Chris McGrath | Horse Racing Free Tips

Value Sires For 2023 – Part I: New Stallions

Welcome to our annual assessment of Bluegrass sire prospects for the approaching covering season. As last year, we're going to confine our focus largely to a “Value Podium” for each intake–rather than attempt, as in the past, an exhaustive (not to say exhausting) assessment of every stallion in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Believe me, it wasn't always easy to find something adequately civil to say about every last one! But the fact is that this is only ever one person's opinion and, as such, a hopelessly subjective exercise. By restricting ourselves to three medalists, after a few general remarks and an honorable mention for a near-miss or two, we know that those overlooked–necessarily a large majority–are bound to include many sires who ultimately get their headlines where it really counts. (So we hope that nobody perceives any kind of slight that would not only be unintended but basically invisible!)

Every mating is different, after all. Your mare may be the wrong size or shape for the stallions we like; and, besides, we all know that a choice of mate must, for many people, be more about anticipating the market than anticipating genetic efficacy. The latter, sadly, tends to be rather a luxury when you require a stallion, first and foremost, to put bread on your table.

That's especially true, of course, regarding the group we start with today. The asphyxiating commercial window of opportunity for sires is unfair on everybody: on the stallions themselves, on the farms that stand them, and on the commercial breeders who feel they have no choice but to jump onto the next round of the freshman carousel. As we're always saying, the fault does not rest with the supply but with the demand.

Those directing investment at ringside claim that their only chance of landing on a top-class cover is to be ahead of the curve, before fees catapult beyond affordability. But we know that simply isn't true. For one thing, they hardly ever follow young stallions through as their fees and averages come down, pending a meaningful examination of their stock on the racetrack. And how many agents and managers, moreover, have sufficient courage of their convictions to buy their clients the stock of an apparently unfashionable stallion like Lookin At Lucky, for instance? Yet his record of achievement, punching miles above his fee, will remain far beyond the vast majority of those rookies annually launched with huge books at what will usually turn out to be a career-high fee.

We'll see whether a place can still be found for him at the other end of the spectrum, once we come to proven sires. But it's a sad state of affairs when hardly anyone today accepts the logic that there should be nothing more commercial than putting a winner under your mare.

Flightline | Sara Gordon

Regardless, today we start with a uniformly clean slate. To reiterate: we're not looking for the new stallion “most likely.” Of course, we send our compliments to anyone who can afford $200,000 to tap into the most blatant racetrack talent seen in a while. True, value is relative. Flightline (Tapit) himself, after all, was a seven-figure yearling who turned out to be cheap. Nothing automatically disqualifies the highest fee of the intake from being its best value. Perhaps Flightline will do a Frankel (GB), and become every bit as important an influence as his track career encourages you to hope–albeit to do that, obviously, his stock will have to move on from a template of six starts across three years in training.

Each to their own. Acknowledging that objectivity must be limited to the spirit of inquiry, and that subjectivity must kick in with the first breath of an answer, let's begin our quest for the most horse for your buck. And if we do happen to turn up another Not This Time to top the podium, we accept that it will again be more by luck than judgement!

Bubbling Under

The overall quality of the intake feels strong, perhaps the strongest in a few years. If one generational talent bestrides the cohort, there are several following him into a second career absolutely entitled to close the current gap in their stature.

I also feel that a number of farms have risen to the challenge laid down in recent years by the Spendthrift team, who have expertly converted the momentum of their pioneering incentive schemes to upgrade their recruitment. There must have been times when the opposition felt as though they were being left irretrievably behind. But while Spendthrift welcomes another four newcomers for 2023, the fresh blood at several farms will reassure breeders that the Bluegrass retains a healthy depth of competition.

Ashford, most conspicuously, has assembled as many as five new sires all of sufficient standard to be starting out between $25,000 and $45,000. Our pick of those will duly be found on the podium, but we must also acknowledge the sheer solidity offered by Epicenter (Not This Time). His brilliance is underpinned by some extremely sturdy European influences, such that he really offers something really quite different, and precious, to the American gene pool.

Gainesway, meanwhile, has looked to the future, with the great Tapit in the evening his career, offering a couple of contrasting but attractive new packages in Olympiad (Speightstown) and Drain The Clock (Maclean's Music). Really, there are quite a few farms that can take their new guys to market with deserved confidence. Strictly in terms of value, however, I feel that none has stepped up to the plate better than Airdrie.

With the emerging star Girvin arriving from Florida, the Airdrie team have added further momentum by pricing both their rookies to give their clients every chance.

