The Ocala horseman, who reflected on a colorful past in yesterday's TDN, now turns his attention to the future. For the evolution of a successor program, parallel to his own, makes the de Meric family a particularly pertinent case study for our series on how horse people handle the challenges of dynastic transition.

And, really, Nick couldn't have used a more apposite analogy. The “umbilical cord” to which he refers, of course, is the one extending four decades to the foundation of the pinhooking and pre-training business he operates with his wife Jaqui. Albeit not by much, it even predates the advent of their son Tristan and daughter Ali. But while that literally umbilical connection between parents and their children is never truly severed, the handover of a family business requires long habits of filial duty and parental authority to be gently renounced. And that's a process that demands imagination, flexibility, generosity.

As so often in these situations, Nick and Jaqui first had to establish whether, through nature or nurture, they had passed on a sense of vocation around horses-not to mention the accompanying skills.

“The guys I grew up with in the business, they're mostly around my age,” Nick remarks. “Some have kids who are looking like they're ready to assume the mantle; others don't. And when you've devoted your whole career to building a business, it's gratifying to have someone who can carry the torch forward for you, rather than just having to end it.”

Brandon and Ali Rice | Photos by Z

Ali married another who was born to the game, in Brandon Rice, and in 2009 they started their own program very much in the same manner as Nick and Jaqui around 25 years previously. They scraped together enough for a couple of cheap yearlings, notably a $7,000 colt who made $200,000 at OBS the following April before going on to become a graded stakes winner. Building on that remarkable start, Ricehorse Stables has proceeded to become a respected presence on the national sales scene.

Tristan and his wife Val, meanwhile, have become integral to the home operation, while maintaining a degree of independence that has evidently worked well on both sides. That they, too, know what they are about is evident from the fact that they and prepared subsequent champion juvenile Corniche (Quality Road) to make $1.5 million at OBS.

But perhaps an even bigger turning point, for Tristan and Val, had come when Gabriel Dixon put back on the market a 60-acre tract he had previously bought from Nick and Jaqui, with access to their Eclipse Training Center complex.

“Tris and Val were looking for something to invest in, so they jumped at that chance,” Nick explains. “And since then two more barns have been built, which they're able to lease out and so make the real estate itself turn into a good investment.”

(Again, this has strong echoes of Nick and Jaqui's own story: we saw yesterday how they once paid off their own mortgage in much the same way.)

“So their business runs adjacent and parallel to mine,” Nick explains. “They use our racetrack. We pinhook together, but they also do plenty independently and so do I. And I hope that eventually this way of doing things will make for a fairly seamless transition.”

So was this incremental model a deliberate strategy, or did it just evolve organically?

“I would say a little bit of both,” says Nick. “In life generally, but particularly in our business, we all know that the best-laid plans can go sideways in a heartbeat. So I would not so much say that it was my plan, but that it was my hope. Because while you can't project anything in cast-iron, at the same time you at least need some drift and direction.”

With both their children, Nick and Jaqui imparted their horse lore more by osmosis than by formal instruction.

“Ali was always obsessed,” Nick recalls. “If I left for the barn in the morning without taking her, and I'm talking like 5:30, she would have a meltdown. She used to come with me to the Keeneland 2-Year-Old Sale, I'd let her out of school for a few days. And later she worked sales in Korea, Europe, all over the States.

“Tris was always more of a homebody, and not so much engaged in the horses as a kid: it was baseball, dirt bikes, boy stuff. So when he did decide that this really was his thing, it surprised us how much he had absorbed, just from being around us, from conversations at the dinner table and that kind of thing.

“Certainly he didn't come round to it through any pressure from us. This business is tough on a good day, and I would never press anybody to enter it unless they're passionate. But ever since then, he's taken it and run with it.”

Evidence of Tristan's inherited flair emerged during what are perhaps the two most critical weeks for all these programs, in scouting the September Sale at Keeneland.

Tristan de Meric | Photos by Z

“We all know how that's as much an exercise in logistics and stamina as in horsemanship,” Nick says. “You've just got to keep plugging on, and Tris was right there doing a very good job. And from early on I found, more and more, that I could absolutely rely on his eye. I could send him ahead to do this or that barn, and we could compare notes later. I was always super impressed with how analytical and critical an eye he had for horses, at such a young age. Some things you can teach, some you can't, and he just had that knack.”

And that trust has become the foundation of their teamwork ever since.

“It's a totally subjective thing,” Nick stresses. “It's about judgment, intuition, instinct. So you don't always agree on everything. But he not only could pick athletes, but also had a very good fix on the economics of what we do. Picking the right horse is not always the hardest part. Actually, getting them brought at a price you can make sense of, that's a big part of the equation too. And knowing what you can and can't live with, in terms of vetting and conformation. He's done incredibly well with all of that, way beyond anything I can take credit for.”

So much for the innate skills. In terms of structuring their professional responsibilities, however, the together-but- separate model appeals as one that other families might usefully emulate.

“On a normal training day at home, when we're just doing our thing in the winter, we're right next to each other,” Nick explains. “I'm usually on a pony, and Tris is right there, either on a pony himself or in the viewing stand with Valerie. So we're actually talking all the time. We're watching each other's horses.

We help each other out, whenever we can, or need to. But those over there are his horses, his riders; and these over here are my horses, my riders.

Tristan, Nick and Jaqui | Christie DeBernardis

“We have clients in common, a lot of friends in common. But they have a following all of their own, which to their credit they have acquired quite independently of Jaqui and me. Conversely, most of my clients are now very familiar with them, and understand that we overlap a lot in our businesses. During a sale, they know they can talk to any of us and get all the information they may need.”

Nick is absolutely not going to pretend that it has been plain sailing all the way. At the best of times, it's never easy for one generation to know when and how much rein should be permitted to the next; and that's harder yet when the decision-making doesn't just affect personal development but the prosperity (or otherwise) of the whole family.

“I don't know if 'baggage' is quite the right word, but there's all the history that led you to this point,” Nick agrees. “As they say, the child is father of the man. So for someone in my position, who with his wife and partner has been making all the decisions, for better or worse-financial decisions, training decisions, client decisions-there comes a point when I have to say, 'Okay, you're in charge, it's your baby; I'm taking a sabbatical, I'm stepping back.' So far I've been easing back, but not pulling back.

“Sometimes you will see things a little differently. And that's where you have to learn to bite your lip and say, 'Okay, I might have done it this way instead-but I understand where he's coming from, let it go.' But most of us in this business, almost by definition, are control freaks to some extent. Because we have to be on top of everything. So that's a transition, too.”

That, however, is a price he considers well worth paying in order to see a life's work taken forward by his own flesh and blood. He cites friends whose children have no interest in doing that, and who will just have to call in a realtor someday.

“Neither Jacqui or I have any interest whatsoever in cashing in our chips and moving to a gated community,” Nick admits. “We are farm people. We have more dogs, cats, peacocks, goats, chickens, cows than you could count. Same for all the pets buried in the woods behind the house. We'd never move off the farm unless we absolutely had to. Behind every rock and tree, there's some little memory. And we're always going to ride, as long as we're physically capable.

“But that doesn't mean we have to keep going hammer and tongs. We've had so little time to really enjoy the farm for what it is. Just to get up in the morning, take a stretch, tack up our horse and just go wandering around. We've always been pedaling the bike.

“And we can see Tris and Val are doing a great job. It's great what they have done, working independently of me and alongside me. I can see the buyers are completely comfortable interacting with them. And that's allowing me to take a little step back. Maybe not quite as fast as Jaqui wants me to, but I'm working on that! I do worry, for both our kids and their families, about the collective legacy we're handing them in this sport. But I couldn't be prouder of what they have accomplished.”

The post ‘Succession’ Presented By Neuman Equine Insurance: De Meric Sales appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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It feels presumptuous enough to offer counsel even on cheaper sires, when each mating should boil down to you finding an optimal fit for an individual mare that you know inside out. Still greater hesitation, then, must precede any attempt to discover “value” among this lot.

No stallion has any business standing at this kind of money unless demonstrably of elite caliber. So while we'll be nervously proposing a Podium, as usual, we won't be dwelling unduly on the rest. You can take it as read that most of these horses must be punching their weight, both on the track and at the sales.

Instead, I'd just like to make one or two more general observations, in concluding this series, on the current trading environment.

Here's a series of what feel like pretty uncontentious statements.

1) Fees, overall, feel rather too high now that a long bull   run has tapered off and the middle market is being stretched by polarization.

2) At the same time, books assembled by unproven sires are reaching a size that must contain seeds of peril for the future of the breed. We know that most won't make the grade, meaning that the gene pool is increasingly being flooded with… well, choose your own pejorative.

3) But stallion farms have little room for maneuver, on either front. Knowing how the commercial market will behave nowadays, their accountants have only two options to retrieve the massive investment required to recruit an attractive stallion. The first is to start fees as high as they can, on the basis that it's now closer to “one and out” than “three and out”. The other is to keep fees more accessible, and instead go all out for volume. That necessarily exposes breeders to bringing an unexceptional specimen to saturated catalogues, but they all book their mares with their eyes open and many are evidently prepared to gamble on a home run. Pricing a horse fairly without resorting to appalling volume is an extremely difficult balancing act, and in this series I have tried to identify farms that look after their clients best in those terms.

Gun Runner | Sarah Andrew

4) Commercial breeders operate in a very difficult environment and need to put bread on the table. If you've had a weanling break a leg playing in a paddock, or lost a mare foaling, then you're going not going to be factoring too many noble thoughts about the long-term health of the breed into your choice of stallion. Same applies to all the pinhookers. The real blame, therefore, rests with those directing ringside spending.

5) These, in turn, have only one cogent explanation for their behavior. And no, it's not because rolling the dice on new stallions is their only window for hitting an elite stallion because all the proven ones are too expensive. Okay, horses like Gun Runner and Curlin have turned out to be at their most accessible when starting out, even though priced at or near the top of their intake. But the reality is that the vast majority of rookies will never match the ratios consistently achieved by some of the highly affordable, prove-a-mare stalwarts noted in this series. So the remaining logic is a self-fulfilling one: buyers like new sires because these will typically turn out to have received their biggest and best books, precisely because that's where all the attention is expected to be.

6) But hang on a minute. What happens when these books become so big that the mare quality becomes swamped by quantity? If you truly believe that you have spotted a stallion with unusual potential, why not stick with him as his second, third and fourth books dwindle? He may no longer be getting top mares, but good luck picking out the gold from the glister when the rookies are routinely corralling way over 200. You'd still be getting that priceless “sire power,” but at a diminishing cost. Where were all these guys when Into Mischief, Tapit and War Front had no friends in their third and fourth years? That's a real service for your clients, hanging in there for the value when everyone else runs away screaming. Low tide is exactly when you should be getting aboard. As a young stallion gets closer to putting horses into the gate, surely you're just getting closer to being proved right?

