Winter Memories Made And Preserved At Darby Dan

Multiple graded stakes winner Winter Memories died, and not a peep about it anywhere? Seriously?” Last week's tweet sounded like a salvo.

The message's verve was driven by a quest for information. The responses underneath that query told the story, as a host of fans who loved and cheered home this gray filly by El Prado (Ire) over a decade ago, posted their sadness after hearing of her loss.

Heading out the Old Frankfort Pike at historic Darby Dan Farm, owner John Phillips made the decision not to issue a press release. He had his reasons. As he said so acutely and with deep emotion, “Actually we put her down May 16. It was time, as her hind suspensories just gave out and she was in pain to stand. She was surrounded by the staff and I held the shank.”

He also divulged that, “While I know she was a recognized mare, the loss was personal, private. We probably should have announced her passing, but that just seemed too commercial to me. Sorry if that offends anyone.”

No one is offended. It's Phillips's right. In the world of commercial Thoroughbred breeding, which at times is only understood as a series of business transactions that are attached to monetary gains and losses, there are still deep-seeded tributaries of emotion that are directly tied to family connections–both human and equine. After all, that nexus is full of blood, sweat and at times, many, many tears. No myths here: only truth. That is what Winter Memories meant to Phillips and Darby Dan.

To hear him tell it, from the very beginning Winter Memories was intimately tied to the family and the stallion farm's staff. It all started Apr. 24, 2008.

“She was born on the day we buried our mother [Joan Phillips],” he said. “She was my mother's favorite color, gray. To say Winter Memories was a sentimental favorite is an understatement.”

Out of Memories of Silver (Silver Hawk)–winner of the 1996 GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge S. and the 1997 GI Beverly D. S. for Darby Dan–her filly would also head to Jimmy Toner's shedrow.

“Winter Memories was, like her mother Memories of Silver, a keen competitor, but was amazingly kind and gentle,” he said. “Owners always say stuff like that and most don't really know, but she was genuinely affectionate and gentle with people, especially my children.”

If you delve into her pedigree, you find that Memories of Silver was the product of five generations of Darby Dan breeding going back to Golden Trail, who Phillips says, “was a blue hen for our family.”

The Phillips Racing Partnership color-bearer had an unbelievable turn of foot in deep stretch, which Darby Dan's owner has said on several occasions was best exhibited in the GI Garden City S. Sept. 17 at Belmont Park during her 3-year-old season. Her stakes haul also included victories in the GIII Miss Grillo S., the GIII Appalachian S., the GII Lake George S. and a runner-up finish in the GII Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. The GI Diana S. at Saratoga was her last when she was forced into retirement due to a degenerative bone disease.

“Over the many decades that our family has been the stewards of this land and these equine families, we have been blessed with some incredible equine talent. Although Winter Memories was never declared a champion because we stopped her career after her Diana win in Saratoga, she was without a doubt one of the best fillies I have ever had the privilege of witnessing,” said Phillips.

As a broodmare, Winter Memories produced MGSP Winter Sunset (Tapit) and also her full-sister GISP Seasons. More recently, she is responsible for a 2-year-old colt named American Memories (American Pharoah).

And her last produce of record?

Phillips quickly advised, “Her last foal is a Mendelssohn yearling filly who will never see a sales ring.”

Buried at Darby Dan, Winter Memories rests alongside her mother as a close family member held tight by John Phillips for good reason. She'll also be remembered well every year when her eponymous stakes race goes off each September during the Belmont Park meet.

As the commercial market takes a backseat, now the news is out there. Lest we forget, for the family and the fans, may Winter Memories rest in peace.

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Oaklawn Legend Chindi Passes At Age 29

A millionaire on the racetrack, but even more popular as trainer Steve Hobby's longtime stable pony, Chindi (El Prado {Ire}) was euthanized Thursday. The snow-white gelding was 29.

Hobby said Chindi's physical condition had deteriorated for several weeks, adding he believes it was because of a neurological disorder triggered by his advanced age, rare to reach for a Thoroughbred racehorse.

“When he got bad, he went fast,” Hobby said on the trainer's stand Friday morning. “I noticed little things riding him, like he kept bearing left and I had to keep correcting him. He wasn't putting his hay in his water bucket. He's done that his whole life. Then he started losing his action in behind. I hadn't taken him to the track for four or five days. It was neurological. He was going to fall down and not get up. I had him out the day before yesterday, in the morning. I just took him out to clean his stall and I almost couldn't get him back in his stall. He was going to fall down.”

