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Cape Canaveral, Wilko Lead Alberta’s 2020 Stallion Owner’s Breeding Award Bonus Earners

The 2020 Stallion Owner's Breeding Awards were recently dispersed to eligible stallion owners as part of Horse Racing Alberta's Breed Improvement Program.

The Stallion Owners' Breeding support for 2020 totaled $55,000 and was distributed through the Thoroughbred Breed Improvement Program.

The percentage for the 2020 Stallion Owners' was 3.28 percent and was based on the following criteria: “Stallion bonus will be paid proportionately to stallion owners whose stallions have eligible Alberta Thoroughbred progeny with earnings of $10,000 or greater during the calendar year. Stallions must have stood in the province of Alberta for the entire calendar year of conception for each year's crop to be eligible.”

The Highfield Stock Farm stallion Cape Canaveral, led the Alberta stallions with $311,478 total in eligible Alberta Thoroughbred progeny earnings in 2020.

The leading runner for the Mr. Prospector son last season was the CTHS Alberta sale graduate Pearl of Knowledge, bred by Starline Thoroughbreds. The multiple stakes-placed filly finished the season with $54,760 in earnings with a win in the Alberta Oaks and second place finishes in the black type Sonoma Handicap and Chariot Chaser Handicap. The race record for Pearl of Knowledge last season was 6-2-2-1.

The stakes-winning daughter of Cape Canaveral, Music at Work, was his second-leading earner with $43,460 in earnings from a win in the black type Sonoma Handicap and a third place finish in the Chariot Chaser Handicap. Bred by Wes and Jenn Hanson, the race record for Music at Work was 6-2-0-1 in 2020.

Triple Power was the third-leading eligible Alberta progeny for Cape Canaveral with $33,247 in earnings from a record of 7-4-0-0 and a win in the Grande Prairie Derby. The gelding was bred by Don Danard, Joe Fenrich and Don Knight.

The Awesome Again son Wilko took second spot in the leading Alberta stallions with a total of $217,666 in eligible Alberta Thoroughbred progeny earnings.

The 2017 Alberta champion Shimshine led the list for this stallion with $49,389 in earnings last season. Shimshine finished the 2020 meet with a record of 9-2-1-1 including a win in the Alberta Breeders' Handicap and a third place finish in the black type Century Mile Handicap.

Chancee was the next eligible Wilko progeny with $22,280 in earnings from a record of 13-1-2-0 last season. Horseradish was the third-leading eligible Alberta progeny in 2020 for Wilko with $20,214 in earnings and a record of 6-1-1-0. All three leading eligible runners for Wilko were bred by Andy Stronach and Wally Pugh. Wilko stood stud at Highfield in 2014 and 2015 when these runners were conceived.

Where's the Ring finished in third position on the top five Alberta stallion list for 2020 with $195,760 in eligible progeny earnings. The Seeking the Gold son stood at Peaceful Valley Farms in Didsbury for the 2016 year before moving back to Colebrook Farms in Ontario where he was a leading sire last season.

Solo Ring led in eligible Alberta progeny for Where's the Ring with a win in the $50,000 CTHS Alberta Sales Stakes for 3- and 4-year-old colts and geldings and $47,140 in season earnings from a record of 7-2-3-1. The CTHS Alberta sale graduate was bred by Peaceful Valley Farms.

Striders Ring was second for Where's the Ring with two allowance wins and $44,195 in season earnings from a record of 9-5-0-1. Striders Ring was bred by Running Fawcett Thoroughbreds and sold through the 2017 CTHS Alberta sale.

Zicatela rounded out the top three Alberta eligible progeny placings for Where's the Ring Alberta progeny with a third place finish in the CTHS Sales Stakes in the same race with another Where's the Ring son, winner Solo Ring. Bred by Dawson Guhle, Zicatela finished the season with $28,645 in season earnings and a record of 9-1-3-2.

The Bar None Ranches Ltd. stallion Gayego was fourth on the 2020 Alberta stallion list with eligible progeny earnings of $173,634 last season.

Count on It was the leading Alberta runner for the Gilded Time son last season with three stakes placings including a second in the Princess Margaret Stakes, a second place in the 2-year-old CTHS Sales Stakes, and a third place finish in the Sturgeon River Stakes. The Bar None Ranches-bred filly finished the meet with a record of 6-1-3-1 and $36,060 in earnings.

The second placed eligible progeny for Gayego was the Bar None Ranches bred and owned gelding, Trader Lynn. The 2017 gelding earned $17,178 last season with two claiming race wins and a record of 6-2-0-0. Bred by Tod Mtn. Thoroughbreds, Lookout Taylor was the third-leading eligible Alberta progeny for Gayego in 2020 with $10,639 in earnings from a claiming race win and a record of 7-1-1-1.