7) That leaves us with little alternative but to assume that professional counsellors spend their clients' money on new sires first and foremost because they don't really have to put their neck on the line. They're participating in a communal game of fantasy breeding, and when they do hit a dud–and we all know what a dud looks like, even if hundreds of foals means that he can still be promoted for “yet another stakes winner”–they can shrug their shoulders and say, “Don't blame me, everybody loved that horse!” And conversely they can gloat when they happen to land on a seam of gold. Well, even I can do that occasionally, and in the earlier stages of this series I've been perfectly happy to suggest a roll of the dice on one or two young horses that seem to be underpriced for their potential. But for every Not This Time I might find, over the years there's no doubt that I'm going to like as many duds as the next guy.

Life Is Good | Sarah Andrew

So, in conclusion: the bottom line is that stallion fees are only too high if you lack the courage of your convictions. Certainly, there can't have been many better epochs for the breed-to-race programs. But as I never tire of saying, there should be nothing more commercial than putting a winner under your mare.

Whether you want to bring down fees, or book sizes, the solution is the same. You just need to broaden the type of stallions that you support.

That way, everyone's a winner. Using horses that have at least demonstrated some competence to replicate the prowess that earned them a place at stud would a) allow relief on fees, b) even out book sizes, c) improve your chances of producing a racehorse, and d) duly improve the resilience of the racing population, with all the incidental benefits to a sport under growing social pressure.

The only comfort about our present situation is a cold one, in that things are even worse in Europe. The saving grace of the American industry is that it's still a commercial aspiration– whatever 293 mares to Golden Pal might tell you–to have a horse hold out through two turns of dirt on the first Saturday in May. And that, of course, is a competence that unites the majority of the elite sires with whom we close our series today.

This price range admits only one absolute beginner, Cody's Wish, whose intake received a separate assessment at the start of the series. And overall, logically enough, there are far fewer untested sires standing at this kind of fee than lower down the pyramid: only FLIGHTLINE ($150,000), LIFE IS GOOD ($85,000) and ESSENTIAL QUALITY ($65,000) are maintaining a place at this level pending examination on the racetrack. Nobody needs reminding of the excellence of their first careers, and the first two only have their first weanlings due. But it's perhaps instructive of the type of program keenest to tap into Essential Quality's wholesome combination of class and constitution (champion at two and three) with family (now further decorated by Forte, who shares a third dam) that only five weanlings were traded out from his debut crop (eight offered; median $280,000).

At the other end of the scale, we have a few sires whose right to stand at dizzy fees is too familiar to required reiteration. We have just celebrated a fifth consecutive title for INTO MISCHIEF ($250,000), who has duly opened new horizons with the mid-career upgrade in his mares. Competing with the Into Mischief production line may well leave CURLIN ($250,000) as one of the best sires never to have his status formally gilded by a championship. And TAPIT ($185,000) is still the main man, when it comes to lifetime ratios. He had a quietish year by his metronomic standards, and his books will be being prudently managed these days, but I still hope to see him come up with that Derby winner to round off a resume that features stakes winners at one-in-10 named foals, 101 of them at graded level at 6.2 percent.

Justify | Sarah Andrew

Nor is there any need to dwell on the young guns JUSTIFY (private), whose success either side of the water–six elite scorers in 2023, notably an outstanding champion juvenile in Europe–suggests that he may be eligible for a historic role in our urgent quest for sires to reconcile the disastrous segregation of European and American gene pools; and GUN RUNNER ($250,000), whose early percentages remain simply freakish. In 2023 his black-type, graded-stakes and Grade I performers respectively came in at 17.2, 11.8 and 5.4 percent of starters!

A lot of the best sires are now in the evening of their careers, and these two appear to have a huge opportunity to dominate in the years ahead, along with NOT THIS TIME ($150,000) who will now only just be consolidating his breakout.

It would perhaps be taking loyalty too far to give Not This Time his umpteenth Value Podium at 10 times the fee that first excited us, but rest assured there's an awful lot still to come from a stallion who complements the priceless transatlantic legacy of Giant's Causeway with indigenous Tartan Farms dirt speed. Remember that his juveniles this year will be his first sired even at $40,000, up from just $12,500. They reached a median of $210,000 (average $287,025) as yearlings, nice work at the conception fee (and up from $150,000/$209,688). Even after adding Up to the Mark as a fifth Grade I winner in three crops, Not This Time may do well to keep up his incredible start as the crop conceived at his lowest ebb turns three. But the upgrade in quality will soon kick in, and then all bets will be off.

In contrast UNCLE MO ($150,000) first stood at this fee back in 2017 and QUALITY ROAD ($200,000) reached the same mark by 2019. By this stage, then, they have pretty well established who and what they are, and duly finished fourth and fifth respectively in the general list. Quality Road has become a particularly consistent sales performer, advancing his median in 2023 to $375,000 from $350,000, behind only Into Mischief and Curlin. It was Uncle Mo (median $212,500) who fired his racetrack arrows closer to the bull's-eye in 2023, 14 stakes winners (at 4.4 percent of starters) including three at Grade I level, whereas Quality Road's 18 (7.2 percent) featured just National Treasure at that altitude.

Good Magic | Sarah Andrew

If that pair are plainly in their prime, GOOD MAGIC ($125,000) has broken into the six-figure club after producing the Derby winner at the first attempt. That's quite a hike from $50,000 but he's no one-trick pony, counting Eclipse finalist Muth among half a dozen black-type winners already from 45 juvenile starters in 2023. Obviously, he's going to have to keep advancing his ringside performance to warrant this fee, having achieved a median of $155,000 (average $217,390) with his latest crop. But that was up from $100,000 ($130,250) in 2022, and must itself be acknowledged a fine yield from a $30,000 conception fee.

From the same glitzy intake, BOLT D'ORO rises to $60,000 from $35,000 after a second productive campaign. Though his yearling dividends slipped, at a median $82,500/average $113,218, they similarly represented a punchy yield on a $15,000 conception fee. Bolt d'Oro has started a higher proportion of his foals than Justify and Good Magic, so we'll have to see whether that's a function of superior precocity or overall soundness. As noted earlier in the series, however, what really excites about this class is its depth: horses like Army Mule and Girvin are essentially matching their more expensive peers from much lower fees and volume. Those horses deserve a chance to show what do with their own upgrades before anyone reaches any definitive conclusions about the pecking order.

At the other end of the spectrum are some much older sires with a sustained record of achievement behind them. WAR FRONT has had his books managed with restraint for so long that he will never have adequate volume to shake up the general list, unless he has a real star, but even without one last year he maintained his customary strike-rates, for instance with 10 graded stakes winners from just 166 starters. His career ratios are beyond even Tapit, which makes $100,000 a terrific play for those who a) can afford it and b) aren't prey to a childish aversion to turf.

The MUNNINGS trajectory got so giddy last year that he was hoisted to six figures but that proved to be a moment of overexcitement and, after his book shrank to 146 from 204, he has dropped to $75,000 for 2024. His reputation has raced ahead of his fee for most of his career and he's actually on the point of upgrading his stock on the track, his incoming juveniles being the first conceived even at $40,000 and duly nudging his yearling median forward ($160,000 from $150,000). He has that big 2022 book of $85,000 covers in the pipeline, and the access he has enjoyed to better mares should also help him improve a somewhat pedestrian ratio for his five elite scorers to date. Munnings is nowadays virtually a lock for the top 10 in the general list and that makes him look pretty fairly priced.

Practical Joke | Coolmore

His studmate PRACTICAL JOKE is becoming one of the busiest avenues to his sire, albeit his affordability is diminishing (fee up to $65,000 from $25,000). Commercial breeders can't get enough of him, his latest yearlings achieving a terrific yield (median $110,000/average $153,807) on the cover fee. The obvious caveat is that his volume is now such (482 mares over the last two years!) that you had better not find yourself with an ordinary specimen…

CANDY RIDE (Arg) was one of those middle-rank sires most exposed to polarization at the sales (median down to $100,000, which was half his average, from $140,000 the previous year) but remains settled at $75,000 after Candied and Geaux Rocket Ride kept his name in lights. His son TWIRLING CANDY (average $160,064 also well ahead of his $90,000 median; clearly their good ones are very good) similarly stands at $60,000 for a third year after producing his eighth Grade I winner, albeit his respectable lifetime ratios don't quite match those of STREET SENSE at the same fee.

Street Sense arguably offers fine value at this level, even if his bargain buddy Hard Spun would make as much sense at a lower fee: some of their indices are uncannily in step. But at the sales Street Sense is maintaining a $150,000 average, well over double that of Hard Spun. That confirms the latter to be an end user's delight, but Street Sense covers all bases.

Their venerable neighbor MEDAGLIA D'ORO reached a peak of $250,000 in 2018 but was slashed from $150,000 to $100,000 in 2022 and now suffers a fresh indignity at $75,000. The fact is that his Hong Kong 'ATM' Golden Sixty belongs to the same crop as his last big star here, Bolt d'Oro, leaving the tide of fashion to ebb somewhat: his latest yearlings had to settle for a $180,000 median/$248,371 average (down from $242,500/$339,918). Nonetheless this is the same flesh and blood whose 22 Grade I winners in the Northern Hemisphere (26 overall) long gave him top billing at Saratoga and Book I. Thoroughbreds will always confound assumptions and it would be gratifying to see such a glamorous specimen muster one or two last hurrahs in the evening of his career.

VALUE PODIUM

Bronze Medal: GHOSTZAPPER
Awesome Again–Baby Zip (Relaunch)
$75,000, Hill 'n' Dale

I guess it all depends what you're trying to achieve. But if you're one of those strange people simply trying to breed as good a racehorse as you can, then you certainly won't mind that this magnificent animal has now entered his 24th year.

Ghostzapper | Sarah Andrew

He was not very temperately handled early in his stud career, launched at $200,000 and slashed from $125,000 to $30,000 after his first juveniles blew out. Though a colt from his debut crop won the GI Blue Grass S., he was promptly cut again to $20,000. It was a long road back, but he's now just two short of bringing up 100 stakes winners at 7.8 percent of named foals.

Across the board, in fact, he's basically the same sire as Uncle Mo, who gets his black-type winners at 7.1 percent. Their stakes performers come at 13.1 and 13 percent respectively; Ghostzapper's graded stakes winners at 4.2 percent, against 3.5 percent for Uncle Mo; graded stakes performers weigh in at 7.2 and 7.7 percent; and 14 Grade I winners apiece come at 1.1 and 1.0 percent. But Uncle Mo stands at twice the fee, and has accumulated more named foals from six fewer crops!

Obviously Ghostzapper pays a commercial price for being less likely to produce precocious horses, but the likes of Mystic Guide and Goodnight Olive continue to reward those prepared to await the kind of maturity that enabled their sire to stretch his murderous speed, aged four, to one of the great modern performances. And anyone who saw the GIII Saratoga Special last summer will form their own views about Ghostzapper never getting precocious stock!

