‘High’ Hopes in Hopeful Showdown

No less than five undefeated 2-year-olds–including two graded winners–line up for Saratoga's Labor Day finale in the GI Hopeful S. Hard to separate, at least on paper, are Repole Stable, St. Elias Stable and Gainesway's Wit (Practical Joke) and LRE Racing and JEH Racing's High Oak (Gormley). The former earned TDN Rising Star billing when kicking off his career with a six-length score at Belmont June 5. Equally impressive in his return in the July 17 GIII Sanford S., the Todd Pletcher trainee cruised home an easy eight-length winner in the six-furlong test and gets to show if he can handle the extra yardage this time. Pletcher is also represented by Repole and St. Elias Stable's Power Agenda (Nyquist), who enters her off a nose victory in his unveiling Aug. 14. Irad Ortiz Jr. returns to partner Wit, while Manny Franco gets the call on the latter.

“Wit has the advantage of having a couple of starts,” said Pletcher of the $575,000 KEESEP purchase. “He deserves the chance to step up. I think the way Wit finished up going six furlongs you would think seven would be no problem,” Pletcher said. “Power Agenda was game in his only start and he should be able to handle the distance.”

Pletcher won the Hopeful on three prior occasions with Circular Quay [2006], Shanghai Bobby [2012] and Competitive Edge [2014].

While less flashy in his debut, High Oak did just what he had to do to triumph by a neck in the 5 1/2-furlong test at Belmont June 26. Showing a little more flare for his latest, he came from off the pace to win by a widening 4 1/2-length margin in the GII Saratoga Special Aug. 14. Since that effort, the colt has been showing some lick in the mornings over the Oklahoma track, including the latest a bullet three furlongs in :35.44 Sept. 3. Junior Alvarado, who was aboard for the colts first two starts, returns for this Grade I debut.

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Gormley Takes up Twin Legacies

While it's obviously an extremely poignant day to be reflecting on a breakout success for one of the youngest stallions at Spendthrift, then at least those now mourning the farm's owner know that his own legacy to the breed could scarcely be more secure. For the same cannot quite be said of the horse who started it all for B. Wayne Hughes, Malibu Moon, whose loss earlier this year has now obtained a tragic symmetry.

Between the farm's consecutive bereavements, there's no denying that the equine patriarch cannot yet match the human one in being guaranteed a lasting say in the development of the 21st Century Thoroughbred. How apt, then, if High Oak's performance in the GII Saratoga Special S. last Saturday should prove to be the moment his rookie sire Gormley announced himself a legitimate heir to a stallion whose overall resumé surely merits his own branch of the A.P. Indy line.

Malibu Moon, of course, had long shown an inconvenient propensity to concentrate his elite stock among fillies. Though no two horses did more for his career than Declan's Moon, a champion juvenile from his second crop, and 2013 GI Kentucky Derby winner Orb, they were the only two males among his first 10 Grade I winners.

And Declan's Moon was a gelding, which left a lot of eggs in Orb's basket. We know what happened there. Despite his exemplary breeding (family of Ruffian) and management, Orb's slow start at stud was ruthlessly punished by commercial breeders. By 2020 he found himself reduced to a pitiful book of seven mares, and earlier this year he was sold to Uruguay.

In the meantime Malibu Moon maintained his conveyor belt of fillies: Life At Ten, Carina Mia, Ask The Moon, Malibu Prayer, Devil May Care. By the time he left us in May, towards the end of his 22nd breeding season, he was depending on a group of inexpensive young sons to contest the succession.

Calumet, for instance, were giving a chance to Ransom The Moon and Mr. Z, while there were high hopes in California for Stanford. And then, standing right alongside his venerable father at Spendthrift, there was Gormley.

He had been launched in trademark Spendthrift fashion, with a debut book of 180 in 2018 at $10,000. Though he maintained traffic at 127 and 72 mares through the next two years, this time round he was offered at just $5,000 for that ticklish fourth season–a fee that earned Gormley a place on the value “podium” in our annual winter survey of Kentucky stallion options.

Things began well, on the face of it, a $550,000 colt at OBS March proving the highest by a freshman sire–and a notable pinhook, Eddie Woods having taken him aboard as a $160,000 yearling the previous September. Similar touches were landed at Timonium, where a couple of Gormley's other sons realized $450,000 and $425,000, having respectively reached $49,000 (RNA) and $140,000 in their previous visits to the ring.

Clearly, however, those were only the headline acts. As usual when sheer volume gives the market so much choice, plenty of vendors found things tougher. On the other hand, there's no denying the athletic appeal of that first crop. If $37,544 had been just a workable average at the yearling sales, then 59 sold of 73 represented brisker trade than for many with a higher notional yield. (I always feel stallions are flattered by the exclusion of RNAs from their averages, as these will typically include their weakest stock.) Interestingly as many as 52 Gormleys went to the juvenile sales, a tally exceeded in the intake only by Klimt (68) and Practical Joke (56). The market consensus, plainly, was that they were built for the job.

