Lord Miles closed on the outside for victory in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, and as a result, another son of Horse of the Year Curlin (by Smart Strike) has become a “talking horse” for the classics.
From his first crop of racers, which included Belmont Stakes winner Palace Malice, Curlin showed that classic performance was his strong suit, and he has been a consistent source of elite, largely classic, performers ever since. His third-crop son Keen Ice won the 2015 Travers (and sired last year's Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike); his fourth-crop son Exaggerator won the Santa Anita Derby, Preakness, and Haskell; his sixth-crop son Good Magic was champion juvenile, ran second in the Kentucky Derby, and won the Blue Grass and Haskell. Other sons, such as Vino Rosso and Irish War Cry, won the Wood Memorial like Lord Miles, and the chestnut champion sired three Breeders' Cup winners in 2022: Malathaat (Distaff), Cody's Wish (Dirt Mile), and Elite Power (Sprint).
In other news of Curlin's classic colts, Skinner was a contentious third in the G1 Santa Anita Derby, beaten a nose and half-length by Practical Move (Practical Joke) and Mandarin Hero (Shanghai Bobby).
Bred in Kentucky by Vegso Racing Stable and racing for the breeder, Lord Miles is out of the unraced Lady Esme, a half-sister to three Vegso-bred stakes winners, including champion juvenile filly Caledonia Road (Quality Road) and three-time Grade 3 winner Officiating (Blame). Lady Esme is out of the winner Come a Callin (Dixie Union), and both the dam and grandam also were bred by Vegso Racing Stable.
Peter Vegso bought into this distinguished family with the purchase of third dam Twilight Service (Horse Chestnut) at the 2004 OBS March sale of 2-year-olds in training. Twilight Service, bred in Kentucky by Stuart S. Janney III, had sold to Eisaman Equine for $35,000 as a Keeneland September yearling, then resold to Vegso out of the Eisaman consignment at the March sale for $105,000.
Janney had bought the fourth dam, Sunset Service (Deputy Minister), through Seth Hancock at the 1994 Keeneland July select yearling sale for $260,000 and then resold her 10 years later at the Keeneland January sale for $60,000.
In the meantime, however, Sunset Service had contributed a pair of stakes winners to the Janney broodmare band in Vespers and Database (both by Known Fact). In addition to winning stakes, each also produced a G1 winner. Vespers is the dam of Donn Handicap winner Hymn Book (Arch), and Database is the dam of Data Link (War Front).
In fact, every dam in the family, generation after generation, has produced at least one stakes winner, but none of these dams was a stakes winner herself until we reach the fifth dam, Songlines (Diesis). She was one of two stakes winners out of sixth dam Begum (Alydar). A big, stretchy, lovely mare and a half-sister to three stakes winners, Begum was not raced and for a very good reason.
She had no eyes.
Headley Bell recalled the situation: “You occasionally have blind mares, but rarely do you have a foal born like that and kept alive. When she was born, she was normal but had only these little, dark things that looked like pencil erasers for eyes.
“To make this a challenge in every sense, this filly was from the first crop by Alydar, who stood for $50,000 live foal initially, and that was a big sum in 1981 for an operation that made a living from breeding and raising horses. This one could never race, could never go to sale, and we didn't know if she could breed. Did she have ovaries, would she cycle properly without sight to respond to the changes in light? It was a leap of faith to consider keeping the newborn filly.
“At the time, Melvin Cinnamon was still the manager at Calumet, and Mom (Alice Chandler), John Chandler, and farm manager Duncan MacDonald were inclined to give it a go. Because she was a filly. She was from an old Bwamazon family, and the combination of things were such that Mom couldn't put this baby down. But still, you didn't know how this would work.”
To try to give the foal every chance, Alice Chandler and her staff at Mill Ridge set to work to teach this filly how to survive in a world without a horse's primary sense: sight.
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“We plowed inside the perimeter of the paddock so that the ground was rough near the fence,” Bell continued. “We were trying to teach her not to run into the fence by making the ground different, and then we put a bell on the mare.
“She was a foal of 1981, and we didn't breed her until she was a 4-year-old. Then we bred her to our home stallion, Diesis, and the result was Songlines. Then we were able to train Begum to load on a van and sent her to a nearby stallion, the Juddmonte horse Known Fact, and got Binalong.”