In the meantime, he has emerged, consistently with the sire-line, as an important broodmare sire, his daughters having now given us Up To The Mark as well as Justify himself. I don't know whether Ghostzapper was confined to 75 mares last year in deference to his age, or just because of commercial wariness. As your ideal Book II sire, he was vulnerable to market polarization this year. In the circumstances he did well to maintain a $170,590 average ($187,916 in 2022), albeit his median duly suffered ($115,000 down from $165,500).

But that's a sideshow at this time of his life. You know what he can do for your program, especially if you wouldn't mind retaining a filly. And you also know that there's a finite opportunity to tap so proximately into a combination as resonant as grandsire Deputy Minister and damsire Relaunch. It's a privilege worth paying for and, relative to plenty of untested young sires, it's one that doesn't cost so much.

Silver Medal: NYQUIST
Uncle Mo–Seeking Gabrielle (Forestry)
$85,000, Darley

Here's a horse back on the move, with his incoming juveniles sired at $75,000–up from $40,000, a response to the freshman title he won in 2020. He then had to be throttled back to $55,000 after hitting a flat spot the following year, mustering a solitary graded stakes winner, but that is now turning out to have been a blip.

Nyquist | Sarah Andrew

This year he came up with his third and fourth Grade I winners, and was denied a fifth in poignant circumstances, as sire of New York Thunder. Into their slipstream followed a bunch of juveniles that showed both the precocity to win at Royal Ascot (Crimson Advocate) and the flair to put themselves on the dirt Classic radar (Nysos, Knighstbridge). Nysos looks a pretty freakish talent and we know that his sire stretched his own juvenile speed when and where it counted, on the first Saturday in May.

Nyquist's $140,000 yearling median in 2023 needs to keep progressing, to justify his new fee, but hopefully that process is well underway (median was $110,000 in 2022, and average meanwhile markedly up at $192,749 from $148,275). He remained fully subscribed during his couple of years regrouping at $55,000, so there's unlikely to be any kind of bump in the road now.

The one he endured in his second year has certainly levelled off, so that even though he emerged in the same intake as Not This Time, he's faring pretty respectably even against that monster talent. Nyquist can't match his ratios for winners in each category, but in black-type, graded stakes and Grade I performers there's not much between them: 12.7, 6.7 and 1.8 percent of named foals for Not This Time and 12.1, 6.5 and 2.3 percent for Nyquist. True, Not This Time must have had lesser materials with which to make his name, but he's now at a fee altitude that requires oxygen masks, whereas Nyquist is still hauling his way up the rope behind him.

Gold Medal: CONSTITUTION
Tapit–Baffled (Distorted Humor)
$110,000, WinStar

This horse is at an interesting crossroads. His incoming juveniles were conceived at $85,000, the sophomores at $40,000, and his 4-year-olds at just $15,000. From 48 starters last year, even this latter group came close to a Grade I score through Webslinger, beaten a head in the Saratoga Derby and a neck in the Hollywood Derby.

Constitution | Sarah Andrew

The 2024 sophomores emerge from a bumper crop of 187 live foals, the first Constitution produced after his freshman breakout in 2019 (second to American Pharoah). They made a very promising start on the track, placing him second in the table for 2-year-old earnings. In fairness, he had a pretty enormous footprint, with 88 juvenile starters, but Catching Freedom set the tone for his peers in 2024 with his Smarty Jones S. success on New Year's Day. In fact, he's one of three Constitutions in the top nine of colleague T.D. Thornton's opening Derby Top 12.

And now, as noted, we can look forward to the $85,000 crop corralled by Tiz the Law's sophomore emergence. They averaged $281,125 as yearlings, up from $244,242, with the median steady at $200,000. The good old pipeline is loaded, then, and we know that those that stand out from a crowd will bring the big money.

His aging sire has arranged quite a race for the eventual succession, but for now this appears to be the heir to catch for the likes of Flightline and Essential Quality. Constitution has seen a lot of life for a horse of his age, including having shuttled to Chile for three years, but there's definitely a scenario where a fee held at $110,000 turns out to be a staging post on the way to still higher ones.

Breeder Selections

Paul Manganaro, Belladonna Racing

Paul Manganaro | Christina Bossinakis

Bronze Medal: Twirling Candy ($60,000)
Twirling Candy offers breeders a lot of bang for their buck. He has ranked in the top 15 on the national sires by progeny earnings list the last two seasons and has produced eight Grade I winners to-date.

Silver Medal: Quality Road ($200,000)
Quality Road has consistently produced the “Big Saturday Afternoon” horse. He can get you a quality two-year-old and one that can compete at the highest level around two turns. His 2.14 (AEI) average earning index is on or near par with the elite stallions currently standing in America. His offspring are also very popular in the sales ring.

Gold Medal: Constitution ($110,000)
To have access to Constitution at his stud fee is like stealing in my opinion. He's a stallion that had 17 yearlings sell for $400,000 or higher in 2023 topped by a $1.3-million Keeneland September yearling. The offspring from his best book of mares are just starting to hit the ground in the past few years and as Jan. 11 he has three colts ranked in the TDN's Top 12 2024 Derby list.

The post Value Sires For 2024 Part 7: The Big Guns appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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He gestures towards a rose in a vase. “That's the best analogy, you know,” he says. “Beautiful, but it doesn't last forever. I look at the wonderful broodmares we've been blessed with–these living, breathing creatures–and they're the same. That's part of what makes it so alluring, so intoxicating. Because it's about persistence.”

He remembers what his father used to tell him, and his brother: “Nothing worthwhile is easy, boys.”

Not, he acknowledges with a smile, something you necessarily wanted to hear when young.

“But for sure, as you mature and experience life lessons, you see that it's true,” he says. “If something's given to you, it's probably not going to mean as much.”

He points to shelves displaying some of his racing trophies.

“But I can promise you… That Park Hill? The Debutante, at the Curragh? These are things that I can't tell you how much they mean to me. That's why you do it.”

Both those Group races were won by fillies trained in Ireland by Joseph O'Brien–instructive samples, then, of a program that manages to combine a rigorous focus on quality (barely a dozen mares between Kentucky and Ireland) with an unusual range of application. That is no less than we should expect, perhaps, in one whose own perspectives and engagement have uncommon breadth by the standards of our insular sport. We should duly take heart that for all his passion for art and film, all his success as a real estate developer, nothing animates Heider quite like the animals that bring him here from his principal residence in Omaha.

Cindy and Scott Heider | courtesy of The Heider Family

“My wife and I love cinema,” he says. “In fact, we just got back from the Telluride Film Festival. But I have never seen anything like the Thoroughbred industry. Art, film, these are wonderful things. They can fill your soul, stimulate your mind, hopefully open you to things that you didn't think about or believe before. As my Jesuit friends say, 'Always be open to growth.' So those things are important to me. But the Thoroughbred business? To me, it's just absolute, unlimited possibilities.”

True, he feels that some of these have not been adequately realized. He is dismayed, for instance, that we cannot achieve the same media traction for Cody's Wish (Curlin) as for less edifying news from the racetrack.

“We have such a unique, beautiful, unbelievably passionate industry,” he reflects. “Sometimes I think we don't know how good we have it. There's so much potential.”

In his own case, the magic was first ignited by boyhood visits to Ak-Sar-Ben. During high school and college summers he even worked there as an usher and mutuel teller. Attending the University of Southern California allowed Heider to sample Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, another level again from Nebraska-breds. And soon after he had launched his own career in business, father and son were also exploring this avenue of pleasure together.

First a friend introduced them to the veteran trainer Lyman Rollins. “And that,” says Heider, “was the luckiest thing in the world–because Lyman was just an upstanding guy.”

In 1987 they bought a $14,000 yearling colt from TaylorMade by To-Agori-Mou (Ire), a miler imported from Europe but pretty much a disaster at stud.

“And, as the racing gods would have it, that yearling turned out to be a Californian champion sprinter that won the Hollywood Turf Express three years in a row,” says Heider.

Answer Do, who also won three graded stakes, raced six seasons.

“Back then you'd race until September, October, and then you'd turn them out and bring them back in March,” Heider recalls. “You just stopped, let Mother Nature do her thing. And they lasted forever.

“Anyway, because of Answer Do, we came across all these wildly interesting people that were around at the time: Allen Paulson, John Mabee, Margie Everett, R.D. Hubbard. And we realized that you could put Allen Paulson, founder of Gulfstream, together with a jockey, a trainer, a groom—and everybody would just want to talk horses. It didn't matter what your background was. This was the great leveler, and that's a beautiful thing.”

The Heiders could not have got off to a better start; nor, of course, a more misleading one.

“When that horse finally retired, we spent probably six or seven years trying to find one that could run a third as fast!” says Heider ruefully. By that stage, however, they were hooked. “And, in hindsight, it became a really important bond with my father. I was getting married, having a family, life takes over. But boy, did we enjoy our time traveling around the country together.”

Losing his father in 2015 confirmed Heider in his hope that he might yet share a similar journey with his own children, Grant and Courtney, both recent college graduates. However their interest proceeds, Heider has long felt grateful for the indulgence of their mother Cindy–right back to when she ordered a wedding cake in the shape of a chocolate horse head, iced with a Lukas white bridle.

“As a lot of people in this business know, when someone's horse-crazy, their spouse has to learn to live with it,” Heider says. “But God bless my wife, she has learned to like it, especially the breeding. And she's very involved in the philanthropic side. In the horse business we've found some really talented people and organizations that might be relatively small, but that are definitely punching above their weight and making a real difference.”

These “small but mighty” operations include the Eddie Gregson Foundation, New Vocations, Bluegrass Farms Charities and, most recently, Stable Recovery.

“If you're fortunate, you're born into a situation where you're going to get a couple opportunities to right mistakes,” Heider observes. “But a lot of people don't get that opportunity. And I think the Thoroughbred industry is uniquely positioned to work with some of these folks–not only to give them a second and third chance, in a profession, but because horses are therapeutic. Some of the programs created for children are amazing. At first, they're scared to death of these animals, but just a few days later you see a remarkable bond develop. And it's the same with some of the people that have been incarcerated, or that have other life challenges.”

But if privilege brings duty, do we also owe a certain obligation to the breed itself: to consider its best interests, in how we try to make a living? Or is that a luxury in such a precarious walk of life?

“The Thoroughbred industry is a pretty decent microcosm for society,” Heider replies. “For sure, we have people that every day come into work, do a great job, and you know what, they've got bills to pay, they've a family to raise. They might be struggling day to day. But I think those of us in a position to do so can hopefully lead by example, and be involved.”

Accordingly he renounces the question that dictates so much commercial breeding: “What have you done for me lately?”

“We have a lot of stallions that would have been successful if given a chance,” he remarks. “That shorter-term mentality unfortunately permeates every aspect of the business. But then we're in a disposable society. Everybody leases a car, everybody replaces their phone every couple years. But this business is different, or should be anyway. Because the bloodlines that we're entrusted with go back 100, 200, 250 years.”

