1) MUTH (c, Good Magic–Hoppa, by Uncle Mo) 'TDN Rising Star'. O-Zedan Racing Stables Inc; B-Don Alberto Corporation (KY); T-Bob Baffert. Sales history: $190,000 Ylg '22 KEESEP; $2,000,000 2yo '23 OBSMAR. Lifetime Record: MGISW, 6-4-2-0, $1,504,100. Last start: WON Mar. 30 GI Arkansas Derby.

Right now there's a court showdown in Kentucky initiated by Muth's owner, Amr Zedan, to try and get this son of Good Magic ($190,000 KEESEP, $2 million OBSMAR) eligible to start in the Derby despite a corporate ban by Churchill Downs against Bob Baffert's trainees.

This 'TDN Rising Star' and winner of the GI Arkansas Derby would be among the favorites if he were granted access to the gate in Louisville. Otherwise, Baffert has indicated Muth is on target for the GI Preakness S.

Muth reacted professionally to two disruptive attempts in the early stages of the Arkansas Derby. Off as the 2.3-1 second choice, he showed good speed early, then Juan Hernandez conceded the lead when a 26-1 shot slipped through at the rail. When 11-10 favorite Timberlake (Into Mischief) unexpectedly accelerated between rivals at the 6 ½-furlong pole to seize the lead, Muth shadowed him about a length back while not expending much energy in doing so.

Muth began to gather serious momentum 3 ½ furlongs out, and opened up under a hand ride past his spent rival. Muth was then kept to task by Hernandez in the stretch to win by two lengths over Just Steel (Justify), and at no point did he appear to be scraping the bottom of his stamina reserves.

Muth has four wins and a pair of seconds from six lifetime races since breaking his maiden way back on June 18. He was second in the GIII Best Pal S., first in the GI American Pharoah S., second in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile, then a winner in the GII San Vicente S. prior to his tally at Oaklawn.

2) SIERRA LEONE (c, Gun Runner–Heavenly Love, by Malibu Moon) 'TDN Rising Star'. O-Mrs John Magnier, Michael B Tabor, Derrick Smith Westerberg, Rocket Ship Racing LLC & Peter M Brant; B-Debby M Oxley (KY); T-Chad Brown. Sales history: $2,300,000 Ylg '22 FTSAUG. Lifetime Record: GISW, 4-3-1-0, $918,000. Last start: WON Apr. 6 GI Blue Grass S.

When speed figures get adjusted several races after those numbers were initially assigned, it squares away potential inaccuracies moving forward. But this process of revising numerical ratings also can give horseplayers fits, because the changes can significantly alter one's perception of the overall pecking order.

A case in point was last week's Beyer Speed Figure change for Sierra Leone. After this $2.3 million FTSAUG sale-topper earned a 98 in winning the Apr. 6 GI Blue Grass S., Andrew Beyer told Daily Racing Form's David Grening that the colt's winning figure for the GII Risen Star S. would be upgraded from 90 to 95, and that all the horses who finished behind Sierra Leone would also be get a five-point boost.

“The Fair Grounds track was sloppy on Feb. 17, and may have been getting slower when the Risen Star was run,” Beyer told DRF. “Moreover, the pace of the Risen Star was slow enough to hinder horses from running a fast final time.

“The subsequent performances of horses in the field demonstrated that our initial figure was too low,” Beyer explained. “Three of the top five finishers all came back to win important stakes, and all five of these horses earned speed figures five or more points higher than their published numbers for the Risen Star.”

So Sierra Leone's career Beyer arc now reads 71-91-95-98 instead of 71-91-90-98.

The betting public's assessment of Gun Runner-sired 'TDN Rising Star' probably won't change all that much because of how the numbers paint him. He's capable of making one sustained run from five furlongs out, and as the Derby's best-credentialed closer, Sierra Leone will vie for favoritism with 2-year-old champ and fellow 'Rising Star' Fierceness, who projects to be a pacemaker.

3) FOREVER YOUNG (JPN) (c, Reel Steel {Jpn}–Forever Darling, by Congrats). O-Susumu Fujita; B-Northern Racing; T-Yoshito Yahagi. Sales History: ¥98,000,000 Ylg '22 JRHAJUL. Lifetime Record: 5-5-0-0, $2,049,451. Last start: WON Mar. 30 G2 UAE Derby.

The 5-for-5 Forever Young (Jpn) (Real Steel {Jpn}) arrived at Churchill Downs on Saturday, then jogged in the one-mile chute for about 20 minutes before taking a 1 1/8-mile gallop Sunday.

This Yoshito Yahagi trainee, who sold for the equivalent of $720,603 at the JRHA Select Yearling and Foal sale, has earned the distinction of being the most credible foreign threat in the Derby since the advent of the points qualifying system.

Forever Young's victory in the G2 UAE Derby over 1900 meters stamped him as an A-lister based on his ground-conceding outside trip that featured deft shifting into consecutively higher gears and a confident drawing-away in the stretch.

Although there were only four dirt races on the G1 Dubai World Cup card at Meydan that day, two of them were blowout wins by speed horses who rode the rail, suggesting that the wide-all-the-way run by Forever Young could have been against the grain of the way the track was playing.

This colt's chances in the Derby will be augmented if jockey Ryusei Sakai can carve out a stalking trip that utilizes Forever Young's tactical speed to put him somewhere in the first flight or just behind it. Although he has come from farther back in several of his victories, rating from way off the tailgate in a 20-horse Derby doesn't seem like the most effective use of his cruising ability.

4) FIERCENESS (c, City of Light–Nonna Bella, by Stay Thirsty) 'TDN Rising Star'. O/B-Repole Stable (KY); T-Todd Pletcher. Lifetime Record: Ch. 2yo, MGISW, 5-3-0-1, $1,703,850. Last start: WON Mar. 30 GI Curlin Florida Derby.

Now that all the speed-figure cards for the Derby are face-up on the table, the 110 Beyer awarded to 'TDN Rising Star' and 2-year-old champ Fierceness for his GI Florida Derby win stands atop the crop.

The chief question for handicappers though, is whether you think this Repole Stable homebred by City of Light can replicate or better that gaudy number in the Derby. It was earned under ideal circumstances in a 13 1/4 -length blowout against no other horses currently ranked among TDN's Top 20 sophomores.

A few weeks back the Derby was shaping up as a race lacking strong early speed horses. Now that vacuum has been theoretically filled, with Fierceness, Track Phantom (Quality Road), Dornoch (Good Magic), T O Password (JPN) (Copano Rickey (JPN)), and possibly Encino (Nyquist) all likely to want a say in the early fray.

When Fierceness is on his game, he is one of the most dangerous colts in the division. But excelling under adversity has not been his strong suit, with two baffling, odds-on losses in the GI Champagne S. and GIII Holy Bull S. offsetting resounding scores in his Saratoga unveiling, the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, and the Florida Derby.

5) TRACK PHANTOM (c, Quality Road–Miss Sunset, by Into Mischief) O-L and N Racing LLC, Clark Brewster, Jerry Caroom & Breeze Easy LLC; B-Breeze Easy (KY); T-Steve Asmussen. Sales history: $500,000 yrl '22 KEESEP. Lifetime Record: GSW, 7-3-2-1, $405,000. Last start: 4th in Mar. 23 GII Louisiana Derby.

I always try to rate “how he did it” over “how fast” when handicapping. But in Track Phantom's case, even though I've consistently liked the way he's gone about his business when challenges have been thrown in his path, I still have nagging doubts about whether this colt is truly fast enough to be able to pull off a Derby win.

This $500,000 KEESEP son of Quality Road has handled different types of pace pressure despite being routinely drawn in or near the outside stall. He has engaged in several hard-fought stretch battles, and has run well over two different types of wet tracks at Fair Grounds and Churchill.

Even his beaten-fave fourth-place try after setting a moderate pace in the GII Louisiana Derby wasn't as bad as it might seem. Closers stacked up five across the lane behind Track Phantom at the top of the stretch, yet he didn't capitulate until the sixteenth pole.

Track Phantom isn't a flashy sort, but you have to give him points for consistency. Getting out of the gate is crucial in the Derby. This colt has been on the lead at the first call in five of his seven lifetime races, and in the two others he was second, just a head behind.

Trainer Steve Asmussen will try blinkers on Track Phantom for the Derby. After pairing 94 Beyers in his last two efforts, he'll need about a 10-point improvement to win.

Dornoch is the full-brother to Derby winner Mage | Ryan Thompson

6) DORNOCH (c, Good Magic–Puca, by Big Brown) O-West Paces Racing LLC, R A Hill Stable, Belmar Racing and Breeding LLC, Two Eight Racing LLC & Pine Racing Stables; B-Grandview Equine (KY); T-Danny Gargan. Sales history: $325,000 Ylg '22 KEESEP. Lifetime Record: MGSW, 6-3-2-0, $552,275. Last start: 4th in the GI Blue Grass S. Apr. 6.

Dornoch has lost some steam in the Kentucky Derby Future Wager pools, going from 9-1 in February to 12-1 in March to 15-1 in April.

Although this son of Good Magic has cachet because he is a full brother to 2023 Derby winner Mage, his no-impact fourth in the Blue Grass S. wasn't an emphatic enough of a final prep to stamp him as a major contender.

Although I wouldn't recommend singling Dornoch, it wouldn't be prudent to eliminate him off your Derby tickets entirely. Trainer Danny Gargan was asking this $325,000 KEESEP colt to change tactics by rating from behind horses in the Blue Grass, and after conceding that bit of schooling didn't work out, he said Luis Saez will be instructed just to let Dornoch roll from the gate in the Derby.

Gargan has spent the winter at Palm Meadows trying to get the brawny-framed Dornoch to maintain a keen sense of focus. If the figurative lightbulb clicks on in the Derby, look out.