The mare's first three foals were all stakes horses, and four of her five daughters produced stakes winners.
“All because Mom was a great horsewoman and a great lover of the horse.”
The Texas Thoroughbred Association's 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale is in the rear view, which gave us a bit more data to collect in our journey to find the juvenile auction season's most successful stallion.
We also have a new horse at the top of the power rankings, and the movement has nothing to do with the Texas sale.
With this system of sorting out sires still in its relative infancy, there will inevitably be some kinks to work out, and improvements to make in the middle of the season.
I had a lingering suspicion I wasn't collecting the full data from the breeze shows, and upon further inspection of the under-tack results, I was right. There was a handful of horses and times that I was missing; particularly those that were scratched between the workouts and the auction itself which were deleted from the online sale result lists but still lived on the breeze show result pdfs released at the end of each day of works. Nothing nefarious, I just needed to catch up with each sale company's system of record-keeping.
Providing the most accurate figures possible means counting every horse that's clocked, whether they sell or not, and now that I have the full numbers in hand, these rankings should be an even better representation of which sires' juveniles are breezing the fastest furlongs, on top of generating the highest median sale prices.
As a reminder, here are the requirements to qualify for the power rankings:
1) At least five horses sold during a major 2023 juvenile sale, regardless of distance breezed.
2) At least five horses that breezed an eighth of a mile, whether they sold or not (as much as I love a good quarter-mile breeze, there just aren't enough horses doing them for a representative sample).
3) Eventually, we'll have a minimum average sale price to keep the list from getting too long, but for now, everyone's invited.
Also important to note: For the sake of calculating averages, I stretched out each breeze time from fifths to tenths. If you see a :9.8 time somewhere, do not adjust your stopwatches.
Oh, look. Into Mischief is at the top of another sire list. The record-setting resident of Spendthrift Farm exited the OBS March sale as the leading sire by median sale price at $400,000, led by Hip 639, a filly out of the winning Orb mare Madame Orbe who sold to AMO Racing for $550,000. Wavertree Stables consigned the filly, from the family of multiple Grade 1 winner Divisidero.
On the racetrack, Into Mischief's average breeze time of 10.150 seconds ranked him second among all qualifying sires, including a trio of workers in :10-flat that featured the $550,000 filly.
This crop of 2-year-olds was conceived in 2020, on the heels of Into Mischief's first of what's become four straight years as leading general sire by earnings the previous year. He was getting top-shelf books of mares before this crop, but this was his first formal season of breeding the best to the best, in terms of sire list rankings. For as meteoric as Into Mischief's rise has been, it might be ready to enter warp-speed now that we're seeing the foals conceived at the top of the mountain.
The first of two Spendthrift rookies to crack the top three, Omaha Beach did his best work in the sales ring, where his median price of $285,000 ranked second among his qualifying peers.
Under tack, the son of War Front finished third with an average progeny breeze time of 10.156 seconds, led by a pair of juveniles that breezed in 9.8 seconds (remember, we're counting in tenths instead of fifths) at the OBS March sale. As arguably the most lauded freshman sire of his class, results like these are practically expected, and he has met those expectations in the early goings.
Kerri Radcliffe, agent, purchased the most expensive Omaha Beach of the OBS sale, which was also one of the sire's two co-fastest workers. Hip 752, a filly out of the stakes-winning Unusual Heat mare Pacific Heat from the consignment of Wavertree Stables, agent, went to Radcliffe for $690,000, making her the most expensive freshman-sired juvenile of the sale.
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The other half of Spendthrift's freshman tag team dominating the top of the charts, Mitole ranked fourth by both average breeze time (10.200 seconds) and median sale price ($225,000) to give him a lofty position after the first two sales.
The son of Eskendereya is expected to enjoy a significant boost in interest this season, with this being his first crop on offer, but his juveniles have clearly held up their end of the bargain during the under-tack show. He had three horses breeze in 9.8 seconds, which tied with Lane's End's Twirling Candy for the most sub-:10 workers of the season among eligible sires. Then, he had another eight horses work in :10 flat. It's official: The Mitoles can go.
Mitole's top offering of the OBS March sale was Hip 317, a filly out of the Bodemeister mare Bodaciousness, who worked in :10-flat, then sold to Exline-Border Racing for $350,000. De Meric Sales consigned, as agent.