The one who narrowly misses the podium is Highly Motivated, a can't-miss $7,500 son of Into Mischief with two track records to his name. A horse with this kind of profile, at this kind of price, would at some farms assuredly be loaded with over 200 mares. But that's not the Airdrie way–and those who can get to him are unlikely, therefore, to find themselves inundated by alternative stock once they get into a catalogue.

Highly Motivated was classy enough to run Essential Quality (Tapit) to a neck when stretching out for the GII Blue Grass S., but his unmistakable forte was Into Mischief speed, showcased by a 96 Beyer eclipsed only by Jackie's Warrior (Maclean's Music) among the juveniles of 2020. That secured Highly Motivated a Keeneland track record, while the one he added as a 4-year-old at Monmouth was wrested, after 37 years, from a Horse of the Year. His name was Spend A Buck, and that sounds like a pretty good plan with Highly Motivated.

BRONZE:

GREATEST HONOUR (Tapit-Tiffany's Honour by Street Cry {Ire})

$7,500 Spendthrift

Greatest Honour wins the Fountain of Youth | Horsephotos

No denying that this guy's derailment from the 2021 Derby trail was made to seem a long time ago when he resurfaced to rather tame effect this spring. But his fee makes ample allowance for that, and if you just rewind to the unmistakable brilliance of his original emergence, then you can only be excited to have cut-price access to such a regal bloodline.

Second and fourth dams are both Broodmares of the Year, divided by a GI Kentucky Oaks winner, with the family seeded by distaff influences of corresponding stature: Street Cry (Ire), Deputy Minister and Blushing Groom (Fr). Greatest Honour's dam was admittedly one of the least distinguished runners in this family, but she's a half-sister to Rags To Riches (A.P. Indy), Jazil (Seeking The Gold) and Casino Drive (Mineshaft) (a successful freshman sire in Japan, by the way) out of the broodmare icon Better Than Honour.

And there was no doubting that this blood had told when Greatest Honour was a flourishing sophomore in Florida. Even his juvenile grounding had been of exceptional substance: he took four starts to break his maiden, but was learning his trade by consecutive bouts with Olympiad (Speightstown), Speaker's Corner (Street Sense) and Known Agenda (Curlin)! Sure enough, when he did win a maiden, it was by beating subsequent Grade II winner Dynamic One (Union Rags).

So he was scarcely raised in grade when romping in the GIII Holy Bull S.; and he then overwhelmed Drain The Clock (Maclean's Music) in the GII Fountain of Youth S. And while the speed figures measured up, the way he appeared to be hitting his stride only deep in the stretch made him look like a horse just getting started. I was stunned that he did not follow through in the GI Florida Derby, but he disappeared for a year and then never really retrieved the thread.

But I am definitely keeping the faith, at this price. After all, the template isn't dissimilar from his sire, who started out at a lower fee than anticipated after fulfilment of his potential had likewise been thwarted by physical issues.

Above all, Greatest Honour passes the ultimate test of pedigree depth. His fourth generation is saturated with genetic potentates (Weekend Surprise, Narrate, Moon Glitter, Coup De Folie, Best In Show) corroborated far more widely than simply by those sons or daughters that happen to put them on this particular page.

This aristocratic blood, harnessed to Spendthrift's dynamic commercial program, will presumably benefit from plenty of opportunity. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were to result in one or two candidates to redress his own misfortune on the road to the Derby–and you can't say that of too many stallions at this kind of fee.

SILVER:

EARLY VOTING (Gun Runner-Amour d'Ete by Tiznow)

$25,000 Ashford

Early Voting (right) wins the G1 Preakness S. | Mathea Kelley

Hats off to the Klaravich program, which missed the podium by a cigarette paper with Highly Motivated while also reaching its second step with this fellow, in our view the outstanding value among Ashford's exciting new quintet.

The three Ps–physique, pedigree, performance–are all lavishly present and correct.

This is a knockout specimen and, while Gun Runner will become still more extraordinary if also proving an instant hit as sire of sires, the family tree brings its own guarantees in that regard. For Early Voting's dam is, of course, a sibling to one such in Speightstown (as well as to the very talented but ill-starred Irap).

Performance, admittedly, was vexingly confined to just half a dozen starts. But Early Voting followed up his debut success with a daylight score in the GIII Withers S. before being collared by a neck, in a duel of future Classic winners with Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo), in the GII Wood Memorial. He confirmed his place among the elite of his generation when holding off Epicenter (Not This Time) in the GI Preakness, only for his career to derail in Saratoga.

Sure, he was a fresher horse at Pimlico than his new studmate; and he also got first run. But Early Voting was arguably only in a position to do that by superior early speed and, regardless of which side of the quibbling fence you fall, they were plainly in the same vicinity in terms of talent. And the relative durability of Epicenter is amply measured by the difference in their fees.