To that extent, he implies, it's not so much a question of who can afford to do the right thing as whether anybody, in the longer term, can afford not to?

“To me, do the right thing means: be respectful to the horse,” Heider specifies. “And to those working with them. The commercial market's going to have its influence. I'm all for the people that want to find the next stallion: there's plenty of risk, and we need that investment, we need to put those horses in the proper hands to determine their potential. But I think there's a limit. Because we want people to play this game long-term, right?”

The Heider program, then, is all “long ball.” One example has been his cultivation, over recent years, of a transatlantic presence. Whenever he's asked what drew him to Ireland, Heider always ends up—besides the heritage and horsemanship–by pointing to the passion and sheer caliber of the people he deals with. Certainly his admiration for the O'Brien family is not confined to their extraordinary professional accomplishment. But nor did he embrace the experiment merely in some altruistic spirit of adventure: Heider is clear that diversification of bloodlines is not just wholesome for the breed in general, but can also benefit his stable in particular.

“We have a young mare at Mill Ridge, Zofelle (Ire) (Zoffany {Ire}),” he explains. “A Grade III winner here, she ran second in the [GI] Matriarch on her final start. She's beautiful, and from the family of Listen (Ire) and Sequoyah (Ire) [both Group 1 winners by Sadler's Wells]. The kind of thing that I could just lie awake thinking about! But I didn't send her back to Ireland when her racing was over. This spring she had her first foal by Into Mischief, and I bred her next to Not This Time.”

Zofelle | Lauren King

Heider views such stallions as influences for brilliance, rather than any particular surface or distance. Conversely, the class and soundness of the mare's family can also transcend its recent European setting.

“I have no doubt that she's going to throw something on dirt along the way,” Heider vows. “If you look back to the '50s, '60s, '70s, the transfer of blood from Europe to the United States, and vice versa, has taken place for a long time. There's been far less lately, but now we're seeing Justify throw some brilliant horses in Europe. I don't know how many others are out there doing it. But again, it's about trying to do the right thing–in this case, about invigorating the breed.”

Heider stresses that he still loves the dirt racing on which he was raised. At some stage, however, he would enjoy testing convention. Had he bought out his partners in Mia Mischief (Into Mischief), for example, he would have been mighty tempted to have her bred in Europe. (As it is, of course, she was sold to Stonestreet.) “So I'm just as intrigued by having Irish mares over here as by maybe sending something the other way,” he says. “Time will tell whether it's going to look brilliant, or whether people end up saying, 'What's wrong with this person?'!”

Some aspects of the program remain perfectly orthodox. Heider likes his trainers to develop fillies with pedigree, such as the $750,000 daughter of Nyquist and GI Kentucky Oaks winner Believe You Can (Proud Citizen) bought from Airdrie at Keeneland in September, with a view to promotion into the broodmare band. But that, again, is laying up rather than trying to drive the green.

“I was raised in the investment business,” Heider remarks. “And you'd probably think that I'm always looking at the quotes in the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, checking my phone all the time. I do read the financial papers every day, but really don't pay any attention to daily or weekly fluctuations in values. Those don't matter to me because I'm not selling today or tomorrow. I'm more likely adding to existing positions over time. It's a share in the business that I own. If you're fortunate to own a piece of a really good business, you don't listen to what the next fad is. You make decisions only to benefit the business. You let good grow.”

Sure enough, he isn't going to fret about which stallion or nick might be hot today and abandoned tomorrow. “We don't care about any of that,” he says. “I want good, reproducing female families. If the mare has racing ability, even better.”

Heider shows a catalogue page for which he's responsible, and accepts that he invited market wariness with a stallion prone to produce a turf horse. But he felt the match ideal, both physically and in terms of the sire's versatility and temperament.

“Because a brilliant horse is what you're looking for, right?” he says. “Doesn't matter if it's turf or dirt, short or long. I think people like John and Tanya Gunther, who I have so much respect for, get that. They understand long ball, without a doubt. It's tough. A lot of times you stand at the plate and miss but, my goodness, they've bred more than their share of amazing horses. So, no, we really don't breed for a market darling. We breed to improve a family. Eventually, the page will prove out.”

One of his most cherished examples is the dynasty of Jude (GB) (Darshaan {GB}).

“Through four generations, you lose track of all the Grade I performers,” he says. “Well, that's because somebody nurtured it. That's because of Richard Henry. And that, I can tell you, is what you do in business as well. You hire the best people, you keep the best close to you. That's our approach in everything we do. It's never about quick returns. We'll give Flying the Colors, a beautiful young War Front granddaughter of Jude, every opportunity to shine. She's in Ireland, in foal to Night of Thunder, and she's returning to the States this fall to be covered by Uncle Mo. We are committed long term to that Coolmore family, and I will move a mare like her if I see it may benefit her.”

Yet even doing it this way soon fills the present moment with fresh cycles of excitement.

“You want to get me going?” Heider asks with a chuckle. “Just ask me about A New Dawn (Ire) (Zoffany {Ire}), who's a granddaughter of Cherry Hinton (GB) (Green Desert), and I'll tell you about her Kingman (GB) yearling filly that's going to Joseph, or her Wootton Bassett (GB) colt foal. Or our 3-year-old Gun Runner filly, Stunningly, that broke her maiden this summer at Saratoga. I like the balance we have going on. There'll be some interchangeable parts here, some moving back and forth. Time will tell how it all works out. But it's all long-term thinking, and that's what excites me. It's what I know best.”

Stunningly | Sarah Andrew

Yet while his ultimate legacy remains an unknowable horizon, each step on the way emulates the one that first embarked Heider on this journey.

“In the end, for me, it's the same thing as it was day one,” Heider says. “That love and respect for the horse. But I think our true job in this sport is to leave it better than we found it. Now, that may mean trying to improve the breed: introducing new blood, sounder blood, faster blood. Or it may mean a gentleman like Ron Winchell saying, 'I'm going to make Kentucky Downs something like the Cella family has done at Oaklawn.'

“That's long ball. I can relate to that, in the investment world. But then we have everything else. The families on the farms, on the backside. The horses, after their track careers are over. So, if nothing else, by the time I'm ready to run my final furlong, I hope people don't say, 'Boy, he had fast horses,' or, 'He raced Mia Mischief; and he did this and that in Ireland.'

“What I hope they say is, 'There's somebody that tried to do the right thing; tried to improve the sport itself, including the folks that participate and dedicate their lives to it, especially those individuals that maybe don't get nearly enough attention or support.' In our own small way I hope we can leave this incredible game, that we all love so much, a little better than when we found it.”

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Because that's the whole point, really. The big programs would be able to temper their disappointment, on losing the services even of a horse as accomplished as Two Phil's, with the likelihood that an equivalent talent will eventually come along. And it was precisely because the circle of friends who launched Two Phil's towards the top of his crop did so by such accessible investment–he's out of the only Thoroughbred ever purchased by the Sagan family, a $40,000 daughter of a failed stallion–that so many of us identified with their cause. They made us feel we all had a chance.

Two Phil's, moreover, had been progressing from a somewhat sentimental, blue-collar rooting interest to a perfectly credible candidate for what feels an open sophomore championship. He was the only contributor to the GI Kentucky Derby pace that managed to hang tough, and looked better than ever on his first start since in the GIII Ohio Derby last weekend. How maddeningly typical of this game, then, that even in opening up new horizons his owners should suddenly reach a dead end.

They must now regroup, clear their heads and find Two Phil's his best chance at stud. His maternal family contains its challenges, but that is true of a lot of good stallions and something, after all, is demonstrably functioning in his genetic make-up. There is an increasing burden on sons of War Front and Hard Spun to maintain the shortest available connection to their breed-shaping sire Danzig, and Two Phil's certainly bears an auspicious resemblance to his excellent sire. Both proved their adaptability by winning the same Derby trial on a synthetic surface, before proceeding to finish second at Churchill. On the right farm, I'm sure that Two Phil's has every chance of writing a new chapter in the fairytale; and his connections have played their cards too faultlessly to need any help in determining which farm might be the right one.

In the meantime, we must just thank them for introducing this authentic ray of sunshine into our present darkness. As I've noted before, that rogue apostrophe actually became part of what the horse stood for: a symbol of his quirky, aberrational advent among those who set expensive standards at the top of the market. He arrived as a defiant Chicago gesture, many in his entourage having been deprived of their natural habitat–and one of the jewels of the racing planet–by the closure of Arlington Park by the very people who host the Derby.

One of those cast adrift from Arlington was trainer Larry Rivelli, whose prospects of replacing the irreplaceable should at least be enhanced by having drawn national attention to gifts already well familiar on his home circuits. In this bittersweet week, indeed, Rivelli has saddled six winners from nine starters; and these included two “Derby” winners in one weekend, with Act A Fool (Oscar Performance) making it four off the reel in the Hawthorne Derby last Sunday. Hopefully Jareth Loveberry, also integral to the horse's development, will now be able to consolidate, as well, having earned his stripes all the way through from Great Lakes Downs.

Proxy (outside) wins the GII Oaklawn Handicap | Coady Photography

But if some of these guys end up never quite retrieving the same heights, at least they all seized their opportunity when it came. And they would surely choose the shorter ride they took with Two Phil's over the “better” luck experienced by many others, in being able to restore a horse to training after being derailed before the Classics?

It's not as though there's a piece of paper anyone gets to sign, but how would you choose between Two Phil's or a horse like, say, Proxy (Tapit)? Having disappeared for 10 months after trying to get to his own crop's Derby via the Fair Grounds trials, Proxy lines up for the GI Stephen Foster S. on Saturday as a mature horse, with every prospect of building on what for now remains a fairly marginal prizemoney edge over Two Phil's. Since his comeback, he has also availed himself of a Grade I (in the Clark last fall). He's an admirable creature, in a field replete with similar types. But if you were in a crew that might very well only ever have one shot at the big time, would you not be swung by the fact that every Thoroughbred foal, from the moment it slithers into the straw, has one chance–and one chance only–to take you on the walk over for the Derby?

In the winter of 2021-22, certainly, the McPeek barn wasn't dreaming of the 2023 Stephen Foster for Smile Happy (Runhappy) and Rattle N Roll (Connect). The former at least made it to the Derby before his disappearance, but I'm delighted to see him back thriving now. He was bred by the charming Xavier Moreau, from a $57,000 daughter of Pleasant Tap. That was about as much as Xavier had ever spent on a mare, and tragically he lost her almost as soon as Smile Happy had emerged.

That's the thing about this game. Yes, absolutely, your little guys can beat the billionaires by breeding a Smile Happy, or a Two Phil's. But nor will they get any special treatment from Lady Luck, just because all their eggs might be in a single basket.

The only answer is an old one: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” If that can be in May, and get you anywhere near that blanket of roses, so much the better.