#4 – Twirling Candy, Lane's End
Twirling Candy
The Twirling Candy juveniles were blazing at the March sale, averaging 10.057 seconds for an eighth of a mile; best of his class to date. His trio of workers that stopped the clock in :9.8 at the OBS March sale is tied with Mitole for the most of the season so far.
Two of those fast breezers landed in the top 10 highest prices of the sale, led by Hip 433, a $1-million colt out of the Grade 2-placed Divine Park mare Divine Dawn who sold to Sean Flanigan. Eddie Woods consigned the seven-figure colt, as agent. That colt was joined by Hip 600, a filly out of the stakes-winning Congrats mare Laudation from the Wavertree consignment, who went to Hideyuki Mori for $900,000.
Twirling Candy's commercial profile has been on a steady climb after emerging from the third- and fourth-book doldrums, and as last week's results proved, buyers think he's the kind of stallion capable of being a source of seven-figure horses. I don't think that'll be a fluke going forward.
His median sale price of $150,000 will almost certainly sink over the course of the year as more middle-market horses are added to his ledger, the same way most stallions will, but it's fair to expect he'll safely end up in the six-figure median club for the foreseeable future.
#5 (tie) – Audible, WinStar Farm
Audible
The freshmen continue to make noise as we enter a four-way tie for fifth place.
Audible's biggest strength in the rankings came in the sales ring, where his median sale price through two sales is $180,000, placing him sixth. The group was led by Hip 450 at the OBS March sale, a filly out of the Midnight Lute mare Enjoy This Moment who sold to Carolyn Wilson for $500,000. Top Line Sales consigned the filly, as agent.
Audible ranked 12th by average breeze time, at 10.288 seconds. Of his 16 juveniles to breeze this season, four have gone an eighth in :10-flat, including Audible's high-selling filly.
Expectations will be high for Audible throughout the rest of the juvenile sale season, and onto the racetrack this summer. He trailed only Omaha Beach by median yearling price among rookie sires last year, with $110,000, and his juvenile median price is in the upper echelon among first-year sires in 2023. We've seen how well his sire, Into Mischief, has performed on this list, and Audible might be the next in line among his sons. No pressure, kid.
Last year's runner-up in the 2-Year-Old Sale Sire Power Rankings continues to perform well and be received well from buyers with his second crop.
After finishing last year as the leading freshman sire by earnings, buyers have taken note with this year's offerings, giving him a median sale price of $165,000, good for seventh overall. Colts Neck Stable bought the most expensive of the group at the OBS March sale, going to $300,000 for Hip 15, a colt out of the Quality Road mare Scenic Road. From the direct female family of Broodmare of the Year Weekend Surprise, the colt was consigned by Paul Sharp, agent.
Bolt d'Oro was also responsible for the second-highest price of the Texas sale. Hip 85, a colt out of the Street Sense mare Gwithian, sold to Larry Hirsch for $160,000. The Oklahoma-bred hails from the family of champion Midshipman, Grade 1 winner Frosted, and multiple Grade 1-placed Solomini.
Bolt d'Oro was 11th by average breeze time, at 10.280 seconds. His 10 workers were led by Hip 510 at the OBS March sale, who breezed in :10-flat. The colt out of the Street Sense mare Grammajo sold to B 4 Farms, and he was consigned by Clary Bloodstock, agent.
#5 (tie) – Constitution, WinStar Farm
Constitution
My, how the tables have turned. Constitution finished 82nd in last year's rankings, but a slate of speedy juveniles that sold well at the OBS March sale helped propel him to the top five through the first two sales.
Constitution ranked 13th by average breeze time through the first two sales, with his 12 workers at an eighth of a mile averaging :10.300 seconds. He had four juveniles breeze in :10-flat, and his median sale price of $202,500 placed him fifth-best among qualifying sires.
His highest-priced offering at OBS March contributed to his success in both categories. Hip 574, a colt out of the Grade 3-placed Lion Heart mare Jungle Tale, covered an eighth in :10-flat, then he sold to Lauren Carlisle, agent for $675,000. Sequel Bloodstock consigned the colt, as agent.
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A veteran presence with fast juveniles closes out the list. His six workers at an eighth of a mile through the first two sales averaged a time of 10.200 seconds (or :10 1/5 even if you're counting in fifths), to tie him with Mitole for fourth overall.
