Spun To Run Looks to Build Upon Dirt Mile Success

In just its first 14 years of running, the GI Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile has emerged as a stallion-making race and in recent years, its winners are making top headlines as they kick off their stud careers.

Goldencents (Into Mischief), winner of both the 2013 and 2014 edition, now leads his class of third-crop sires. The following year’s winner, Liam’s Map (Unbridled’s Song), is already a two-time Grade I producer with his first crop of 3-year-olds while 2016 champion Tamarkuz (Speightstown) now has a Grade III winner in his first crop of juveniles. The subsequent winners in the late Battle of Midway (Smart Strike) and City of Light (Quality Road) are still waiting for their first runners, but initial first crops are already turning heads both on the farm and in the sales ring.

 

Last year’s Dirt Mile Champion Spun to Run (Hard Spun) retired to Gainesway Farm this year and will stand his initial season at stud for $12,500.

“Spun to Run is a horse that we’re very excited about,” said Gainesway’s Director of Stallion Sales and Recruitment Sean Tugel. “Certainly his Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile win was his marquee victory and he did it very easily. He did it by widening lengths. On that day he ran a 109 Beyer and he certainly made everyone realize the type of talent he had.”

Spun to Run broke first at last year’s championship meet at Santa Anita and was never passed, besting a field that included Grade I winners Omaha Beach (War Front) and Improbable (City Zip), as well as Coal Front (Stay Thirsty) and Mr. Money (Goldencents).

Prior to his Breeders’ Cup victory, the Juan Carlos Guerrero-trainee blossomed in the later half of his sophomore season, finishing third in the GI Haskell Invitational S. behind Maximum Security (New Year’s Day) before taking the GIII Smarty Jones S. and later earning a 110 Beyer in the M.P Ballezzi Appreciation Mile S.

“It was a very strong 3-year-old campaign,” Tugel said. “He ran a `zero’ five times on Thorographs, which was very good. He’s a horse that showed brilliance, and brilliance makes sires.”

Following his Breeders’ Cup victory, Spun to Run wrapped up his sophomore season with a runner-up effort behind Maximum Security in the GI Cigar Mile H. While prepping for the 2020 GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational, an injury forced the dark bay to scratch and ultimately retire.

“It was bad timing,” Tugel said. “[Owner Bob Donaldson] had a big 4-year-old campaign planned out for him. Unfortunately it didn’t go as the owner had hoped, but that allowed us to go out and get him. It was an injury that took time to come back from, and unfortunately he missed the breeding season and the racing season this year. But certainly he’s a young horse still, he’s turning five, and he’s let down beautifully in his time off from training. I think people are going to be very excited when they see him.”

The son of Hard Spun is out of the stakes-winning Grand Slam mare Yawkey Way and his half-sister Tap It All (Tapizar) is also a stakes winner.

“Certainly the Danzig sire line has been a sire line that has been dominant throughout the world, not only in America but in Australia and Europe,” Tugel said. “The fact that his first three dams are all juvenile winners and his first dam was a juvenile stakes winner at Saratoga makes it very exciting to think that speed and precocity is going to be passed on through his offspring.”

Tugel added that he finds Spun to Run to represent the best blend of Grand Slam and Hard Spun.

“He has a beautiful shoulder and a beautiful amount of bone,” he said. “You see a lot of that Grand Slam and Gone West in through his neckline and jaw. The strength of his hind leg is a great benefit that he gets from his bottom side. He’s a beautiful mover and he has a lot of leg to him. I think he’s a true miler, and milers make stallions.”

Tugel said that breeders have been impressed by the million-dollar-earning miler as he nears the start of his stud career.

“The breeders that have seen him so far have really liked him,” he said. “He’s a horse that kind of grabs your imagination as soon as you see him. He has a personality and an intelligence. He’s a horse that captivates the breeders when he walks out and that’s what drew us to him.”

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A New Heir to War Front’s Throne at Claiborne

War Front is undoubtedly heralded as one of America’s top turf sires, but Claiborne’s Bernie Sams said he finds any stereotype that the stallion is solely a grass producer is unjustifiable.

“I think War Front has been labeled to some extent as a turf sire, but unfairly so because he got his start with dirt stakes winners,” he said. “Then a lot of people started breeding to him and taking a lot of them to Europe. He probably is equally as good on dirt as he is on turf, if we had as many of them here.”