The Storm Cat son Schramsberg was fifth on the leading Alberta stallions in 2020 with eligible progeny earnings of $112,795. Lookout Louie was the leading eligible runner for Schramsberg last season with two claiming race wins and $44,400 in earnings from a record of 7-3-0-0. Lookout Louie was bred by Jim Moroz and Dave McDougall.

Bar None Ranches-bred and -owned runner, Chatty Gal, was the second-leading Alberta progeny for Schramsberg with $10,275 in earnings from a claiming race win and a record of 6-1-2-0 last season. The Bar None Ranches-bred runner, Remarkable Vintage, rounded out the top three runners for Schramsberg with two claiming wins and earnings of $9,797 from a record of 7-3-0-0.

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Playing The Numbers: Bucchero’s Third-Book Breeders To Join On Group Lottery Ticket

There is no shortage of comparisons to the lottery in the horse racing business.

A horse that receives the best characteristics of its parents is said to have hit the genetic lottery. One that's sold for well above its expected value is often compared to hitting the jackpot, while the buyer of that same horse will say the prospect is their lottery ticket toward success on the track, and hopefully the breeding shed. Then, the ticket printer starts humming all over again.

For breeders who book their mares to Florida stallion Bucchero in 2021, the hyperbole is put to the side. They're getting an actual lottery ticket.

To help drum up support for the stallion in his third crop, typically a challenging book to fill for any sire, managing partner Harlan Malter will buy a $2,000 lottery ticket in July, and anyone that sent a mare to Bucchero this year has the option to join it. One mare bred equals one share in the group ticket.

Malter has never been one to shy away from promotional hooks for the Grade 2-winning son of Kantharos. When the stallion's first foals were born last year, he designed a website to show them off and create a marketplace to buy and sell the foals. Each season at stud has seen a unique incentive program, from offering lifetime breeding rights if his runners win graded stakes races to creating a “lock-in” plan to keep early-book breeders at the same stud fee in the future in the event Bucchero succeeds enough to raise it.

“Each year, I try to think of what would be something as a small breeder that would be fun or exciting,” Malter said. “For about a month straight, the Mega Millions was going up every single month. I think it ended up going over a billion dollars, and I felt like with all the national excitement about the lottery, it just kind of fit the comparison of what breeding is like. It's like the lottery sometimes – you need lightning to strike.

“This one's probably the longest shot,” he continued, “but it'll have the biggest payout if something happens.”

Which particular lottery game would be played with the group ticket was still to be determined. Malter said he'd likely plunk the money down on whichever game had the highest jackpot in July, once the breeding season is over and the list of eligible players was finalized.

Malter said the lotto-ticket comparisons were especially true for breeders in a stallion's third book. By the time the ensuing foals reach the marketplace as yearlings, Bucchero will have two crops of racing age on the racetrack, and his ever-important first crop will be in the midst of its 3-year-old season. The stallion's reputation will be settling in the minds of potential buyers, and a fast start at stud could lead to a windfall for those third-book breeders who will have high-demand product at the right time. On the opposite side of the coin, if those first crops don't come out running, they'll bear the commercial brunt.

Fortunately, Bucchero will have about as many chances to get off the mark quickly as any stallion in North America. The 291 mares he covered in his first two books at Pleasant Acres Stallions was the most of any stallion in Florida over the same timespan. He defied convention last year when he covered more mares in his second book than his first, rising from 130 to 161 from year to year.

“We wanted to highlight that it's an even bigger benefit to the breeder than it is to us, because they'll be sitting on the product in that year,” Malter said. “If the horse does hit, and he'll hopefully have all these chances, we hope it pays off for them.”

Bucchero has a while before his first foals hit the racetrack, but the early commercial indicators have been positive. He was the leading Florida-based sire of newly-turned yearlings by both gross and average, among those with more than one horse sold, with eight sold for a total of $135,000 and an average of $16,875.

“Obviously, I've had a tremendous amount of passion for Bucchero and his prospects, and he was very well received,” Malter said. “I was at the sale talking to people shopping and buying, and he brought the goods. He brought what you would expect from Bucchero.”

In particular, Malter noted that Bucchero's broodmare sire, the leading California sire General Meeting, was showing through in his foals, giving them traits one might not expect from a stallion who was best known during his racing days as a turf sprinter.

“The words that I heard were, 'athletic, strong, very good muscle tone,'” Malter said. “The thing I found most interesting, and I got this from a few people, was 'I think I need to rethink what I was expecting of a Bucchero.' I think the people who have never seen him in person think he was a very fast sprinter, and that you're going to get a stocky, short-coupled horse. What I got from most people was they're scopy, they've got nice leg. I think a good chunk of that is coming through with General Meeting in the bloodline, which I don't think the East Coast saw much of. I was happy to hear from people that he was checking off pretty much all the boxes they were looking for.”

