MHBA, MTHA Host Tesio Talk

The Maryland Horse Breeders Association and the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association will host a Tesio Talk and continental breakfast in the International Room at Laurel Park on Federico Tesio S. day, Apr. 15.

The “Talking Tesio” event begins at 10:30 a.m. and will feature a continental breakfast followed by a panel discussion with industry leaders about Tesio's influence on the breed. Speakers include Country Life Farm's Josh Pons, J. William Boniface, the owner of Bonita Farm, and Ned Moore, owner of Corner Farm in Clark County, Virginia, bloodstock agent, and consultant for the National Sporting Library.

The Tesio, which has been held annually in Maryland since 1981, honors the great Italian breeder, owner and trainer best known for his breeding theories and his success with Nearco, who was the foundation of a sire line that includes Kentucky Derby winner and legendary stallion Northern Dancer, who stood in Maryland for many years at Windfields Farm, and Bold Ruler, sire of the great Secretariat. He also bred Ribot, a two-time winner of the prestigious Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

Tickets to the talk are free with registration before Apr. 13. For more information, call (410) 252-2100 or email bremsberg@marylandthoroughbred.com.

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Miami IP Stable Ready for Round 2

A group of Italians who call South Florida home banded together last year to form Miami IP Stable, a racing stable of American-bought horses to race in Italy. The partners' initial investment worked out so well, they plan on restocking at the upcoming yearlings sale and this time they hope to make use of evolving technology to increase their buying power. Paolo Romanelli, whose roots in Italian racing run deep, spearheaded the partnership.

“I have this passion for horse racing because of my family tradition,” Romanelli said of the origins of Miami IP Stable.

Romanelli's great-grandfather, Luigi Regoli, Sr. trained for Federico Tesio, while his great-uncle, Federico Regoli, won the 1933 Arc de Triomphe with Crapom and trained in Italy for Winston Guest. His grandfather, Luigi, Jr., trained in Italy for Kirsten Rausing's family.

“In Miami, I met my good friends Piero Salussolia, he is a lawyer, and Luca Gattai, an entrepreneur, and we talked about buying some horses in America to race in Italy.” Romanelli continued. “And if they did well, maybe, we would bring them back to America. And we put together a partnership called Miami IP.”

“Piero and Luca didn't know almost anything about horse racing, so we went to the March sale at OBS to study everything,” Romanelli said. “We watched the bidding, we went to a few farms, and then in April of 2021, we put together this budget with two other partners who gave us some money. The three of us went to Ocala, and with the help of my very good friends Emmanuel and Laura de Seroux of Narvick International, we bought three horses.”

Of the decision to buy horses in the U.S., rather than Europe, Romanelli explained, “We are based in Miami most of the time. I live here permanently, I go to Italy two or three times a year. Piero has a beautiful house on an island here in Miami Beach. And Luca owns a historical private resort beach in Italy in Viareggio, called Bagno Lido, but he has a place in Key Biscayne where he stays six months a year, when the season is over in Italy for the beach in the winter, he comes to Miami. So we are familiar with the horses in America more than in Europe.”

At last year's OBS Spring sale, Miami IP purchased a colt by Street Sense (hip 427) for $24,000, a son of Daredevil (hip 855) for $30,000, and a colt by Liam's Map (hip 1047) for $47,000.

Shortly after the auction, the group added another partner when entrepreneur Maurizio Mian, who generates headlines with his German Shepherd Gunther–nicknamed the world's richest dog–acting as a lead investor.

“I went to school with Maurizio,” Romanelli said. “We grew up together and we were part directors of a soccer team in the countryside of Pisa called San Prospero. We were very close. But we lost track of each other. For a few years, we didn't see each other. He was in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic on vacation and Piero, his friend and his lawyer, was also there. It was just after the sales at OBS in April. Piero told him, 'We have a new venture, we bought three horses.' Piero told him I was involved and we spent a little more than we thought. Maurizio asked if we needed money and Piero said, 'Maybe. Maybe $30,000 to keep everything paid until September, the shipping, the quarantine. And Maurizio said, 'Since Paulo is there, I will give you $50,000 and I want to be a partner.' So without knowing anything about the horses, he gave us $50,000.”

