Chris McGrath column | Horse Racing Free Tips

I guess the whole point is that ours is a world apart, a sanctuary from the cares of the “real” one. But it still feels unnerving, to see a new cycle of the sales calendar open with such blithe indifference to a wider consensus that the global economy is scrabbling along the top of a precipice.

Both Saratoga and Deauville benefit from a heady atmosphere that might easily induce a perilous incaution when a yearling stands there shimmering on a sale rostrum. But it was ever thus, and the market at both Fasig-Tipton and Arqana exhibited remarkable buoyancy when measured against historic standards.

We know that bloodstock tends to lag somewhat behind other indices of recession, and conceivably this will prove to be some final, decadent flourish before the bulls start to draw in their horns. But it may also turn out, as when bloodstock showed such startling resilience during the pandemic, that the outlook simply looks different to the affluent elite on whom our industry so candidly depends. Inflation may be a bolting mustang; there may be wars and rumors of wars; political discourse may be ever more acrimoniously polarized. None of it seems to matter to these guys.

To be fair, in certain states American investors can increasingly entertain the possibility that their racetrack programs can aspire to something vaguely resembling viability–even if some benighted horsemen appear masochistically determined to erode that equation with their stubborn litigations. But the parallel strength of the market over the water suggests that a lot of people must also be animated by less tangible dividends.

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That being so, we must always remember how destructive to our sport is the contamination of bad publicity. No shortage of that, of course, in an average week–and this one has been no different. Equally, however, we must acknowledge our debt to those priceless horses and horsemen that do succeed in capturing the public imagination; to those that intrigue outsiders, and inspire them to enter and contribute to our community, whether as fans and handicappers or as buyers of seven-figure yearlings. And it's also been a week, either side of the ocean, that has magnified those positives.

First and foremost, we have had a fresh reminder of the captivating grandeur within the compass of the Thoroughbred. Raised in distance for the first time, Baaeed (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) also raised his game anew to reach a pantheon lately shared, on European turf, perhaps only by his sire and Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}).

Someone as tediously insistent as me, on the importance of a transatlantic cross-pollination, is hardly going to neglect the opportunity to highlight the way Baaeed's pedigree combines gene pools that have since become disastrously bisected. No fewer than 11 of the 16 contributors to this grass titan's fourth generation were bred in North America. Mr. Prospector is sire not only of Baaeed's fourth dam; but also of his damsire, Kingmambo; and of Miswaki, whose daughter Urban Sea gave us Sea The Stars. And look who's here, as sire of the third dam: the great enigma himself, Arazi!

Galileo, half-brother of Sea the Stars, sire of leading stallion Frankel (GB) | Emma Berry

Sea The Stars, specifically, combines two transatlantic cocktails. Start with his sire Cape Cross (Ire). He's by Green Desert, himself a son of Danzig out of a daughter of Sir Ivor and Courtly Dee; and out of Park Appeal (Ire), whose genes (by Ahonoora (GB) out of a Balidar (GB) mare) are no less evocative of a completely different world. As for Urban Sea, the epoch-making dam of Sea The Stars (and Galileo, of course), she similarly blends a classic American brand (Miswaki was by Mr. Prospector out of a Buckpasser mare) with a mare whose parents both channelled doughty German blood.

Much the same kind of thing happens along Baaeed's bottom line. That Mr. Prospector fourth dam we just mentioned, for instance, is actually out of the British matriarch Height Of Fashion (GB), who was by Bustino (GB) and saturated with other indigenous influences. So, really, can anyone look at Baaeed's pedigree and still understand why most breeders, either side of the Atlantic, no longer want to mix turf and dirt lines?

So much for Baaeed's past. As far as his future is concerned, we must naturally yield to the judgement of those who have brought him this far with such skill. But it must be said that the horse stands in danger of leaving us with the same wistfulness as did Frankel, who similarly spent most of his career beating up proven inferiors at a mile before stepping up in trip only in his penultimate start–and in the same York race that Baaeed won this week. The plan has long been to remain in step with Frankel by also bowing out over 10 furlongs at Ascot, but the door is apparently still ajar to going to the Arc instead.