Sams’s theory on War Front’s progeny comes to fruition in the versatile ability displayed by War of Will. The son of War Front is among an elite group that can claim Grade I wins on both dirt and turf, and is the first of War Front’s progeny to snag a Classic victory.

The imposing bay recently joined his sire at Claiborne Farm and will stand for a fee of $25,000 in his first year at stud.

A $175,000 R.N.A at the Keeneland September Sale, War of Will was pinhooked privately by Norman Williamson before selling for €250,000 at the Arquana May Breeze-Up Sale in 2018. The youngster was purchase by Justin Casse and sent to his brother Mark Casse’s barn, where he made his debut on the grass.

While competitive in stakes company at two, the colt failed to break his maiden in four starts and Casse decided to look past the colt’s grass pedigree, switching the blaze-faced bay to the dirt.

The result was a three-race win streak, with a five-length maiden-breaking sophomore debut, followed by a graded stakes double in the GIII LeComte S. and the GII Risen Star S.

That’s when Claiborne started to take notice.

“We started getting interested in War of Will when he won down at Fair Grounds,” Sams said. “He was very impressive. We’d kind of been keeping an eye out for a son of War Front, and he seemed to fit the bill.”

After drawing the first position in last year’s GI Kentucky Derby, rider Tyler Gaffalione had War of Will poised for a perfect ‘up the rail’ victory. But the seam never opened, and they ran seventh in a highly controversial Run for the Roses.

The duo sought redemption and earned it when two weeks later in the GI Preakness S., they again drew the one hole, but this time found an opening and never looked back. The victory gave all connections- owner Gary Barber, Casse and Gaffalione- each their first Preakness win and first-ever Classic win.

“After he won the Preakness was when we got very serious,” Bernie said of the then stallion prospect. “Just with the fact that he was a big, strong son of War Front that had won an American Classic on the dirt going two turns, and had speed.”

War of Will did not see the winner’s circle again last year, so Casse followed a hunch and turned the bay back to the turf for his four-year-old season.

He was rewarded when War of Will took the GI Maker’s Mark Mile S. at Keeneland, defeating Graded and Group I winners Raging Bull (FR) (Dark Angel {Ire}), Without Parole (GB) (Frankel {GB}) and Next Shares (Archarcharch).

“The Grade I at Keeneland on the grass was very exciting,” Sams said. “For him to be a Grade I winner on dirt and turf, there’s a lot of grass racing in America now, so you know it can go both ways with him. And his female family has quite a bit of turf in it.”

War of Will is the ninth foal out of Visions of Clarity (Ire) {Sadler’s Wells), a stakes winner at three in France and half-sister to European champion and Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Spinning World (Nureyev). The mare is also responsible for Irish highweight and Group I winner Pathfork (Distorted Humor), as well as Juddmonte’s three-time graded stakes winner Tacitus (Tapit).

Sams said Claiborne is looking forward to offering their first son of War Front, but that War of Will offers a new aspect to the sire line for breeders.

“To have had Danzig and War Front and now him is very exciting,” he said. “If he could be halfway as successful as those two, it’d be a good deal. There’s definitely more size and scope to him than his father and grandfather. [In terms of] conformation, he sells himself. He’s a big, pretty horse. He’s correct and has plenty of bone.”

War of Will’s appeal is so great, it seems, that he might just end up taking a few mare’s off his sire’s book.

“Everybody has loved him,” Sams said. “I’ve had a couple of people that had asked about breeding to War Front and came out and looked at War of Will and now are going to breed to him and not War Front. So that’s the kind of mares he’s going to end up getting.”

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Taking Stock: Sires and Racing Environments

The advent of Twitter over the last decade or so has made racing results quickly accessible to fans and observers anywhere in the world, so much so that it seems that a greater number of people in the U.S. are more familiar with European racing than ever before. Back when I was a kid, we’d have to wait for the Blood-Horse magazine to arrive in the mail to scan the 10-day old European results in the agate type in the back pages. Now, we get a video of a race on Twitter minutes after the finish, and you’ve got quite a few people on the platform discussing those races with as much passion and knowledge as they do racing here. Moreover, these European visuals have exposed more Americans to the glaring differences in racing environments between here and there.