In this slightly more accessible tier, you seldom find such quality through so many dimensions: looks, natural ability (won a Classic, remember, off three starts) and genes. What worked for Speightstown (first three dams by Storm Cat, Chieftain and Buckpasser) has obviously worked for his sister, too. She is of course by a deeper staying influence (Tiznow, as against Gone West) but Gun Runner has done his stuff to produce a very alert runner. Gun Runner himself, remember, is out of a Giant's Causeway mare, which not only doubles up Storm Cat but entwines his influence with that of his nemesis Tiznow.

These are all very wholesome brands, and just look at the four mares in Early Voting's third generation. Without exception, they've shown that there is more than one string to their genetic bow. From the top: Candy Girl (Arg) (Candy Stripes) is here as dam of Candy Ride (Arg), but is also third dam of Tom's D'Etat; Quiet Dance (Quiet American) is here as granddam of Gun Runner, but is also dam of Saint Liam; Tiznow's dam Cee's Song (Seattle Song) famously produced not just classy performers like Budroyale but also the dams of Paynter and Oxbow; and Silken Doll (Chieftain), as we've already seen, unites Speightstown and Irap as well Early Voting.

That's a pretty copper-bottomed array of repeatable genetic excellence and, combined with the physical and performance attributes he has placed in the foreground, makes me confident of this horse's eligibility to last the course.

GOLD:

HAPPY SAVER (Super Saver-Happy Week by Distorted Humor)

$12,500, Airdrie

If you don't give this horse a shot, at this kind of money, then I guess you don't really buy into the only principles that ever make sense of this chaotic industry of ours.

Okay, so he was not quite a champion. But only an elite talent, and a very natural one, could win the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup as an unbeaten 3-year-old making just his fourth start; and only a matching resilience could maintain him in maturity as benchmark, in three consecutive races earlier this year, for Olympiad (Speightstown), Flightline (Tapit) and Life Is Good (Into Mischief).

That trio, needless to say, are all starting out at much bigger fees. Maxfield (Street Sense), similarly, stands at $40,000 after being pushed all the way by Happy Saver in the GI Clark S. last year. But now they all resume with a clean slate and, in terms of his eligibility to prove a conduit of genetic quality, none is in a stronger position than Happy Saver. His third dam is Weekend Surprise herself; and standing directly opposite her, as damsire of Super Saver, is her son A.P. Indy.

Super Saver will concern some people, despite Runhappy and Letruska, but the key here is that he has produced a very good racehorse by combining one spectacular maternal line with another. His own extends through generations of Ogden Phipps bluebloods; and obviously Happy Saver's dam, herself a stakes sprinter, belongs to a family that has famously produced several other stallions besides A.P. Indy.

Sure enough, the pedigree overall is heavily seeded with the right brands. For instance, Super Saver's grandsire Wavering Monarch was out of a Buckpasser mare; Super Saver's celebrated fourth dam, Numbered Account, was by Buckpasser; and so, too, was Weekend Surprise's mother Lassie Dear. That's typical of what happens when families extend their quality back to the days of much smaller books. Access to a top-class stallion was a privilege, earned by blood or performance or both. The mares behind Happy Saver, as celebrities in their own right, have corresponding consorts: after his mother by Distorted Humor, the next four dams are by all-time distaff legends in Deputy Minister, Secretariat, Buckpasser and Sir Gaylord.

The quest for value in stallions is about seeking the potential to punch above their presumed weight. If stallions couldn't sometimes produce foals better than themselves, the breed would stagnate at best and mostly decline. And a stallion's ability to elevate his potency, relative to his track career, must lurk in his blood. Yes, you want to see evidence on the track of a functional vitality in his genetic make-up. Happy Saver gave us that in spades. But he has every right to surpass even that exalted standard in his next career.

Like many horses going to stud, for one or two reasons we didn't see his very best as he closed out. But he had previously been a set-your-clock campaigner at the highest level, moreover one blessed with real flair. If you rewind to the very beginning, for instance, he won a sprint on by 5 1/2 lengths on debut in essentially the same time as the GI Woody Stephens S. winner on the same card.

This, in other words, is a horse whose stock can someday make us grateful that “Happy” days are here again.

The Value Podium: New Sires

Gold: HAPPY SAVER Airdrie $12,500

An elite competitor with aristocratic pedigree at an accessible fee

Silver: EARLY VOTING Ashford $25,000

A pacey Classic winner out of Speightstown's half-sister

Bronze: GREATEST HONOUR Spendthrift $7,500

Another of royal blood and made a lasting impression early

The post Value Sires For 2023 – Part I: New Stallions appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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This Side Up: Style And Substance To Light Up Cigar

Strictly, it's the very reverse of what he's doing—which is actually to revert from two turns to one. In a sense, however, the return of Zandon (Upstart) to Aqueduct on Saturday will bring things full circle.