7) JUST A TOUCH (c, Justify-Touching Beauty, by Tapit) O-Qatar Racing LLC, Resolute Racing & Marc Detampel; B-Don Alberto Corp. (KY); T-Brad Cox. Sales history: $170,000 RNA '22 KEESEP; $125,000 yrl '22 FTKOCT; $300,000 2yo '23 OBSAPR. Lifetime Record: 3-1-2-0, $281,700. Last start: 2nd in GI Blue Grass S. Apr. 6.

Just a Touch deserves praise for what he has accomplished in only three starts. But since his second-place effort in the Blue Grass S., his bandwagon has become crowded enough to warrant a reality check. Are Derby prognosticators “reaching” for a horse who has yet to truly peak?

In the Blue Grass, this Brad Cox-trained colt ($170,000 RNA KEESEP, $125,000 FTKOCT, $300,000 OBSAPR) pressed a rapid pace, then gained control of the lead from the three-sixteenths marker until just before the sixteenth pole. He was no match for the locomotive-like close of Sierra Leone, but he didn't pack it in, and after being beaten only 1 ½ lengths, galloped out well.

Prior to that, Just a Touch broke his maiden by 4 ½ lengths sprinting at Fair Grounds Jan. 27, then was a wide but willing second in the Mar. 2 GIII Gotham S. at Aqueduct, both in the slop.

The post-Blue Grass reasoning has focused on how if Just a Touch could deliver such a good showing in only his first race around two turns and in his first race on a dry track, he just might be capable of turning in the over-the-top effort he will need to win the Derby, which will be run one day prior to his third birthdate.

From 1900 to the present, 26 horses have attempted to win the Kentucky Derby with exactly three lifetime starts. Only four have won: Mage in 2023, Justify in 2018, Big Brown in 2008 and Regret in 1915. Beyond those four, only one of the remaining 22 managed to hit the board (Curlin, third in 2007).

Just a Touch's sire, Justify, in 2018 became the first horse since Apollo in 1882 to win the Derby without having raced at age two. Mage then triumphed over the “Apollo curse” in 2023. But the record of horses in the Derby without a race at age two since 1937 is 2-3-5 from 73 starts.

8) ENCINO (c, Nyquist–Glittering Jewel, by Bernardini) O-Godolphin LLC; B-Godolphin (KY); T-Brad Cox. Lifetime Record: 4-3-1-0, $378,315. Last Start: WON GIII Stonestreet Lexington S. Apr. 13.

Encino (Nyquist) is a legit wild card if he goes in the Derby. He's in sharp form with three straight wins and a Beyer pattern that keeps improving. Yet he's taken an unconventional path to the Triple Crown level, pairing stakes victories in the John Battaglia Memorial S. over Tapeta at Turfway and wiring the GIII Lexington S. over Keeneland's short-stretch configuration for 1 1/16 miles.

Speed and the rail have produced favorable results this spring at Keeneland, and this Godolphin homebred had little trouble establishing himself at the head of affairs in his first dirt try, rattling off unopposed opening quarter-mile splits of :23.53 and :23.73.

Encino responded when roused to swat back the race's only true challenger. But it's not entirely clear if the three-quarter length win (94 Beyer) was more attributable to Encino's fighting spirit or the inability of The Wine Steward (Vino Rosso) to seal the deal off a six-month layoff. The rest of the field was 8 ¼ lengths back.

Encino could end up being an intriguing wiseguy play in a year where the success of the two obvious Derby favorites (Fierceness and Sierra Leone) hinges upon whether they get the right pace and/or trips, and the next two logical horses in the betting (Just a Touch and Forever Young) still haven't won American dirt stakes.

9) IMAGINATION (c, Into Mischief–Magical Feeling, by Empire Maker) O-SF Racing LLC, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stables LLC, Stonestreet Stables LLC, Dianne Bashor, Robert Masterson, Waves Edge Capital LLC, Catherine Donovan & Tom Ryan; B-Peter Blum Thoroughbreds (KY); T-Bob Baffert. Sales history: $1,050,000 yrl '22 KEESEP. Lifetime Record: GSW, 5-2-3-0, $406,800. Last start: 2nd in the GI Santa Anita Derby Apr. 6.

No next start has been publicly disclosed for Imagination (Into Mischief), a Bob Baffert trainee who was most recently second in the GI Santa Anita Derby.

This $1.05-million KEESEP colt has been battle-tested by hooking up in prolonged late-race fights in three straight races. Even though he didn't come out on the winning end of all of those stretch tussles, it's the type of experience that will stand him in good stead at the Triple Crown level.

Imagination is now 2-4-0 from six lifetime starts, which include five two-turn races.

10) RESILIENCE (c, Into Mischief-Meadowsweet, by Smart Strike) O-Emily Bushnell & Ric Waldman; B-Pam & Martin Wygod (KY); T-Bill Mott. Lifetime Record: GSW, 6-2-1-1, $494,630. Last start: WON Apr. 6 GI Wood Memorial S.

The GII Wood Memorial S. win didn't appear to be an overlay demanding race for Resilience, and he does exit the most obvious key race among the points-awarding winter preps. Prior to his blinkers-on score in the Wood, he ran fourth in the Risen Star S., from which the first- and third-place finishers, Sierra Leone and Catching Freedom (Constitution) also won graded stakes in their next starts.

It took Resilience four starts to break his maiden. But the horses who won those first three at Saratoga and Churchill all eventually became stakes winners, so this colt gets points for taking a path to Louisville that has been laden with legit competition.

The question is whether this Bill Mott trainee is going take another leap forward (a small step won't do it) in Louisville.

11) CATCHING FREEDOM (c, Constitution–Catch My Drift, by Pioneerof the Nile) O-Albaugh Family Stables LLC; B-WinStar Farm (KY); T-Brad Cox. Sales history: $575,000 yrl '22 KEESEP. Lifetime Record: GSW, 5-3-0-1, $877,350. Last start: WON Mar. 23 GII Louisiana Derby.

This medium-framed $575,000 KEESEP colt by Constitution from Brad Cox's barn waited patiently at the back behind a moderate tempo in the Louisiana Derby, then unwound 2 1/2 furlongs out and fanned 12 wide into the lane. He ran straight and reeled in his targets, but for the most part was passing horses who had already made their major moves in upper stretch.

The win returned a 97 Beyer, building on a previous upward trend of 72-77-87-92.

Only two horses have won the Louisiana Derby and then the Kentucky Derby: Grindstone in 1996 and Black Gold in 1924.

12) JUST STEEL (c, Justify–Irish Lights {Aus}, by Fastnet Rock {Aus}). O-BC Stables, LLC; B-Summerhill Farm (KY); T-D. Wayne Lukas. Sales History: $500,000 Ylg '22 KEESEP. Lifetime Record: GISP, 11-2-4-1, $724,545. Last start: 2nd Mar. 30 GI Arkansas Derby.

It's at this juncture within the Top 20 that we have to realistically start considering every Derby aspirant from Just Steel on down to be “chaos contenders.” In other words, a lot of things would have to go wrong, tactics-wise, with almost all of the projected favorites, and a lot of things would have to go right for these longer shots to envision one of them wearing a blanket of roses.

Yet it happens. Just ask Rich Strike (Keen Ice), the 80-1 Derby winner from two years ago.

This $500,000 KEESEP colt trained by D. Wayne Lukas already has 11 races of experience, and on three occasions at age three he's finished second around two turns in points-awarding Derby prep stakes. The one time he didn't, Just Steel was five wide round both turns in the GII Rebel S.

In the Arkansas Derby, Just Steel raced close to the pace throughout and finished only two workmanlike lengths behind No. 1-ranked Muth.

Potentially rounding out the Derby starting gate…

13) Domestic Product (Practical Joke)
Last week on the TDN Writers' Room podcast, trainer Chad Brown made a cogent case for this Klaravich Stables homebred to be “an under-the-radar real contender for the Derby” with a switch to jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. because Tyler Gaffalione is committed to No.2-ranked Sierra Leone.

Brown said he expected big things out of this son of Practical Joke in his Saratoga sprint debut, but attributed the subpar fifth to the colt getting pelted with dirt kickback. Domestic Product then missed some training, and although Brown doesn't usually like to run a 2-year-old at nine furlongs off just one six-furlong start, he did so on Oct. 27 and the result was a 4 1/2-length win at Aqueduct.

Brown said the muddy track was the primary reason for Domestic Product's poor seventh-place showing in the GII Remsen S., adding that a similarly wet track could be a problem if the rains come on Derby Day.

But, Brown added, Domestic Product's second in the GII Holy Bull S. and win in the GIII Tampa Bay Derby both were promising considering the colt closed into very slow paces in both races.

After the Tampa Derby, Brown said Gaffalione told him that Domestic Product is “not that far behind” Sierra Leone. “Going a mile and a quarter, they're not as much separating these two horses as you think,” the jockey told him.

“So I trust [Gaffalione],” Brown said. “I think taking the blinkers off of this horse was a positive move for him in his last two starts.”

14) Mystik Dan (Goldencents)
In the Arkansas Derby, this homebred son of Goldencents for owners Lance Gasaway, Daniel Hamby and 4G Racing didn't live up to his 101-Beyer winning, wet-track form from the GIII Southwest S. He was carried wide and encountered a bit of trip trouble, and ended up third, beaten 6 ½ lengths in his nine-furlong debut.

Throughout this colt's campaign, trainer Kenny McPeek has emphasized that Mystik Dan has a good mind and an easygoing attitude, both of which can be more valuable than what's on paper in his past performances.

McPeek said after a Saturday workout that Mystik Dan “got a lot” out of the Arkansas Derby “and has shown he handled it well in his training after.”

Co-owner Eric Waller, left, leads Stronghold and jockey Antonio Fresu into the winner's circle after their victory in the GI Santa Anita Derby | Benoit

15) Stronghold (Ghostzapper)
Stronghold is one of the more mature Derby aspirants, showing an ability to relax out of the gate, be responsive to his rider's cues to engage, and win stretch battles even after getting in front and then briefly losing the lead.