The three OBS Spring juveniles spent a month in quarantine in Miami before shipping to Rome to join the barn of trainer Agostino Affe'.

“The horses started running in October of last year,” Gattai said. “We had a few wins and places, everybody was very happy, so we bought another one, a yearling at Fasig-Tipton October. I named him Tequila Picante. He is by Summer Front and he is about to start. We were totally new to Thoroughbred racing, but we became very excited because of the results. We didn't win any big races, but with one horse–Di Lido (Liam's Map)–we ran in the May 22 US$700,000 G2 Italian Derby.”

The partners were so happy with the initial results of the stable, they plan on adding yearlings to the roster this fall. To increase capital and to attract new racing fans, they plan on making use of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), digital assets which represent real-world objects such as art, music or videos. NFTs are generally bought and sold online using cryptocurrency.

Salussolia said he is excited to make use of NFTs in the horse racing industry.

“It is something that is pretty common for art, for real estate, but not really for horses,” the lawyer said. “I want to make 500 NFTs available at €1,000 each to raise a capital of €500,000, pay all the expenses and commissions and, with the remaining €350,000-€400,000, buy more horses.”

Salussolia said the group already has some 15 interested investors and the hope is, as the stable's successes grow, the value of the NFTs will increase.

For Romanelli, the stable's individual results aren't as important as his desire to keep his family tradition in the sport and to possibly be a part of racing's resurgence in Italy.

“I always wanted to give a positive picture of racing in Italy,” he said. “In the recent past, there were many negative comments about Italian Thoroughbred racing. But now, there is a new leadership in the Italian government and they are supporting racing strongly and there is a younger leadership in the horsemen. At the opening weekend at the San Siro racetrack in Milan there were 21,000 people. They are paying the purses faster–that was always the main problem–and we have foreign stables coming back.”

Romanelli continued, “So we are all Italians and we want to buy here in the United States because we are more familiar with the bloodlines here and also because we live here, so it's easy to go to Ocala and to Lexington, but at the same time, we want to race in Italy because we want to support Italian racing. I hope to go back to the big days of Federico Tesio, Nearco and Ribot. It's a mission.”

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Ribot: Tesio’s Crowning Glory

We all need a bit of inspiration now and then. Currently we need to look no farther than to yesterday's birthday boy, the great Ribot (GB) (Tenerani {Ity}) who was born 70 years ago, on Feb. 27, 1952 at the English National Stud in Dorset. In his early days, Ribot was dismissively referred to as 'Il Piccolo' ('The Little One') by his breeder Federico Tesio, who thought so little of him that he did not enter him for the Derby Italiano, a race with whose demands he was more than familiar, having won it 22 times. Undaunted, Ribot went on to show such utter dominance that within three years he had a different nickname, the adoring Italian public referring to him simply as 'Il Cavallo Super' ('The Super Horse'). With the benefit of hindsight and in the cold light of day, we can comfortably place Ribot in the very top drawer of the international pantheon, vying with Sea-Bird (Fr) and Secretariat for the title of Horse of the Century.

The sadness of Ribot's majesty is that although he turned out to be the crowning glory of the life of Federico Tesio, one of the greatest racing men the world has ever known, Signor Tesio never knew it as he died in May 1954, only a matter of weeks before Ribot made his debut, without being aware just what a paragon he had produced.

Tesio would, of course, still count as the greatest owner/breeder in history (or, as he was once famously described, “the only genius ever to operate in the breeding world”) even without Ribot. He had already bred and raced numerous legendary thoroughbreds including Nearco (Ity) (Pharos {GB}), the unbeaten winner of 14 races including both the Derby Italiano and Grand Prix de Paris in 1938. As Nearco's sons included Nasrullah (Ire), Nearctic (Can) and Royal Charger (GB), without his 18% stakes-winners-to-foals stud career we would have had no Bold Ruler, Northern Dancer (Can) or Sunday Silence.