For it was on the equivalent card last year that he began what has turned into a pretty frustrating sequence of races where, for one reason or another, he arguably hasn't quite realized his full potential. When you consider that these include the GI Kentucky Derby itself, that shows how much raw ability he has. Just as well, then, that some of us find Thoroughbreds a sufficient enigma to feel little need to bet on them, too. Because by this stage he's beginning to feel like one of those horses you follow over a cliff.

On his last visit to Aqueduct, for the GII Remsen S., we were obliged with a culprit; practically a pantomime villain. To be thwarted by just a nose, despite the antics of Irad Ortiz Jr. on Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo), suggested that Zandon had all the attitude necessary to make the most of his talent.

Despite the lamentable abbreviation of his career, the winner that day would return to New York to beat the subsequent GI Preakness S. winner in the GII Wood Memorial S. and then take the city's own Classic. Yet Zandon has meanwhile teased his admirers with just that one day when everything came together, in the GI Blue Grass S.

What felt especially vexing in the Derby was that he should, in principle, have been ideally suited by the notorious pace meltdown that summoned Rich Strike (Keen Ice) to our startled attention. As it was, he cruised into contention on the turn only to falter almost perceptibly, though still classy enough to take third. And he has since only elaborated an impression that his closing style will always require a pretty specific scenario actually to restore him to the winner's circle.

In fairness, even as things stand Zandon unmistakably belongs among the elite of the crop, having never once sought sanctuary from the white heat of competition. In the circumstances, however, the return to a single turn for the first time since his debut looks a pretty pointed call, just a week after the option of the GI Clark H.

I always feel that a one-turn mile is not just a very specific metier, but one especially instructive of that elusive grail: equilibrium between speed and stamina. A two-turn mile is more about “turn” than “mile”, diverting energy to the switching of leads and redistribution of weight. One turn, in contrast, must be accomplished more or less on one breath, and duly showcases the kind of pulmonary capacity that makes the GI Met Mile such a trusted signpost to stallion potential. If you think back to the way an inveterate closer like Honor Code (A.P. Indy) responded to the demands of that race, perhaps the Cigar will similarly set up for Zandon to release his “slingshot” in time.

But oh dear, what's this? Who should be waiting for him, in this first meeting with older horses, but the ultimate counterfoil to his rather finicky profile? Can even Zandon's biggest fans find it in their hearts to hope that Mind Control (Stay Thirsty) is beaten on the final start of such an exemplary career?

Connections will apparently announce Mind Control's stud destination over the coming days. King For A Day (Uncle Mo), his dam's half-brother, has been warmly received in New York but make no mistake, Mind Control offers the kind of genetic teak that should be welcome anywhere, the Bluegrass included. People will quibble over his damsire, but they don't have an issue with another forgettable son of Storm Cat, Yankee Gentleman, behind American Pharoah; and how marvelous, if Bernardini's growing distaff legacy could be complemented by a viable male line through Mind Control's sire Stay Thirsty.

One way or another, the package has worked to splendid effect in Mind Control—a 10-time stakes scorer who could take his earnings past $2 million in this, the 29th start of his career. Here's a GI Hopeful S. winner who has held his form through FIVE seasons, keeping one generation honest after another. No easy pickings when you drop in class with this guy around, as Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) could attest after their Grade III encounter at Monmouth this summer; or Silver State (Hard Spun), equally, in a Listed race at Parx last year.

Mind Control | Sarah Andrew

The bad news for Zandon is that Mind Control has demonstrated a particular affinity for this environment. In five career starts at a mile, he has four wins and a second; while his overall Aqueduct record reads 4-2-1. Having twice won Grade Is at Saratoga over seven furlongs, he sets a formidable standard for the glossy sophomore experimenting with a new trip.

But you know what, the differences between the pair—greyhound versus bulldog, Spitfire versus Lancaster—only makes me appreciate them both more. It's the way these Thoroughbreds hold the mirror up to life, after all, that make them so captivating. In persevering stubbornly with Zandon, I suppose I'm showing a weakness for the kind of flair that meets the challenges of life in a fashion that itself gives extra color and value to existence. But Mind Control, equally, reminds me that I wouldn't just want charisma from the guy next to me in the trenches.

So let's just hope that these contrasts, in this race, operate as the sticks and stones to spark up a fire against the advancing winter; and that Zandon can lay down some kind of marker for his elevation, with maturity, through a handicap division depleted by numerous retirements.

