Tag: breeder

“As Exciting as Winning a Race,” Steve Cauthen Talks Keeneland September Score

Steve Cauthen sat in the shade of Barn 42 at the Four Star Sales consignment Tuesday afternoon, basking not in the memory of his glory days as a Hall of Fame jockey, but in quiet celebration after selling one of the top-priced yearlings of the day at the Keeneland September Sale.

The colt, a flashy son of Sharp Azteca out of the stakes-placed mare She's Roughin It (Forest Camp), sold for $250,000 to Jerry Namy and Garry Simms.

“This is as exciting as winning a race,” Cauthen declared. “When you get a good one and people like it enough to fight for it, it's great.”

Cauthen has been involved in the breeding side of the industry since back when he was riding, when he owned a few mares that stayed with his father at the farm in Walton, Kentucky. After retiring from the saddle in 1992, the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year took up golf for a while, but got bored after a few years. So, he decided to go out and find a few more broodmares to get more involved as a breeder.

Today, Cauthen has eight mares at his Dreamfields Farm in Kentucky. Most of the broodmares are owned in partnership with various friends. They focus on breeding to sell, but have also raced several homebreds over the years.

“We've done quite well,” Cauthen said. “We've breed some nice stakes horses. We bred a nice colt called Pegasus Wind (Fusaichi Pegasus) that ran in the 2006 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile.”

Cauthen picked out She's Roughin It, the dam of this most recent yearling success, at the 2007 Keeneland November Sale for $80,000. The daughter of Forest Camp had placed in a pair of stakes as a juvenile and won once as a sophomore for Steve Asmussen before landing with Cauthen.

She's Roughin It's first foal, The Truth and K G ( Successful Appeal), won over $200,000 and placed in a Grade III. She has since produced five more winners including Francesco Appeal, another stakes-placed son of Successful Appeal.

“She has had a lot of good foals,” Cauthen noted. “They're all really typey and the great thing is, her last three foals have been the best foals she has had.”

In addition to this Sharp Azteca colt, the mare also has a juvenile filly by the same sire named T. T.'s Women who ran fourth in her debut earlier this month as well as a weanling filly by Cloud Computing.

Cauthen was first drawn to Three Chimneys sire Sharp Azteca when the Grade I winner retired to stud. Doug Cauthen, a member of the advisor board at Three Chimneys, encouraged his brother to go visit the new stallion. Now a standout young sire, Sharp Azteca currently leads his class of first-crop sires by winners.

“Sharp Azteca is a big, beautiful stallion,” Cauthen said. “He's a striking individual and did plenty on the track, so I was happy to get involved and now I have a breeding right to him. I think with the fact that he has had MSW Tyler's Tribe, GSP Honed and SW Sharp Aza Tack, his horses are going for the top races and that's what gives people confidence to say maybe this horse can be a top stallion.”

Cauthen's colt was the first Sharp Azteca yearling to go through the ring this year at Keeneland September, with nearly a dozen more to follow as the week progresses.

Cauthen said that he had high hopes for his homebred from the beginning. The youngster spent his early days at Cauthen's farms before going through sales prep with Renee Dailey.

“This colt looked good since the day he was born,” Cauthen shared. “He was always a good type of individual and he just kept growing and improving. From a long time ago, I was hoping to get to $200,000 with him so this is a little better than I was expecting, but of course this has been a crazy good market. It's unbelievably strong and when you get to this point in the sale, there are still some good horses but less really nice individuals, so you hope [the buyers] all end up fighting for them.”

Cauthen is looking forward to watching another one of his yearlings go through the ring later in the week. His Cloud Computing filly out of the Dialed In mare Brilliant Dial sells as Hip 3381 with Fours Star Sales on Thursday. Until then, he'll celebrate today's achievement.

“The highest-priced yearling I've ever sold was $425,000,” he said. “My mares are nice but they're not Grade I winners so for me, this was great.”