In declining to run either at Longchamp or at the Breeders' Cup, Frankel was left exposed to the charge that he never went looking for trouble. Suspecting him to be one of the best of all time, everyone was comparing him to specters past–yet he never measured himself against plenty of good ones then alive and well, and available for racetrack competition.

The fact is that Baaeed finished the new trip at York ravenously, and is a full-brother to a Group 1 winner at 12f (and Group winner at 14f). So let's hope that the desire to preserve his immaculate record does not discourage connections of another great horse from exploring the full range of his brilliance.

If a sporting gamble happened to misfire, it wouldn't take a cent off his value. In terms of his legacy, he has nothing to lose and much to gain. And, as we've been saying, there's a wider consideration–one might almost say, a wider obligation–to make this game as engrossing as we can; to showcase charisma, and retrieve the news agenda from the bad guys.

Happily, that is just what is happening at Saratoga this summer, with D. Wayne Lukas back on center stage Saturday with his latest Classic winner squaring up for her decider with Nest (Curlin). Last week we highlighted the way Lukas appears to be reversing the ageing process, as a rejuvenated force in the sales ring as well as on the racetrack. He promptly produced another exciting juvenile in Bourbon Bash (City Of Light), who won his second start by eight lengths and looks eligible to extend his trainer's record of eight wins in the GI Hopeful S.

This is the first foal out of a stakes-winning Violence mare named Buy Sell Hold. Sell or hold is an adequate conundrum for most people right now, trying to read the alarming runes in less singular markets. How long our own marketplace can remain insulated by such unquantifiable factors as horses like Baaeed, and horsemen like Lukas, remains to be seen. But history tells us that we will find out soon enough.

The post This Side Up: Baaeed News is Good News appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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How poignant that, in this of all weeks, the two most breathtaking winners on Belmont day should both have prompted comparisons with Ghostzapper, whose GI Breeders' Cup Classic at Lone Star Park in 2004 was surely the greatest Thoroughbred performance ever on Texan soil. Because while the whole racing world came to Dallas that day, it appears that there will be no reciprocal embrace when it comes to the standards sought—not just federally, but internationally—to give American horseracing credibility in the contest for public engagement in the 21st Century.

It's precisely because some individual states, obdurately or cynically indifferent to the bigger picture, can prove so undeserving of their precious autonomy that we need to find a better way. As it is, one that has produced many great horsemen and women, not to mention a Triple Crown winner in Assault, is now menaced by strangulation as regulation. It feels like the political equivalent of some reckless sadomasochistic excess that turns into a tragic accident.

Anyway, to more cheerful subjects. Or maybe not, because while it's gratifying that the original, at 22, is still recycling his genetic prowess at Hill 'N Dale, the idea that we might have not one new Ghostzapper, but two, feels too far-fetched a coincidence given how rarely we are favored by so freakish a talent.

It's pretty clear what both Flightline (Tapit) and Jack Christopher (Munnings) have to do, if they are to sustain comparisons so far stimulated by the sheer exhilaration with which they've been dominating all comers. And that's eventually to stretch out the way Ghostzapper did, that day at Lone Star.

As things stand, there does at least appear to be a tantalizing possibility that they could end up doing so together, and in the same race as their great template. Until they do, however, it feels a little premature for that contentious adjective, “great”, to have been applied as liberally as it already has to Flightline, in particular.

There's no denying his extraordinary natural ability, and it's exciting that he's bred to be at least as good round a second turn. Thankfully we may be able to test that hope pretty soon, or as soon as will be allowed by a career schedule that promises to make him a poster boy for the notorious diffidence of modern horsemen, compared with their predecessors. You would think that a son of Tapit, with a second dam by Dynaformer, might be equal to more old-fashioned campaigning, but at least those influences will be squarely behind him once his stamina is examined.

From a European perspective, the rise of Flightline attests to a different way of measuring things over here. After clocking those monster Beyers in maiden and optional allowance sprints, no American horseplayer was surprised to see him separate himself from Grade I rivals with equal contempt—and he's now averaging 112 through four starts.