To begin with, the top European races are contested on turf instead of dirt. And more importantly, there’s a greater variation in distances, courses, and racing styles over there, as the videos of the one-mile G1 Sussex S. on Wednesday from the U.K. and the two-mile G1 Goodwood Cup a day earlier from the same venue pointedly illustrated. There are no Grade l races in this country at two miles, and neither are there Grade l races at five furlongs here as there are in Europe, where 12 furlongs is considered a “middle distance” and the cadence of races is markedly slower earlier, no matter the distances–which are clearly delineated at sprints at five and six furlongs, mile events, 10-13 furlong races, and extreme staying events at a mile and three-quarters up to two-and-a-half miles.

In contrast, almost all top races here seem to hover within a narrow band of seven-to-nine furlongs over dirt ovals and are contested frenetically from the start. Also, 12-furlong horses here are considered “stayers” or “plodders,” and though we do have a graded turf program that caters to horses over 10-12 furlongs, many of whom are ex-European imports, the winners of those races are rarely sought after as stallion prospects like our nine-furlong dirt runners and 10-furlong Gl Kentucky Derby winners.

Epsom Derbys

This disconnect between the racing environments of the U.S. and Europe has been particularly pronounced since 2000, though the trend was evident in the 1990s, and it’s directly related to the types of stallions that find favor here versus there. Since North American-based Northern Dancer exploded in Europe with Nijinsky in 1970, Europeans, particularly Coolmore, have collected his sons, and Coolmore hit the mother lode with the 1984 G1 Irish 2000 Guineas winner Sadler’s Wells, whose sons Galileo (Ire), a G1 Epsom Derby and Irish Derby winner, and Montjeu (Ire), winner of the G1 Irish Derby and Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby) back when it was still run over a mile and a half, have dominated European Classics during the same time frame that N. American-bred influence was waning in Europe.

In fact, it may come as a surprise to some on Twitter who ardently follow European racing nowadays–many of whom I’d hazard a guess are younger than 50–that N. American-breds at one time ran roughshod over some of Europe’s greatest races, including the Epsom Derby. During the 1970s, for example, Nijinsky (Northern Dancer), Mill Reef (Never Bend), Roberto (Hail to Reason), Empery (Vaguely Noble {Ire}), and The Minstrel (Northern Dancer) won the prestigious mile-and-a-half Classic, followed in the 1980s by Henbit (Hawaii {SAf}), Golden Fleece (Nijinsky), Teenoso (Youth), Secreto (Northern Dancer), Shahrastani (Nijinsky), and Nashwan (Blushing Groom {Fr}). Things slowed a bit in the 1990s, with Erhaab (Chief’s Crown), Lammtarra (Nijinsky), and Benny the Dip (Silver Hawk), and by the aughts the Americans were limited to just Kris Kin (Kris S.), who won the Blue Riband in 2003. Since then, Galileo and Montjeu have between them accounted for nine European-bred winners of the race, while their sons New Approach (Ire) (Galileo) and Pour Moi (Ire) (Montjeu) have sired two others.

Northern Dancer’s son Danzig also established a foothold in Europe that remains strong through today. North Light (Ire), the winner of the Epsom Derby the year after Kris Kin, was by Danehill, an outstanding and influential son of Danzig; and two other winners since then, Sea the Stars (Ire) and Golden Horn (GB), were by Cape Cross (Ire), a son of the Danzig sprinter Green Desert; and Sea the Stars sired Harzand (Ire), giving the Danzig line four winners of the Classic since 2003. Though Danzig’s European presence is primarily based around milers and sprinters to Sadler’s Wells’s main influence in the mile-and-a-half races, you’ll note that Cape Cross and Sea the Stars have made this branch of Danzig into players at European middle distances, and Sea the Stars has even ventured farther into extreme-stamina territory.

In total since the last U.S.-bred winner of the Epsom Derby in 2003, the Northern Dancer line through Sadler’s Wells and Danzig has accounted for 15 of the 17 winners, with only Sir Percy (GB) (Mark of Esteem {Ire}, who traces to Mill Reef) and Workforce (GB) (King’s Best, a son of the Mr. Prospector horse Kingmambo) breaking up the monopoly.

Of course, there are many other branches of Northern Dancer that have had success through the decades and are still successful in Europe, but Sadler’s Wells and Danzig are the stars, and they’ve combined successfully in pedigrees, back and forth, to keep the Northern Dancer locomotive hurtling forwards. Frankel (GB) (Galileo), the top young sire in Europe and his 22-year-old sire’s heir apparent, is from a Danehill mare and is a product of the Sadler’s Wells/Danzig cross.