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Hopefully a reprieve of the GI Belmont S. might yet be extended to some other elements in what has become too relentlessly apocalyptic a narrative. In terms of what has been definitively established, our sport's macabre run of misfortune in recent weeks may owe as much to sulphurs exhaled from hell as to the difference between dirt and synthetic surfaces.

As a community, we obviously have a major challenge on our hands. But that's precisely why we need to avoid panicked, impulsive solutions in favor of calmly diligent, far-sighted leadership. Just because social media has empowered some pretty deranged minorities, we can't allow their disproportionate reach to pervert whole societal agendas.

It would seem pretty unarguable that American racing can benefit from a greater role for synthetics but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Horsemen and handicappers alike have a legitimate stake in dirt racing–and, to be clear, that stake is not just financial but a matter of cultural identity–and there its long history can surely be extended by discovering and addressing any practices that undermine its sustainability. I suspect there's probably quite a crossover between those who are resisting HISA and those who can't abide synthetics–and these are the guys who really need to smell the coffee. If you want to keep dirt racing, then call your dogs off HISA.

Tapit | Sarah Andrew

You couldn't ask for a better context to ponder these issues than the 155th running of a race designed to showcase precisely those genetic assets that equip the Thoroughbred to deal safely with tasks set before an increasingly (and, for the most part, properly) vigilant audience. And that's not just because it asks for the robustness to carry speed for a distance that is nearly freakish, in the American theatre, but also because historically many runners would already have contested two demanding races in the preceding five weeks.

Though it is the trainers who are driving corrosion of the Triple Crown, they implicitly transfer the culpability to the breeders. Hopefully our collective endeavors to identify and resolve vulnerabilities in the Thoroughbred will include analysis of the relative incidence of breakdowns (and not just catastrophic ones) in the stock of different stallions. If so, we might learn whether there's any scientific substance to our nervousness about horses today being “too fast to last.”  For now, however, we can only follow our instincts and conscience. But it's certainly striking that Germany should have achieved such a sensational impact with its bloodlines–far outrunning its troubles as a racing economy–by paternalist strictures in favor of soundness and competitive longevity. And even the most stubborn commercial breeders in Europe and America must acknowledge that Japan isn't doing too badly, either, in prizing the same assets.

Happily, the 50th anniversary of Secretariat's Belmont has drawn a perfectly presentable field in both quality and intrigue. With four other Kentucky Derby graduates meanwhile siphoned to the GIII Matt Winn S., it's clear that the Classic taking all the punishment from trainers right now is the Preakness. But how edifying that the Belmont–such an outlier, in the numbly repeating wheelhouse of most American trainers–should retain sufficient prestige to tempt a juvenile champion who'd be well within his rights to find a more obviously congenial way of regrouping from his recent vexations.

Quite a leap of imagination is required to picture a speed brand like Violence siring a Belmont winner, but his grandsire El Prado (Ire) sits comfortingly opposite Arch (behind damsire Blame) in the pedigree of Forte. So you never know, and clearly the runner-up has meanwhile upgraded his white-knuckle GI Florida Derby.

But his second dam was fast (stakes winner at 6f) and will need to have smuggled through some stamina from her own mother. That's by no means impossible, as she was by Seattle Slew and her half-sister by a speedier agency (Storm Cat) unites the pedigrees of 12-furlong Classic winners Contrail (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) and Essential Quality (Tapit), as third and second dam respectively.

Essential Quality, of course, was his sire's fourth Belmont winner, a unique distinction in the modern era. The only precedent, Lexington, had emerged from a forgotten era of four-mile heats and matches to prove an ideal influence for what was then a newfangled type of sprinting in a single, congested dash. The dial has since turned so far that the Belmont stands out as a curio, a positive marathon. Breeders of the 21st Century must count themselves blessed, then, to retain access to such a wholesome influence in the evening of his career.

Forte | Coady Photography

Astoundingly, this time Tapit himself accounts for two of the nine runners, while no fewer than FOUR others are out of his daughters.

The Gainesway patriarch's Belmont record, including in a couple of desperate finishes, is all about the ability to carry speed under duress. That is supposed to be a dirt hallmark, though it was exported to revolutionary effect by Northern Dancer's sons in Europe, where the dynasty's principal heir Frankel (GB)-having himself always run just like a dirt horse-is now siring stock that similarly just keep going.

Actually, there's a case for saying that Tapit is a far more effective turf sire than his stats might imply, given that only his most disappointing foals would even try the weeds. He's certainly been disgracefully untested in Europe. Of just nine Tapits started by British trainers over the last decade, seven are winners and three stakes performers. But whatever the future may hold, in terms of racing surfaces, it looks as though he will just have to settle for being the richest sire in the history of the American sport.

Into Mischief is almost certainly going to run him down, in time, but Tapit started Belmont weekend on a statistical brink–$198 million in progeny earnings, from 999 winners and 99 graded stakes winners–that surely beckons him towards another date with Belmont destiny. And if he's going to make history, then he's also the type of horse that can give us a future.

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On Monday, nearly half a century after the pair first crossed paths, Kruljac saddled one of the handful of horses in his care to finish third behind Baffert's latest Grade I winner at Santa Anita. That was a gratifying sequel to what had happened the previous day, when the star of Kruljac's small team confirmed himself a winning machine that would stand out even in the Baffert barn—whether by talent or charisma or, above all, sheer consistency. Because with The Chosen Vron (Vronsky), it's not just every Cal-bred that needs to be checking its rearview mirror.

The Chosen Vron has now won his last seven straight, all stakes, taking him to 12-for-16 overall and $792,678 in earnings. On Sunday, he finally had a showdown with another Californian fan favorite, Brickyard Ride (Clubhouse Ride), in the Thor's Echo S. His rival, who last month retained the GIII Kona Gold S., may not have shown his best as he faded into third of four; but the fact is that very few state-breds of recent times could have matched The Chosen Vron in his current vein.

“I think it was his best race ever,” Kruljac says. “They went fast, and he was four or five lengths behind, stalking. Then the rider just threw the reins at him couple of times, and he just swallowed them. It was awesome. Just, wow.”

The 5-year-old won by five and a half lengths, and it feels like time to return to open company. He won a couple of graded stakes as a sophomore, beating Monday's big winner Defunded (Dialed In) in one and Laurel River (Into Mischief) in the other. When the latter went on to win the GII Pat O'Brien S. at Del Mar last summer, The Chosen Vron finished only fifth. But that race probably came too soon after what had been his first start in nine months—in which, incidentally, he had only been beaten in a three-way photo over an extended mile of turf. (Sunday's race was over six furlongs of dirt: this is one versatile horse.) And he's unbeaten since.

“He developed a few problems [at three] and we had to turn him out and do a little surgery,” Kruljac explains of the gelding, co-owned with Sondereker Racing, Robert S. Fetkin and Richard Thornburgh. “But he's come back gangbusters. I learned, I think, that if I give him six weeks or more, he seems to relish the extra couple weeks. So, we've changed strategy a little bit, to give him more time between races, and will probably keep him on that line as we go forward. He seems to have come out of the race in fabulous shape and we might have to jump in with open company next time.”

Kruljac bought The Chosen Vron's dam, Tiz Molly (Tiz Wonderful), as a yearling for just $25,000 at the Keeneland September Sale of 2011 and also raced her in partnership.

“She showed lots of ability, won her first two races impressively,” he recalls. “We turned down a pretty sizeable sum for her. Then she hurt herself, and it was a career-ending injury. Three of us four partners stayed in and decided to use her as a broodmare, and it's been a good decision.”

So, too, was her retention (at just $1,200!) when offered for sale after The Chosen Vron was weaned. The mare is now at Legacy Ranch where she has recently delivered a second consecutive filly by Clubhouse Ride.

Vronsky himself died two years ago, and The Chosen Vron is unfortunately not equipped to continue the line having been castrated soon after entering training.

“He would go off behind intermittently,” explains Kruljac. “And we found out that he had a testicle hanging over a ligament in there, and causing him discomfort. Once we took that out, he traveled like a Bentley. Until we figured out what was going on, he would show his stuff, work really great—and then the next time, you might be a little disappointed. Gelding changed him more than any horse I've ever trained. Though I wish we'd left one in there! Anyway, he's been fabulous ever since. Just a great horse to be around in the barn. My boys have done a wonderful job with him.”

Kruljac traces his flair for horses to maternal grandfather Walter Markham, who raised pedigree cattle and Thoroughbreds on his ranch in Carmel Valley—along with nine grandchildren. Markham's trainer was Buster Millerick, who reached the Hall of Fame via the long career of Native Diver.

The Chosen Vron | Benoit Photo

“Buster loved my grandfather because he was an animal man,” Kruljac says. “My grandfather was a purebred Hereford stock breeder. They spoke the same language. Buster was a legend, but he'd run off all his clients, he was so mean. He had this little dog and when the owners came in the shedrow, he'd stick that dog on them!”

Kruljac himself was breeding his first horses by his early 20s.

“I had a little farm in Phoenix, Arizona,” he recalls. “I was just starting to train a few, and had a client who had an Alydar son that didn't make the races. Then I bought a couple of my own mares, and bred them to him. That didn't turn out so well! But I pretty much stayed with it. That's how I entered the game, breeding, which is crazy.”

But we do meanwhile need to ask about that left-field parallel career, as private detective. Kruljac says it wasn't as colorful as it sounds, his principal focus being compensation fraud. But he accepts with a chuckle that he must have been one of the few who ever came to the racetrack and found himself dealing with somewhat straighter people than previously.

“It takes all kinds, I'll tell you,” he acknowledges. “I ran my agency for about eight years. It's all pretty boring, until everything opens up. Mostly we were investigating people that the claims adjusters thought were faking injuries. We'd go out early in the morning and sit a quarter of a mile down the road, and then follow them and gather evidence that showed that they were malingerers.”

There was one memorable liability claim, concerning a couple and their three young boys.

“They'd already had two accidents where they'd be going up the ramp onto the freeway, and slam their brakes on until they get someone to run into them,” Kruljac recalls. “Anyway, we film them going into the doctor's office, all five with neck collars. Out they come, still with neck collars. And they drive off. All of a sudden, they pull into a grammar school. There's a jungle gym, swings and all this stuff, and these kids come running out of the car, one of them throws his neck brace up in the air, and they're jumping eight feet off this thing. We got this all on film.”

All the time, however, Kruljac was maintaining an interest in horses: a little breeding, a little trading, a few in training with a brother. When the latter quit, Kruljac shut down his agency and started training them himself, going full time at Turf Paradise at the age of 38. He has meanwhile accumulated as many as 1,240 winners, including seven individual graded stakes scorers.

These were memorably crowned by Leave Me Alone (Bold Badgett), who shipped over to win the GI Test S. by just under eight lengths in 2005. After she won a valuable sprint at Calder under Kent Desormeaux, his agent rang and implored Kruljac to look at her numbers and think about Saratoga.

