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Instant Dividends From a Long Saga

It's not like you just add water. For the very possibility of reaping the ultimate harvest with Instant Coffee (Bolt d'Oro), on the first Saturday in May, has only been able to take root because the ending of even the longest stories, in this game, can always prove the start of a new chapter.

Having already demonstrated an aptitude for the Churchill surface in winning the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S., Instant Coffee resumes the Derby trail in the GIII Lecomte S. at the Fair Grounds on Saturday. And while those most immediately concerned in his performance are owners Gold Square LLC and the Brad Cox team, the colt also has the chance to script a heartening sequel to the poignant renunciation of a quest that had stirred much nostalgia in Maryland and beyond.

That Sagamore Farm happens to be registered as Instant Coffee's breeder is evidently more or less a quirk of bureaucracy. A deal had already been done for his dam Follow No One (Uncle Mo) to join the broodmare band at Upson Downs Farm in Goshen, Ky., and Instant Coffee was foaled, raised and prepared for sale there. But his existence nonetheless owes much to those years when Kevin Plank, as a proud son of Maryland, strove to restore Sagamore as a force in the Thoroughbred world.

It was here, of course, that Alfred G. Vanderbilt II bred Native Dancer before launching him on one of the greatest track careers in Turf history. “The Gray Ghost of Sagamore” subsequently achieved an enduring legacy at stud, notably via Raise A Native and Natalma, and is buried at the farm. And there were moments, during the Plank revival from 2007, when those specters found fresh company on the national stage: as when Shared Account (Pleasantly Perfect) won the GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf in 2010, and Global Campaign (Curlin) won the GI Woodward H. a decade later.

Even as the latter was preparing for his swansong in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, however, it was announced that the farm was to be turned over to wheat and rye in support of Sagamore Spirit whiskey. Global Campaign ran an excellent third, and is now bidding to extend the farm's Turf heritage as a WinStar stallion. But for Hunter Rankin, the impressive young president of Sagamore's Thoroughbred program since 2015, it was time to find a new path in the industry.

Little could he realize that the twists and turns of fate had already reserved a wonderful consolation for the disappointing end of this particular adventure. For it was Rankin who bought Follow No One for Sagamore as a juvenile, at the OBS April Sale of 2016; and, after she failed to reach her reserve at $85,000 at the Keeneland November Sale in 2018, it was his father Alex who was able to agree terms with Plank to keep her for the family farm. Moreover it was Sagamore's final flourish with Global Campaign, trained by his cherished mentor Stan Hough, that helped to steer Rankin towards that horse's half-brother Bolt d'Oro (Medaglia d'Oro) as an appropriate first cover for Follow No One. The result is Instant Coffee.

So while the ambition to rekindle Sagamore as a beacon of the Maryland Turf was ultimately reduced to ashes, Rankin has been delighted to stoke up a final flame out of the embers; to have found a way, so to speak, of adding a little “more” to this great “saga”.

“Yeah, it's really cool,” he says. “I was very proud of what we tried to do there, of the effort that we put in to get where we were trying to go, which was to compete at the highest level and breed the best horses we could. It didn't work out, and I'm sure I'd go back and change some of things that we did, but we did our best and that's all you can do.

“Our goal was always to get a horse that would transcend Sagamore, and carry that brand whether we were in it or not: to have a horse to stamp the place, like Native Dancer did. Of course I'm not saying that Global Campaign is a Native Dancer. But it would be really nice for us to point to something and say that we did that while we were there. And, gosh, he just had so much talent-and he's the reason we bred this mare to Bolt d'Oro. So, yeah, what a great story.”

Follow No One was initially purchased by Gatewood Bell for just $20,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale. Pinhooked through Eddie Woods, she advanced her value to $100,000 when Rankin bought her for Sagamore the following spring.

“She was petite, not small by any means, but feminine,” Rankin says. “She's kind of a dainty type. She worked okay, 21.1, but she had little things, I guess you could pick her apart. But I talked to Eddie and he said, 'I think she's a really nice filly, she's sound, she'll run through her conditions and I could maybe get some black type for you.' And that's exactly what happened, he was dead on.”

Follow No One (who was so named by skier Lindsay Vonn) did grab third in a Laurel sprint on her only black-type start, but her overall record was fairly modest and, though she was out of a stakes-winning daughter of the KatieRich foundation mare Miss Mary Apples (Clever Trick), nobody was too interested when she was consigned for sale through Upson Downs as a 4-year-old.

