put in a race,” Lacy said. “So we said, 'let's try the Park Hill,' and that result was a resounding 'yes.' The plan now is to go for the Group 1 Prix de Royallieu on the Arc weekend.”

That will be a further step up in a race that typically draws a set of experienced Group 1 fillies, three and up, but with the mental and physical toughness of the American Pharoah and Galileo stock, don't discount her chances.

The post Bloodlines Presented By Gary Contessa’s Integrity Bloodstock: Galileo’s Grandkids Now Make Their Mark appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Bloodlines Presented By Gary Contessa’s Integrity Bloodstock: Authentic, Flawless Reward Blum’s Faith With Kentucky Derby Roses

In the normal scheme of Peter Blum's breeding program, he's quite as likely to be planning progeny of a female line he's had for four or five generations, perhaps more. To produce Kentucky Derby winner Authentic, however, Blum sent the broodmare Flawless, only a first-generation “Blum-bred,” to the high-class stallion Into Mischief (by Harlan's Holiday) back in the spring of 2016.

The breeder did note, however, that he “had some experience with this family that made me want to buy [second dam] Oyster Baby, who was a lovely mare” and one who produced a beautiful foal in Flawless, the dam of the Kentucky Derby winner.

Nor was this the only unusual factor in Flawless being a part of the Blum broodmare band. The decades-long experience that Blum has with racing and breeding has encouraged him to balance the books whenever possible, and he sells his better stock, especially colts, at premium sales around the country.

Since he typically keeps some of the fillies, Blum bought back Flawless for $285,000 at the 2008 Keeneland September yearling sale. It looked like a damned good idea after that good-looking daughter of leading sire Mr. Greeley had won her maiden impressively by 13 1/4 lengths at Belmont Park. Flawless, however, bowed a tendon in her second start, gaining no black type, and after Blum and trainer Bill Mott had rehabbed the filly and returned her to training, the tendon flared up again and made it necessary to retire her permanently. The mare's dam, the Wild Again mare Oyster Baby, was unraced and produced only three foals before her death at age seven.

As a result, Authentic went to the sales with two blank dams. This is the bugaboo of commercial breeders because nearly all buyers want to purchase performance, black-type performance, not its absence. Blum said, “People were questioning why I'd keep her: she didn't win a stakes, would catalog with two blank dams, and I told Bill Mott that I'd have a lot of trouble selling foals out of this mare, but he said, 'Sell all the other mares and keep this one.'”

Blum kept Flawless, in particular, he said, because “I've had some really good fillies over the years, but I've never had a filly who was as brilliant; as far as speed goes, nothing compared to Flawless.”

The 2017 colt out of Flawless, when he came to the sales, was a striking yearling. Even as a May foal, Authentic possessed the body mass and length to suggest that he was on the way to becoming a serious athlete. He had enough scope and presence to appeal to horsemen looking for athletic prospects, either to race or to resell, and once the bidding started for the handsome bay, it reached $350,000 before all others gave up and allowed a partnership of SF Bloodstock and Starlight West to sign the ticket for the colt.

Sent into training with Bob Baffert, Authentic won his debut on Nov. 9 last year at Del Mar and made his stakes debut on Jan. 4 of the new year in the Grade 3 Sham Stakes, which he won like a very good thing, indeed. To date, the bay colt has won five of his six starts and notably filled out his dam's lack of black type on the pedigree page.

Authentic is the fourth foal and third winner out of Flawless. The others sold profitably, but he was the mare's first foal to make a seriously impressive price at $350,000. That's a really good figure for a yearling with two blank dams, no matter what he looks like, and that sum also was the second-highest among all the yearlings sold on the second day of the September sale's Book 3 (session 8 overall) in 2018.

The Kentucky Derby winner has a 2-year-old half-brother named Mint (Bodemeister) who is yet unraced, as well as a yearling half-brother, also by Bodemeister, who has been named Push Button. Blum said that he was retaining the two half-brothers to race. Flawless was bred back to Into Mischief for 2021 and is in foal on a February cover.

That cover date guarantees that the full brother to Authentic will not be a May foal like the Derby winner. In an interesting aside to the biases of the commercial market, last year's Kentucky Derby winner Country House, first-place finisher Maximum Security, last year's English Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck, and this year's Kentucky Derby winner are all May foals.

When the foal from Flawless arrives in late January, Blum noted, he will go into exactly the same program as his big brother. He said, “Bridie, her family and staff, we've been together a lot of years. They deserve all the credit for raising Authentic and a lot of other fine horses,” Blum said. “She doesn't tell me what I want to hear, but we think a lot alike.”

And then Blum summed up what it means to breed a winner of the Kentucky Derby: “When he was in the winner's circle, it was a special moment. Winning the Derby isn't something you really think you're going to do. It's a once in a lifetime thing, but I don't know if I'd be any happier if I'd kept him. We breed and sell horses. To be able to breed and sell a Derby winner; you can't get a better endorsement than that. I don't believe I could be any happier.”