Moreover the $550,000 colt, aptly named Headline Report by purchasers Breeze Easy, promptly gave Gormley his first winner, as his first starter, over 4.5 furlongs at Keeneland in April. And he then held out best behind the dazzling Wit (Practical Joke)–himself performing a very similar service to his own sire, as the most expensive yearling in an even bigger debut book–in the GII Sanford S. at Saratoga. With High Oak, Gormley has now found another colt with the potential to square up to Practical Joke's flagship.

True, we must also give an honorable mention to Saturday's runner-up Gunite, a son of class leader Gun Runner, whose graded stakes on either coast the previous weekend represented remarkable laurels for a late-maturing, two-turn horse.

Not that Gormley himself should be expected to produce merely precocious types. Yes, he won his first two juvenile starts, including the GI Frontrunner S. And yes, he did not last long after a midfield Derby finish. Yet a pedigree of such depth and quality would not only have entitled him to keep progressing, but will hopefully prove a genetic repository for his foals to do the same.

It also has a conspicuous flavor of grass, which might yet be drawn out in Gormley's stock despite Malibu Moon having confined all 17 of his Grade I winners to dirt. Don't forget that the first two dams of Malibu Moon himself were both Group 1 winners in France, while his mother's half-brother Septieme Ciel was perhaps the most accomplished turf performer by Seattle Slew. And these chlorophyll elements are handsomely complemented by Gormley's own family.

Indeed, given the vexing situation in Chicago, it is bittersweet to recall that his fourth dam is none other than Estrapade, now destined to remain the only female to win the GI Arlington Million. She was six when doing so and, as a daughter of that very hardy influence Vaguely Noble (Ire), she really pegs down Gormley's bottom line. Her half-brother Criminal Type (Alydar) put together his Horse of the Year campaign at five, while the mating that produced Gormley's third dam Troika was with an even sturdier animal in the globetrotter (and fellow 12f winner) Strawberry Road (Aus), who kept going until he was eight.

Estrapade had a troubled breeding history and Troika was one of only two foals to make the racetrack, where she won four of eight on turf. Unfortunately her own breeding career would prove still more curtailed, confined to a single starter, Miss Mambo (Kingmambo), who was Classic-placed over a mile in France before being imported to join the Castleton Lyons broodmare band. Once again she would only really be redeemed by a single foal, a series of duds having followed a very promising first one.

That was Race To Urga (Bernstein), who was on a roll of four–on turf, of course, given her background–and had just won her first stakes when her career was cut short by injury. Her first date was with Malibu Moon: Castleton Lyons had a leg in the horse, and indeed hosted him between his Maryland and Spendthrift stints. And the result was Gormley.

The literal bottom line, then, is just layer after layer of grass: all his first four dams, and those seeded by Vaguely Noble, Strawberry Road, Kingmambo and Bernstein (sire of two GI Breeders' Cup Mile winners). Throw in that cluster of toughness and stamina around Estrapade and Strawberry Road, and there's no way anyone should be treating Gormley as just a mass-output sire of commercial juveniles.

The classy genetic brands packed behind him were always evident in his physique, which earned him a slot in Book I at Keeneland. Admittedly he failed to reach his reserve at $150,000, evidently a victim of one of those exasperating scopes that often give buyers needless jitters. But he was good enough for David Ingordo, which would be good enough for most of us, and was duly secured privately by Jerry and Ann Moss for whom he supplemented his big juvenile score in the GI Santa Anita Derby.

It's fitting that Gormley's first star should be supervised by Bill Mott, who also trained Estrapade's daughter Troika.

Bred by Catherine Parke of Valkyre Stud, High Oak is out of the 17-year-old Elusive Quality mare Champagne Sue, a moderate dirt sprinter recruited for $80,000 at the Keeneland November Sale of 2010. She hasn't produced anything of this caliber, which must augur well for Gormley, though there plenty of potential has always lured in a family developed by the late equine insurance agent, William Carl: two half-sisters won graded stakes and another produced GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf winner Shared Account (Pleasantly Perfect), herself dam of another Breeders' Cup winner in Sharing (Speightstown). Deeper in, this is also the family of New Year's Day (Street Cry {Ire}) and Mohaymen (Tapit).

With a grandson of Mr. Prospector as damsire, High Oak replicates that ubiquitous presence behind Gormley (as noted, granddam Miss Mambo is by Mr. P.'s son Kingmambo; while Mr. P. also gave us the dam of Malibu Moon). But while High Oak's first and second dams are by extremely familiar distaff influences (Elusive Quality and Dixieland Band), the third is by a pretty arcane one in Nalees Man, a largely forgotten Louisiana sire by Gallant Man out of a sister to Shuvee. (The fourth dam, in contrast, introduces a name for the ages in Turn-to!)

All in all, both on paper and visually, High Oak must have every chance every chance of stretching out the dash he has shown in his first two starts. Certainly he was well found at $70,000 last September by Lee Einsidler (who races him with Mike Francesa), having been picked up from Valkyre in the same ring the previous November by Donarra Farm as a $37,000 weanling.