“It was about the time that we were transitioning out of the breeding part of things at Sagamore,” Rankin explains. “After she RNA'd, we put her in foal and my dad, who had liked her on the farm, ended up buying her privately.”

Rankin had naturally admired Bolt d'Oro as a racehorse but especially favored him as a first mate for Follow No One because of his regard for his half-brother.

“We just thought, and still think, that Global Campaign will be a great sire,” he reasons. “So we wanted to support that line, and she did fit well with him: her pedigree matched up, and their body types seemed to mesh well too. Well anyway, we got the foal-and what a nice foal he was. She's a little offset, a little this and that, but her foals have been great. And he was great. He was a lot like her: not feminine, but very similar in that [elegant] body type. He became a very good-looking yearling, very sensible and straightforward.”

Though offered deep in the Keeneland September Sale, Instant Coffee made $200,000 from Joe Hardoon as agent and duly won on debut at Saratoga. Still inexperienced when just missing the frame from off the pace behind divisional champion elect Forte (Violence) in the GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity, he then banked 10 Derby starting points on his successful reconnaissance of Churchill.

Incidentally, Rankin reminds us of an overlooked distinction in another Kentucky horseman that day. For the same year that he pinhooked Follow No One, Gatewood Bell also bought a rather more expensive yearling at Saratoga for Cheyenne Stables: a $750,000 daughter of Tapit who won a couple of races before being sent to Into Mischief. The resulting filly is Hoosier Philly, who romped in the GII Golden Rod S. half an hour before Instant Coffee won. Bell, it seems, was only just getting going as a bloodstock agent when he joined Keeneland as Vice-President of Racing a couple of years ago!

Rankin himself has meanwhile engaged with a stimulating new project, having topped the second session of the Keeneland January Sale when signing a $650,000 docket for the promising young filly Ancient Peace (War Front) on behalf of Boardshorts Stables. But meanwhile there's an obvious personal fulfilment available in having brought together the dam of a potential Derby horse, as a residue of his time with Sagamore, with his parents' home operation. (It's a connection, by the way, that has already been fertile in the past: at Saratoga in 2018 Upson Downs consigned Shared Account's $350,000 daughter by Speightstown for Sagamore, and she became GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Sharing.)

“I help with all their matings and I love working with my dad,” Rankin says. “He and I are very close. It was always his dream to own a horse farm, and we moved out there from town when my mom was pregnant with me. And he built it from a single mare that he bought in 1983 with [the late] Bob Courtney, who was a legend around Lexington and like a second father to my dad. Everybody loved Bob, my dad was just lucky enough to know him and learn from him, very much the same way I have been with Stan.”

That foundation mare, Flash McAllister (Ward McAllister), cost just $24,000. Her granddaughter Tar Heel Mom (Flatter) was trained by Hough to win 11 of 31 starts and $832,892 in the family silks, including three graded stakes, and it's a dynasty that has been cultivated at Upson Downs for 40 years now. For this is an enduring passion that has placed Rankin's father, in daily experience, shoulder to shoulder with the Bluegrass community-a point worth stressing in view of the occasional flak he inevitably endures in his role as Chairman of the Board at Churchill Downs Inc.

Having served a stint with CDI himself, Rankin acknowledges the heartache and contention over the sale of Arlington, in particular, but emphasizes the authentic commitment to the wider sport that he found among colleagues there. And, be all that as it may, the one guarantee is that long and ardent embrace of life at the coalface-Upson Downs foals out 50 to 60 mares every year, the majority for longstanding clients-fully preserves his father in the respect of fellow horsemen.

Rankin Sr. has built up the farm parallel to his work as chairman of Louisville insurers Sterling G. Thompson Co. “From the day they moved out there he worked every weekend, all day, and then Monday through Friday he'd wake up at 5 a.m., go out on the farm until 7.30 and then go to work,” marvels Rankin. “He has lived and breathed it for a really long time. Like when we had that big cold snap recently, and the temperature's negative five, he was still out there breaking the water tanks. He shouldn't be doing that anymore, but he does. And you hope that all that hard work pays off for him, because he's such a great guy.”

Little wonder, then, that Rankin is so gratified by the rise of Instant Coffee. He knows that the Derby still remains a long way off; but he also knows that Cyberknife (Gun Runner), after disappointing the same connections in the Lecomte last year, regrouped to confirm himself one of the best of the crop. So who can say what flavors may yet percolate through the Instant Coffee story?