This Ghostzapper-sired homebred for Rick and Sharon Waller necked Imagination in the Santa Anita Derby. He earned an 89 Beyer, the same figure as his score in the GIII Sunland Derby Feb. 18. Those have been his only two starts at age three.

Although currently based in Southern California with trainer Phil D'Amato, Stronghold has already won over the Churchill surface. His one-turn-mile maiden victory back on Oct. 1 is notable because the second- and third-place finishers, Resilience and Track Phantom, are both currently ranked ahead of him on this list.

16) Endlessly (Oscar Performance)
Endlessly, whose six races thus far been all on either turf or Tapeta, is aiming for a May 4 start at Churchill. But trainer Michael McCarthy still hasn't zeroed in on whether that will be in the Kentucky Derby or the GII American Turf S.

This son of Oscar Performance won the Mar. 23 GIII Jeff Ruby Steaks S. by four lengths with a complete-control outside move that outclassed the field.

Endlessly has won five races total, and his only loss is much better than it looks. This homebred for Amerman Racing was eighth, but beaten only 3 1/2 lengths, in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf.

17) Honor Marie (Honor Code)
This $40,000 KEESEP colt by Honor Code turns three on Derby Day. Although a touch behind his peers age-wise, Honor Marie does have the benefit of having won a two-turn stakes at Churchill at age two, the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S.

Trainer Whit Beckman is on record as saying that the 10-fulrong distance, “if not farther” might end up being Honor Marie's sweet spot.

He was most recently third in the Louisiana Derby with a seven wide bid from the back of the pack.

18) Society Man (Good Magic)
This $85,000 KEESEP son of Good Magic chased without making an impact in his July 22 Saratoga sprint debut, then resurfaced seven months later at Aqueduct tasked with nine furlongs.

Society Man was bumped at the break and wide on the turns when third in that try, then had a nearly identical trouble line when attempting stakes company as a maiden in the muddy GIII Withers S.

He was difficult to load but delivered in a one-turn maiden mile Mar 9 in New York (also in the mud), then was a best-of-the-rest second at 106-1 odds behind Resilience in the Wood Memorial.

A plus is three races of experience at nine furlongs.

19) West Saratoga (Exaggerator)
As an $11,000 KEESEP bargain who has already bankrolled more than 40 times his purchase price in purses, this Larry Demeritte trainee deserves kudos for overachievement.

But despite running decently in several lower-profile stakes this season, West Saratoga (Exaggerator) hasn't hit the winner's circle since he registered a mild 12-1 upset in the Sept. 16  GIII Iroquois  S., a one-turn mile at Churchill.

This gray is also behind numbers-wise, with an 85 Beyer earned over Tapeta in his runner-up Jeff Ruby Steaks S. effort his career best.

West Saratoga's consistent tactical speed, which he's utilized to be within striking distance of the mid-race leaders in every single one of his 10 starts, could be an asset in the Derby.

20) T O Password (Jpn) (Copano Rickey {Jpn})
The “T O” in T O Password (Jpn) is a naming convention for horses owned by Tomoya Ozasa. This is a forward-running colt by Japanese champion dirt horse Copano Rickey (Jpn).

T O Password is a May 20 foal who did not make his debut until Jan. 6 at Kyoto in an 1,800-meter (about nine furlongs) maiden race. As the second favorite in the betting, he pressed a moderate pace and shook free over the final three furlongs to draw away by two lengths.

In the Mar. 23 1,800-meter Fukuryu S., this 13-1 Daisuke Takayanagi trainee went straight to the lead but tired late. He would have been nailed in the final jump by an onrushing closer had he not been saved by the wire.

T O Password figures to be a long-shot proposition north of 50-1 in the Derby. However, his tactics under Kazushi Kimura (Woodbine's leading rider last year) could play a major role in how the pace unfolds.

The post TDN Sophomore Top 20: Pace Scenario For Derby Coming Into Clearer Focus appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Even that lavish investor in the yearling market, Mike Repole, won the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile with a homebred. Except for a couple of European turf juveniles, the rest of the show was a parade of champions raised by “end users”: a couple apiece for Godolphin and Juddmonte, plus one each for the programs operated by Coolmore, Cheveley Park Stud and George Krikorian.

Now, to be fair, they all reached that coveted winner's enclosure with the help of stallions beyond most pockets, with Curlin the most radiant example. And, besides, we're obviously peering through a narrow and fairly random window on the overall state of the game.

That said, if this meeting is where we all want to end up, it would be very hard to look at this sample and conclude that the commercial market is functioning very effectively.

That won't bother most people, so long as they can keep eking out some kind of profit from a fiendishly precarious trade. But perhaps it's a useful context to remind ourselves of the fundamental equilibrium on which the whole market depends: namely, that you need to retain sufficient mystery for the little guy still to have a chance; but values meanwhile have to stand up enough for the big investors to feel as though they can get some kind of edge. Put it another way: if the sale-topper won the Derby every year, the whole business would collapse overnight; but if a Rich Strike won every year, well, the whole business would collapse overnight.

Anyway, the point is that every now and then the industry needs a 'TDN Rising Star' Sierra Leone (Gun Runner) to come along and make sense of what, in his case, was the second highest price paid at an American yearling auction in 2022.

His first three dams are, respectively, a juvenile Grade I winner, a dual Grade I runner-up (also at two) and a Grade I sprint winner; and, as luck should have it, he belongs to the third crop of what has meanwhile proved the most phenomenal young sire of recent times. When you spend $2.3 million on a colt that has never had a saddle on his back, you're obviously wagering primarily on a potential stallion career. And, with those Twin Spires taking tangible shape on the horizon, the partners who placed this particular bet are still very much in the game.

Sierra Leone was bred by Debby M. Oxley from her homebred GI Darley Alcibiades S. winner Heavenly Love (Malibu Moon), whose dam Darling My Darling (Deputy Minister) had been bought by Oxley's husband John for $300,000 as a Keeneland September yearling in 1998.

Darling My Darling's own mother, GI Ballerina H. winner Roamin Rachel (Mining), was sold in the same ring that November, to Nobuo Tsunoda for $750,000–a price vindicated the following summer when Darling My Darling (her second foal) won on debut at Saratoga before consecutive runner-up finishes at Grade I level.

Roamin Rachel had been sold carrying a Storm Cat filly, who managed a single start, but has since produced three group winners in Japan; Roamin Rachel, for her part, was sent for her next cover to Sunday Silence, and came up with Japanese Horse of the Year Zenno Rob Roy (Jpn).

Heavenly Love's half-sister by Congrats, herself Grade II-placed, has meanwhile given the family tree additional Japanese luster through her son Forever Young (Jpn) (Real Steel {Jpn}), who is about to try to give the family a second consecutive weekend in the sophomore spotlight in the G3 Saudi Derby.

Even without that later boon to his page, then, everything was in place for Sierra Leone on paper. Heavenly Love herself admittedly proved unable to build on her juvenile success, albeit she did manage third in the GIII Regret S.; while her first foal by Uncle Mo did little more than retrieve the covering fee. Sierra Leone must have been a very different physical proposition, then, to be topping the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale.

It had been prescient of his breeders, of course, to persevere with Gun Runner at precisely the point most commercial breeders back off from exposure by a stallion's first runners on the track. The Three Chimneys top gun would take the customary trim in fee the following year, from his opening $70,000 to $50,000, but his numbers held up throughout: 156 mares kept the faith in 2020, leaving Sierra Leone among 120 live foals in his third crop. These also include the fillies who consolidated another stellar weekend for their sire by finishing second and third in the GII Rachel Alexandra S. and first and second in the Sunland Park Oaks.

We have long since got over any surprise that Gun Runner's first crop should have been so precocious, making him not just champion freshman but leading sire of 2-year-olds, despite himself having thrived with maturity. As a result, however, fewer people remarked how his second crop actually made precisely the kind of tepid start that might have been readily indulged in their predecessors. In fact, as juveniles they didn't muster a single stakes success between them. Four, however, proceeded to win graded stakes as sophomores last year.

Gun Runner's third crop tilted the balance back the other way. Of 45 entering the gate as juveniles last year, four won graded stakes–including Locked, already his seventh Grade I winner and himself about to resume the Derby trail.

Sierra Leone missed becoming the crop's fifth juvenile graded winner by just a nose, in the GII Remsen S., but has now emulated his sire by winning the GII Risen Star S. off a layoff. Whether his focus was aided by blinkers, or he's simply becoming more professional with experience, he saw the race out rather better than when worried out of the Remsen, despite that wide sweep for home and runner-up Track Phantom (Quality Road) having controlled the tempo at his leisure.

Track Phantom had cost $500,000 at Keeneland September, where the third Catching Freedom (Constitution) was similarly found in Book 1, for $575,000. Given that Catching Freedom looked like a horse still learning his trade, this proved a race to give fresh credibility to the yearling market. Perhaps we don't have to tear up those catalogues just yet.

'Beach'-Combers Share Godolphin Success

As already acknowledged, breed-to-race programs are only so dominant because they tend to match their patienc–such a rare commodity in the commercial sector–with similarly uncommon financial resources. But they still need discipline, and the fatalism to accept that the culls essential even to the most lavish operations will occasionally convert years of work and expense into an overnight dividend for somebody else.

The Godolphin team's delight over the success of 'TDN Rising Star' Tarifa (Bernardini) in the GII Rachel Alexandra S. is presumably tempered somewhat by the fact that they sold her young dam Kite Beach (Awesome Again), carrying a full sister, just nine months after she had delivered this first foal. Mind you, a good deal more regret is doubtless being experienced by the people who bought Kite Beach at the Keeneland November Sale for $100,000, because just weeks later they “flipped” her for $115,000 at Fasig-Tipton February. That must feel like a pretty marginal gain now.