Another of Tesio star pupils was the 17-time winner Tenerani (Ity) (Bellini {Ity}) who swept the board of Italy's big races as a 3-year-old in 1947 before racing internationally the following year, defeating the subsequent St Leger winner Black Tarquin (Rhodes Scholar {GB}) in the Queen Elizabeth S. (now King George VI And Queen Elizabeth S.) at Ascot before lowering the colours of the Ascot Gold Cup winner Arbar (Fr) (Djebel {Fr}) in the Goodwood Cup. Tenerani was subsequently secured by the English National Stud on a three-year lease to stand at Gillingham in Dorset (which was then the site of the National Stud) alongside its homebred 1942 2000 Guineas winner Big Game (GB) (Bahram {Ire}), who had been Champion Sire of Great Britain and Ireland in 1948. Tesio naturally sent Tenerani some mares while he was in England. These included Ribot's dam Romanella (Ity) (El Greco {Ity}) who visited him in both 1951 and '52. Ribot, consequently, was both conceived and foaled in England, but that should not prevent us from hailing him as the ultimate Italian Thoroughbred.

So steeped in the bloodlines of Tesio's stud Razza Dormello-Olgiata was Ribot that six of his eight great-grandparents had been bred by the great man, the only exceptions being the grandsires of his dam Romanella, i.e. Lord Derby's 1924 Champion S. winner Pharos (GB) (Phalaris {GB}) and Sir John Robinson's 1923 Derby winner Papyrus (GB) (Tracery).

Signor Tesio having died, Ribot, under the care of trainer Ugo Penco, made his debut in the ownership of Tesio's widow Lydia and his long-term business partner Marchese Mario Incisa della Rochetta. He won his first race, the Premio Tramuschio over 1000m at San Siro, and then kept on winning. Although undefeated at two, he didn't do enough in his first season to be regarded as a great horse. His win in Italy's top juvenile race, the Gran Criterium over 1500m at San Siro, was not particularly impressive, but his connections learned a valuable lesson that day. His regular jockey Enrico Camici brought him from the rear and he only just got to the front in time. Thereafter, Camici rode him prominently in every race, and he never had to put him under serious pressure again.

Ribot made a winning resumption as a 3-year-old by taking the Premio Pisa by six lengths before winning the Premio Emanuele Filiberto at San Siro by 10 lengths. He hadn't been entered for Italy's Classics so was contesting lesser races, but his form was rock-solid. For example, he beat his paternal half-brother Derain (Ity) by 10 lengths in the Premio Besana over 2400m at San Siro and then Derain won the St Leger Italiano two weeks later. At the start of October, Ribot and his entourage headed to Paris for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, which he won comfortably by three lengths. On his return to Italy, he took the Gran Premio del Jockey-Club over 2400m at San Siro by 15 lengths, bringing a triumphal season to a close and taking his record to nine wins from nine starts.

Ribot's 4-year-old season was even better. His seven races yielded seven easy wins, including victories in the premier weight-for-age race of Italy (the Gran Premio di Milano over 3000m), of Great Britain (the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth S. over 12 furlongs) and of France (the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe over 2400m). He won the latter race even more emphatically than he had done the previous year, cruising home by a wide margin which the judge gave as six lengths but which most observers thought was considerably more than that. At the end of the season, he became one of only a handful of horses in history ever to be given a Timeform rating (142) in excess of the theoretical 10-stone, 140-pound mark of a true champion. Eventually, the millennium ended with him being rated by Tony Morris and John Randall in A Century of Champions as the third-best horse of the 20th century, behind only Sea-Bird and Secretariat. As those two never raced beyond the age of three and thus never won a weight-for-age race without the benefit of a weight allowance, Ribot can arguably be regarded as the best horse in absolute terms.

Ribot began his stud career as a 5-year-old in 1957, the undefeated winner of 16 races and universally regarded as a world champion. He spent his first season at Lord Derby's Woodlands Stud in Newmarket alongside Hyperion (GB) (Gainsborough {GB}) and Alycidon (GB) (Donatello II {Fr}), his services having been secured by a one-year lease. He then went back to Italy, where he spent three seasons at Dormello. In 1959, a deal was struck, at a figure of $1,350,000, with John Galbreath of Darby Dan Stud in the USA which would see him stand in Kentucky for five years, 1961 to '65 inclusive.

However, once Ribot was in the States, complications began to arise because of his increasingly fiery temperament. Although he had been very tractable while racing, as he aged he became increasingly ornery.