Between them, Zandon and Mo Donegal have at least renewed the luster of the Remsen. This time round, that race will be monitored with anguished attention by the three farms standing the neck-and-neck protagonists for the freshman sires' championship. After Bolt d'Oro seized the initiative last weekend, both Good Magic and Justify field candidates to fight back here.

You have to go back 27 years to Thunder Gulch to find the last Remsen winner to add the Derby, albeit Go For Gin had done the double only the previous year. But in an era when trainers are so reluctant to give Triple Crown horses an old-fashioned grounding, a ninth furlong before Christmas surely comes at a premium.

Whether in the way they are campaigned, or the way they are bred, Classic racehorses need a foundation. It's wrong to think of “blue collar” virtues as somehow alien to the true “blueblood”. We don't just need the flamboyance of Zandon, nor only the mettle of Mind Control. Much as with the one-turn mile that draws them together, we need the best of both worlds.

Hopefully Zandon's story still has a long way to go. In the meantime, how timely that Red Oak Stable gives a debut, at Tampa Bay not 10 minutes before the Cigar Mile, to Mind Control's little sister by Candy Ride (Arg). If she is made of the same stuff as Mind Control, then she'll have exactly what the rest of us should all be seeking. As Clint Eastwood's Preacher put it, at the end of another memorable showdown in Pale Rider: “Nothing like a nice piece of hickory.”

The post This Side Up: Style And Substance To Light Up Cigar appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Bolt d’Oro an Instant Hit

As we saw in the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff, if there's anything more exciting than a duel to the wire, it's the intrusion of a third nose. And that's pretty much the way a remarkable contest for the freshman sires' title is playing out entering the stretch.

The first thing to stress is that it really shouldn't matter which of the stallions involved happens to bank the critical extra cents to claim the crown. That won't be how the marketing teams of their respective farms are viewing things, naturally, but any sensible breeder will consider the state of play on Dec. 31 as wholly random, given that a single maiden winner at Oaklawn or Fair Grounds could conceivably suffice to alter the standings 24 hours either side.

Far more importantly, all three have met historic standards that would in many years have secured them each the laurels. Through Wednesday, at $2,402,870, Bolt d'Oro had maintained the advantage he retrieved when Instant Coffee laid down a marker over the Derby course in the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. at Churchill last Saturday. That could prove a pivotal moment, as he was chased home by Curly Jack–a son of Good Magic, who similarly leads the pursuit of Bolt d'Oro on $2,282,082. Breathing down their necks, meanwhile, is Justify with $2,231,749.

Though all three would have been left gasping behind the record-breaking Gun Runner last year, Bolt d'Oro is about to nudge past 2020 champion Nyquist. In 2019, his current tally would have split American Pharoah and Constitution. And all three of the present protagonists have already comfortably exceeded each of the preceding champions until you reach Uncle Mo in 2015.

Each, moreover, has established a core of quality that measures up pretty creditably even to Gun Runner. Justify's six stakes and four graded stakes winners are a match for the Three Chimneys freak last year; Bolt d'Oro and Good Magic both have five and three. (Nyquist had just two stakes winners, but both won Grade I races!) In terms of overall stakes action, however, it is Bolt d'Oro who stands alone with 14 black-type operators at a remarkable 19.2% of starters. Gun Runner had eight at 12.7%.

As colleague Sid Fernando recently remarked, the rookies also have a strong presence in the overall table of juvenile sires. Into Mischief has a clear lead but presumptive champion Forte's sire Violence is only narrowly holding second from the contending trio. As Sid noted, with fellow freshmen Sharp Azteca seventh and Army Mule eighth, this table confirms how debut books are nowadays loaded to meet an ever-narrowing window of commercial opportunity.

Sid has since examined how Justify can be expected to keep consolidating, while I had already marked Good Magic's achievement as first to a Grade I success through Blazing Sevens in the Champagne S. It feels like high time, then, that “The Third Man” also received some attention.

Auspiciously, though his own sophomore career eventually tailed off into anti-climax, Bolt d'Oro actually feels no less entitled than his rivals–first and second in the GI Kentucky Derby, with Bolt d'Oro down the field (made only one subsequent start)–to produce horses that keep progressing at three.

How could he not, when his parents are respectively by El Prado (Ire) and A.P. Indy? His half-brother, moreover, is that admirable creature Global Campaign (Curlin), himself now at stud with WinStar after breaking into the elite late in his 4-year-old campaign. Bolt d'Oro offers all the requisite size, stretch and stride, too.