Follow No One, remember, has only just turned nine. She has a juvenile filly by Frosted but sadly aborted last year before being bred to Maclean's Music. All going well with that imminent delivery, her first son's flying start is scheduled to earn her an upgrade in fee this spring to Life Is Good.

“We're excited,” Rankin says. “There's a good nucleus on the farm right now, youngish mares either with nice family or that could run a little bit. But to have this horse running for one of those mares, foaled and raised at Upson Downs, it's a dream. When he won in November, one of the girls that helped raise him was in the winner's circle crying. So it's a neat story. And just for my parents, you'd love to have a really, really good horse come off the farm. They've raised Grade I winners, for clients, but you'd love to have something that had a chance at the big one.”

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Value Sires, Part 3: First Yearlings in ’23

The stallions we assess today find themselves at the first major crossroads of their new career. Poor fellows, they're still a long way from having the chance to demonstrate whether they can actually produce runners. But that seems a pretty incidental consideration in the current marketplace, which has created a self-fulfilling cycle. Like it or not, stallions nowadays do indeed have their best chance of producing a good one from their first crop, as these typically emerge from the biggest and best books they will ever get. That, in turn, only reinforces demand for new sires-and it has become extremely hard to break that circle.

In contrast, we now come to that awkward bubble for stallions between the market testing of first weanlings (and soon first yearlings) and the racetrack testing of first juveniles. Even that, of course, will scarcely be a fair measure of those that might need two turns and maturity to show their full hand. There's nothing like having a strong third and fourth book behind you, then, if a stallion actually starts delivering on the track. But this is instead typically a time when book numbers begin to slide, and farms often start dangling lower fees to keep these horses in the game.

Fee cuts are duly one of the “value” factors we must weigh now, alongside the initial vibes from the weanling marketplace. As a result, we can't just replicate our previous choices among this intake. The sands are shifting. On the other hand, we do need to persevere somewhat. If you truly believe in a horse, you will expect him to make an impact on the track even if he has meanwhile endured a tepid reception at market. And, if he does indeed vindicate your belief, there might actually be a commercial dividend for those who keep the faith now.

That makes this is a devilish group to sieve down to a “podium.” We want to respect the professional verdict of horsemen, presented with the first flesh-and-blood evidence of a stallion's genetic imprint. But we also want to respect those horses that will have to ride out diminishing books pending any racetrack impact. We all know of great stallions who were clinging to the precipice around this point. Yet we also know that many who find themselves in that kind of early pickle will indeed just keep slithering into the abyss.

So let's hit and hope, and see if we can strike a balance between these conflicting forces.

Bubbling Under:

We've often noted that those directing ringside investment tend to be pretty obedient, in that sale averages broadly tend to align with the order suggested by sires' opening fees. This intake, however, actually featured one or two that dropped out of that sequence, with their weanlings, and who will duly be under pressure to raise their game at the yearling sales next year.

Among those who did best behind Authentic-who topped the averages, as required by his fee-were Game Winner and McKinzie, who both duly maintain their $30,000 tags.

Of those who have been processing “mega” books, VEKOMA appeals as a valid play right now. He has taken another friendly clip to $15,000 at Spendthrift (started at $20,000) which should help to maintain momentum pending a remarkable stampede of runners. (First books of 222 and 196!) While the sheer volume of his stock will ensure a wide range of experiences for vendors, a $92,222 average is highly respectable in view of the fact that he sold no fewer than 27 of 29 offered. A Grade I winner at seven, eight and nine furlongs, Vekoma is from a stallion-producing family and channels a lot of speed by the standards of his sire of sires.

It is only with extreme reluctance that we ask HONOR A.P. to dismount the podium, as I remain certain that he was extremely close to the summit of his generation, in ability and looks alike. I suspect it may have been a little difficult for him to start out alongside his own sire, who would ideally have elevated himself into a different commercial tier by now. In the round, however, Honor A.P. has ample pedigree to convert his inherent gifts into an awful lot of “run” for your money.

He should have an adequate foothold with opening books of 110 and 81, and we will be keeping the faith at $15,000 at Lane's End. With that tremendous frame of his, I wouldn't be at all surprised if one or two of his foals mature into major pinhook scores from a median touching $45,000.