The Darby Dan manager Olin Gentry subsequently described his behaviour thus: “Ribot was nuttier than a fruitcake. He would stand on his hind legs and hug trees, or chew the rafters in his stall. He was always a nut. You know, he would straddle a fence and just hang there. He was a nightmare to handle. He almost killed me once.”

Consequently, the decision was taken that Ribot would remain at Darby Dan for the rest of his life, the justifiable belief being that putting him on an aeroplane to bring him back to Europe would present too great a danger. Further leases were therefore negotiated to enable him to remain at Darby Dan indefinitely, which in practice meant until Apr. 27, 1972, when the great horse died of a twisted gut.

The problem about the perception of the stud careers of truly great racehorses is that they cannot escape the overshadowing impossibility of ever siring a horse as good as they had been. It went without saying that none of Ribot's progeny fully inherited his sublime talent. However, he can still be regarded as a great and hugely influential sire. The star of his first crop was the Italian-owned and -trained Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Molvedo (Ity) who won the great race as a 3-year-old in 1961, ridden, fittingly, by Enrico Camici. Ribot went on to produce a second 'Arc' winner three years later, courtesy of a 3-year-old from his fourth and final European crop, Prince Royal (Ity).

Ribot's success as a stallion continued unabated after his transfer to the USA. He was responsible for some of America's best horses of the 1960s including 1969 Horse of the Year Arts And Letters and 1965 Champion Three-Year-Old Colt Tom Rolfe, as well as the high-class full-brothers Graustark and His Majesty, both of whom went on to stand at Darby Dan. Each proved to be very influential, not least thanks to His Majesty's son Pleasant Colony winning the 1981 Kentucky Derby en route to a great stud career and His Majesty's daughter Razyana producing Danehill (Danzig).

Tom Rolfe too enjoyed a great stud career, highlighted  by his sons Hoist The Flag and Run the Gantlet. The former sired some mighty horses including the dual Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe hero Alleged and the brilliant filly Sensational, winner of the 1976 Eclipse Award winner for Champion Two-Year-Old Filly. Run The Gantlet was America's Champion Male Turf Horse of 1971 and subsequently produced some outstanding horses in Ireland including Ardross (Ire), Commanche Run (Ire) and April Run (Ire). Another interesting Tom Rolfe horse was Bowl Game, a half-brother to the legendary English-trained dual-purpose champion Sea Pigeon (Sea-Bird {Fr}) and winner of an Eclipse Award in 1979 as Champion Male Turf Horse.

Arts And Letters enjoyed a successful stud career, highlighted by the D. Wayne Lukas-trained 1980 Preakness S., Santa Anita Derby and Hollywood Derby hero Codex and the multiple Grade I winner Winter's Tale who, like his sire, was bred and raced by Paul Mellon's Rokeby Stables. Codex sired several Grade I winners including Badger Land, also trained by Lukas and winner of the GI Flamingo S. at Hialeah in 1986 before becoming best known as Champion Sire of South Africa in 2000/'01.

Pleasant Colony was not the only Kentucky Derby hero who had Ribot in his second generation: the 1974 winner Cannonade (Bold Bidder) was a son of the Ribot mare Queen Sucree.  Cannonade was one of over 100 stakes winners produced by daughters of Ribot, a group which also included the top-class racehorse and sire Majestic Light (Majestic Prince) and the British Classic winners Flying Water (Fr) (Habitat) and Bireme (GB) (Grundy {GB}) as well as Bireme's Coronation Cup-winning half-brother Buoy (GB) (Aureole {GB}) who subsequently went to stud in New Zealand.

Throughout the American phase of Ribot's stud career, a steady stream of his sons and daughters kept finding their way to Europe, an environment arguably more suitable to the line. Most notably the Charles Engelhard-owned, Fulke Johnson Houghton-trained full-brothers Ribocco and Ribero, sons of the Hyperion mare Libra (GB), won consecutive runnings of the Irish Derby, in 1967 and '68. Ribocco, who had won the Observer Gold Cup (now G1 Vertem Futurity S.) at two, followed up that victory by taking the St Leger, thus becoming (for a short while) the highest-earning British-trained racehorse of all time. Engelhard and Johnson Houghton had previously enjoyed significant success with a European-bred son of Ribot when the top-class 3-year-old colt Romulus (GB), a son of Hyperion's great grand-daughter Arietta (GB), enjoyed a superb season in 1962, winning three mile races which now carry Group 1 status: the Sussex S., Prix du Moulin and Queen Elizabeth II S.