Bolt d'Oro romped in the 2017 FrontRunner | Benoit

With that in mind, he was a remarkably accomplished juvenile: he broke his maiden in a Del Mar sprint before winning two Grade Is in California, notably the FrontRunner S. by nearly eight lengths for a molten 103 Beyer. That ensured he started at short odds for a GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile staged in his backyard, but he was ridden via Nantucket, wide all the way, as Good Magic famously broke his maiden (the pair divided by the FrontRunner runner-up).

On his resumption Bolt d'Oro was awarded the GII San Felipe S. after taking a bump from head winner McKinzie (Street Sense); and is actually still seeking an equivalent promotion in the courts after Justify beat him three lengths in the GI Santa Anita Derby. According to the last I read on this–it's been hard to keep up!–Mick Ruis has a hearing in March to keep alive his complaint against Justify's retention of this prize, despite a drug overage.

One way or another, there has never been a dull moment with this horse. Trained by his owner for most of his career, Bolt d'Oro duly got plenty of attention on the Derby trail. Ruis, who retained a major interest in his deal with Spendthrift, bought a 330-acre farm outside Lexington to accommodate the mares that would support a colt he had bought for $630,000 as a Saratoga yearling. (An instructive price, considering that Global Campaign was then an unnamed weanling.) The young stallion gained less welcome headlines with his aggression, at one stage proving such a handful that help was sought from an equine behaviorist. In his first book, Bolt d'Oro was dignified by a visit from the dam of Rachel Alexandra–who was, of course, by his own sire Medaglia d'Oro–and the resulting colt made $1.4 million at Saratoga. (And actually made his debut, seemingly in need of it, half an hour after Instant Coffee came up the same track on Saturday.) The following spring, Spendthrift themselves sent Bolt d'Oro farm champion Beholder (Henny Hughes). And now he finds himself in this extraordinary fresh battle with two old racetrack rivals.

Medaglia d'Oro | Darley photo

Even Spendthrift couldn't launch Bolt d'Oro on quite the same scale as Ashford did Justify and Mendelssohn, who corralled 252 mares apiece. But he certainly saw predictable business at $25,000, with 214 mares in Kentucky followed by a shuttle stint in Australia. (In this connection, breeders in this day and age should always remember also to sort the freshman table by earnings-per-starter. On those terms Good Magic is doing best of the title protagonists–but not as well as Awesome Slew! And Oscar Performance deserves a mention here, too.)

Bolt d'Oro entertained another 146 mares in 2020, but could clearly have had more but for the prudent management of his boisterous conduct at the time. Given a businesslike trim to $15,000 last year–in line with his farm's wider approach to the uncertainties of the pandemic market–he maintained business at 153 mares. Interestingly, however, both his fee ($20,000) and his book (174) moved back up this spring after a warm reception for his first yearlings.

Though he had taken as many as 114 to market, he found a home for 97 of them at $155,097. That average put him behind only Justify, who obviously had to turn round a much bigger opening fee ($150,000) and did so at $373,083; and City of Light, who made such a stellar start at $337,698. Just behind came Mendelssohn and Good Magic, at $153,611 and $151,708, respectively.

This year, remarkably, Bolt d'Oro has bucked the usual trend and actually advanced his average with his second crop of yearlings. He processed 54 of 61 offered at $172,027, still third but closing the gap on Justify ($304,692) and City of Light ($237,047) and edging away from Good Magic ($131,760) and Mendelssohn ($98,969).

In between, moreover, he had been credited with the most expensive filly by a freshman sire at the 2-year-old sales when Spendthrift gave $1.2 million for an $85,000 yearling pinhook from Tom McCrocklin at the Gulfstream Sale, in the process assisting their own sire to a juvenile average of $239,549–surpassed only by Justify.

Bolt d'Oro's $1.2-million filly out of Rich Love this spring | Fasig-Tipton

Everything that has ensued on the racetrack, then, only maintains a wider momentum for Bolt d'Oro, whose fee for 2023 has been set at $35,000.

One of the most pleasing aspects of his success is its contribution to the tragically abbreviated legacy of his dam, who died after delivering only her third foal. He turned out to be Global Campaign; the first was Grade II-placed, multiple stakes winner Sonic Mule (Distorted Humor). Seldom has the expression “three strikes and out” been so poignantly apt.

Globe Trot, sold by her family's curators at Claiborne as a yearling, was out of triple graded stakes winner Trip (Lord At War {Arg}), herself half-sister to the stakes-winning dam of Zensational (Unbridled's Song)–the legendary Jimmy Crupi pinhook ($20,000 to $700,000) who won three Grade I sprints as a sophomore.