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“She’s a Special One,” George and Karen Russell on Superstar Broodmare Pappascat

Boppy O (Bolt d'Oro) was greeted by an ecstatic winner's circle as he circled back to the Saratoga grandstand after his 23-1 upset in the GIII With Anticipation S., but he had another cheering squad celebrating from his birthplace in Reddick, Florida. His breeders George and Karen Russell of Rustlewood Farm were out with friends as the juvenile colt made his turf debut, but they didn't hesitate to huddle around their phone at the dinner table so they could watch the race live.

“We were thinking it would sure be good if he hit the board,” George Russell said the day after the big win. “Then when he won we were obviously really excited. He's still young and a little green, but hopefully he'll do good in his next start and go on to the Breeders' Cup. If he does, we'll be there.”

If Boppy O does make an appearance on Future Stars Friday, it would not be the Russells' first representation at the championship meet. Boppy O is the half-brother to last year's GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile runner-up Pappacap (Gun Runner). While both colts are trained by Mark Casse, Grade II winner and three-time Grade I-placed Pappacap was retained by his breeder and is campaigned by Rustlewood Farm.

The Russells purchased Pappascat (Scat Daddy), the dam of these two impressive performers, in 2015 after she RNA'd for $110,000 at the Keeneland November Sale. Pappascat is one of just over a dozen mares at Rustlewood Farm.

“She's a lovely mare, a big pretty mare,” Karen explained. “She's easy to be around. She doesn't crib, she doesn't have to wear shoes and she's not a drama queen.”

“She seems to be consistent with what she is producing,” George added. “They all have a lot of desire and they're good on themselves.”

While Karen was the one who suggested sending Pappascat to Gun Runner after watching the future red-hot sire capture the 2018 GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational S., George enlisted the help of friend and advisor Francis Vanlangendonck of Summerfield Sales to plan the mating to Bolt d'Oro that produced Boppy O.

Boppy  O as a youngster at Rustlewood Farm | Shelley Bunning

Shelley Bunning, the farm manager at Rustlewood, offered insight on the Florida-bred colt's early days and explained that Boppy O had a much different personality than his older brother.

“Pappacap was more settled with the concept of working than Boppy O was,” she said with a chuckle. “Everything you asked, Pappacap did with enthusiasm and he wanted to do it right whereas Boppy O was more along the lines of, 'I can do it but I just might not want to do it today.'  He was very capable, but sometimes stubborn.”

Bunning noted that as the colt matured, he grew a bit more laid-back.

“Once we started yearling prep with him, he grasped the situation and what we wanted him to do, but whether he was going to do it that day was up to him,” she said. “He did work hard and apply himself, and he grew up and filled out nicely.”

Pappacap was retained by the Russells when he was unable to sell at what they believed was his true worth as a yearling in 2020, but Boppy O followed the farm's usual protocol of going through a sale as a yearling. The colt sold for $190,000 to John Oxley and Breeze Easy LLC. He went on to break his maiden at first asking at Gulfstream in May and then finished a disappointing 10th in the GIII Sandford S. before bouncing back impressively in his With Anticipation score, where he was the first graded stakes winner for his freshman sire.

Bunning was quick to credit her employers for their positive outlook in the face of selling a future graded winner.

“A lot of times in the industry people gripe about how, 'Oh we shouldn't have sold that horse,'” Bunning said. “But they're not mad about it; they think it's brilliant. They're just happy that everyone's enjoying it.”

“We always wish the best for the people that buy them,” George said. “It's exciting and it makes it worthwhile. We've learned that you generally have the one or the two that pay for the others. To get something like this and have a mare like Pappascat, it makes it so much more enjoyable to have something to look forward to.”

While the Russells have experienced the highs of the game with Pappascat and her offspring, they've also endured the lowest of lows. Just three weeks ago, Pappascat's yearling by Omaha Beach died tragically. It's a loss that could never be replaced for the couple no matter the success of the mare's other offspring.

Grade II winner Pappacap | Sarah Andrew

“He was a special individual,” George said. “We were really devastated and it's still hard to believe. We've never had an experience like that where we lost a horse that was doing fine and then was gone within hours. He had a fever in the morning and he was immediately loaded up and headed to the clinic. We were never worried about what eventually happened.”