The pedigree of this year’s Irish Derby winner Santiago (Ire) (Authorized {Ire}), who was third in the Goodwood Cup on Tuesday, employs this same cross, but with even more doses of Northern Dancer: his sire is by Montjeu and his dam’s sire is Cape Cross, which is Sadler’s Wells/Danzig, but in between and around them in his first five generations are the top Northern Dancer sires Lyphard and Nureyev, along with another dose of Danzig, making Santiago 4x5x5x5x5 to Northern Dancer and 4×4 to Danzig. There’s no question European pedigrees are getting saturated with Northern Dancer blood, but so far with little ill effect.

Stradivarius (Ire), who won the Goodwood Cup for the fourth consecutive year and is the premier stayer in Europe in races up to two-and-a-half miles, is by Sea the Stars, who happens to be a half-brother to Galileo, and is inbred 5x4x5 to Northern Dancer through Danzig, Sadler’s Wells, and Lyphard. Stradivarius’s pedigree illustrates how a branch of the Danzig line evolved gradually from speed to stamina through the generations in the sequence of Green Desert to Cape Cross to Sea the Stars, and it did so only because the racing environment in Europe allowed it the opportunity. This isn’t an option in America, where to succeed as a sire requires consistent high-class speed in the seven-to-nine-furlong Grade l dirt races, with occasional strikes in the Classics at up to a mile and three-sixteenths, a mile and a quarter, and a mile and a half.

Mohaather (GB) (Showcasing {GB}), the winner of the one-mile Sussex S. on Wednesday, is also a member of the Green Desert branch of Danzig as Stradivarius is, but his sire is by Oasis Dream (GB) (Green Desert), who tends to get more sprinter-milers and stays truer to the ethos of Danzig.

The Sussex was notable for another reason, too. In the beaten field were two American-bred Classic winners this year. Third-place finisher Siskin (First Defence), undefeated in five starts entering the race, won the G1 Irish 2000 Guineas, and Kameko (Kitten’s Joy), fourth, had won the G1 2000 Guineas. The duo were the first American-bred European Classic winners since Senga (Blame) won the G1 Prix de Diane (French Oaks) in 2017–and she was, I believe, the first since Arctic Cosmos (North Light) won the G1 St. Leger in 2010–and are harbingers that American-breds might once again start to have an impact on the European Classics, particularly as a newer generation of American owners are getting more smitten with the idea of racing in Europe.

American Sires

Kitten’s Joy is that rare American-based turf sire who’s succeeded against the odds, but he came up through the all-weather era and benefited from a subsequent increase in turf racing to lead the N. American general sire list in 2013. Since then, he’s attracted some European patronage and has had a string of European successes, led by the late European champion and Group 1 winner Roaring Lion and including others such as champion and Group 1 winner Hawkbill, French Group 2 winner Taareef, and current Irish Group 3 winner Crossfirehurricane in addition to Kameko.

War Front, one of Danzig’s last sons, is another with a sparkling track record in Europe, where he’s been particularly effective with his juveniles and at sprint and mile distances. He’s been bred to quite a few Galileo mares by Coolmore and is probably sitting on a Guineas winner down the line.

Aside from them, however, there aren’t too many other American-based sires that are sought after in Europe, but that might change.

Siskin’s pedigree offers the first clue. First Defence (Unbridled’s Song), a Grade l winner at seven furlongs on dirt, is now at stud in Saudi Arabia, but Siskin’s breakthrough in a European Classic was the first for the Unbridled line, which has been so effective on American dirt but nowhere near so on European turf. Siskin’s success now suggests new hope for the line, and that bodes well for Coolmore’s Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile), who’s from the same line by way of Empire Maker (Unbridled) instead of Unbridled’s Song (Unbridled).

So far, American Pharoah is showing a distinct penchant for the turf. From his first crop of 3-year-olds he’s represented by nine black-type winners and six group/graded winners, most of them on turf. He didn’t come up with a first-crop European Classic winner this spring and summer–neither did Northern Dancer; Nijinsky was in his second crop–but American Pharoah does have a dirt colt in Japan who’s eligible for the Kentucky Derby in the fall.

Coolmore stands American Pharoah in Kentucky. The Irish-based farm has actually bet heavily on two American Triple Crown winners, the other being Justify (Scat Daddy)–the two best American 3-year-old champions since Sunday Silence.