Bred on a similar cross to Ribocco, Ribero and Romulus was the Vincent O'Brien-trained 1965 Oaks heroine Long Look, a daughter of Ribot from Santorin, who was by Hyperion's grandson Greek Song. O'Brien subsequently enjoyed further British Classic success with another of Ribot's offspring when Boucher won the St Leger in 1972. The same year saw the Ribot filly Regal Exception, trained in Chantilly by the expatriate Australian John Fellowes, finish second in the Oaks at Epsom before leading all the way to record an emphatic three-length victory in the Irish Oaks at The Curragh, a race in which Ribot also sired the runner-up, the Vincent O'Brien-trained Arkadina. The latter subsequently became the dam of Dark Lomond (Ire) (Lomond) who was trained by O'Brien to win the Irish St Leger in 1988.

Ribot had sired his first Irish Derby winner when Ragusa (Ire) won the race in 1963. Ragusa subsequently became a terrific stallion, responsible for the 1973 Derby winner Morston (GB), the 1974 Ascot Gold Cup winner Ragstone (GB), the 1970 Coronation Cup winner Caliban (GB) and the 1972 Irish 2000 Guineas winner Ballymore (Ire), a remarkable horse who achieved the unusual feat of winning a Classic on his debut. Ballymore went on to enjoy an excellent stud career, highlighted by his Irish 1000 Guineas-winning daughter More So (Ire). Other notable produce of Ballymore included Exdirectory (Ire), who was beaten only a short head by Shirley Heights (GB) in the 1978 Irish Derby, and the 1983 G2 Great Voltigeur S. winner Seymour Hicks (Ire) who ended up as the sire of the outstanding steeplechaser See More Business (Ire).

Ribot's worldwide success as a stallion marked him out as a truly international influence. He was thrice Champion Sire of Great Britain and Ireland (in 1963, '67 and '68) in the days when the Irish Derby, under the sponsorship of the Irish Hospitals Sweep, carried a huge prize and exerted a disproportionate influence on the sires' table. He also finished second behind Brigadier Gerard (GB)'s sire Queen's Hussar (GB) (March Past {GB}) in the table in 1972. He twice finished among the leading sires in both the USA and France, and in 1964 he finished second in the sires' table in Italy, where 12 years later his Arc-winning son Molvedo was Champion Sire. His influence in the Antipodes was also very strong.

At least 15 sons of Ribot made their way to stud in Australasia, most notably Lord Derby's homebred 1962 Manchester Cup hero Latin Lover (GB) who was imported by Harold Nitschke in 1963 to stand at The Nook Stud (Vic). He got off to a great start when his first crop contained the mighty Rain Lover (Aus), the winner of 17 races between one mile and two miles including the VRC Melbourne Cup in both 1968 and '69, the 1968 SAJC Adelaide Cup and 11 weight-for-age races including the 1969 VRC Craiglee S. over a mile. That same crop also contained the 1967 VRC Derby winner Savoy (Aus). Latin Lover's subsequent offspring included 1971 STC Rosehill Guineas winner Latin Knight (Aus), 1973 WATC Australian Derby winner Leica Lover (Aus), 1975 SAJC St Leger winner Opening Bowler and 1970 SAJC Oaks winner Rain Amore, a full-sister to Rain Lover.

Boucher was another son of Ribot who was exported to Australia, whither he went in 1974 to stand at Newhaven Park Stud (NSW). He was an immediate success, being crowned champion first-season sire in 1977/'78. His best horse was the redoubtable 1981 AJC Doncaster H. hero Lawman (Aus), a member of his second crop. Lawman's many great runs included twice finishing among the place-getters in the MVRC Cox Plate. He finished third to Dulcify (NZ) (Decies {GB}) as a 3-year-old in 1979 and second two years later to the mighty Kingston Town (Aus) (Bletchingly {Aus}), whose dam Ada Hunter (Ger) was a daughter of Ribot's Premio Roma Vecchio-winning son Andrea Mategna (Ity).