“The lows are the lows, but this week we have Boppy O lifting us back up,” Karen said.

While the loss still weighs heavy, the Russells were grateful to find cause for celebration in Boppy O's victory and they have also found solace in two other sons of Pappascat thriving at their farm.

Following a fourth-place finish in the GII Amsterdam S. in July, Pappacap has returned to Rustlewood this month for a bit of 'R and R' and a diet that includes plenty of peppermints.

“He's in one of the paddocks right by our house,” George shared. “Karen goes out there and takes care of him. He's been pretty consistent for us and he's sound as could be, so we figured it was a well-deserved break and he will tell us when he's ready to go back.”

This year, Pappascat produced a colt by War of Will. The Russells reported that the May-foaled youngster could be something special.

“He's just about the nicest thing we've seen,” Karen said. “We think he's the best one so far. Plus, Pappascat is back in foal to Candy Ride.”

Asked if Pappacap–or maybe even Boppy O–would go down as an all-time favorite bred at Rustlewood, the Russells could not give a definitive answer as they listed off additional stars in Grade II victor Mach Ride (Pentelicus), Grade III winner Prudhoe Bay (Songandaprayer) and SW Consider Thesource (Notebook).

“They mean the world to us,” Karen said “I can't talk about them without crying. They're all really special.”

“They're all treated the same and my wife loves them all,” said George. “How Pappascat has produced for us, mares like her are few and far between. It just adds a little something extra to it. She's a special one.”

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Olympiad Latest Success From Emory Hamilton’s Foundation Mare

Breeder Emory Alexander Hamilton is looking forward to her trip to Saratoga this weekend to cheer on the talented Olympiad (Speightstown) in what looks to be an ultra-competitive edition of the GI Whitney S.

“He has done so well; it's really amazing,” Hamilton said enthusiastically. “The Whitney is going to be a tough race. There are some really good horses going there, but Bill Mott and his owners have been patient with him and it has paid off.”

Hamilton, who looks forward to drawing out the mating plans for her 10-mare broodmare band every year, said that the cross that produced four-time graded stakes-winning Olympiad was an easy pick. She sent Olympiad's dam Tokyo Time (Medaglia d'Oro), a third-generation homebred for the accomplished breeder, to Speightstown in the hopes of injecting a bit of speed into the pedigree of the resulting foal.

Olympiad was foaled in Kentucky at Middlebrook Farm, which is owned by Hamilton's sister Helen Alexander, and while he wasn't dropping jaws from the beginning, he quickly started to progress as he matured and went through the sales prepping program at Gainesway Farm as a yearling.

“As a foal he was nice, but he wasn't like, 'wow,'” Hamilton admitted. “Then he started to develop as a yearling. Especially in the last three months before the sale, he started to look athletic, he walked really well, and the rest is history.”

At the 2019 Keeneland September Sale, the bay colt sold for $700,000 to Solis/Litt Bloodstock. Lightly raced at two and three, this year Olympiad has maintained a perfect five-for-five campaign for owners Grandview Equine, Cheyenne Stable and LNJ Foxwoods. The 4-year-old's most recent definitive victory in the GII Stephen Foster S. punched his ticket to the GI Breeders' Cup Classic.

Olympiad is the latest success in a long line of top-level racehorses over the past four decades to arise from Hamilton's fruitful breeding program that was built off her foundation mare Too Chic (Blushing Groom).

Bred by Hamilton's family's legendary King Ranch, Too Chic went through the ring at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July Yearling Sale in 1980.

“I was determined to have her,” Hamilton recalled. “She was not huge as a yearling, but she was very athletic looking. She was a bit crooked, but I had the benefit of knowing the family. She was a descendent of the French mare Monade (Klairon), who my grandfather had bought for King Ranch. Monade was a good size, but she was not perfect physically and she was a champion.”