Complexity | Sarah Andrew

We gave COMPLEXITY high rank in this group last year and he made a very solid auction debut, finding a home for 27 of 33 weanlings at $58,518. But while his yields are basically in step with the other $12,500 start-up in the intake, he cedes the podium purely because the rival in question-as we'll see in a moment-has taken a fee cut even as his family tree had been elevated.

Everything remains in place for Complexity, however, not least after covering as many as 282 mares across his first two years at Airdrie. He was the most expensive yearling of his crop by a stallion who has since elevated himself to a much less accessible fee; and, for such a fast horse, you might have expected him to spend a rather larger portion of his career in sprints. I'm confident Complexity will have a say in the freshman sires' championship-and, if he does, obviously those who support him now will be well ahead of the curve.

Bronze: WAR OF WILL (War Front-Visions Of Clarity by Sadler's Wells)
$25,000 Claiborne

This series is not about finding stallions who are simply the most credentialed to succeed. That said, I do feel that this guy may have the best prospects of this group of turning himself into an important stallion. For a dirt Classic winner to combine Northern Dancer's parallel breed-shapers Danzig and Sadler's Wells as closely as he does-they respectively account for his sire and dam-feels like a fairly historic opportunity to reconcile the culpably separated gene pools of North America and Europe.

And, in those terms, he looks value as well. Certainly the early signs are that War of Will is getting the commercial traction he needs, with 255 mares across his first two books and a highly promising ring debut, processing 21 of 28 weanlings offered at $102,761.

Standing alongside another young grandson of Danzig, Silver State, War of Will similarly has an opportunity to enrich the legacy of a stallion who founded a global dynasty on this same farm. The maternal line, moreover, is regal: extending to matriarch Best In Show (Traffic Judge) through a line decorated by such brilliant Niarchos performers as his dam's sibling Spinning World (Nureyev) and granddam's half-sister Chimes Of Freedom (Private Account), herself dam of Aldebaran (Mr Prospector) among others. The result is a “stairwell” of quality through War of Will's third and fourth generations that makes it irrelevant which genes filter through, because they are uniformly proven to be potent (i.e. not just by the names that bring them into this pedigree).

That's how you end up with a Preakness winner who could then add a Grade I mile on turf at four. We know that the commercial market often betrays a childish dread of any flavor of chlorophyll in a pedigree, but hopefully everyone can see that the grass elements in this horse are all about miler speed and class.

War of Will | Claiborne

Obviously, War of Will remains a far more affordable alternative to his ageing sire. In the next instalment of this series we'll see whether another elite dirt winner by War Front, Omaha Beach, can retain gold in his own class. But for now we note with pleasure that War of Will and Silver State share a chance to take their farm back to the future, lighting a path from the glorious torch that was Danzig.

Silver: GLOBAL CAMPAIGN (Curlin-Globe Trot by A.P. Indy)
$10,000 WinStar

I've been with this fellow throughout and will gladly double down now that he gets a trim in fee, from $12,500, even as his genes have been exalted by a stellar start to his own stud career by half-brother Bolt d'Oro.

With 177 mares in his first book, Global Campaign will have the necessary ammunition for his bid potentially to give their remarkable dam a second consecutive champion freshman from just three foals delivered before her premature loss.

It'll be fun to see whether her only other son, Sonic Mule (Distorted Humor), can thrive in his own stud career, in Uruguay. Even as things stand, however, Globe Trot was clearly a conduit of some very potent genes.

This is a branch of the Myrtlewood dynasty that has conspicuously concentrated speed. Globe Trot's dam was a triple graded stakes winner (including round one turn) whose half-sister produced triple Grade I sprint winner Zensational (Unbridled's Song)-an unusually quick horse, for his sire, just as two juvenile Grade Is hardly made Bolt d'Oro a standard issue Medaglia d'Oro. Sonic Mule was graded stakes-placed at six furlongs. Sure enough, Global Campaign himself was loaded with a good deal more speed than might be expected in a son of Curlin out of an A.P. Indy mare.

Indeed, he outpaced Yorkton (Speightstown) over seven furlongs on his comeback at four. And while he never ran at two, that was pretty marginal: he romped on debut on January 5. I always felt that his slightly uneven development-which didn't stop him clocking four triple-digit Beyers in 10 starts-meant that people never quite recognized the level he had reached once putting it all together. Conceivably, moreover, his outlying family left him unfinished business over slightly shorter distances (unpressured in the GI Woodward H.).