Campaigned by Hobby's most treasured client, Oklahoman Carol Ricks (Cres Ran LLC), Chindi had an 18-13-23 record from 81 lifetime starts and earnings of $1,000,838. Ricks, 93, learned of Chindi's death Thursday night from her grandson, Ran Leonard, who now manages Cres Ran's racing operation.

“She was very upset,” Leonard said Friday morning. “I mean, all of us were. But my grandma, she's obviously an amazing human in every way. But she has this really good knack of immediately turning anything like that around and just commenting on how fortunate we were for everything he gave us during his racing career and post-racing career. And, how much he gave to Oaklawn and how much he gave to just racing in general and as an ambassador for the sport. She said something about how he essentially gave us two lives. He had the one life as a racehorse that was amazing and then the whole life as a stable pony. We got more than we could have ever expected out of him. Twenty-nine years is a long time.”

Ricks' late husband, Ran, privately purchased Chindi on the advice of bloodstock agent Omar Trevino, who stumbled across the horse and his dam, Rousing, while looking at some land near Lexington, Ky.

A late-running sprinter, Chindi–the Navajo word for “ghost”– recorded seven career victories at Oaklawn, including the $125,000 GIII Count Fleet Sprint Handicap for older horses at 6 furlongs in 1998. Chindi trailed by 11 lengths after a quarter mile and was still seventh after a half-mile before unleashing his patented stretch kick to win by 1 1/2 lengths under Don Pettinger. Pettinger, now the agent for Oaklawn-based jockey Travis Wales, rode Chindi regularly early in his career.

“Pretty cool horse,” Pettinger said Friday morning. “He was a lot of fun. Got to where I would just let him fall back and he'd be way back there. When you asked him that last quarter mile, he'd kick it in and make up a lot of ground. Everybody would think: 'He's beat, he's beat' because he'd be so far back. He was pretty cool.”

Chindi debuted March 15, 1997, at Oaklawn and retired following a sixth-place finish in the $40,000 Better Bee S. July 3, 2005, at Arlington Park. Retirement at Ricks' Cres Ran Farm north of Oklahoma City didn't agree with the gelding and he quickly transitioned to Hobby's stable pony, a position he held for almost two decades.

“But again, he never really spent any time there (Cres Ran Farm) because he wanted to be at the racetrack with Steve,” Leonard said. “He was every bit as much Steve's horse as he was ours, if not more. They had a bond that was–can't put it into words. I really don't believe in this kind of stuff as a general rule, but my grandma has spent the last two weeks going through all these old Chindi photos and trying to organize them and stuff. And then this happened. It's just kind of like, 'Was something in the world telling grandma?' It's just crazy how things like that happen.”

As the years passed, Chindi's popularity grew, particularly at Oaklawn, where he made 24 career starts. Hot Springs Mayor Pat McCabe proclaimed March 15, 2020, “Chindi Day,” allowing fans at Oaklawn a chance to again see the gelding in the winner's circle and indoor paddock between races. He was already a morning fixture at Oaklawn, escorting Hobby's horses to and from the track.

“Absolutely,” Hobby said, when asked if Chindi was more popular after his racing career ended. “I don't know why. I think longevity is one thing. People got so used to him and he was just always around. It's like he was immortal. That's why it's kind of got everybody that he died. Like, 'Chindi can't die. He's Superman.' ”

Hobby said he may keep half of Chindi's ashes, possibly sprinkling some at Oaklawn's finish line. The other half, Hobby said, would go to Ricks.

“It was the right choice, had to be done,” Hobby said. “I did the humane thing. He lived a great life and I'm just going to look back on the all the great memories.”

In Chindi's honor, Leonard asks fans to donate to Thoroughbred retirement charities in their state.

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Record Enshrines Legend Of Galileo

And still the arrow holds its course: that perfect blaze, tapered down from the fletching between his eyes until opening into the neatly pointed tip above his nostrils. His whole life has seemed to obey the inexorable momentum implied in that warpaint. Ever onwards, ever upwards. Sure enough, with perhaps the most telling of all his records secured outright by his daughter Peaceful (Ire) in the G1 Tattersalls Irish 1,000 Guineas on Saturday, Galileo (Ire) maintains his unwavering trajectory even into the evening of his career.

With another spring of undiminished virility behind him, at 22, Galileo could well elevate this latest benchmark–the 85th elite scorer of his stud career–beyond the reach of any future paragon. Even if pensioned tomorrow, Galileo would have four crops still to enter the fray; all, naturally, produced by mares of due eligibility. As such, even a century of Group 1 winners seems perfectly within his embrace.