Hamilton's instincts about her $100,000 purchase proved correct when Too Chic raced to Grade I success, but the true worth of the daughter of Blushing Groom was realized later on in her breeding career.

From 11 foals, Too Chic produced eight winners led by Chic Shirine and Queena, both Grade I-winning daughters of Mr. Prospector that went on to be prolific producers for Hamilton.

Queena, herself a champion on the racetrack, was responsible for Grade I winner and sire Brahms (Danzig) as well as graded stakes winner and producer La Reina (A. P. Indy).

Olympiad as a yearling at the Keeneland September Sale | Keeneland

Chic Shirine produced a pair of Grade II winners and four graded stakes producers. Among those daughters, Flying Passage (A.P. Indy) is the dam of MGSW Hungry Island (More Than Ready), one of Hamilton's top earners on the racetrack; GSW Soaring Empire (Empire Maker); Flying Dixie (Dixieland Band), the dam of Grade I-winning millionaire and sire Preservationist; and Tokyo Time, the dam of Olympiad.

Like many of Hamilton's race fillies in recent years, Tokyo Time was trained by Shug McGaughey. She won four starts on the turf and ran second in the 2013 GIII Herecomesthebride S.

After producing Olympiad, Tokyo Time is also responsible for a 3-year-old filly named Friendship Road (Quality Road) who has made three starts for Hamilton and McGaughey this year, as well as a juvenile filly by War Front who brought $450,000 at last year's Keeneland September Sale and a yearling colt by American Pharoah that is pointing for the sales ring this fall. While the mare did not produce a foal this year, Hamilton reported that Tokyo Time is now carrying a full-sister to Olympiad.

Hamilton has maintained the same philosophy over the decades of selling her colts and retaining almost all of her fillies to race and eventually join her boutique broodmare band.

A few of her most recent successes on the racetrack include Texian (Quality Road), who hails from the Queena family line and broke her maiden at Laurel Park in June, as well as two daughters of Hungry Island. Hungry Island's first foal Hungry Kitten (Kitten's Joy) made three trips to the winner's circle and placed in a stake at Belmont in 2020. The mare's second filly Flanigan's Cove (Kitten's Joy) broke her maiden at Keeneland last fall as a 3-year-old for McGaughey and is currently training at Saratoga.

As Hamilton explains, one of the keys to her program after raising generations of influential producers has been to focus on maintaining the quality of her stock.

“It's about trying to protect your mares when you breed them and figuring out the best stallion [for them] as best you can,” she said. “You're not going to knock it out of the park every time, but if you have a stakes winners, that's really exciting. That's what I've tried to do is protect the family and send the fillies to trainers I like.”

As each branch of Too Chic's family continues to blossom year after year, the blue hen mare has become even more meaningful to Hamilton.

“My favorite horse of all time, by far, is Too Chic,” she said, “Everything comes from her that I've owned and it's been a very prolific family, but you also have to get really lucky. It's hard to breed horses, especially in the first couple of matings before you know what kind of foals the mare might have. That's where a lot of luck comes in and you just try to breed them to something good in order to keep the quality up.”

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“We Received An Offer That Was Very Hard To Refuse” – La Petite Coco’s Breeder

Bernd and Ute Schone may sound an unlikely couple to be putting County Offaly in lights. However, the husband-and-wife team, who hail from Germany but have based themselves in the village of Rhode for over a decade, boast the rare achievement of breeding a Group 1 winner after their graduate La Petite Coco (Ire) (Ruler Of The World {Ire}) stormed to Alwasmiyah Pretty Polly S. glory at the Curragh on Sunday. 

Ute Schone, who runs the farm alongside her husband Bernd, described La Petite Coco's Group 1 victory as “a dream” and revealed that she still hadn't come back down to earth after Sunday's race. 

Speaking on Monday, she said, “What can I say? Yesterday was so unreal. I am speechless. It is a dream, honestly. Watching her yesterday, that last furlong, I stood there in complete shock. I couldn't believe it. 

“Even last year when she won her Group 2 on Irish Champions Weekend. I mean, hello? You are standing there watching it and you can't believe that it's a horse that you bred.”