Trainer J. Eric Kruljac (right) celebrates with jockey Hector Berrios | Benoit

“And she was training just incredibly, so we decided to take a shot,” Kruljac recalls. “I don't think I saw a filly run that fast until Gamine (Into Mischief) 20 years later. It was really incredible.”

Kruljac had bought her for just $35,000 as a yearling. “I saw her at an auction at an equestrian center outside of Del Mar,” he recalls. “Other than being totally crazy, while they were showing her, she was just incredibly athletic.”

He was originally intending to buy her for himself and bring in a couple of partners, but in the event secured her for a new client at the time, Steven Mitchell.

“And that worked out to be a great experience,” Kruljac says. “We flew in his jet to Saratoga, stayed in this house right across from the entrance. There were eight or nine of us, including his kids. So, the night before the race we tried to get dinner at [a noted Saratoga restaurant]. We went in there, and the guy says, 'Absolutely not. Sorry. We're totally booked.' Even though Mr. Mitchell tried to give him $500! Next day, after the race, we went back to the same place. The owner's boy was holding the saddle towel. This time the guy said, 'Sure, Mr. Mitchell. We'll make room for you.' Then as we're walking to the table, he says, 'And Mr. Mitchell, I will take that $500.'”

As it happens, The Chosen Vron reminds their trainer of Leave Me Alone: another tall and angular chestnut, with a great shoulder. That year, however, she was one of 86 winners from 383 starters for the barn. For Del Mar this summer, in contrast, Kruljac expects to have eight head; with four or five 2-year-olds to come through.

To be fair, the emphasis has meanwhile tilted towards the barn of his son Ian—whom he famously launched, when still his assistant, with a City Zip yearling he'd found for a client at $85,000. This turned out to be none other than Finest City, who won the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint before selling to Katsumi Yoshida for $1.5 million.

“I'm more interested in helping Ian out these days,” Kruljac concedes. “He's up there in Arcadia along with the people that have worked for me over 30 years. At 70, I'm slowing down a notch. I've pretty much made Del Mar my residence, so I've been commuting a lot for the last three or four months.”

Though still enchanted by his working environment, Kruljac recognizes the ongoing difficulties of the industry in his home state.

“And I'm still very concerned, because we've got a long way to go to get it anywhere close to what it was,” he reflects. “With these incredibly beautiful tracks, we've been spoiled. Now, with all the restrictions, the media, the finger-pointing, it's made it tough, for sure. The simulcast money is the only thing keeping our purses at the level that they are. But it appeared to be a really good weekend, as far as attendance and families coming out again, so that was encouraging. For me, anyway, it's heaven on earth.”

Kiss Today Goodbye | Benoit Photo

In the era of the super trainer, then, here is a barn that maintains the old lifeblood of the sport: a multi-generation horseman at the helm, with loyal and experienced help, all patiently devoted to the horses that could hardly warrant the same attention and perseverance in more industrial operations. It has been a labor of love, for instance, to coax Kiss Today Goodbye (Cairo Prince) back to form at the age of six for that third place in the GI Hollywood Gold Cup on Monday.

“Very difficult horse to train,” Kruljac admits. “My crew has done a fabulous job with him. It's taken us a long time to take his negative energy and make him a happy horse. It was worth the five or six months, though, so let's hope he keeps going forward now.”

And whisper it, but with a Breeders' Cup in his backyard this fall, perhaps we might even see the horse test the water this summer.

“We'll play it by ear,” Kruljac says. “See how he's training at that time. If he's as on fire as for the last few races, we might try the [GI] Bing Crosby, which would tell us whether he's good enough to think about that.

“It's been a long time since I've had a really good horse. But I've been blessed for the money I've been able to muster. Even for a couple of Vron's losses, there were things that went wrong in the race; and like I said, maybe I was running him back a little too quickly. But once we gave him the time, worked with him, brought him back slow, just handled him with kid gloves… I feel he's better than ever.

“To have this horse, at this point, I feel so fortunate and privileged. I'm fired up because of Vron, he gives you a little more energy to get up and get at it. So we're just living large right now, and thanking our lucky stars. Hopefully we can just keep this horse running for another year or two, keep him going onward and upward.”

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True, Velazquez wouldn't last the first week if he were to lead a funeral at the same kind of lick as he did the GI Kentucky Derby field on Reincarnate (Good Magic), quite a contrast to the way he has previously hypnotized his pursuers in that race. But Johnny V. amply redressed that aberration with a masterly ride in the GI Preakness S. to confirm himself, for our community, as apt a companion as might be found for a horse bearing a name like National Treasure (Quality Road).

But we won't dwell on the cortege analogy, which will be far too morbid for some tastes in the prevailing atmosphere. This I must admit to viewing with some ambivalence. Because however troubled our relationship with Main Street, unrelieved “sackcloth and ashes” may yet cause us additionally to fail in the more straightforward priority of retaining our existing audience.

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Alongside a wholesome determination to keep improving, I do feel that we should stand up for the many glories of our sport with rather more pride than we seem able to find in our hearts just now. (It's like the old joke. Horse walks into a bar. Barman says, “Why the long face?”) We have so much to celebrate, so many stories to discourage mainstream complicity in the kind of extremist agenda that will tolerate zero risk; that would candidly prefer no horses at all, rather than expose them even to the most conscionable and scrupulously-managed risk. That position is invulnerable to the reminder that Thoroughbreds don't make terribly good house pets, so really, we need to concentrate on the far larger numbers who might share the aspiration of giving these noble creatures not just life but the best life possible.

John Velazquez wins the GI Preakness S. | Horsephotos

As Californian horsemen, veterinarians and administrators will confirm, that can raise the bar to challenging levels. But their collective efforts have produced such spectacular dividends, turning round an existential crisis virtually overnight, that I feel that the wider community has been inadequately grateful. Major investors in the industry have abandoned the Californian circuit to a pretty vicious circle: small fields, which diminish handle, which restricts purses, which reduces fields. Yet still it keeps coming up with champions, developed by some of the most accomplished horsemen of our time-regardless of where you happen to stand on the one who has just consolidated an incredible resumé with yet another Preakness.

Views of Bob Baffert, in fact, are a good example of all this wringing of hands. It sometimes feels as though you're only allowed to say one of two things: either he exemplifies everything that's wrong, or he's a maligned genius. And whichever camp you find yourself in, get ready for the invective.

All genius is flawed, because all genius is human. We certainly saw a human being last Saturday, but only in circumstances that maintained the bitter polemics. So much of our discourse, above all regarding HISA, is infected with venom; much of it is conveyed, at calamitous expense, by lawyers. But who wants to be invited to a civil war, instead of a garden party?

I do understand that parts of our community will only stir from their complacency if adequately alarmed by the costs of inaction. And yes, too much naïve enthusiasm might blind us to real dangers. It's even arguable that the way the geographical heart of the industry is thriving, in Kentucky, may insulate too much opinion against societal fissures that feel a world away.

Certainly, professional horsemen have their share of culpability in the loss of public traction. As I suggested last week, we're either breeding horses that aren't up to the task; or hiring trainers who won't properly explore the genetic attributes we may wish to replicate. In either scenario, a solution is absolutely within our hands.

But one other thing also needs to be understood by horsemen. You can't have it both ways: you can't refuse synthetic tracks, which are demonstrably safer, and also refuse more exacting regulation. If you won't accept the kind of strictures that redeemed dirt racing in California, then you'll just have to make do with synthetics.

And actually, that whole area is yet another that only tends to disclose division and misunderstanding. One of the main reasons for the perceived failure of the initial synthetics experiment was a prescriptive view of bloodlines, as adapted only to one type of surface. So, whatever our grievances with Churchill Downs, especially regarding Arlington, I'm glad to see them putting their shoulder to the Turfway wheel. Having loaded Turfway with starting points, they were rewarded with a trial winner who ran a brilliant second in the Derby. In the process, remember, Two Phil's precisely emulated his sire Hard Spun. Are we any more likely to take heed, this time round?

National Treasure at Pimlico | Jim McCue

While we're on the subject, I'm intrigued that the sire of the Preakness winner has lately surfaced among those extraneous speed influences sampled by Coolmore for their plethora of staying mares by Galileo (Ire). Quality Road's own track career was all about carrying speed on dirt. But his dam was by Strawberry Road (Aus), out of a half-sister to the dam of Bahri (Riverman); and of course, his sire Elusive Quality adapted very well to the European theater. Quality Road has had a couple of Royal Ascot winners, while his daughter Bleecker Street last year emerged as one of the elite grass talents in America. So, it's unsurprising that he should be looking like a promising experiment for Coolmore, not least through his son Cairo (Ire) who runs in a Classic at the Curragh on Saturday.

Actually, National Treasure himself has plenty of chlorophyll in his maternal family, while his first two dams are respectively by sons of El Prado (Ire) and Blushing Groom (Fr). But he's presumably never going to risk grass, when he's not getting anything like enough respect as it is.

The world outside is understandably aghast at our horrible run of breakdowns. But even those turning their gaze inwards just want to tell us what a terrible Preakness it was, and how we're clinging to the wreckage of an antediluvian Triple Crown. It evidently wasn't a “terrible” enough race for the Derby winner to swat aside horses that finished third and fourth in the crop championship at the Breeders' Cup. Sure, that was largely the work of Johnny V.–and emphatically nothing to do with a two-week turnaround-but if these races are so soft, please feel free to go and win one.

So, let's offer due congratulations to this very game animal; to the people who bred and raised him; and to those who found him, and have now brought out his potential. It was a difficult day, for sure, but life is full of ups and downs and horseracing is no different. In fact, that's exactly why its stories are so compelling; and why we must share not just our grief and guilt, but also our joy and pride.

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The whole premise of nostalgia is irretrievability: the yearning for a time or place that can't be revisited. (Very often, perhaps, because it never existed in the first place.) This morbidity is suggested in the Greek stems of the word: nostos, homecoming, and algos, pain or distress. Unfortunately, while the first of these is doomed to remain notional, the second can even be national. It spills over into the here and now, corroding the happiness not just of individuals but whole societies. All round the world, we see populists promising to renew some golden age by restoring lapsed imperial or demographic boundaries.

But that observation obliges me to ask myself whether I'm doing anything so very different, in stubbornly resisting the groundswell towards Triple Crown reform?

With a solitary Kentucky Derby runner deigning to line up for the second leg of the series, for the first time since the current schedule was adopted in 1969, many whose opinions I respect appear to be accepting that there is no longer any point trying to turn back the side. They look at the seven runners in the GI Preakness S. on Saturday, and say the time has come to yield principle to pragmatism.

Well, they may be right. But first, I have a couple of questions. One is exactly where we can find this putative engagement with a disaffected wider public? Is it from having more competitive Triple Crown races, or is it from the romance of the quest itself?