Sunday Silence, based in Japan, and Northern Dancer were two Derby/Preakness winners who changed the face of racing in Japan and Europe, respectively, and left sons to continue their work. American Pharoah and Justify, both of whom were even more accomplished in the grueling Triple Crown than them, will be given their own chances to succeed in Europe. Perhaps the European climate will be just right for them, especially with Montjeu gone, Galileo aging, and voids opening for another infusion of American blood.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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Bloodlines: Somelikeithotbrown And The Burden Of Expectations

From the evidence of the sums paid for stallion syndications and for price of nomination fees to these unproven sires, a reasonable observer would assume that there is a strong correlation between elite racing performance and its resulting stratospheric stallion valuations and then the progeny results of such horses on the racetrack.

That reasonable observer, however, would be incorrect.

There is a modest correlation between racing excellence and stallion performance; essentially every important stallion is a stakes winner, for instance. But you don't have to look very hard to find Danzig, who was unbeaten in three starts, none a stakes. Clearly, that very talented son of Northern Dancer was an aberration; had he enjoyed a fairly normal racing career, Danzig would have been a stakes winner and probably a stakes winner of very high merit.

Aside from stakes success as a general parameter of racing performance, however, the variability of the genetic material that a stallion provides to his offspring and the equal variability of how that contribution pairs up with a contribution from the dam make breeding effectively an exercise in randomness.

All this makes the prices of major syndications what we might generously call “optimistic.”

This was pointed out by the result of the Grade 2 Bernard Baruch Handicap at Saratoga. The Baruch was won by the New York-bred 4-year-old Somelikeithotbrown (by Big Brown), and the winner is from the first New York-conceived crop by the 2008 Eclipse Award winner as champion 3-year-old colt.

A winner in his only start at two, Big Brown improved massively to remain undefeated through victories in the G1 Florida Derby, Kentucky Derby, and Preakness. Heavily favored to complete the Triple Crown, Big Brown was eased in the Test of the Champion at Belmont Park.

The son of Boundary (Danzig) won his final two starts, a prep for the Haskell and the main event, then was retired to stud at Three Chimneys Farm in Kentucky to stand for a fee of $60,000 live foal. The other top horse retiring to Kentucky for the 2009 season was two-time Horse of the Year Curlin (Smart Strike), and both were scheduled to have stud fees of $100,000 or thereabouts before the Great Recession came crumbling down on everyone's head.

That debacle had the effect of lowering those two horses' stud fees by nearly half, to $60,000 for their first seasons. External factors did not make the economics of standing the two champions any easier, but the long-term challenge for each was to get horses of very high racing class.

Curlin answered in the affirmative, most strongly as his stock gained experience and maturity on the racetrack, and the champion chestnut has established himself as one of the premier stallions in the country with a stud fee of $175,000.

In contrast, however, Big Brown sired winners from large books of accomplished mares, and the regression to the norm seen in the quality of his racers produced a corresponding regression in the horse's stud fee.

To date, Big Brown has had nine crops of racing age, and from 584 foals of racing age (including 27 2-year-olds), he has 27 stakes winners, including seven group or graded stakes winners. The best of these was Dortmund, a smashing chestnut of giant proportions who won the G1 Santa Anita Derby and Los Alamitos Futurity, as well as running third in the 2015 Kentucky Derby behind American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile).

This is not an exercise in bashing Big Brown, who followed a good racing career with stud performance that is slightly above average: he sired a Grade 1 winner and a half-dozen other group or graded winners from 27 stakes winners. Few stallions do that much.

Average performance, even a bit better than average success, however, is not nearly enough to keep a stallion in Kentucky at a commercial fee under the present market circumstances. The pressures on stallions include the escalating book sizes that have some of the most in-demand stallions covering more than 200 mares in the Northern Hemisphere breeding season from February through early July; the dual-hemisphere shuttle system which sends some stallions to the Southern Hemisphere, where they will be working with another large book of mares; the demands of the sales market for large, correctly conformed, attractive, and well-matured yearlings or 2-year-olds; and then the racetrack demands to get racing stock that can win early and often, then show high form in graded company.

If a stallion prospect could know what lay in store for him, he'd just have a nervous breakdown and be done with it.

The horses who have the libido and physical health to handle the breeding demands, then to compound that by outperforming expectations with lots of good individuals who regularly perform at the highest levels, are rare creations indeed. That's what a top-class contemporary stallion has to provide, and it's a prescription to understand why there's only one Galileo, one Tapit, or one War Front every few years.

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