Global Campaign | Sarah Andrew

Global Campaign made a solid debut at the sales, hitting a median of $52,500 for 16 weanlings sold (25 offered). And while his second book halved to 87, the chance presented by his big first crop could really work in favor of those who persevered. The fee cut gives them every incentive to do so again, not least with Bolt d'Oro ($15,000 in 2021, now $35,000) now surging beyond the reach of many operating at this level.

Gold: COUNTRY HOUSE (Lookin At Lucky-Quake Lake by War Chant)
$7,500 Darby Dan

No point undertaking an exercise like this if you're not prepared to stick your neck out from time to time. Quite clearly the odds are steeply against Country House, favored by no more than 89 mares across his first two books, but he deserves someone to stand up and point out what the herd is missing.

He was scandalously underrated as a racehorse, a victim of all the hoopla about the horse he supplanted as Derby winner. He got no credit for beating all the rest of his crop on the day that counted-including horses like Improbable and Game Winner, who were launched at much higher fees-though his performance actually sat very coherently with the way he had been progressing through his rehearsals.

He was then unfortunate to be denied any chance of authenticating his breakout (becoming even more of a forgotten horse, sadly, after the decision to keep him in training backfired) and, though sensibly priced and inbred to the Sam-Son matriarch No Class (Nodouble), has evidently remained in the margins of breeders' attention.

What a fabulous achievement, then, to hit a $250,000 home run with one of only four weanlings into the ring from his debut crop. Obviously, the colt he sold at Keeneland in November, buried deep in the catalogue as Hip 2370, could turn out to be a flash in the pan. But the fact is that far more expensive peers had to summon two or three dozen weanlings from enormous books to muster a single sale in that kind of range.

Congratulations to those who banked that dividend off a $7,500 cover. It may be too much to hope others will now sit up and take notice, given how deplorably the market has treated Lookin At Lucky over the years. But that horse has never lost his appeal to those prepared to swim against the tide in pursuit of merit. And perhaps it will also prove true of his son that there's no limit to the kind of runner he might produce, if only he is given a chance.

As we've said, this is an agonizing podium because it permits wildly different interpretations of value, bringing together horses like Vekoma, who have suggested immediate viability on a more industrial model, with others who can overcome early neglect and prove long-term value once they get runners.

Country House, while clearly belonging in the latter category, has also made a resounding commercial statement from tiny opportunity. He's an audacious pick, no doubt, but plenty of less deserving prospects will be receiving far more attention-and we must do the little we can to redress that.

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Racehorses Lead the Way at Fasig-Tipton December Sale

The top six sellers at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic December Mixed and Horses of Racing Age Sale Tuesday were all racehorses, led by the 3-year-old gelding Radical Right (First Samurai) (Hip 281), who brought $260,000 from Tom Kagele.

The Richard Shultz homebred is a three-time winner and entered the sale off a second in the City of Laurel S. Nov. 26 for trainer Dale Capuano. He was consigned by Northview Stallion Station.

Trainer Mike Maker was very active, purchasing four racehorses, including the second highest-priced offering Heldish (Great Notion) (Hip 243), who summoned $160,000. His four purchases totaled $437,000 with an average of $109,250.

The highest-priced weanling was a $75,000 filly (Hip 139) from the first crop of Grade I winner Global Campaign, bought by Wellspring Stables LLC. The most expensive broodmare was In My Time (Scat Daddy) (Hip 113), who sold in foal to Practical Joke for $62,000. She was purchased by trainer Wayne Potts, acting as agent for Barak Farm.

In total, 172 horses grossed $3,233,600 with an average of $18,800 and median of $10,000. Fifty-six horses failed to meet their reserves for an RNA rate of 24.5%.

During last year's sale, which was bolstered by the 86-horse dispersal of Joseph Becker, 261 of the 332 horses on offer sold for $3,905,100. The average was $14,962 and the median was $10,000. Seventy-one horses failed to sell for an RNA rate of 21.38%. The 2021 renewal was topped by maiden 2-year-old Safalow's Mission (Mission Impazible), who brought $130,000 from New York-based trainer Linda Rice, acting on behalf of Thelma and Louise Stable.

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Bolt d’Oro an Instant Hit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bolt d'Oro romped in the 2017 FrontRunner | Benoit

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

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

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

Medaglia d'Oro | Darley photo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Bolt d’Oro an Instant Hit appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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