Schone added, “We had La Petite Coco for two years and yesterday we were watching her winning a Group 1. Wow. It's indescribable, honestly. 

“My husband [Bernd] and I, we are just small breeders, and something like this has never happened to us before.”

Bernd and Ute run a boarding facility in Rhode. They cater mostly for international clients and breed a handful of their own mares. La Petite Virginia (Ger) (Konigstiger {Ger}), the dam of La Petite Coco, was one of those mares.

“We refused a few offers [for La Petite Virginia] earlier on in La Petite Coco's career but, after she won the Blandford Stakes, we received an offer that was very hard to refuse,” – Ute Schone, breeder of La Petite Coco

That was until the Schones received an offer that they couldn't refuse for the mare after La Petite Coco won the G2 Blandford S. at the Curragh last term.

However, fortune had not always followed La Petite Virginia and, before La Petite Coco came onto the scene, the Schones endured their share of hard-luck stories. 

Shone explained, “La Petite Virginia was very weak when she came to us first. Her dam had to be put down when she was only two months old and she was raised by a foster mare. We got her as a weanling and, because she was pretty weak, it was quite obvious not to put her into training. 

“Because she was so well-bred, we decided to breed from her. We couldn't afford the big stallions but we went to what we thought would suit her, what was affordable and nice.”

She added, “Her first foal was a filly by Thewayyouare. She was sold abroad and won, which was great. We sent her to Power (GB) and we sold the foal to a man in Germany but unfortunately it died as a yearling. That was only the start of the bad luck with her. 

“We had a beautiful Excelebration (Ire) colt foal. Just gorgeous. We turned him out in the field and everything was great. The vet liked him as well. He was perfect. The following morning came and the foal was dead. 

“We skipped a year with her after that but then decided to try and do it again with her. We went to Ruler Of The World (Ire). We liked him as a racehorse. He's a Derby winner and is obviously by Galileo (Ire). We saw him in the flesh and we liked him a lot. The rest is history now. 

After that we sent her to Ivawood (Ire) because we thought it would be a good idea to try and get a bit more speed into her so we still have that 2-year-old. She is in training with Andrew Kinirons.”

La Petite Virginia is a half-sister to Lavirco (Ger) and Laveron (GB), both known for being proven National Hunt stallions, and is from a good Gestut Fahrhof family.

Despite this, Schone did not think that La Petite Coco would make much at the sales and elected to race her. After two solid runs in Irish maidens for Andrew Kinirons, La Petite Coco was sold privately to Team Valor and sent to Paddy Twomey, for whom her career has blossomed with. 

The one constant in the La Petite Coco story has been Billy Lee and Schone is under no doubt the role the rider has played.

She said, “We didn't send La Petite Coco to the auction because we didn't think she'd make any money. We decided to put her in training with Andrew Kinirons and he did a very good job with her. 

“Andrew has a very good connection with Billy Lee. He rode her in two races and he always liked her, which meant a lot. I think we were very lucky having Billy on board so early in her career.”

Schone's Ivawood half-sister to La Petite Coco has yet to grace the track but the reports are good. As for La Petite Virginia, she was sold back to Gestut Fahrhof for an eye-watering sum and is understood to have given birth to a colt foal by Gleneagles.

Schone said, “Once you produce a good horse, the sales call is never far away. We refused a few offers earlier on in La Petite Coco's career but, after she won the Blandford Stakes, we received an offer that was very hard to refuse. Luckily enough, she went back to her breeder [Gestut Fahrhof].”

She added, “You could say it was a life-changing amount of money and you don't have to worry about certain things anymore. On the other hand, we owned La Petite Virginia for nearly 13 years. She became a part of the family. We went through so many things with her. Ups and downs. You build up a relationship with a horse like that. 

“But she has gone back to one of the best stud farms in Germany and we know she will have a great life. There are no concerns there. We sold her in foal to Gleneagles (Ire) and she had a colt foal. The plan was to send her to Camelot (GB) after that.”

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