Zensational helps to make this one of the faster lines tracing to the matriarch Myrtlewood. Globe Trot and Trip, though both by stamina influences, operated around a mile; the next dam, a stakes winner by Forty Niner, was a sprinter. So, too, was Sonic Mule. Zensational's half-sister produced Cutting Humor (First Samurai), who set a track record in the GIII Sunland Park Derby. And Globe Trot herself was a half-sister to the dam of Recruiting Ready (Algorithms), who earned over $800,000 round a single turn (notably in the GIII Gulfstream Park Sprint S.). Even Bolt d'Oro was himself dropped in distance for what proved his final start in the GI Met Mile.

So there's evidently a nice balance here, complementing the sturdy influences behind Globe Trot: like her own sire A.P. Indy, her damsire Lord At War is an obviously wholesome distaff brand. The broodmare sire of Pioneerof the Nile and War Emblem was a guarantor of splendidly durable stock, especially on turf.

As such, Lord At War adds an interesting flavor to the sire line now being extended by Bolt d'Oro. The flexible influence of Medaglia d'Oro is well established, and the first two graded stakes winners by Bolt d'Oro himself both arrived in switching to grass: Major Dude in the GII Pilgrim S., and Boppy O in the GIII With Anticipation S. Bolt d'Oro has also had a $50,000 yearling, Bold Discovery, Group-placed in Ireland on his second start; plus a rather more expensive export, From Dusk ($900,000 OBS March 2-year-old), beaten a length in a field of 18 for a Group 2 in Tokyo.

Instant Coffee won Churchill's KYJC this past Saturday | Coady

But the versatility of Medaglia d'Oro also embraces rather more precocity than has sometimes seemed the case. Forte, don't forget, is another grandson featuring early on the Triple Crown trail; and now we can throw Instant Coffee into the mix for Bolt d'Oro after Owen's Leap (Sanford S.) and Agency (GIII Best Pal S.) both finished second in summer dirt sprints.

If only with a fairly formal credit as breeder, Instant Coffee represents a residue of Kevin Plank's attempt to revive Sagamore Farm. His dam Follow No One (Uncle Mo) was bought for $100,000 by farm president Hunter Rankin at OBS April in 2016, and went on to be stakes-placed the following year. When she failed to sell ($85,000 RNA) as a broodmare prospect at the Keeneland November Sale of 2018, Plank evidently agreed to a deal with Rankin's parents Alex and Sarah at Upson Downs Farm.

The choice of Bolt d'Oro as the mare's first mate itself had a nice Sagamore echo: the farm had raced Recruiting Ready, and partnered with WinStar in Global Campaign. With Hunter having meanwhile joined Alex on the Churchill Downs team, the Rankins certainly have an early rooting interest for the Derby!

Upson Downs sold Instant Coffee for $200,000 at the September Sale last year to Joe Hardoon, agent–the colt is trained for Gold Square LLC by Brad Cox–and returned this time round with his half-sister by Frosted. As luck should have it, Instant Coffee won on debut at Saratoga just a few days before the auction, helping her to realize $160,000 from HR Bloodstock. Unfortunately, Follow No One lost a Speightstown foal this year but she has been bred back to Maclean's Music.

Instant Coffee has an unusually compressed maternal family. Himself a first foal, he duly extends a sequence of young producers. Even his fifth dam was born as late as 1991; while the final foal of third dam Miss Mary Apples (Clever Trick), won the GIII Matron S. as recently as October. As foundation mare for KatieRich Farms, Miss Mary Apples had already produced three other stakes winners, including GI Kentucky Oaks-placed millionaire Lady Apple (Curlin) and Follow No One's dam Miss Red Delicious (Empire Maker), a hardy runner who won two dirt stakes at seven furlongs.

The recent action in this family actually stokes up the embers of one of the great beacons: Instant Coffee's sixth dam is a full-sister to none other than Affirmed. It has been well seeded, too: Uncle Mo, Empire Maker, Clever Trick and Holy Bull are a pretty resonant bunch of broodmare sires to find behind a horse with Derby aspirations.

For all the pep we've noted behind Bolt d'Oro himself, then, this is a pedigree strewn with Classic brands. And if Instant Coffee could parlay those into a Kentucky Derby, then who would still be counting the dimes won by his sire's other stock in the last days of December?

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This Side Up: A Game of Accident and Design

We can harness Thoroughbreds to our best and worst, to our altruism or avarice–but thankfully we will never alter the essential, inherent wonder of the breed, nor maintain the illusion that we are ever truly in control of its destiny.