Arguably the pick of the Ribot stallions to stand in New Zealand was Bucaroon, responsible for 1977 ARC Auckland Cup winner Royal Cadenza.

Ribot's influence at stud goes far beyond the headline-makers at whom we have looked in this tribute, with many other of his sons and grandsons enjoying success at stud around the world, over and above the ones we have examined here. In the months subsequent to Ribot's birth 70 years ago, Federico Tesio may have felt that he had merely produced a little acorn, but the history books now show that that little acorn grew into a truly mighty Italian oak.

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Taking Stock: Varola, Hewitt Discuss Vaguely Noble & Caro

If you are a student of pedigrees, you'll know of Franco Varola and Abram S. Hewitt. If not, take my word for it that they were two giants in the field of pedigree research, and both were excellent writers. Varola, an Italian whose first name was Francesco, is known for two iconic books, “Typology of the Racehorse” and “The Functional Development of the Thoroughbred,” both of which examined influential stallions by aptitude and classified them as “chefs-de-race” within the dosage framework originally developed by Lt. Col. J.J. Vuillier at the beginning of the last century; Hewitt, an American, is a major name among pedigree writers in North America and is the author of the classic “Sire Lines.” Hewitt worked with Dr. Steven Roman and Leon Rasmussen in the early days of classifying chefs for American racing.

Rasmussen was another pedigree giant and outstanding writer who penned the longtime “Bloodlines” column for Daily Racing Form, and he frequently referred to Hewitt as the “doyen of American turf writers,” a testament to his respect for Hewitt.

Hewitt and Varola published their books at the time Rasmussen was writing his column for DRF. Varola's “Typology” came out in 1974; Hewitt's “Sire Lines” was published in 1977; and Varola's “Functional Development” was released in 1980. All three men communicated with one another through letters during this period, which coincided with a 16-year-old–me–sending a note to Rasmussen in 1976 about a stallion he and Hewitt had been discussing as a potential breed shaper. Long story short, I never expected Rasmussen to reply, and when he did, it began a longtime pen pal relationship that developed into a lifelong friendship, which even included a family trip with my wife and two young sons to visit Leon and his wife in Los Angeles.

Leon died of cancer at 88 in August of 2003. On a solo visit to the Rasmussens at their Los Feliz home about a year or so before that, Leon told me he didn't have much time left. “They found this growth behind my ear, pal,” he said. Leon then took me into his office and showed me about eight cardboard boxes he'd packed, addressed to me in Brooklyn. “I'd like you to have all my racing correspondence, if you don't mind?” I said I was honored, but not to expect me to attend the funeral. He saw I was visibly shaken by his news. “Let's get some Chinese food and martinis, then, and celebrate now,” he said, and we did. That was the last time I saw Leon in person, and I kept my word to not attend his funeral.

Unfortunately, I wasn't a good steward of that cache. I went through each letter over a period of a few years after Leon died, and it was fascinating reading. Leon detailed notes about his trip to Dormello to see legendary breeder Federico Tesio's operation, for instance, and there was correspondence with many of the greatest breeders and owners of the last century. All of it perished during a storm that flooded my basement, and all I had were my memories, I thought.

Vaguely Noble and Caro

Just the other day, as I was preparing to move from Brooklyn to Tampa, I found some correspondence from Leon that I'd brought upstairs years ago to write about but had forgotten to do: letters between Varola and Hewitt from 1977. Hewitt had given copies of them to Leon.

They are captivating historical artifacts that illuminate the relationships of Varola and Hewitt with some notable breeders and horses, and they reveal how some matings were planned. I'm going to be specific here for space reasons and I quote the writers to only discussions they had about imports Vaguely Noble (Ire), who was controlled by Nelson Bunker Hunt during his stud career at Gainesway during the John Gaines era; and Caro (Ire), who started off at stud in Europe but was then moved to Brownell Combs's Spendthrift in the late 1970s. Caro was the champion sire in France in 1977, but his sire line went dormant for a period after he was long gone, resurging in North America only years later, first through California-bred Indian Charlie and then through the latter's son Uncle Mo, one of the best young sires at stud today. Vaguely Noble's sire line has all but disappeared here, but during his career he was one of the great transmitters of stamina, which is something of an anomaly for U.S.-based stallions nowadays.