Ultimately Kite Beach was bought by Calumet, who sold Tarifa's sister at Fasig-Tipton last July for $105,000. While that sale nearly cleared their investment in one hit, congratulations must in turn go to purchaser Matthew Davis. Both he and Calumet, with their different stakes in her success, must be watching Tarifa's rise with due excitement.

Because for Kite Beach to produce a talent like this, at the first attempt, revives a rather dormant branch of an extremely famous family tree. She's a daughter of Tizdubai (Cee's Tizzy)–whose own mother Cee's Song (Seattle Song) must be counted one of the most remarkable producers of modern times.

Tizdubai was bought for Sheikh Mohammed as a weanling by John Ferguson for $950,000 at the 2001 Keeneland November Sale, a price that reflected her brother Tiznow's second consecutive success in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic just days previously. Cee's Song and Cee's Tizzy had already produced his brother Budroyale to finish second in that race, besides winning multiple graded stakes; and Tizdubai herself would duly proceed to win the GII Sorrento S.

Cee's Song was herself sold at the same November Sale as Tizdubai, for $2.6 million, inevitably in foal to Cee's Tizzy. The resulting filly, Tizamazing, never made the track but later produced Classic winner Oxbow. Unfortunately, the new owners of Cee's Song evidently decided that she was doing all this despite Cee's Tizzy, and not because of him, and instead favored her with serial $500,000 dates with Storm Cat.

These did not work out so well. Meanwhile another of the Song–Tizzy crew, Tizso, was sold for $625,000 despite an unproductive track career, and then produced Paynter to win the GI Haskell S. (Tizso also produced a couple of seven-figure yearlings so it was disappointing, shall we say, to see her sent into the ring at the age of 25 and sold for $62,000).

Tarifa | Hodges Photography

Both Paynter and Oxbow were by Awesome Again, and it was resorting to that ageing patriarch for Tizdubai's 2016 cover that produced Kite Beach. By then Tizdubai had come to seem a disappointing producer, despite serial elite covers.

Kite Beach did nothing to improve matters, being unraced, while her siblings that did make it to the racetrack showed little. One Shamardal filly did win on debut in England, but ended up struggling in a low grade and was sold for 45,000gns. Her son by Pioneerof the Nile is Cabo Spirit, latterly a dual graded stakes winner on turf in California, but Tizdubai's overall record as a producer makes it easy to understand why Kite Beach should have been culled.

But Awesome Again has served the Deputy Minister brand very well, as a broodmare sire; and of course Tarifa is by an outstanding such influence in Bernardini. So you'd have to be optimistic for Tarifa's prospects in her next career, as Mr. Davis can be about her sister.

Remarkable to see, meanwhile, that Calumet's first choice for Kite Beach was Paynter's son Knicks Go. The resulting colt, now a yearling, is inbred to an exceptional degree: his dam is by Awesome Again out of Tizdubai, and his grandsire is by Awesome Again out of Tizdubai's full sister Tizso. Plenty of egg in that pudding!

Patience Pays On Both Sides For Stronghold

As just noted, Awesome Again has contributed to a cluster of successful broodmare sires under Deputy Minister (himself sire of Sierra Leone's second dam). And among others to do so is his own son Ghostzapper, most conspicuously as damsire of Justify.

We have also credited Ghostzapper as one of those few sires to get a commercial yearling into the winner's circle at the last Breeders' Cup. So his prowess as a distaff influence must now augur well for the lady in question, Goodnight Olive, in her maiden cover by Not This Time (who sired Up to the Mark from a Ghostzapper mare).

Ghostzapper has now turned 24 but continues to rebuke the (largely self-fulfilling) mistrust among some breeders regarding older sires. Over the years he has also paid for a lack of precocity in his stock but nonetheless accounted for perhaps the most brilliant juvenile of last summer in Rhyme Schemes, unfortunately sidelined since.

Last weekend another member of the same crop, Stronghold, won the GIII Sunland Derby, the 100th worldwide stakes winner for Ghostzapper. Either way, how well he has steadied the ship after enduring some wild tides early in his stud career. Launched at $200,000 after one of the definitive speed-carrying displays of the modern breed, Ghostzapper was slashed from $125,000 to $30,000 (and soon $20,000) in one go after his first juveniles blew out. It was a long road back, but he fully merits a fee that has settled at $75,000, with career ratios that make him a very similar sire to Uncle Mo.

Stronghold himself is another of those homebreds to advertise the merit of playing the long game. Eric and Sharon Waller bought his fourth dam after she was a $12,000 RNA at Barretts in January 1998, and from her bred Swiss Diva (Swiss Yodeler) to win her first three starts including the California Breeders' Champion S. by eight lengths. Swiss Diva's first foal (a filly by Henny Hughes) was unable to race because of injury, but she would redress that misfortune as dam of Spectator (Jimmy Creed), winner of the GII Sorrento S. and twice Grade I-placed.

Spectator has now given the Wallers a run at the Derby with Stronghold, who managed to elude Bob Baffert in New Mexico and so elevated himself to fourth in the points board. He had previously counted the Risen Star runner-up and fourth among his pursuers when breaking his maiden over the Churchill surface.

Little Legacy Is On The Money

Marvin “Junior” Little was a man I would have loved to interview. He evidently knew plenty about the “real” world–never finished school, served in the Navy and was set for a factory job until a steel strike intervened–but proved a special talent when finding his way into our magical little one. Eventually he worked his way up to become manager of Newstead Farm, Virginia, until presiding over its $47-million dispersal in 1985. This was crowned by the homebred star Miss Oceana, in foal to Northern Dancer, at what was then a record price of $7 million.

Moving back to his native Kentucky, Little showed no less flair in managing his own, rather more modest program, which notably produced champion Hansel. And while he was sadly lost in 2017, his legacy of horsemanship endures through his children Marilyn, Jeff and Teresa. For they are listed as co-breeders with William Lynn of Money Supply (Practical Joke), who continued his transformation for Joe Sharp in the GIII Mineshaft S.

This horse achieved a good yield as a yearling, selling to Klaravich Stable for $400,000, but last summer he had reached a point where Chad Brown dropped him into a $32,000 claimer at Saratoga. For his new barn, Money Supply is now on a streak of five, reaching a new peak in a race that has lately drawn attention to others thriving with maturity in Olympiad and Maxfield.

As his original cost indicates, Money Supply was bred for this kind of caliber–even though co-breeder Lynn signed a docket of just $30,000 for his dam Evita's Sister (Candy Ride {Arg}) (in foal to the young Into Mischief) at the Keeneland November Sale of 2013. She owed her name to full-sister Evita Argentina, who had won the GI La Brea S., while their dam was out of an unraced half-sister to Trippi.

A few seams of gold there, then, for Practical Joke to be mining. Albeit aided by conspicuous volume, the Ashford sire is clinging to the slipstream of Gun Runner more tenaciously than the rest of their intake, earning a further hike to $65,000 this year. Money Supply is already his fourth stakes winner of the year, and watch out for another of them, the flying Skelly, in the desert this weekend.

A $5,000 Sire Showing Elite Potential

Having long recommended the horse, I make no apology for highlighting the fact that something really does seem to be afoot with Preservationist. Last weekend the Fair Grounds maiden winner Antiquarian, incidentally a $250,000 yearling off a $10,000 cover, became his ninth scorer since the turn of the year. Among second-crop sires, only Audible (12) has more–and they have respectively had 52 and 28 starters.

Preservationist had the commercial odds stacked against him, as a son of Arch who had won his Grade I at the age of six, but he has a sensational shape to his pedigree, posing fourth dam Too Chic opposite his sire's third dam Courtly Dee. Even so, only a farm as enlightened as Airdrie would have given him an opportunity, and his books have been on a predictable slide since he mustered 102 mares for his debut season.

So he had to make his one chance count, and he appears to be doing just that. An interesting template is In a Jam, who took as many as eight starts to break his maiden but posted a big number when doing so and again when following up in allowance company. It looks like people with the patience to let a horse gain a little maturity and experience are going to be very well rewarded, and they can now get to Preservationist for just $5,000.

He even has a filly on the Kentucky Oaks trail, with Martha Washington S. winner Band of Gold heading to the GIII Honeybee S. on Saturday. Her late breeder, Airdrie's founder Brereton C. Jones, was synonymous with that Classic. But he was also celebrated for producing top-class stallions somewhat out of left field–and perhaps we're already seeing that legacy being extremely well-“preserved.”

Band of Gold | Coady

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Second behind Nysos (Nyquist) in the Nov. 19 GIII Bob Hope S., Stronghold earned five Derby points when he was last seen finishing second in his two-turn debut in the Dec. 16 GII Los Alamitos Futurity. Sent off the 6-5 favorite in his sophomore debut Sunday, the bay colt shared pacesetting duties with 3-1 second choice Lucky Jeremy (Lookin at Lucky) through fractions of :23.69 and :47.45, as longshot Alotaluck (Sir Prancealot {Ire}) shadowed the top two while racing three wide. Stronghold began asserting control approaching the stretch as the three-quarters went up in 1:11.32. The favorite drifted out into the lane, allowing Lucky Jeremy and Alotaluck a chance to come back on him, but jockey Antonio Fresu straightened him out and he surged clear to the wire. Alotaluck just edged Lucky Jeremy for second. The final time for the Sunland Derby, which was shortened to 1 1/16 miles this year and run five weeks earlier than its traditional slot, was 1:42.64.

“It was a really great ride by Antonio and he got the job done,” said winning trainer Phil D'Amato. “I liked where we were sitting right there on the outside stalking. This horse likes that spot. The six [Alotaluck] put a little pressure on us at the half-mile pole, but Stronghold was able to find another gear there and once he shook loose at the top of the lane, I thought we had a great chance.”

Asked about the colt's drifting trip at the top of the lane, D'Amato said, “It's only his second race long. I think he's a horse who is still learning, but this race should hopefully do him a world of good.”