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Bloodlines: Win Win Win Adds An Exclamation Point To Hat Trick’s Well-Traveled Stud Career

In the Forego Stakes at Saratoga, Win Win Win became the seventh Grade 1 or Group 1 winner for his sire in the same way that sire Hat Trick (by Sunday Silence) became a success at stud in America: doing it his way.

Hat Trick became a success in America in the broadest sense; he was only a lukewarm success in North America, where Win Win Win became the sire's second Grade 1 winner. In contrast, Hat Trick was a triunfo caliente in South America, where he has four Group 1 winners and more strong crops to come.

On Aug. 3, however, the 19-year-old Hat Trick died in his stall of a presumed heart attack after covering his first mare of the 2020 Southern Hemisphere breeding season at Haras Springfield in Brazil, and the stallion's final full crop will be born in the next few months during the South American spring.

Foaled in Japan in 2001, Hat Trick won the G1 Mile Championship in Japan and the G1 Hong Kong Mile in Hong Kong and was champion miler in Japan in 2005. Imported to stand at Walmac Farm in Kentucky for the 2008 season, Hat Trick was the first high-class racing son of Sunday Silence brought to stand in Kentucky, and Walmac owner Johnny Jones (the younger) recalled acquiring the horse.

He said, “We'd been looking for a son of Sunday Silence to stand in America, and the Yoshidas, who controlled access to this deal, had a bunch of sons of Sunday Silence at their farms. So, there must have been some feeling that they didn't have to keep this horse, who was already six and would go to stud at age seven.

“Barry Irwin already had been in contact with the Japanese ownership, had arranged an option to buy him, and brought me the deal. He told me this, and we funded his option and bought the horse. It was a complex deal financially, and one point of concern was the horse's age. On the positive side, we were thinking of Speightstown's commercial success after going to stud rather late, and that made it seem a possibility.”

The financial side of the Walmac syndication was made possible by a set of anchor partners, as Andrew Rosen, Robert McNair, and a partnership controlled by John Stuart, joined Walmac in closing the deal.

Given a substantial group of mares, Hat Trick did his part, and from his first crop, he sired an unbeaten 2-year-old champion in France named Dabirsim.

The only Group 1 winner by Hat Trick in Europe, Dabirsim won all five of his juvenile starts, including the Prix Morny and Grand Criterium, both Group 1 races, but the striking near-black racer made only two starts at three, second on his seasonal debut in the G3 Prix de Fontainebleau, then was a close sixth in the French 2,000 Guineas. A sore foot and other physical issues kept the horse off the track the rest of 2012, and he was retired in April 2013, entered stud in 2014.

At Walmac in Kentucky, Dabirsim's successes in 2011 brought an offer to capitalize on Hat Trick's potential, and the owners sold a substantial interest in Hat Trick to Gainesway and moved the horse there for the 2012 breeding season.

Michael Hernon recalled the situation: “Antony and I both drove over and looked at the horse, who was just across Paris Pike at the stallion barn on Walmac. I had seen Sunday Silence late in his career at stud in Japan, and I thought that there was a good deal of resemblance between the sire and Hat Trick. Overall, Hat Trick was more elegant, wouldn't have weighed as much, was always a proud horse when he came out to show, and was a kind horse, good in the breeding shed. He was a top racehorse, and he was able to get a few top runners.”

Had the near-black son of Sunday Silence gotten racer after racer in a class with Dabirsim, he'd still be eating bluegrass.

However, as Hernon explained, “Hat Trick's appeal waned just as the market changed dramatically. He came to Gainesway in 2012, and yet by 2014 or 2015, with the aftereffects of the Great Recession and the resulting contraction in breeding, the stallion market had changed so radically that it favored the new stallion on the block too much and sent too many mares to those stallions, and those stallions alone. The number of mares being bred has continued to decline, while fewer stallions are widely used. The outside dynamic had changed, and since he was no longer a new item, that polarization of the market was so extreme that Hat Trick was sold” to stand in Brazil at Haras Springfield.

Early on in the stallion's term at stud, Hat Trick had shuttled to Argentina for the Southern Hemisphere breeding seasons in 2009, 2010, and 2012. From those covering seasons came four Group 1 winners: Hat Puntano, Hat Mario, Zapata, and Giant Killing. The first and third of those won the Gran Premio 2,000 Guineas, and they helped create a reputation for Hat Trick in South America. They and other top-level winners by Hat Trick showed their form at or near the sire's preferred distance of a mile.

Win Win Win, for instance, won his Grade 1 at seven furlongs in the Forego on Aug. 30, but the conditions of racing at Saratoga made the race as strenuous a seven furlongs as possible. The son of Hat Trick trailed early through quick fractions, was last turning into the stretch, and passed them all through the stretch while eight or nine paths wide to win narrowly in the slop and driving rain.

Bred and raced by Charlotte Weber's Live Oak Stud, Win Win Win is very similar to his sire in color and general type, being a horse with a lot of quality and one who likes to finish his races powerfully.

Although there are a moderate number of Northern Hemisphere racers yet to come from Hat Trick, Win Win Win's dramatic victory in the Forego was a symbolic climax for the stud career of Sunday Silence's son in North America.

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