By the Hyperion-line Vienna (GB), who was owned by Sir Winston Churchill, Vaguely Noble was a Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner, and he came to Kentucky after Gaines purchased a quarter of the horse from Bunker Hunt and his partners, Robert and Wilma Franklyn.

At the time, Hewitt was doing the Bunker Hunt matings, which he wrote about to Varola in a letter dated Jan. 15, 1977. Varola, who lived in Rio de Janeiro from March to September and in Rome from October to February, was late getting the letter, which had been sent to Rome and then was forwarded to Rio.

In a reply dated Apr. 13, Varola responded, after explaining the reasons for the tardy reply [I'm reproducing the exact language they used with no edits for punctuation or style]: “I do appreciate the magnitude of the job which you have undertaken on behalf of Mr. Bunker Hunt, involving as it does 176 mares, which is more than double any single similar job I have undertaken in the past. I am sure however that you will derive great personal satisfaction from it, and I wonder if you would care to send to me some of the tabulated pedigrees of matings which you may have devised for one reason or another, and if you would be further agreeable to my quoting some of these matings in my coming book.”

On Apr. 19, Hewitt responded: “You probably already know that Bunker Hunt has bred virtually all the good racers by Vaguely Noble. The program has been basically simple. Since Vaguely Noble was a very high-class horse who stayed exceptionally well, he was bred to very fast mares, who typically came from 'speed' strains. This has balanced out very well.

“One of my hobbies has been to listen to horses' hearts. Vaguely Noble has much the best 'staying heart' of any sire in Kentucky; Secretariat is also exceptional.

“Doing the matings for the Hunt Stud is enjoyable. However, I have by no means a free hand. Mr. Hunt likes to move matings around, like moving chess pieces. In addition, he owns a controlling share in Vaguely Noble, Mississipian, Ace of Aces, Youth, Empery, and Sir Wiggle. This means that I am very restricted in the use of 'outside' sires which I would like to patronize. To some extent, I have been permitted to do so, and must say, that the foals of these 'outside' sires are on the whole superior to the others, except for 5 or 6 by Vaguely Noble.”

At the time of these letters in 1977, the Bunker Hunt-bred-and-owned Dahlia, a member of Vaguely Noble's first crop, had been retired and covered for the first time, by Bold Forbes. Foaled in 1970 and raised at Claiborne for Bunker Hunt, Dahlia was one of the best of her generation, which included Secretariat, Forego, and Allez France in the same crop. She raced until she was six, winning 15 of 48 starts and nearly $1.5 million. Like many of Bunker Hunt's homebreds, she'd started off in Europe, where she won the G1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S. against older males at three, among other races of note, before returning to the U.S. full time as an older mare. Dahlia was a champion in England, Ireland, and the U.S.

As Hewitt noted, the mating that produced Dahlia was based on the idea of using a fast and precocious mare. Her dam Charming Alibi, a daughter of Honey's Alibi, was a tough and fast California-bred who won stakes races in the Midwest, making 13 starts at two and 71 altogether. There was nothing blue-blooded about her pedigree.

In 1976, the last year Dahlia raced, Bunker Hunt won the G1 Epsom Derby with the Vaguely Noble homebred Empery, whose dam was the champion Peruvian-bred mare Pamplona II. She'd previously produced his 1970 French 1,000 Guineas winner Pampered Miss, a daughter of Sadair. Like Charming Alibi, Pamplona didn't come from a fashionable sire line, but she had performance on her resume, plus production, at the time she was bred to Vaguely Noble.