Stronghold opened his career with a runner-up effort going six furlongs at Ellis Park in August and graduated going one mile at Churchill Downs Oct. 1. Finishing third in the maiden race that day was Track Phantom (Quality Road), second in Saturday's GII Risen Star S., while the runner-up that day, Resilience (Into Mischief), was fourth in the Risen Star.

Stronghold cut back to seven furlongs for the Bob Hope and found only the impressive Nysos too good that day. He missed by just a half-length when second in the 1 1/16-miles Los Al Futurity Dec. 16.

Looking ahead for the improving colt, D'Amato said, “Probably one prep that we have not determined yet. And hopefully that prep will lead us to the Kentucky Derby.”

Pedigree Notes:

Stronghold is the only foal out of another Waller homebred, Spectator, who won the 2017 GII Sorrento S. and was second in the 2018 GI Santa Anita Oaks and third in the 2017 GI Del Mar Debutante for the couple and D'Amato. The mare died in 2021.

The Wallers also bred Stronghold's second and third dams: the unraced Diva's Tribute–who sold as a 5-year-old for $4,700 at the 2015 Keeneland November sale and again for $175,000 to Calvin Nguyen at that sale in 2022–and her dam, stakes-winner and graded-placed Swiss Diva.

Diva's Tribute produced a filly by Improbable in 2022 and a filly by Maxfield last year. She was bred back to Nguyen's Grade I winner Idol in 2023.

Stronghold is the 55th graded stakes winner for his sire, Ghostzapper, and he is the first stakes winner as a broodmare sire for Jimmy Creed (Distorted Humor). Ghostzapper's graded winners out of daughters of Distorted Humor include Guarana, Molly Morgan and last year's GII Saratoga Special winner Rhyme Schemes.

#5 Stronghold ($4.40) is victorious in the $400,000 Sunland Park Derby (G3). The three-year-old Ghostzapper colt earns 20 points on the @SpendthriftFarm Road to the Kentucky Derby for trainer @PhilDamato11 with @Antonio1Fresu in the irons. #KyDerby2024 pic.twitter.com/vbz5DSMS40

— TVG (@TVG) February 18, 2024

Sunday, Sunland
SUNLAND PARK DERBY-GIII, $400,000, Sunland, 2-18, 3yo, 1 1/16m, 1:42.64, ft.
1–STRONGHOLD, 122, c, 3, by Ghostzapper
                1st Dam: Spectator (GSW & MGISP, $323,551),
                                by Jimmy Creed
                2nd Dam: Diva's Tribute, by Henny Hughes
                3rd Dam: Swiss Diva, by Swiss Yodeler
1ST BLACK TYPE WIN, 1ST GRADED STAKES WIN. O/B-Eric &
Sharon Waller (KY); T-Philip D'Amato; J-Antonio Fresu.
$232,800. Lifetime Record: 5-2-3-0, $377,200. Werk Nick
Rating: A+++. *Triple Plus*
Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree.
Click for the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Alotaluck, 122, g, 3, Sir Prancealot (Ire)–Colinda Dawn, by
Lucks Mine. 1ST GRADED BLACK TYPE. O/B-Eleanor Martin
(CA); T-Ty J. Garrett. $85,360.
3–Lucky Jeremy, 122, c, 3, Lookin At Lucky–Powder N Blush, by
War Chant. 1ST GRADED BLACK TYPE. ($14,000 Ylg '22
KEEJAN; $50,000 2yo '23 OBSOPN). O-Jeremy Ramsland;
B-Craig L. Minten (KY); T-William E. Morey. $38,800.
Margins: 2HF, HD, 6. Odds: 1.20, 14.00, 3.40.
Also Ran: Curlin's Kaos, Informed Patriot, Da Ringo, No Trouble, Surroundedbyangels.
Click for the Equibase.com chart and the TJCIS.com PPs. VIDEO, sponsored by FanDuel TV.

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To her outside is Segesta (Ghostzapper), a homebred for Juddmonte, who is out of GI Just A Game victress Antonoe (First Defense). Hailing from a busy European family, and trained by Chad Brown, the filly picks up the riding talents of Irad Ortiz Jr.. TJCIS PPs.

10th-GP, $89k, Msw, 3yo, f, 1 1/16mT, 4:36p.m. ET
Racing in the colors of John Gunther and Eurowest Bloodstock, TIME STONE (American Pharoah) debuts for the Cherie DeVaux barn in the second of two turf maidens on the card. Out of an unplaced daughter of G1SW-Eng Timepiece (GB) (Zamindar), she's been working steadily at Palm Meadows and before that at Keeneland, albeit over the main track. Time Stone will break from the rail and is 12-1 on the morning line. This is the female family of European champion Twice Over (GB).

On the other end of the gate will go Investment Process (English Channel) for the powerhouse Klaravich-Chad Brown combination. A full-sister to SW Malleymoo, she was a $210,000 FTKOCT yearling purchase in 2022, and her two other siblings to start on the turf have also been winners. This is the family of two-time European champion, and multiple Highweight New Approach (Ire) through his unraced half-sister Park Heiress (Ire). TJCIS PPs.

4th-SA, $65k, Msw, 4-5yo, 6f, 5:05p.m. ET
Late for his debut, but on the cusp of finally getting his career started here, PROSPER (City of Light) will go to post for John Sadler and the ownership group of Talla Racing, West Point Thoroughbreds, and Woodford Racing. A $1.7-million KEESEP pick up three years ago, the 4-year-old has a hefty worktab to his credit and all of them at this track. A half-brother to GSW Abaan (Will Take Charge) and GSP Chip Leader (Giant's Causeway), Prosper is 5-2 on the morning line. This is the family of MGSW & GISP Broken Vow, a leading broodmare sire in Korea since his export, and champion grass mare MGISW Forever Together (Belong to Me). TJCIS PPs.

7th-SA, $65k, Msw, 3yo, f, 6f, 6:41p.m. ET
Carrying the colors of Natalie Baffert and trained by Bob Baffert, BONAQUA (Tonalist) will open her career in this main track dash. A $250,000 KEESEP buy, the filly has been putting up noteworthy efforts in the morning with her most recent being a 4 panel work from the gate in :48 flat (4/91) with the notes describing it as 'handily'. Her dam Ma Mo (Uncle Mo) is a half-sister to MSW Swag Daddy (Scat Daddy) as well as GSP What a Tale (Tale fo the Cat) and SP Anjorie (A. P Jet), herself the dam of SW Fierce Lady (Competitive Edge) and SP Bluegrass Jamboree (Bluegrass Cat).

To the outside of that one will be Show Card (Into Mischief), the Juddmonte homebred hailing from the extended 'TDN Rising Star' family of two-time champion MGISW Malathaat (Curlin) and her full-sister GSW & GISP Julia Shining. The second dam SP Dream Sweeper is a half-sister to Dream Rush, the start of that remarkable line, and Show Card's winning dam is herself a half-sister to MSP Dreams to Reality (Lookin at Lucky). Book-ending the field is MyRacehorse or Platts's runner Simply Enchanting (Byquist), a $475,000 KEESEP buy who is a half to MGSW & MGISP Envoutante (Uncle Mo). TJCIS PPs.

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The second to race for La Titina (Distorted Humor), the 3-year-old filly's younger half-brother by Not This Time was purchased for $310,000 last September at Keeneland by Hartley/De Renzo Thoroughbreds.

Granddam and MGISW Ask the Moon (Malibu Moon), a $1.8 million acquisition by Stonestreet while carrying MSW Belgrano (War Front), also produced the stakes placed dam of recent Mucho Macho Man S. runner-up First World War (War Front). TJCIS PPS

5th-TAM, $53K, Msw, 3yo, 1m 40yds, 2:34 p.m. ET.
Atrocious (Ghostzapper) makes his first start for Reeves Thoroughbred Racing and their partner Stonestreet Stables, who also bred this colt. A $500,000 buy at the Fasig-Tipton Select Saratoga Yearling Sale, the Christophe Clement trainee is out of GII Black-Eyed Susan S. heroine Fiftyshadesofhay (Pulpit). She is also the dam of SW Locally Owned (Distorted Humor). TJCIS PPS 

6th-GP, $89K, Msw, 3yo, f, 6f, 2:38 p.m. ET.
The Phipps Stable sends out for her debut Mystifying (Curlin). The homebred is out of SP Puzzling (Ghostzapper) who is also responsible for a 2-year-old by Street Sense. That colt went to Centennial Farms for $500,000 at Keeneland September.

The Shug McGaughey runner hails from an extended female family which includes GI Manhattan H. hero Dancing Forever (Rahy), SW Miss Yearwood (Will Take Charge), GSW Carrumba (Bernardini), and deeper still under her third dam, the strong line of champion 3-year-old filly Heavenly Prize (Seeking the Gold). TJCIS PPS

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The Pura Vida Investments LLC colorbearer is currently laid up with Gabriel “Spider” Duignan at Springhouse Farm in Kentucky and could resume light training in March.

“He's doing great,” Pura Vida's managing partner Deuce Greathouse said. “He wasn't going to make the Derby preps, so we decided to give him some extra time. We'll have him ready by late spring/early summer if we have no hiccups.”

He added, “He needed plenty of time, but it wasn't something that should hinder him going forward. He's got a really good mind on him, so he's been a good patient. Knock wood, everything has gone to plan to this point. I don't want to jinx anything, but he's on schedule.”

A well-beaten sixth in a live maiden special weight on debut at Churchill Downs May 18, Rhyme Schemes won his next two starts with the addition of blinkers by a combined margin of 19 lengths. He was a daylight, front-running winner with a gaudy 94 Beyer Speed Figure at second asking at Ellis June 15, then showed a different dimension by rallying powerfully from fourth after bumping with a rival at the start in the 6 1/2-furlong Saratoga Special.

“We'll let him tell us when he's ready,” Greathouse said. “We'll probably just give him an a-other-than (allowance), and if that goes to plan, then look at stakes.”