There's a genuine possibility, this weekend, that a German colt could elevate himself to the top of the global sophomore crop by winning the G1 Japan Cup. Yet Tünnes (Ger) (Guiliani {Ire}) was a wholly inadvertent acquisition at the Baden-Baden yearling sales, his purchaser having dropped out at €20,000 only to discover that he had persevered, unwittingly, to the fall of the hammer at €38,000, by the gesticulations accompanying his cell phone conversation.

You could seek no better example of the way horses confound our best-laid calculations, whether for good or ill. In this game, your bad luck will frequently turn out to be good luck; and vice versa. And that defining mystery will always abide, no matter how (or with what motives) we manipulate the nobility of the equine spirit.

Now, as it happens, this same colt also offers to substantiate the mirage of coherence so teasingly within reach of those of us who owe our livelihoods to this business. While his breeder owns but a single mare, she has famously also produced an Arc winner; while Tünnes is inbred as close as 3×3 to a half-sister to Urban Sea (Miswaki) herself.

On one level, then, here's a horse that can make sense of the great puzzle. We can be like the fellow who notoriously telegraphed from the casino at Monte Carlo: “System working well, send more money.”

Yet while this particular family belongs to perhaps the most precious seam of the entire European gene pool, still the market persists not only in undervaluing the kind of ore preserved by the strictures on German breeding, but in prizing its shallow opposites.

The German guarantee of soundness and stamina, through stallions that stand consecutive seasons of training without medication, has a moral equivalence with the Derby as a historic platform for the kind of sires we should be using. This week, the most inspired a commercial breeder of all reiterated his faith in Epsom as “the complete test of the horse”. John Magnier affirmed that “a horse has to have everything to win” there: speed, stamina, soundness, courage and temperament.

Persian Force training at Keeneland earlier this month | Coady

Yet this was also the week when a relative novice to the game showed that he has quickly grasped the contrasting criteria of the commercial market, in Britain and Ireland at any rate, by retiring Persian Force (Ire) to stud as a 2-year-old. This colt, last seen finishing fourth at the Breeders' Cup, duly emulates his own sire Mehmas (Ire), who was similarly deemed to have proved everything necessary as a fast and precocious juvenile.

As I've often stressed, the Classic Thoroughbred actually retains far more commercial respect in the United States, where the ultimate objective is not speed alone but the robustness (and indeed stamina) to carry it through a second turn on the first Saturday in May.

This has never adequately penetrated the ignorance of today's European horsemen. But then why should Americans expect one prejudice to be renounced, while some of them remain so stubborn in reinforcing others? Their resistance to HISA, for instance, seems to have been brazenly coupled in the courtroom “wagering”, so to speak, with a quite extraneous ideological agenda.

Another way in which American horsemen seem determined to substantiate prejudice against their own product is in the commercial market's disdain for turf. For all the signs of progress here–in the purses at Kentucky Downs, for example, and growing investment at European auctions–the disrepair of some premier American tracks feels thoroughly discouraging. Evidently we can expect zero grass racing at Fair Grounds before Christmas, while the “weeds” at Churchill are equal to just one of the dozen races scheduled Saturday.

It's a fascinating card, all the same, exclusively contested by juveniles. After revisiting the legacy of Leslie's Lady in this space last week, it's poignant to see her final foal (by Kantharos: some distinction, dude!) make her debut in the fourth, while the final race features a seven-figure sibling to Rachel Alexandra (Medaglia d'Oro) by her sire's son Bolt d'Oro.

Instant Coffee on debut Sept. 3 at Saratoga | Sarah Andrew

That lad, of course, will treasure every available cent in what remains a remarkable race for the freshman sires' championship. The GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. could prove decisive, with two of the three protagonists prominently represented: Good Magic by Curly Jack, and Bolt d'Oro by Instant Coffee.

The road to the Kentucky Derby makes few other detours through its host track, and we saw with Rich Strike (Keen Ice) how important a proven relish for the surface can be. The first horse to win both this race and the Derby (1927-28) was Reigh Count, who was sent over the water as a 4-year-old to win the Coronation Cup over the Derby course, and run second in the Ascot Gold Cup over 2 1/2 miles. (What was I was just saying about how the Europeans could use some dirt stamina?!)

With Count Fleet as his principal heir, Reigh Count proved a precious source of toughness and durability in the breed. However, the first horse to win the Kentucky Derby after a reconnaissance in this race at two, when finishing third, had been Behave Yourself seven years previously. It is said that Colonel Bradley eventually donated him as a cavalry sire, because he did not wish to contaminate the breed by replicating such an inferior specimen.

So there you have it. Even if horses will always remain agents of chaos, they will also tell us plenty about the kind of people who utilize their generosity–either for the good of the breed, as was contrastingly the case with both Reigh Count and Behave Yourself, or as a vehicle for their own cynicism or self-interest.

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