In a racing environment less beholden to the stopwatch, however, you might still hear one or two caveats that in the GI Met Mile he beat one horse that really needs 10 furlongs; another that put in a conspicuous backward step; and a pure sprinter. Nor would such a trifling loss of rhythm, in some light early traffic, be taken terribly seriously. On the other hand, nobody could fail to be dazzled that he could do this off a long lay-off, shipping for the first time, and at a new trip.

What should really sharpen European antennae, however, is the other “F”-word in the room. When it comes to greatness, no modern horse on the other side of the water has achieved more consensus than Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}). So much so, that at the time it took some nerve to dare question the conservatism with which he was campaigned, beating up the same guys in the same discipline until his penultimate start, and never leaving his stall for a single night. While there were admittedly tragically extenuating circumstances, the fact is there had never been a time when his late trainer Sir Henry Cecil would have been comfortable about risking his champion's immaculate record in, say, the Breeders' Cup Classic or Arc.

An unbeaten record does tend to become a burden that stays the hand of adventure. Frankel was always being measured against specters of the past, but never went looking for trouble even against his contemporaries. It's wonderful that connections of Flightline are disposed to explore the range of his brilliance. But having relaunched him on the same day that the Kentucky Derby winner bombed out in the third leg of the Triple Crown, after spurning the second, let's hope they remember our collective mission—already mentioned, in a different context—of public engagement.

Flightline is proving one of those paragons that the bloodstock business needs to work out, just every so often, as a seven-figure yearling from a noble maternal line who is going to repay those stakes, big time, as a stallion. But potentially exposing his wares across no more than half a dozen starts wouldn't just short-change breeders of the future, who need evidence that he's a reliable vessel of the kind of toughness latent in his page. It also gives him little chance of reaching the kind of public so much more accessible in the era, for instance, of his 10-for-47 ancestress Lady Pitt (Sword Dancer).

As for Jack Christopher, while we naturally respect Chad Brown's direct experience of Ghostzapper, you would think that Munnings is going to need quite a bit of help from the mare, if he is to get their son home in the Breeders' Cup Classic. Jack Christopher's dam is by Half Ours, hardly a stamina brand, and is also a half-sister to Street Boss, an unusually fast horse for a son of Street Cry (Ire).

Their mother, incidentally, was by Ogygian—and so contributes to the redemption of Damascus, as a distaff influence, after failing to establish a sire-line. Daughters of Damascus himself produced Red Ransom, Boundary and Coronado's Quest, plus the granddam of Maclean's Music. Among his “failed” sons, meanwhile, Bailjumper is damsire of Medaglia d'Oro; Accipiter gave us the second dam of Cairo Prince; and Ogygian, above all, has secured a lasting foothold as damsire of Johannesburg.
Johannesburg's son Scat Daddy, of course, managed to come up with a Triple Crown winner from a mare by none other than Ghostzapper. So we do know that the most brilliant horses can carry their speed farther on dirt than on paper.

Certainly Jack Christopher for now looks the most charismatic member of a crop that remains a long way short of resolving its hierarchy. Actually all it may take is for one barn to establish its own pecking order, and the rest may follow, with Jack Christopher on nodding terms with Zandon (Upstart) and Early Voting (Gun Runner).

Between Early Voting and Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo), the GII Wood Memorial has now furnished two Classic winners. If Mo Donegal could win the GI Travers, too, he would emulate Damascus as one of five horses to have won an “Empire State” Triple Crown of Wood, Belmont and Travers.

Damascus, to be fair, raced 16 times at three. He lost out by half a length in the Gotham in a tooth-and-nail duel with Dr. Fager, and came out six days later to win the Wood by half a dozen lengths. Okay, maybe we have to accept that most horsemen nowadays consider it unreasonable to campaign a modern racehorse the way Frank Whiteley Jr. did Damascus, who won from six furlongs to two miles. But if we cede that point, however reluctantly, then let's hope that some others in our industry can recognize the need for a more obviously wholesome form of modernization.

The post This Side Up: Past Specters, Present Ghosts appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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