Mage, Pimlico Race Course | Horsephotos

For a long time, during the drought between Affirmed and American Pharoah, we were told (despite several extremely close misses) that the assignment lay beyond the modern Thoroughbred and that we were duly squandering our best chance of engaging fan attention. On that basis, however, the defection of so many rivals clearly only enhances the prospects of Mage (Good Magic) heading to Belmont with a Triple Crown within reach. If that is supposed the grail of publicity, pricelessly combining heritage and accessibility, then does anyone imagine that casual viewers will tune out because the Preakness field lacked triple-figure Beyers?

But maybe the whole premise is wrong anyhow. If the Triple Crown is the best way of stemming our sport's drift from mainstream affections, then how do we assess the impact of the two we have saluted as recently as 2015 and 2018? While unanswerably demonstrating that the current schedule remains perfectly within the competence of the 21st Century Thoroughbred, American Pharoah and Justify hardly reversed the slide. As should be painfully obvious by now, we must address far more serious and challenging deficiencies in the way we present ourselves to a changing world.

Not that we can afford complacency in the audience we already have: the people, that is, who know enough about our arcane world to be dismayed by the lack of both quality and quantity in the field awaiting Mage at Pimlico. When so many indices are spiraling down, retention must be a still bigger priority than expansion. But a Triple Crown extended into July–which, in itself, might well stretch the fickle attention of a casual sports fan–could prove disastrous for other cherished races of high summer, especially now that horses are supposed to need a break before regrouping for a Breeders' Cup prep.

It is, as we know, the trainers who are driving this whole agenda. They have either seen or for some reason decided that horses today cannot soak up the kind of campaign that once allowed breeders a reliable measure of the kind of genetic resources they could aspire to replicate. The incidental benefit of this approach, of course, was precisely the fan engagement we have forfeited in protecting horses not only from competition but also from visibility.

The trainers have given the industry a choice. Either we concede that commercial breeding must be producing a Thoroughbred lacking the physical resources of its predecessors; or we candidly take issue with the trainers, and employ people who will explore the capacity of their charges more thoroughly. In both cases, however, the solution is in our own hands. What we are seeing in the Triple Crown series is a symptom of the problem, not the cause.

If it's about the physical caliber of the horses we are producing, then that obviously ties into another and far more serious challenge. If modern horses can't race twice under the same moon, or even stand up to federal regulation, then surely, we need to address the crazy situation where breeding for the sales ring has somehow become different from breeding a runner.

If it's simply the trainers that are wrong, however, then there are also things we can do about it. And that's not just because D. Wayne Lukas is still doing his thing at 87. I've regularly cited the example of another old master, Jim Bolger, just a couple of years ago running Poetic Flare (Ire) (Dawn Approach {Ire}) in three Classics in 22 days, before winning at Royal Ascot barely three weeks later; and, as often, deplored how only the Japanese could find a place for this horse at stud. But Bolger was also the mentor of Aidan O'Brien, who has himself frequently taken a similar approach. (One of my favorite instances was Peeping Fawn (Danehill). She was placed in a Classic 11 days after breaking her maiden at the fourth attempt; and then ran second in another, over an extra half-mile, five days after that. That experience so damaged her that she proceeded to four Group 1 wins inside eight weeks.)

Good Magic | Sarah Andrew

To me, it looks as though Bolger and O'Brien both believe that a thriving horse has a window of opportunity. And, on that basis, it may actually prove harder to maintain a Derby winner at the same peak for a Belmont in July than with the present calendar.

Most American trainers today evidently disagree. And look, I accept that times change. Mage himself, a horse we hadn't heard of 10 minutes ago, is a Derby winner for our times. He has a different scenario to tackle this time, and shouldn't give a start to one working as briskly as National Treasure (Quality Road). Even in this small field there are some pretty legitimate horses, and it's certainly an incredible achievement for Good Magic's first crop to yield three of seven starters in a Classic.

According to the behavior of trainers, it should be nearly inevitable that a raw colt like Mage regresses from his effort two weeks ago. If he happened to do that, however, it's a fair bet that whichever “mediocre” horse (not my view, I stress) took advantage could still be rewarded with 200 mares at stud next spring. Suffice to say that we have a lot of other stuff to sort out before we start scapegoating an anachronistic Triple Crown.

Good luck to Mage. He has a ton of talent. Who knows? Maybe he will prove the last Triple Crown winner over five weeks–and the last, therefore, who can validly claim parity with the previous 13. And then, when these elusive young fans become as old and grumpy as me, he may even be the stuff of nostalgia.

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Saturday opens the third cycle of rehearsals offering starting points for the GI Kentucky Derby. The first offered some marginal reward for precocity, with no more than 20 points (10 to the winner) for the vast majority of juvenile and what might be termed “short juvenile” (Jerome/Sham-style) qualifiers. Conspicuously, even these preclude sprint speed. The next phase, offering between 40 and 100 points, virtually guarantees the bigger scorers a start on the first Saturday in May; and now we enter this closing series of trials, three of which immediately give even placed horses every prospect of prying open a gate with their share of a whopping 200 points.

Not everyone will agree that all three merit quite that kind of help, and cynics will doubtless perceive some political considerations at play. The Jeff Ruby is only a Grade III race, run on synthetics, but it is staged at a track owned by Churchill Downs. And then there's the UAE Derby, a Group 2 staged halfway round the world.

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It's not hard to see why a flying carpet should be provided direct from Meydan to Louisville, when the most lavish benefactor in the sport's history was for a long time so animated by the idea of winning the Kentucky Derby from his own homeland. For one reason or another, however, his stable lately seems to be leaving this particular path pretty clear.

Last year both the first two, respectively trained in Japan and locally, took their chips to the counter for a trip to Kentucky and actually had a decisive impact on the day, tearing off at such reckless speed that they set up something that has become extremely rare since the sprinters were banished from the Derby: a success from way off the pace.

Rich Strike (Keen Ice) himself, of course, had only made the bench because of 20 points banked when third in the Jeff Ruby, though what ultimately got him into the race was the solitary point he had previously earned for running fourth in the John Battaglia. That's another race on the synthetic at Turfway, by the way, and one this year upgraded to 40 points (from 17).

Rich Strike wins the 148th Kentucky Derby | Coady Photography

Yet I think it's only fair to acknowledge an inherent and evolving legitimacy to the kind of competition stimulated both by the UAE Derby, and the “back road” to Churchill along Interstate 71.

Rich Strike at least made it necessary to be open-minded about what sometimes happens when a horse transitions out of the synthetic trials-something to remember when it comes to the revelatory performance of Raise Cain (Violence) in the GIII Gotham S. That said, I still cling fiercely to the conviction that fewer horses than we tend to assume have that kind of emphatic specialism. Indeed, switching the race we now know as the Jeff Ruby to a synthetic surface very soon produced a couple of poster boys, in that respect, in Hard Spun and Animal Kingdom.

The Meydan race, meanwhile, has over the last decade been won by several elite talents. One was later beaten a nose in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic; another won two G1 Dubai World Cups; another ran second in the GI Travers that summer; while 2021 winner Rebel's Romance (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) returns to this card for the GI Longines Dubai Sheema Classic as a Breeders' Cup champion.

The international landscape continues to shift under our feet, so that even Dubai must now adapt to the intrusion of an even richer program in Riyadh-albeit hardly facing the kind of identity crisis its own emergence created for storied races like the GI Santa Anita Handicap. But one particular trend just continues to consolidate, with the Japanese in Riyadh having continued to hammer their flag into the top of the global pyramid.

They have got here, at least in part, by embracing aspects of the Thoroughbred that the American and European industries have disparaged as uncommercial. The Japanese have prized stamina and soundness, and they have resisted narrow, prescriptive thinking about what kind of blood works on what kind of surface.

Meydan Racecourse, Dubai | Horsephotos

Apart from anything else, that should discourage any resentment of the way the synthetic route to the Derby is being promoted at Turfway. Far more profoundly, however, the Japanese example should prompt Americans and Europeans alike to retrieve the faith their predecessors showed in the transferability of genetic prowess, when they sent likes of Nasrullah (Ire) and various sons of Northern Dancer on reverse journeys over the ocean.

As I've said before, the final straw came in 2021 when no European or American farm was prepared to match Japan's interest in Poetic Flare (Ire) (Dawn Approach {Ire}) after he contested Classics in three different countries in 22 days (won the first, and was beaten a short head on heavy ground in the third having run in France six days earlier) before taking his form to a new level in the G1 St. James's Palace S. the following month.

In stupefying contrast, the most accomplished horse in the GI Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby has been given two months to soak up his success in the GIII Lecomte S. So, while this race, historically, would seem a far more congenial environment for the distribution of 200 starting points than Meydan or Turfway, arguably the points system is facilitating a deplorable contrast to the way Jim Bolger promoted the genetic wares of Poetic Flare.

I can't presume to say whether it's the trainers themselves, or the breeders who provide their raw materials, that bear most responsibility for the idea that a Derby colt should be deliberately confined to one start in January and another in March. (To be clear, this is a general complaint-we're not singling out this particular horse's trainer here. The juvenile champion has been handled in very similar fashion.) At least the Fair Grounds trials have all been extended in distance, giving these horses a little more conditioning on the rare occasions we get to see them, with striking recent dividends. But having often lamented how the exclusion of sprinters has diluted the Kentucky Derby, as the ultimate showcase for the ability to carry speed, I now fear that it is watering down the breed in other respects, too.

If they're going to stick with the points system-and clearly they are-then maybe it's time to consider some kind of weighting in favor of those who make the road to the Derby a more diverse and interesting place; and the Derby itself a more instructive test. Bonus points or tiebreak advantage, perhaps, to the horse that shows merit over a spectrum of distances and/or surfaces, or even just for each start made.

Crazy ideas, no doubt, in a world where people are more interested in making a fast buck than breeding a fast horse. So crazy, in fact, that they might even be quite sensible.

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Okay, so he had been a seven-figure yearling; and everyone who had participated in his education knew that he was something special. In fact, John Sadler was so aware of the impending responsibility that he was saying nothing. For one thing, if people had any inkling of the talent he was about to detonate, the races wouldn't have filled. But also because this, like all secrets, was a burden as well as a privilege.

Looking back, Sadler accepts that doing justice to Flightline felt like so intense a duty that it could not come without some personal cost.

“I kind of devoted my time to him to a point where I probably shut some people out,” he admits. “The odd dinner at night, that kind of thing. I really drilled down, I said to myself, 'I'm going to walk this walk with this horse.' I wanted to be right alongside him, every step, because I knew it was going to be so special. So here I am today, light mood, happy as heck, because I always said my time to celebrate would be when it was over. Very early on, I said to myself: 'I'd like to pitch a perfect game.' That's a career goal. And we did.”

But so much of life is about the pursuit, rather than the actual moment of fulfilment. Sadler, tall and bronzed, looks in great shape at 66. But now that he has consummated a generational dream, can he still maintain the same motivation?