Rhyme Schemes, one of 54 graded stakes winners worldwide for Ghostzapper, brought $210,000 as a Keeneland September yearling. He is the second foal out of the winning Distorted Humor mare and $575,000 OBS April breezer Katherine, who hails from the extended female family of GISWs Dream Rush (Wild Rush), Dreaming of Julia (A. P. Indy), Malathaat (Curlin), et al. The Ghostzapper x Distorted Humor cross is also responsible for GISWs Guarana and Molly Morgan. Rhyme Schemes was bred in Kentucky by Parks Investment Group, LLC.

“He's such a cool horse,” Greathouse said. “With his pedigree to go long, and as deep as that family is, we couldn't be more excited. Now, we just gotta keep our fingers crossed and hope that he comes back the same horse that he was. Physically, there's no reason for me to think that he's one of those early 2-year-olds that won't develop into a 3-year-old.”

Greathouse concluded, “It was obviously heartbreaking not getting to go to those big races at the end of his 2-year-old-year. Hopefully, it's for bigger and better things down the road.”

RHYME SCHEMES wins the Herb Moelis Memorial Saratoga Special Stakes (G2) impressively with @RSantana_Jr up for @NormCasse! #Saratoga pic.twitter.com/9q8ISdQ4uK

— NYRA () (@TheNYRA) August 12, 2023

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It feels presumptuous enough to offer counsel even on cheaper sires, when each mating should boil down to you finding an optimal fit for an individual mare that you know inside out. Still greater hesitation, then, must precede any attempt to discover “value” among this lot.

No stallion has any business standing at this kind of money unless demonstrably of elite caliber. So while we'll be nervously proposing a Podium, as usual, we won't be dwelling unduly on the rest. You can take it as read that most of these horses must be punching their weight, both on the track and at the sales.

Instead, I'd just like to make one or two more general observations, in concluding this series, on the current trading environment.

Here's a series of what feel like pretty uncontentious statements.

1) Fees, overall, feel rather too high now that a long bull   run has tapered off and the middle market is being stretched by polarization.

2) At the same time, books assembled by unproven sires are reaching a size that must contain seeds of peril for the future of the breed. We know that most won't make the grade, meaning that the gene pool is increasingly being flooded with… well, choose your own pejorative.

3) But stallion farms have little room for maneuver, on either front. Knowing how the commercial market will behave nowadays, their accountants have only two options to retrieve the massive investment required to recruit an attractive stallion. The first is to start fees as high as they can, on the basis that it's now closer to “one and out” than “three and out”. The other is to keep fees more accessible, and instead go all out for volume. That necessarily exposes breeders to bringing an unexceptional specimen to saturated catalogues, but they all book their mares with their eyes open and many are evidently prepared to gamble on a home run. Pricing a horse fairly without resorting to appalling volume is an extremely difficult balancing act, and in this series I have tried to identify farms that look after their clients best in those terms.

Gun Runner | Sarah Andrew

4) Commercial breeders operate in a very difficult environment and need to put bread on the table. If you've had a weanling break a leg playing in a paddock, or lost a mare foaling, then you're going not going to be factoring too many noble thoughts about the long-term health of the breed into your choice of stallion. Same applies to all the pinhookers. The real blame, therefore, rests with those directing ringside spending.

5) These, in turn, have only one cogent explanation for their behavior. And no, it's not because rolling the dice on new stallions is their only window for hitting an elite stallion because all the proven ones are too expensive. Okay, horses like Gun Runner and Curlin have turned out to be at their most accessible when starting out, even though priced at or near the top of their intake. But the reality is that the vast majority of rookies will never match the ratios consistently achieved by some of the highly affordable, prove-a-mare stalwarts noted in this series. So the remaining logic is a self-fulfilling one: buyers like new sires because these will typically turn out to have received their biggest and best books, precisely because that's where all the attention is expected to be.

6) But hang on a minute. What happens when these books become so big that the mare quality becomes swamped by quantity? If you truly believe that you have spotted a stallion with unusual potential, why not stick with him as his second, third and fourth books dwindle? He may no longer be getting top mares, but good luck picking out the gold from the glister when the rookies are routinely corralling way over 200. You'd still be getting that priceless “sire power,” but at a diminishing cost. Where were all these guys when Into Mischief, Tapit and War Front had no friends in their third and fourth years? That's a real service for your clients, hanging in there for the value when everyone else runs away screaming. Low tide is exactly when you should be getting aboard. As a young stallion gets closer to putting horses into the gate, surely you're just getting closer to being proved right?

7) That leaves us with little alternative but to assume that professional counsellors spend their clients' money on new sires first and foremost because they don't really have to put their neck on the line. They're participating in a communal game of fantasy breeding, and when they do hit a dud–and we all know what a dud looks like, even if hundreds of foals means that he can still be promoted for “yet another stakes winner”–they can shrug their shoulders and say, “Don't blame me, everybody loved that horse!” And conversely they can gloat when they happen to land on a seam of gold. Well, even I can do that occasionally, and in the earlier stages of this series I've been perfectly happy to suggest a roll of the dice on one or two young horses that seem to be underpriced for their potential. But for every Not This Time I might find, over the years there's no doubt that I'm going to like as many duds as the next guy.

Life Is Good | Sarah Andrew

So, in conclusion: the bottom line is that stallion fees are only too high if you lack the courage of your convictions. Certainly, there can't have been many better epochs for the breed-to-race programs. But as I never tire of saying, there should be nothing more commercial than putting a winner under your mare.

Whether you want to bring down fees, or book sizes, the solution is the same. You just need to broaden the type of stallions that you support.

That way, everyone's a winner. Using horses that have at least demonstrated some competence to replicate the prowess that earned them a place at stud would a) allow relief on fees, b) even out book sizes, c) improve your chances of producing a racehorse, and d) duly improve the resilience of the racing population, with all the incidental benefits to a sport under growing social pressure.

The only comfort about our present situation is a cold one, in that things are even worse in Europe. The saving grace of the American industry is that it's still a commercial aspiration– whatever 293 mares to Golden Pal might tell you–to have a horse hold out through two turns of dirt on the first Saturday in May. And that, of course, is a competence that unites the majority of the elite sires with whom we close our series today.

This price range admits only one absolute beginner, Cody's Wish, whose intake received a separate assessment at the start of the series. And overall, logically enough, there are far fewer untested sires standing at this kind of fee than lower down the pyramid: only FLIGHTLINE ($150,000), LIFE IS GOOD ($85,000) and ESSENTIAL QUALITY ($65,000) are maintaining a place at this level pending examination on the racetrack. Nobody needs reminding of the excellence of their first careers, and the first two only have their first weanlings due. But it's perhaps instructive of the type of program keenest to tap into Essential Quality's wholesome combination of class and constitution (champion at two and three) with family (now further decorated by Forte, who shares a third dam) that only five weanlings were traded out from his debut crop (eight offered; median $280,000).

At the other end of the scale, we have a few sires whose right to stand at dizzy fees is too familiar to required reiteration. We have just celebrated a fifth consecutive title for INTO MISCHIEF ($250,000), who has duly opened new horizons with the mid-career upgrade in his mares. Competing with the Into Mischief production line may well leave CURLIN ($250,000) as one of the best sires never to have his status formally gilded by a championship. And TAPIT ($185,000) is still the main man, when it comes to lifetime ratios. He had a quietish year by his metronomic standards, and his books will be being prudently managed these days, but I still hope to see him come up with that Derby winner to round off a resume that features stakes winners at one-in-10 named foals, 101 of them at graded level at 6.2 percent.

Justify | Sarah Andrew

Nor is there any need to dwell on the young guns JUSTIFY (private), whose success either side of the water–six elite scorers in 2023, notably an outstanding champion juvenile in Europe–suggests that he may be eligible for a historic role in our urgent quest for sires to reconcile the disastrous segregation of European and American gene pools; and GUN RUNNER ($250,000), whose early percentages remain simply freakish. In 2023 his black-type, graded-stakes and Grade I performers respectively came in at 17.2, 11.8 and 5.4 percent of starters!

A lot of the best sires are now in the evening of their careers, and these two appear to have a huge opportunity to dominate in the years ahead, along with NOT THIS TIME ($150,000) who will now only just be consolidating his breakout.

It would perhaps be taking loyalty too far to give Not This Time his umpteenth Value Podium at 10 times the fee that first excited us, but rest assured there's an awful lot still to come from a stallion who complements the priceless transatlantic legacy of Giant's Causeway with indigenous Tartan Farms dirt speed. Remember that his juveniles this year will be his first sired even at $40,000, up from just $12,500. They reached a median of $210,000 (average $287,025) as yearlings, nice work at the conception fee (and up from $150,000/$209,688). Even after adding Up to the Mark as a fifth Grade I winner in three crops, Not This Time may do well to keep up his incredible start as the crop conceived at his lowest ebb turns three. But the upgrade in quality will soon kick in, and then all bets will be off.

In contrast UNCLE MO ($150,000) first stood at this fee back in 2017 and QUALITY ROAD ($200,000) reached the same mark by 2019. By this stage, then, they have pretty well established who and what they are, and duly finished fourth and fifth respectively in the general list. Quality Road has become a particularly consistent sales performer, advancing his median in 2023 to $375,000 from $350,000, behind only Into Mischief and Curlin. It was Uncle Mo (median $212,500) who fired his racetrack arrows closer to the bull's-eye in 2023, 14 stakes winners (at 4.4 percent of starters) including three at Grade I level, whereas Quality Road's 18 (7.2 percent) featured just National Treasure at that altitude.

Good Magic | Sarah Andrew

If that pair are plainly in their prime, GOOD MAGIC ($125,000) has broken into the six-figure club after producing the Derby winner at the first attempt. That's quite a hike from $50,000 but he's no one-trick pony, counting Eclipse finalist Muth among half a dozen black-type winners already from 45 juvenile starters in 2023. Obviously, he's going to have to keep advancing his ringside performance to warrant this fee, having achieved a median of $155,000 (average $217,390) with his latest crop. But that was up from $100,000 ($130,250) in 2022, and must itself be acknowledged a fine yield from a $30,000 conception fee.