The breed, then, can already count a relative longevity among the many Galileo assets to which it is indebted. Danehill, with whom he had previously shared the record, died in a paddock accident at 17. And Montjeu (Ire), the son of Sadler’s Wells who contested the succession most ardently with Galileo, was lost through septicaemia complications at 16. Happily, their sire set a more hopeful example, having been retired from stud duty only at 27.

Those names, among very few of the modern era eligible for the same pantheon, all attest to the presiding genius behind Galileo. For Sadler’s Wells, Danehill and Montjeu were three other bastions of the revolution in commercial breeding inspired by John Magnier and his partners at Coolmore.

Magnier’s acumen as a breeder and dealer, of course, has been consecutively complemented by two other horsemen united by a comparable genius, the same surname, and the same stable. His father-in-law Vincent O’Brien was integral to the original transfusion of dynamic American blood into a stagnant European gene pool, most notably through Northern Dancer–sire and grandsire, respectively, of Sadler’s Wells and Danehill. In Ballydoyle’s modern epoch, of course, Peaceful’s trainer Aidan O’Brien has proved no less relentless an achiever.

Posterity, in absorbing the impact on the Stud Book of Sadler’s Wells and then Galileo, will have a convenient brand for the respective O’Brien eras. On the track, admittedly, Sadler’s Wells did not seem to belong to the very first echelon of Ballydoyle champions. Indeed, Jim Bolger remembers getting into the lift at The Curragh after the horse had just won the Irish 2,000 Guineas, finding Vincent O’Brien there, and detecting a hint of bemusement in response to his congratulations.

And it was Bolger himself, of course, who later played a pivotal role in the Galileo story. Quite apart from his contribution as mentor to Aidan O’Brien, Bolger famously bet the bank on Galileo even as the early vibes were so discouraging that his opening fee of €60,000 had been cut to €37,500. When duly coming up with Teofilo (Ire) and New Approach (Ire), moreover, Bolger also sold access to Coolmore’s most precious bloodline to the farm’s habitual antagonists in Dubai. And that, in turn, has opened new branches of the Galileo dynasty–as in the case of 2018 Derby winner Masar (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}).

In fact, we have reached the point where lines through Galileo, Montjeu and Galileo’s half-brother Sea The Stars (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}) have almost saturated the Classic endeavours of elite European operations. Certainly it has become incumbent on Coolmore, with so many of Galileo’s daughters in their paddocks, to renew precisely the kind of overseas experiments that produced Sadler’s Wells and company in the first place. Their search for a viable outcross has, once again, brought benefits for many others in Europe. War Front and Scat Daddy duly made their names as international influences, much like Storm Cat before them; and the early signs are that American Pharoah will transfer his ability to carry dirt speed onto grass.

Others, equally, have been able to share the formula evolved by Coolmore to sharpen Galileo’s genetic preponderance towards stamina. With faster and faster mates, Galileo has increasingly broadened his repertoire to the extent that contributors to this new record include many juveniles, milers and even a Group 1 winner at six furlongs in Clemmie (Ire). In demanding ground, moreover, his son Gustav Klimt (Ire) came within a length of landing an elite sprint for older horses when third in the G1 Haydock Sprint Cup in 2018.

The ultimate dividend from sprinting mares, however, has obviously been Frankel (GB)–whose own spectacular start at stud suggests that Coolmore, having kept the premier heir to Sadler’s Wells inside the corral, may not have managed to repeat that trick. Frankel, of course, is out of a Danehill mare and Juddmonte, to be fair, probably felt that his advent represented a courteous reciprocation after the sale of his damsire, at the end of his racing career, to stand at Coolmore.

This is not the place to debate the substance or otherwise of “crossing” sire-lines. It goes without saying that the Danehill mares sent to Galileo could only have been talented and/or well-bred, and the input of another great stallion should pretty reliably produce plenty of good runners as a result. Whether or not any specific affinity should be implied, it is not hard to accept that a little bit of Danzig pep could logically bring useful equilibrium to the staying power associated with Sadler’s Wells.

Regardless, as things stand 15 of Galileo’s 85 Group 1/Grade I scorers are out of daughters of Danehill. Of the dozen best on official ratings, however, only Frankel represents this supposedly alchemical formula.