“We've been pondering that a lot,” he acknowledges. “But like B. Wayne Hughes of Spendthrift Farm used to say, 'My health insurance is that group of yearlings over there.'”

So, while he knows that he can hardly expect another Flightline, Sadler also feels that the true horseman's appetite, happily enough, can never be finally sated.

“I'm pretty confident I'll have a lot of good horses come my way, because I still want to do it,” he says. “If there's a time to not do it, I'll know when that is. Somebody said I'd retire right after Flightline. But rushing into a decision like that, with horses, is always rash. Time will see where we're at. I've got some really good young people in my operation. They've invigorated me the last several years and really make me excited about the future. My assistant Juan Leyva is just going to be a phenom, and I've a couple of other guys like that. So I'm really not feeling a lot of pressure.”

And, actually, that's just why it's appropriate to catch up with Sadler now, when the dust has settled and Flightline is embarking on a new career at Lane's End. Because the horse himself was such a meteor, burning with almost agonizing brightness as it became clear how fleeting his passage was likely to be, that he almost became a communal possession. As such, we rather lost sight of his more intimate context: of the decades of groundwork that prepared Sadler for the task that would define his career.

That long accretion of experience didn't just make him eligible, but also duly appreciative. Yes, he could feel vindicated–not least after the notorious torments he endured, for much of his career, at the Breeders' Cup–but the true gratification was personal, not public. Because for the great horsemen, it's about the process, the daily and seasonal cycles of engagement. If that ultimately produces a champion, then it all makes sense. And, that being so, then of course you continue with the immersion.

“Totally, a lifestyle,” he replies, when asked how he views his vocation now. “It's the journey that I've always loved: horses coming in, and seeing where they go. You don't want to be like a claiming trainer, slashing around here and there, but to develop horses. I think that's where my strong suit is. And for this to hit at this time, in the latter part of my career, is so special. When I started out, I wanted to be known as a good professional. I know I achieved that. But then to get these great horses is gravy on my career.”

Because don't forget that Sadler started out right at the other end of the scale. With no background in the game, he learned under tough, old-school horsemen, and laid the foundations of his own career with tough, fast Cal-breds.

“I've had to battle stereotypes my whole career,” he muses. “When you're a young trainer, you get locally-bred horses and those happen to be sprinters. And we did well with them. So, as I started getting better horses over the years, and won important races over a distance of ground, that's fun. But every year they'd write how Sadler can't win at the Breeders' Cup. And you'd be beaten a head. Or find yourself running against Miesque. I think I did that three years, and I ran against Goldikova a couple of times, too. And when you do that, it doesn't matter if you have the best turf horse in California.”

Flightline | Breeders' Cup Eclipse Sportswire

But if Sadler had a long wait for the best materials, in one respect he could not have been more blessed.

“Oh, absolutely!” he exclaims. “I came under a brilliant class of horsemen. They may not have all been perfect human beings. In that era, they might have smoked or drank too much. But they were self-made guys and really knew what they were doing.”

He absorbed priceless insights assisting racetrack vet Dr. Jack Robbins, observing the day-to-day methods of clients like Ron McAnally and Gary Jones.

“It was great practice,” he says. “I loved that we were going in all these different barns: you could take something from every one of them and then build your own program. And Dr. Robbins himself was so smart. A tremendous veterinarian, obviously, but also a successful horse owner, one of the charter members of the Oak Tree Racing Association. Tough guy, opinionated guy, smoker, drinker, but just a great man.”

Robbins could see that his protégé was unusually attentive. Sadler might say, “Oh, Doctor, I went over to such-and-such a barn and suggested a vitamin shot for that horse.” And Robbins would reply, “Oh John, no, that was a terrible idea!” And then he'd wink.

Sadler also learned a great deal as assistant to Dave Hofmans, though his big break came in 1979 when Eddie Gregson had taken on a big client and was looking for someone, he could trust to take four or five to Golden Gate Fields. There were things going on–a pari-mutuel strike, people shipping out–and Sadler quickly learned not to turn down horses. By the end of spring, he was up to 30 or 40.

Gregson's heartbreaking end, by his own hand, still grieves all who knew him. “He was really a bright guy, very sensitive, he knew food and wine and was very cultured,” Sadler recalls. “It caught everybody off guard, nobody saw that coming. But you never know what goes on with people. A great guy and a great trainer also.”

Besides these mentors, Sadler cherishes no less affection for the horses who also assisted his education. He'll never forget the $100,000 match, at Santa Anita in 1991, where his Cal-bred speedball Valiant Pete (The Irish Lord) beat Quarter Horse champion Griswold in a world record dash. And then there was the $50,000 claim Olympic Prospect (Northern Jove).

“He didn't run very well the day we claimed him,” Sadler recalls. “But he became really an important horse for me, early on. You couldn't train him very hard, but he ended up winning every sprint stake in the state. One day Patrick Valenzuela got on him, I can't remember what happened to the usual jock, in a race called the Potrero Grande [now the GIII Kona Gold S.]. He just let him roll, and they went that first half-mile in 42-and-change. And won! I mean, he was tiring at the end. But I've never seen that, before or since.”

With that kind of background, it meant a great deal to Sadler gradually to disclose a mastery with two-turn horses. Whatever pinnacle it might also represent in the story of the breed, let's not forget that Flightline last summer–by a bewildering 19¼ lengths–was his barn's fourth different GI Pacific Classic winner in five years, all owned (part-owned, in this case) by Sadler's cherished patrons at Hronis Racing.

That streak was started by the slow-burning Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky), whose campaign at five would have made him a lock for Horse of the Year but for landing in the same ballot as an unbeaten Triple Crown winner. He remains Sadler's richest runner at $6.7 million. “I just love him to death,” Sadler says. “His foals are going to be like him, they'll be later types, but I've two or three [of his first crop] that I really like and I'm expecting a lot of them to come forward as the year goes on.”

But Flightline was a freak from the outset. “He never hid his talent,” Sadler says. “April Mayberry called me from the farm and said, 'John, this horse gives me goosebumps.' She's been doing it a long time, and the only other to give her that feeling had been Zenyatta. So, we were expecting a lot when he came in. And even after the first, short piece of work, we were all just going, 'Wow.'

John Sadler with Flavien Prat | Benoit

“I mean, usually, I have to train them up. This horse, it was just a straight line. He's already there. He was so willing, from day one he just wanted to do it. Most of the early training was about getting him to relax and carry his speed. Even when he broke a little slow, he was very keen to charge out there between horses and push them aside. So, it was just about calming him down a little.”

While it was bittersweet only to race Flightline six times, Sadler absolutely understood his retirement. It would have been virtually impossible to find domestic opposition, unless or until a sophomore champion proved willing to take him on, while the insurance of fresh challenges overseas would have been eye-watering.

Whatever life after Flightline may comprise, it's been an incredible odyssey for the stockbroker's son who gazed across a paddock fence one summer vacation and fell in love with the horses grazing there. It should plainly end in the Hall of Fame, for which Sadler has a belated nomination this year. In some ways, perhaps he doesn't stand out from the production line of his profession merely in terms of his craggy six feet and four inches. And he does admit that there have been times when he has sensed a little resistance, notably in East Coast perceptions.

“You get that a little bit,” Sadler concedes with a shrug. “But you know what, when you've been training a long time, I don't really let those things bother me. I love training a stable of horses. I like where I train. I'm very comfortable doing what I'm doing. And, when you've been doing it a long time, you tend to end up with clients that are people you really like. So, I feel I'm in a good place. Like I said, I've hit most of the marks I want to. You can't worry about that kind of stuff. I mean, anything can happen with horses–and that's what's fun.”

That willingness to fight your corner, feisty and independent, was something he always loved about the California circuit.

“I was always trying to model after the guys that might not have had the best horses, but were always very hard to beat,” he remembers. “Even back then, they went out and won everywhere. I loved Tommy Doyle going over to win the Belmont [in 1975, with Avatar]. When California ships out, the results have always been amazing–and continue to be, to this day.

“We don't have gaming or casinos but we have the most beautiful tracks in the world and we always hold our own. Yes, when there's 15 protestors, versus 40,000 on opening day, and I'm signing autographs with Flavien Prat for an hour and a half, it's the 15 protestors that get all the noise. But California's led the way in all sorts of reforms. It's an adjustment, but you either embrace it or get stuck in the past.”

Sure enough, California has now given us one of the all-time greats soon after producing the only Triple Crown winners of modern times; not to mention a mare that arguably reached a wider public than any of them. Zenyatta's trainer, incidentally, is also deservedly nominated for the Hall of Fame–and would certainly join Sadler in stressing their shared debt to David Ingordo, now purchaser of three GI Breeders' Cup Classic winners.

“I was a friend of David's father so I've known him since he was in short pants,” Sadler says with a chuckle. “Actually, I do have a picture of him in short pants! He calls me Uncle John sometimes. So, it's been fun for me, and a source of great pride, to see how his business has developed. He's a tremendous, tireless worker, and obviously brilliant at it.”

Whether on behalf of his closest circle, then, or the entire Turf community, Sadler says he's profoundly grateful for the benediction he shared over the past couple of years.

“Many of the horses Flightline beat were really never the same afterwards,” he remarks. “He was a very dominant colt. At the Breeders' Cup one morning, Juan was coming off the track just as Epicenter was going up and Juan said he could feel Flightline rise up under him, literally making himself bigger like a rooster, as that horse came by.”

And something else happened that week. One morning Sadler's phone rang and there was Ron McAnally, 90 years old and still rooting for that lofty young man who used to follow Dr. Robbins round the barn.

“John,” McAnally said. “Don't let those photographers bother Flightline. I had that once with a horse, they were pestering him every five minutes, and he didn't run any good.”   Sadler hardly needed telling, but was still blown away. “Okay, Ronnie, I really appreciate that.”

Ron McAnally | Benoit

McAnally, of course, had bred Rock Your World (Candy Ride {Arg}), who won the GI Santa Anita Derby for Sadler a couple of years ago. That connection had given him an extra buzz, and now it was adding something memorable to the Flightline adventure, too.

“That was a special call for me,” Sadler says. “He's one of the good guys and it was great that he wanted to pass that on to me, that he was still thinking of me. Like I said, as a young trainer I relied on the older guys a lot. I had great mentors. You'd sit around in the cafeteria, and these guys were so colorful, some of them in that era were doubtless politically incorrect–but they knew their stuff.”

By the same token, nothing pleases Sadler more today than when a young trainer seeks his counsel. Evidently that doesn't happen as often as a generation ago.

“That's a shame because horsemen are really very generous with their knowledge,” Sadler says. “I think to be a good horseman is intuition based on experience. And I do have the background: I walked hots, I groomed, I came up from the bottom of the stable. I didn't come in at the management level. So, I put in the years. And it's been a great journey. None of this happened overnight. It's like the guy that did 50 movies before he won the Academy Award. It's a lifetime of work.”

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