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Major Australian Breeder Under Investigation For Embryo Transfer In Mares

Sean Buckley of Australian-based breeding operation Ultra Thoroughbreds, is under investigation for conducting an embryo transfer scheme in Thoroughbred mares, the Racing Post's ANZ Bloodstock reports.

Stewards for Racing Victoria are investigating allegations that the operation has been producing foals through embryo transfer: taking a fertilized egg from a mare in its ranks and placing it into another mare to carry and foal out. One of the mares in question is believed to be Miss Andretti, the 2007 Australian Horse of the Year, who has reportedly had a history of issues conceiving foals.

The allegations list multiple high-profile mares who are accused of using artificial means of conceiving foals during the 2019 Southern Hemisphere breeding season, including Strikeline, the dam of recent Group 1 winner Nature Strip.

The claims allege that Miss Andretti had a filly and Strikeline had a colt during last year's foaling season, both by Buckley-owned stallion Addictive Nature, but mare returns have not been reported for either horse. Both mares were covered by another Buckley-owned stallion, Shamus Award, in December.

The rules of the Australian Stud Book – along with any globally recognized Thoroughbred stud book – state that a registered Thoroughbred can only be conceived through a live cover. Other forms of conception, including embryo transfer, artificial insemination, and cloning, are strictly prohibited within the Thoroughbred breed, through they are more commonplace within the racing spheres of the Standardbred, Quarter Horse, and Arabian breeds.

The investigation was supported on-record by representatives for breed organizations Thoroughbred Breeders Australia and Thoroughbred Breeders Victoria.

Read more at Racing Post ANZ Bloodstock.

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International Sire Pivotal Pensioned From Stud Duty

Pivotal, the champion sprinter and multiple champion sire and broodmare sire, has been retired from covering duties.

The 28-year-old son of Polar Falcon has been a stalwart and flagbearer at Cheveley Park Stud since his retirement to stud in 1997.

Bred and raced by Cheveley Park Stud, he was trained by Sir Mark Prescott. A track record breaker as a 2-year-old, he was crowned champion sprinter as a 3-year-old, with the undoubted highlight coming in the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes at York, when prevailing by the narrowest of margins to become the first Group 1 winner to be both bred and owned by Cheveley Park Stud. Prior to that he had shown all his battling qualities and tenacity in winning the Group 2 King's Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Pivotal took up stallion duties at an initial fee of £6,000, and immediately proved popular with commercial breeders. He was a leading British based first season sire, and soon sired his first British Group 1 winner in Kyllachy, who followed in his father's footsteps in winning the Nunthorpe Stakes, before also retiring to stand at Cheveley Park Stud. Pivotal went on to quickly rise through the stallion ranks and was leading British-based sire by individual winners on no less than eight occasions, and was twice crowned leading British-based sire by earnings. To date Pivotal has sired 32 individual Group 1 winners, including the classic winners Sariska, Halfway To Heaven, Falco, Buzzword and Saoire, as well as Dubai World Cup winner African Story, and most recently a Group 1 brace on QIPCO British Champions Day with Addeybb and Glen Shiel winning the Champion Stakes and British Champions Sprint Stakes, respectively .

Already Pivotal's legacy is starting to live on through both his sons and daughters. He was crowned champion European broodmare sire 2017 to 2019, and his daughters produced the Group 1 winners Love, Magical, Golden Horde and One Master last season, as well as multiple Group 1 winners Cracksman and Advertise in recent years. He is also making an impact as a sire of sires, with seven of his sons having sired Group 1 winners to date, most notably Siyouni with last season's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe victor Sottsass and Dewhurst Stakes winner St Marks Basilica.

A true legend in his own lifetime, the 'mighty' Pivotal will now enjoy a happy retirement at Cheveley Park Stud, where he will see out the rest of his years.

Managing director, Chris Richardson, said; “The story associated with the 'Mighty' Pivotal is truly extraordinary, considering he was the result of the very first covering his sire, Polar Falcon, was given. Thankfully, as a yearling, it was decided to retain him to race, rather than offer him for sale, as we did with the other yearling colts by Polar Falcon that year. Whilst in the hands of trainer, Sir Mark Prescott, Pivotal truly put Cheveley Park Stud on the map, giving owners David and Patricia Thompson their first Group 1 winner in the stud's famous red, white and blue colors. Having covered a relatively small book of mares in his first year, his resulting progeny excelled and inspired at all levels, which they have continued to do throughout his career, both domestically and internationally. On the world stage, Pivotal has excelled as a sire, a sire of sires and as a broodmare sire, to the highest level and all of us at Cheveley Park Stud have been so blessed to have been part of his life for 28 years. I think Triple Crown winner, Isinglass, whose stable Pivotal occupies, would have been very proud and we all wish Pivotal a well-deserved and happy retirement.”

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