Bunker Hunt also won the G1 French Derby in 1976 with Youth, a son of Ack Ack. He must have been one of the Bunker Hunt homebreds that Hewitt liked by an “outside” stallion. His dam was Gazala II, a daughter of Dark Star–the horse who defeated Native Dancer in the Kentucky Derby. Gazala, a small, unimpressive, and delicate mare, won the French 1000 Guineas and the Oaks for Bunker Hunt in 1967, displaying terrific acceleration. She was by far Dark Star's best runner. Before Youth, Gazala had produced the Vaguely Noble colt Mississipian, the champion 2-year-old colt in France in 1973, and after Youth, she foaled the Vaguely Noble colt Gonzales, who won the G1 Irish St. Leger in 1980.

Hewitt wrote to Varola again July 29. By this time, he'd digested Varola's “Typology of the Racehorse,” difficult as that was, he noted, and was experimenting with Varola's diagrams within Vuillier's framework of dosage. He wrote: “I have been doing a certain amount of investigating with the use of your diagrams, with the added use of the names of key American stallions which do not appear in your tables; and in addition to this I have tried assigning numbers to each name in accordance with the Vuillier dosage method. The results to date have been quite illuminating.

“Mr. Hunt, [sic] horse Vaguely Noble, for instance, works out at a consistency figure about 2 1/2 times the average, suggesting a lack of brilliant offspring and the probability of somewhat late maturity. This has proven to be the case. In fact, all of his best stock have been from mares with a high turn of speed and tending towards early maturity.”

Hewitt then turns his attention to Caro, whose first foals were 4-year-olds at this writing. Caro, by the way, was a horse that Leon frequently described as a product of a “fish and fowl” mating, because he was by the sprinter Fortino (Fr) out of a stayer, Chambord (GB). Hewitt suggested that the same analysis he'd used for Vaguely Noble didn't provide an accurate reading of Caro's aptitude to that point in time. “Caro, which has made such a brilliant start at stud in France,” he began, was showing more brilliance at stud than was expected, he said, to paraphrase. “This is somewhat surprising to me in a horse that was as late maturing as Caro was and showed as little sheer brilliance as he did.”

What Hewitt didn't know when he wrote that to Varola was that Varola himself had planned Caro's mating for his owner and breeder, Countess Margit Batthyany, a prominent European breeder whose family owned the famed Gestut Erlenhof in Germany.

Varola's reply from Rio Aug. 31 first expressed dissatisfaction with Hewitt's methodology of mashing up his work with that of Vuillier's, and then of Hewitt's opinion of Caro. He wrote: “As regards assigning numbers in Vuillier-like fashion, I am very much more doubtful. I am afraid there are already a lot of numbers in my own basic method such as it is, but the main reason is that since my task is to spot functional types, this is something that is done mainly on personal impression and without any interference of numbers in the initial stage of the analytical process.

“For instance, my own view of Caro [whose dosage diagram was, by the way, designed by me personally back in 1966] is that he has turned out to be exactly what we had hoped at that time he would be, that is a sire with distinctly Intermediate vocation and destined no doubt to influence future pedigrees on the distaff side as well. By the way, I do not agree that he was a horse without brilliance. It was rather a case of a horse of high genetic potential, which tends to manifest himself on the racecourse with good class but without ever attaining the status of a smasher. Big Game was another such example.”

This months-long conversation of two giants of the pedigree world offers more than an insight into Vaguely Noble, Caro, their connections, and the thought processes of the protagonists. For one, it's a record of the early development of dosage in this country; Hewitt, Dr. Roman, and Rasmussen would chisel some of Varola's work into practical usage through Dr. Roman's easily accessible diagrams and formulations, which were first introduced in “Bloodlines” in 1981.

There's something else we are privy to only in hindsight. Caro's breeder and owner Countess Batthyany had Nazi ties and was implicated in a massacre of Jews, which I wrote of in 2018 here. Hewitt, who among many other accomplishments was also a notable owner and breeder, was part of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)–which later became the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)–during WWII and was a Nazi hunter. Varola was an Italian living in Rio de Janeiro, a destination of Nazis after WWII. I have no knowledge that he was associated with Nazis or Nazi sympathizers, other than the revelation that he planned the matings of Countess Batthyany.

What if Varola and Hewitt knew of the other's background and their respective associates as they wrote to each other? Maybe they did, but in these letters they confined their discussions to horses.

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

The post Taking Stock: Varola, Hewitt Discuss Vaguely Noble & Caro appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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