From the same glitzy intake, BOLT D'ORO rises to $60,000 from $35,000 after a second productive campaign. Though his yearling dividends slipped, at a median $82,500/average $113,218, they similarly represented a punchy yield on a $15,000 conception fee. Bolt d'Oro has started a higher proportion of his foals than Justify and Good Magic, so we'll have to see whether that's a function of superior precocity or overall soundness. As noted earlier in the series, however, what really excites about this class is its depth: horses like Army Mule and Girvin are essentially matching their more expensive peers from much lower fees and volume. Those horses deserve a chance to show what do with their own upgrades before anyone reaches any definitive conclusions about the pecking order.

At the other end of the spectrum are some much older sires with a sustained record of achievement behind them. WAR FRONT has had his books managed with restraint for so long that he will never have adequate volume to shake up the general list, unless he has a real star, but even without one last year he maintained his customary strike-rates, for instance with 10 graded stakes winners from just 166 starters. His career ratios are beyond even Tapit, which makes $100,000 a terrific play for those who a) can afford it and b) aren't prey to a childish aversion to turf.

The MUNNINGS trajectory got so giddy last year that he was hoisted to six figures but that proved to be a moment of overexcitement and, after his book shrank to 146 from 204, he has dropped to $75,000 for 2024. His reputation has raced ahead of his fee for most of his career and he's actually on the point of upgrading his stock on the track, his incoming juveniles being the first conceived even at $40,000 and duly nudging his yearling median forward ($160,000 from $150,000). He has that big 2022 book of $85,000 covers in the pipeline, and the access he has enjoyed to better mares should also help him improve a somewhat pedestrian ratio for his five elite scorers to date. Munnings is nowadays virtually a lock for the top 10 in the general list and that makes him look pretty fairly priced.

Practical Joke | Coolmore

His studmate PRACTICAL JOKE is becoming one of the busiest avenues to his sire, albeit his affordability is diminishing (fee up to $65,000 from $25,000). Commercial breeders can't get enough of him, his latest yearlings achieving a terrific yield (median $110,000/average $153,807) on the cover fee. The obvious caveat is that his volume is now such (482 mares over the last two years!) that you had better not find yourself with an ordinary specimen…

CANDY RIDE (Arg) was one of those middle-rank sires most exposed to polarization at the sales (median down to $100,000, which was half his average, from $140,000 the previous year) but remains settled at $75,000 after Candied and Geaux Rocket Ride kept his name in lights. His son TWIRLING CANDY (average $160,064 also well ahead of his $90,000 median; clearly their good ones are very good) similarly stands at $60,000 for a third year after producing his eighth Grade I winner, albeit his respectable lifetime ratios don't quite match those of STREET SENSE at the same fee.

Street Sense arguably offers fine value at this level, even if his bargain buddy Hard Spun would make as much sense at a lower fee: some of their indices are uncannily in step. But at the sales Street Sense is maintaining a $150,000 average, well over double that of Hard Spun. That confirms the latter to be an end user's delight, but Street Sense covers all bases.

Their venerable neighbor MEDAGLIA D'ORO reached a peak of $250,000 in 2018 but was slashed from $150,000 to $100,000 in 2022 and now suffers a fresh indignity at $75,000. The fact is that his Hong Kong 'ATM' Golden Sixty belongs to the same crop as his last big star here, Bolt d'Oro, leaving the tide of fashion to ebb somewhat: his latest yearlings had to settle for a $180,000 median/$248,371 average (down from $242,500/$339,918). Nonetheless this is the same flesh and blood whose 22 Grade I winners in the Northern Hemisphere (26 overall) long gave him top billing at Saratoga and Book I. Thoroughbreds will always confound assumptions and it would be gratifying to see such a glamorous specimen muster one or two last hurrahs in the evening of his career.

VALUE PODIUM

Bronze Medal: GHOSTZAPPER
Awesome Again–Baby Zip (Relaunch)
$75,000, Hill 'n' Dale

I guess it all depends what you're trying to achieve. But if you're one of those strange people simply trying to breed as good a racehorse as you can, then you certainly won't mind that this magnificent animal has now entered his 24th year.

Ghostzapper | Sarah Andrew

He was not very temperately handled early in his stud career, launched at $200,000 and slashed from $125,000 to $30,000 after his first juveniles blew out. Though a colt from his debut crop won the GI Blue Grass S., he was promptly cut again to $20,000. It was a long road back, but he's now just two short of bringing up 100 stakes winners at 7.8 percent of named foals.

Across the board, in fact, he's basically the same sire as Uncle Mo, who gets his black-type winners at 7.1 percent. Their stakes performers come at 13.1 and 13 percent respectively; Ghostzapper's graded stakes winners at 4.2 percent, against 3.5 percent for Uncle Mo; graded stakes performers weigh in at 7.2 and 7.7 percent; and 14 Grade I winners apiece come at 1.1 and 1.0 percent. But Uncle Mo stands at twice the fee, and has accumulated more named foals from six fewer crops!

Obviously Ghostzapper pays a commercial price for being less likely to produce precocious horses, but the likes of Mystic Guide and Goodnight Olive continue to reward those prepared to await the kind of maturity that enabled their sire to stretch his murderous speed, aged four, to one of the great modern performances. And anyone who saw the GIII Saratoga Special last summer will form their own views about Ghostzapper never getting precocious stock!

In the meantime, he has emerged, consistently with the sire-line, as an important broodmare sire, his daughters having now given us Up To The Mark as well as Justify himself. I don't know whether Ghostzapper was confined to 75 mares last year in deference to his age, or just because of commercial wariness. As your ideal Book II sire, he was vulnerable to market polarization this year. In the circumstances he did well to maintain a $170,590 average ($187,916 in 2022), albeit his median duly suffered ($115,000 down from $165,500).

But that's a sideshow at this time of his life. You know what he can do for your program, especially if you wouldn't mind retaining a filly. And you also know that there's a finite opportunity to tap so proximately into a combination as resonant as grandsire Deputy Minister and damsire Relaunch. It's a privilege worth paying for and, relative to plenty of untested young sires, it's one that doesn't cost so much.

Silver Medal: NYQUIST
Uncle Mo–Seeking Gabrielle (Forestry)
$85,000, Darley

Here's a horse back on the move, with his incoming juveniles sired at $75,000–up from $40,000, a response to the freshman title he won in 2020. He then had to be throttled back to $55,000 after hitting a flat spot the following year, mustering a solitary graded stakes winner, but that is now turning out to have been a blip.

Nyquist | Sarah Andrew

This year he came up with his third and fourth Grade I winners, and was denied a fifth in poignant circumstances, as sire of New York Thunder. Into their slipstream followed a bunch of juveniles that showed both the precocity to win at Royal Ascot (Crimson Advocate) and the flair to put themselves on the dirt Classic radar (Nysos, Knighstbridge). Nysos looks a pretty freakish talent and we know that his sire stretched his own juvenile speed when and where it counted, on the first Saturday in May.

Nyquist's $140,000 yearling median in 2023 needs to keep progressing, to justify his new fee, but hopefully that process is well underway (median was $110,000 in 2022, and average meanwhile markedly up at $192,749 from $148,275). He remained fully subscribed during his couple of years regrouping at $55,000, so there's unlikely to be any kind of bump in the road now.

The one he endured in his second year has certainly levelled off, so that even though he emerged in the same intake as Not This Time, he's faring pretty respectably even against that monster talent. Nyquist can't match his ratios for winners in each category, but in black-type, graded stakes and Grade I performers there's not much between them: 12.7, 6.7 and 1.8 percent of named foals for Not This Time and 12.1, 6.5 and 2.3 percent for Nyquist. True, Not This Time must have had lesser materials with which to make his name, but he's now at a fee altitude that requires oxygen masks, whereas Nyquist is still hauling his way up the rope behind him.

Gold Medal: CONSTITUTION
Tapit–Baffled (Distorted Humor)
$110,000, WinStar

This horse is at an interesting crossroads. His incoming juveniles were conceived at $85,000, the sophomores at $40,000, and his 4-year-olds at just $15,000. From 48 starters last year, even this latter group came close to a Grade I score through Webslinger, beaten a head in the Saratoga Derby and a neck in the Hollywood Derby.

Constitution | Sarah Andrew

The 2024 sophomores emerge from a bumper crop of 187 live foals, the first Constitution produced after his freshman breakout in 2019 (second to American Pharoah). They made a very promising start on the track, placing him second in the table for 2-year-old earnings. In fairness, he had a pretty enormous footprint, with 88 juvenile starters, but Catching Freedom set the tone for his peers in 2024 with his Smarty Jones S. success on New Year's Day. In fact, he's one of three Constitutions in the top nine of colleague T.D. Thornton's opening Derby Top 12.

And now, as noted, we can look forward to the $85,000 crop corralled by Tiz the Law's sophomore emergence. They averaged $281,125 as yearlings, up from $244,242, with the median steady at $200,000. The good old pipeline is loaded, then, and we know that those that stand out from a crowd will bring the big money.

His aging sire has arranged quite a race for the eventual succession, but for now this appears to be the heir to catch for the likes of Flightline and Essential Quality. Constitution has seen a lot of life for a horse of his age, including having shuttled to Chile for three years, but there's definitely a scenario where a fee held at $110,000 turns out to be a staging post on the way to still higher ones.

Breeder Selections

Paul Manganaro, Belladonna Racing

Paul Manganaro | Christina Bossinakis

Bronze Medal: Twirling Candy ($60,000)
Twirling Candy offers breeders a lot of bang for their buck. He has ranked in the top 15 on the national sires by progeny earnings list the last two seasons and has produced eight Grade I winners to-date.