Hard Spun's fastest worker so far is also his top seller. Hip 16 at the OBS March sale clocked one furlong in 9.8 seconds for consignor Kings Equine, agent for Spendthrift Farm. Then, he sold to Ron Ellis, agent, for $325,000.
If the season stopped now, Hard Spun's median juvenile sale price of $125,000 (14th best on this list) would be his best performance since 2016, which was the final crop conceived before his season in Japan. He finished last year in 32nd place by median at $65,000, so even if the middle and lower market horses of the later season drag his figure down a bit, he should still end the season ahead of where he was.
Ride a Comet, a multiple Grade 2 winner and half-brother to Belmont Stakes winner Tapwrit, will begin his stallion career at Haras Los Notables in Argentina for the 2023 Southern Hemisphere breeding season, the South American publication Turf Diario reports.
The 8-year-old son of Candy Ride retired with eight wins in 18 starts, and he earned $593,743 for trainer Mark Casse and owners John Oxley and My Meadowview Farm.
A $375,000 purchase by Oxley at the 2017 Ocala Breeders' Sales Co. Spring 2-year-olds in training sale, Ride a Comet broke his maiden in his fourth career starts, winning a rained-off-the-turf maiden special weight at the Fair Grounds in December of his 2-year-old season. He followed that effort with a 3 1/2-length allowance optional claiming score over the Fair Grounds turf in his 3-year-old seasonal bow.
After a brief try on the Kentucky Derby trail in the Grade 3 Jeff Ruby Steaks at Turfway Park, where he finished eighth, Ride a Comet returned primarily to the turf and won six of his next seven starts, if in abbreviated fashion.
He shipped to Woodbine for the summer of his sophomore campaign and tallied an allowance win before scoring his first black type victory in the Charlie Barley Stakes. Ride a Comet then shipped to Saratoga to finish third in the G2 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes, and he finished the year with a win in the G2 Del Mar Derby.
The injury bug caught up to Ride a Comet after his Del Mar Derby score, and a pair of tendon injuries kept him away from the races for 25 months. He returned in October of his 5-year-old season with a two-length allowance optional claiming win over the all-weather Tapeta at Woodbine, then he returned to the graded stakes ranks with a sweeping victory in the G2 Kennedy Road Stakes over the same surface.
Ride a Comet's 6-year-old campaign then started on a winning note in the G3 Tropical Turf Stakes at Gulfstream Park. He raced through the end of the season with the highlight of the rest of the year being a runner-up effort in the G1 Maker's Mark Mile Stakes at Keeneland.
Bred in Kentucky by My Meadowview, Ride a Comet is out of the Grade 1-winning Successful Appeal mare Appealing Zophie, making him a half-brother to 2017 Belmont Stakes winner Tapwrit, a resident of Gainesway whose first runners are 3-year-olds of 2023. He is also a half-brother to the Grade 3 winning Frosted filly Inject.
Ariel Lusardi of Haras Los Notables told Turf Diario that Ride a Comet already had about 90 mares committed to him before he even arrived to the farm, and he aimed to have a final book of at least 120 mares.
The Texas Thoroughbred Association will hold its 2023 Texas Summer Yearling Sale on Aug. 28. The sale will be held at the sales pavilion at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas.
“We're fresh off the successful 2023 Texas 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, so now we turn our attention to our yearling sale,” TTA sales Director Foster Bridewell said. “We've already had a lot of interest from our owners and breeders about our 2023 Texas Summer Yearling Sale. This announcement of our date on Aug. 28, 2023 is just the start of our planning process as we work to continue to put on successful sales in the Texas region.”
The 2022 Texas Summer Yearling Sale set records for the TTA Sales company. One-hundred-sixty-one horses sold for $3.41 million in total sales, up from $3.2 million at the 2021 sale. The average sale price in 2022 increased and the median price was also up year-to-year.
“We are proud of the gains made at our 2022 Texas Summer Yearling Sale,” Bridewell added. “In 2023, we have an opportunity to continue to grow our sales operation and provide a strong marketplace for our buyers to shop for and our sellers to showcase quality horses in the region.”
The Entry Deadline for the 2023 Texas Summer Yearling Sale is June 30, 2023 and consignment forms are now available at www.ttasales.com.