There are, of course, manifold other genetic strands entwined in every pedigree. When Magnier bought him, for instance, the appeal of Danehill himself was doubtless heightened by the replication of Natalma on both sides of his pedigree: as third dam, and also as the mother of Danzig’s sire Northern Dancer.

As one of the few mares in the breed’s history to stand comparison with Natalma, Galileo’s dam Urban Sea (Miswaki) must also be staunchly defended against any clumsy inference that he inherited the Sadler’s Wells dominions simply by paternal succession.

For Urban Sea, not Galileo, is the true monarch of Epsom in the 21st Century, having divided her influence there through her other great son Sea The Stars (Ire); not to forget her great-granddaughter Khawlah (Ire), who is by the same sire as Sea The Stars and gave the family another Derby winner a couple of years ago in Masar.

Masar’s luminous distinction, in being inbred 3×4 to Urban Sea, was predictably given less attention than the fact that he carries exactly the same imprint of Ahonoora (GB). By the same token, it surely behooves us to ask whether less familiar genetic strands behind Urban Sea may have contributed to her legacy. The German family is by now well familiar, decorated as it also is by the likes of King’s Best (Kingmambo) and Tamayuz (GB) (Nayef); but even Bolger has professed perplexed curiosity as to the sire of Galileo’s third dam, a forgotten grandson of Tesio’s charismatic Donatello (Ity) named Espresso (GB).

Enough dredging the past; let’s look ahead. Even the greatest empire has its frontiers. Are there still uncharted deserts Galileo can colonise?

Well, of course. Most obviously, his perennial multiple representation in the Derby makes Galileo highly eligible to claim outright the record of four winners he currently shares with Montjeu, as well as Blandford, Cyllene, Waxy and Sir Peter Teazle. And there is unfinished business, also, with his own sire. Sadler’s Wells was champion sire of Britain and Ireland 14 times; Galileo has so far managed 11 titles. As we’ve already said, however, he has plenty of ammunition still to be unloaded.

It is the horse from whom he claimed this latest record, however, who perhaps makes Galileo look to his laurels. Danehill, in addition to his three domestic titles, was champion sire of Australia nine times; and the dynasties he founded there, as a shuttling pioneer, make him one of the breed’s all-time game-changers.

Galileo, notoriously, made less of an impression after five sojourns in the Hunter Valley early in his stud career resulted in three locally-bred Group 1 winners, but a further six imports from the North have thus far brought his tally in Australasia to nine. Nor has he matched the diverse reach of El Prado (Ire), the principal conduit of their sire in America. Though El Prado and his son Kitten’s Joy conform to the Sadler’s Wells profile as unequivocal turf stallions, and Galileo ran that way when rolling the dice on dirt at the Breeders’ Cup, Medaglia d’Oro has parlayed his inheritance onto dirt both as a runner and a sire; and the El Prado line has also diversified to produce sprinters as fast as Astern, Artie Schiller and Bobby’s Kitten.

Frankel, it must be said, had a running style tailor made for dirt. Perhaps his own stock, who have shown a similar tendency to carry speed, may yet be given that chance. (His brother Noble Mission already has a top-class dirt runner in Code Of Honor.) As it is, however, the single deficiency in Galileo’s historic career might be a failure to translate his breed-shaping influence beyond a known, congenial environment. He has not matched the geographical reach of Danehill, nor straddled disciplines like El Prado’s sons.

But these are the imperfections sewn into the Persian carpet, against any presumption of divinity. Galileo has been an impeccable influence, giving a priceless glamour to attributes–stamina, constitution, courage and sheer Classic quality–that were falling perilously out of favour. What that would have meant, without him, is easy to see. Just look at the ostensible “commercial” sector in Europe: it is dominated by precocious sprinting blood, generally without the faintest pretension to breeding a Classic racehorse.

To that extent, Galileo and his clan have actually profited from an increasingly clear run, above all at Epsom, a target in effect renounced by any breeder favouring “commercial” types over stallions eligible to challenge the Derby/Oaks hegemony. The same is largely true even of the mile Classics, but Kitten’s Joy has reminded us all–from severely limited opportunities in Europe–that there are alternatives to defeatism.

As it is, however, let’s celebrate an emperor who remains gloriously in his pomp. For so long as people still breed Thoroughbreds, the legacy of Galileo will be honoured. And whatever else Peaceful goes on to achieve, her name will be preserved in the annals primarily for this latest seal on the prowess of her sire. For Galileo has redefined the very nature of the elite European racehorse–and immeasurably for the better.

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