Silver Medal: Quality Road ($200,000)
Quality Road has consistently produced the “Big Saturday Afternoon” horse. He can get you a quality two-year-old and one that can compete at the highest level around two turns. His 2.14 (AEI) average earning index is on or near par with the elite stallions currently standing in America. His offspring are also very popular in the sales ring.

Gold Medal: Constitution ($110,000)
To have access to Constitution at his stud fee is like stealing in my opinion. He's a stallion that had 17 yearlings sell for $400,000 or higher in 2023 topped by a $1.3-million Keeneland September yearling. The offspring from his best book of mares are just starting to hit the ground in the past few years and as Jan. 11 he has three colts ranked in the TDN's Top 12 2024 Derby list.

The post Value Sires For 2024 Part 7: The Big Guns appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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A pair of Breeders' Cup wins at the 2019 Championships put an exclamation point on the Hall of Famer's eighth straight season with more than $20 million in earnings. But, the year 2020, like it was for so many, was more about overcoming adversity for the native of Venezuela.

Castellano was the first jockey to test positive for COVID-19–he wasn't symptomatic, thankfully–during the beginning of the pandemic in March and was on the sidelines again after undergoing hip surgery at the end of the year.

“It was tough, not just for myself, but for everybody in the world in 2020,” Castellano said. “I only missed three months. And it seemed like it was forever.”

Castellano returned to action in 2021, but wasn't exactly welcomed back with open arms. Competing in pound for pound the deepest jockey colony in the nation in New York, Castellano rode 105 winners that season, good for $9,804,024 in earnings. After going just 13-for-142 at the prestigious Saratoga meeting, Castellano's career was suddenly at a crossroads.

Javier Castellano entered the Hall of Fame in 2017 | Horsephotos

“I was devastated. I was ready to give up,” said Castellano, a winner of four straight Eclipse Awards as Outstanding Jockey between 2013-16. “I just came back from everything and people didn't give me an opportunity. One moment I thought, 'I think this is it. I can't keep doing what I'm doing.' I was really really depressed.”

He continued, “They didn't care about who you are or what you did in the past. It's amazing. I was a Hall of Fame rider, a four-time leading jockey in the nation in back-to-back years, had six Travers then, 12 Breeders' Cups and won more than 5,000 races. And it didn't mean anything. You have to prove yourself and that you belong.”

Castellano picked himself up off the mat and hired longtime former racing official P.J. Campo to handle his book. He began to right the ship with 163 victories in 2022. By comparison, Castellano rode a total of 212 winners combined the previous two years.

How did he power his way through?

“Mentally, I had to be strong,” said Castellano, a married father of three. “A lot of discipline and dedication. Do the homework every single day. Regroup and try to be very positive.”

The momentum began to build for Castellano after he won three races on Saratoga's opening day card that summer.

“In 2022, we started rolling a little bit in Saratoga,” Castellano said. “I also went out of town for the right people and won some races. I knock a little bit and the door began to open a little here and there.”

Castellano is no longer the one doing the knocking this year.

He put to bed an 0-for-15 mark on the first Saturday in May with a 15-1 upset aboard Mage (Good Magic) in the GI Kentucky Derby, and, just five weeks later, secured his first GI Belmont S. victory with Arcangelo (Arrogate). Castellano became the first jockey to win two Triple Crown races on two different horses in the same year since Calvin Borel did so in 2009. He's won 16 graded races so far this year, including seven at the top level.

“Thank God, I've been very blessed and very fortunate to have one of the best years of my career,” Castellano said. “It was a great achievement to win the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, two Triple Crown races in the same year. I was always missing something on my resume.”

With Castellano's two Classic winners on a collision course this summer, he stuck with the recently retired Arcangelo, who followed up with a convincing win in the GI Travers S., the rider's record seventh victory in the 'Mid-Summer Derby.' The gray, unfortunately, was scratched from the Breeders' Cup Classic–a race Castellano won aboard the sensational Ghostzapper in 2004–earlier this week after developing a foot issue.

Javier Castellano celebrates aboard Ghostzapper following the 2004 Classic | Horsephotos

“He gave me an opportunity to regroup in my career, and, in my life, and enjoy these beautiful moments with my family,” Castellano said.

As for Arcangelo missing the Classic and now off to begin his career at stud at Lane's End, he said, “This is hard, but one decision I fully support. Arcangelo is safe and sound and that's all I can really think about. He has given me so much and I'm so blessed to have been part of the team.”

Castellano's mounts on Saturday's Championship program at Santa Anita include: GI Beverly D. S. winner and E.P. Taylor S. winner Fev Rover (Ire) (Gutaifan {Ire}) in the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf; GII American Turf S. winner and narrow GI Saratoga Derby Invitational S. runner-up Webslinger (Constitution) in the GII Twilight Derby; and Time for Trouble (English Channel) in the 1 5/8-mile GII Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance S.

“It could be a good example for anybody,” Castellano concluded. “You never give up. When you want something in life, you have to work for it. When you work for it, you get it.”

The post A Classic Season for Castellano appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The aforementioned GI Kentucky Derby prep race has been his only victory in 2023, and in pairing with a nose runner-up effort in the GIII Indiana Derby July 8 to familiar foe GSW & MGISP Verifying (Justify), has been the only time the son of Violence has been on the board this year. The 6-1 distant third choice here for the cut back in distance behind that returning rival and the eventual runner-up, Raise Cain was content to stalk from fourth as a leading trio battled it out on the front. Riding the rail into the turn but moved to the outside at the five sixteenths pole, he was rolling in the six path with a full head of steam entering the lane. Locking horns with Dr. Venkman after catching him late in the stretch, he nailed that rival in the shadow of the wire by a head as Post Time (Frosted) rallied from last to round out the trifecta.

Watch the full replay as RAISE CAIN finds the wire first in the Perryville (L)! pic.twitter.com/qpCikFTyg5

— Keeneland Racing (@keenelandracing) October 21, 2023

“I think it's probably what he wants to do. His only wins were around one turn. He got us to the (GI Kentucky) Derby and he's been such an over-achieving horse, he really deserved it,” said Ben Colebrook. “I think (jockey) Luis Saez made the difference. He rode him great. I mean, all the riders have ridden him well, but Luis gives you that just extra little bit. That's probably what we needed today.”

The first black-type runner for his dam, Raise Cain joins a trio of siblings to get their picture taken on the mare's tally. Lemon Belle, out of MGSW Queenie Belle (Bertrando)–making her a half-sister to GISW & MGISP Unrivaled Belle (Unbridled's Song), dam of two-time champion MGISW Unique Bella (Tapit)–has a 2-year-old Frostelle (Frosted) as well as a 2023 Constitution colt and visited red-hot Justify for 2024. This is the female family of Canadian staple MGISP Sir Sahib (Fort Larned). Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by FanDuel TV.

PERRYVILLE S., $235,188, Keeneland, 10-21, 3yo, 7f, 1:23.58, ft.
1–RAISE CAIN, 118, c, 3, by Violence
         1st Dam: Lemon Belle, by Lemon Drop Kid
         2nd Dam: Queenie Belle, by Bertrando
         3rd Dam: Lady Argyle, by Don B.
($180,000 Ylg '21 KEESEP; $65,000 RNA 2yo '22 OBSOPN). O-Andrew N. and Rania Warren; B-Rock Ridge Thoroughbreds, LLC (KY); T-Ben Colebrook; J-Luis Saez. $153,063. Lifetime Record: GSW, 13-3-2-1, $577,066.
2–Dr. Venkman, 118, g, 3, Ghostzapper–Theory of Change, by Archarcharch. ($105,000 Ylg '21 KEESEP). 1ST BLACK TYPE. O-Dan J. Agnew, Clint Bunch, Mark Cohen, and James Hailey; B-Ghostzapper Syndicate & Hidden Brook Farm (KY); T-Mark Glatt. $39,500.
3–Post Time, 118, c, 3, Frosted–Vielsalm, by Fairbanks. ($85,000 Ylg '21 EASOCT). O-Hillwood Stable LLC; B-Dr. & Mrs. Thomas Bowman, Dr. Brooke Bowman & Milton P Higgins III (MD); T-Brittany T. Russell. $19,750.
Margins: HD, 1 1/4, 5HF. Odds: 6.44, 1.26, 7.42.
Also Ran: Loyal Company, Verifying, Confidence Game.

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Javier Castellano was aboard Ghostzapper for every one of those remarkable performances.

“He was one of the biggest horses and one of the best in my career,” said Castellano. “I say that because you don't see too many horses that do what he did. This horse was particularly diversified at distances. From sprint to long distances, he did everything. He won the sprint races, he won at 1 1/4 miles, he won at a mile, at all the distances. It's hard to stretch out a horse from six furlongs to long and back again, but he did it and he won. He did everything.

“He still has [the Breeders' Cup] record. We're talking about 19 years ago and nobody has broken that record. It was against all the best horses in the world at the time: Funny Cide, Azeri, Pleasantly Perfect.

“He's pretty amazing, such a special horse. He put me on another level in my career. People didn't know who Javier Castellano was at the time and for me to ride the best horse, he opened the door for myself and my family. He opened the door for my career. He's such a special horse. I love him.

“He's just amazing. I'm blessed, thankful, grateful to have ridden such a special horse. Mr. Frankel told me Ghostzapper was the best horse he'd trained in all his life. For him to say that, with all those good horses he had, was pretty amazing.”

Ghostzapper (2000 bay horse, Awesome Again–Baby Zip, by Relaunch)

Lifetime record: Horse of the Year, Ch. older male, MGISW, 11-9-0-1, $3,446,120

Breeders' Cup connections: B-Adena Springs (KY); O-Stronach Stables; T-Robert Frankel; J-Javier Castellano.

Current location: Hill 'n' Dale at Xalapa, Paris, Ky.

The post Catching Up with 2004 Breeders’ Cup Classic Winner Ghostzapper appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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