Mott certainly has a barn full of momentum for the second half of the season. The race previous to the Saratoga Special was won by Speaker's Corner (Street Sense), the sophomore “sleeper” everyone has been anticipating so long; while I'm told that White Frost (Candy Ride {Arg}), the only American filly to have beaten Con Lima (Commissioner) on grass, is making a good recovery from the injury that has sidelined her since. Now Mott also has the chance to polish the legacy of Malibu Moon.

With the genetic goods for distance, maturity and indeed different surfaces, Gormley has made an auspicious start with seven scorers from 21 starters to date, already including a Grade II scorer and runner-up. Of course, these remain the very earliest of days. And it must be said that for now he's only just keeping step, by earnings, with Stanford. The Tommy Town sire, from the family of Pulpit and Johannesburg, has had no fewer than nine winners from just 14 starters to date. Mr. Z is up and running, too, with four from 12.

But this week of all weeks, we have to hope that Gormley can keep their sire's flame alive at Spendthrift. As part of its “Safe Bet” program, after all, he exemplifies the enterprise and dynamism of the extraordinary man who relaunched the farm. This had guaranteed at least one graded stakes winner for Gormley in 2021, failing which no covering fee would be charged to those backing him for his fourth crop. A classic Hughes initiative–and it's a comfort that he had, at least, been able to welcome Gormley keeping his part of the bargain so soon.

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Bloodlines: Freshman Sire Race Beginning To Pick Up The Pace

The freshmen sires of 2021 are pipping like chicks ready to break out of their shells. They've incubated long enough, and breeders, owners, and stallion managers are ready to see the results, as well as the racing public. After a year for gestation and a further two and half years of growth and preparation, the first-crop racers by these new sires are coming to the races, and some are getting their pictures taken.

Nine freshmen sires have had a black-type winner so far. Ashford's formerly Irish-based Caravaggio (by Scat Daddy) leads the group with three stakes winners, and Horse of the Year Gun Runner (Candy Ride) leads by earnings with a pair of stakes winners from his base at Three Chimneys. Unified (Candy Ride) stands at Lane's End and is in the mix with a pair of stakes winners also.

Practical Joke (Into Mischief; Ashford), Mohaymen (Tapit; Shadwell), Shaman Ghost (Ghostzapper; Adena Springs North), Bal a Bali (Put it Back; Calumet), and Eagle (Candy Ride; Valor Farm) each have one black-type winner, and Gormley (Malibu Moon; Spendthrift) is the latest to join the group of stakes sires after his High Oak won the Grade 2 Saratoga Special by 4 1/4 lengths over Gunite (Gun Runner) on Aug. 14.

Bred in Kentucky by Catherine Parke, High Oak is the fifth named foal and first stakes winner for his dam, the Elusive Quality mare Champagne Sue. Parke said, “When you get a super good-looking colt, and it goes to a trainer like Bill Mott, the sky's the limit,” and High Oak came along just when his dam needed the boost from a high-class stakes winner.

“This is such a good-looking, strong mare. She's a full 16.1 with a big, strong hindquarter, and she reproduces those looks. She's had several nice-looking foals,” Parke said, “including her first,” a Mineshaft colt who sold for six figures as a yearling and a 2-year-old, then won four races in Japan and earned $428,185.

Aside from that, Champagne Sue might be thought a hard-luck mare. “She had a barren year, then lost a foal,” Parke recalled. “We had a couple of years when I'd have given up on her, but for that pedigree.”

Champagne Sue is a half-sister to G3 Affirmed winner Golden Itiz (Tiznow) and G2 Prioress winner Sapphire n' Silk (Pleasant Tap).

The latter is the dam of two stakes winners, and all told, the second dam, Golden Tiy (Dixieland Band), has five daughters who have produced stakes winners. Most importantly, one of the winning half-sisters is Silk n' Sapphire (Smart Strike), whom Parke bought in 2008. The mare produced Grade 1 winner Shared Account (Breeders' Cup Filly Turf) and Grade 3 winner Colonial Flag (Pleasant Tap).

Parke bought Champagne Sue in 2010 and sold High Oak as a foal in 2019 for $37,000, the fifth-highest price for a weanling by Gormley. The colt resold as a yearling at Keeneland September for $70,000, the ninth-highest of 75 Gormley yearlings. Champagne Sue is back in foal to first-season sire Instagrand (Into Mischief).

Winner of the G1 FrontRunner in 2016 and the G1 Santa Anita Derby in 2017, Gormley covered his first book of mares in 2018 at Spendthrift and was immensely popular with breeders, many of whom scooped up seasons that gave them a lifetime breeding right in the horse. To secure a breeding right, mare owners had to sign up to breed a mare to the horse at a stud fee of $12,500 for the first two seasons. Of those, 57 completed the program and now own a lifetime right in an upwardly mobile freshman sire. Typical of the A.P. Indy sire line, Gormley is a sizable, lengthy horse who performed best at a mile and up, and a large part of his foals seem to be cast in this type with good size and scope.

High Oak won the Special going 6 1/2 furlongs and looked stronger at the end than at the midpoint of the Saratoga Special, which suggests he could improve when racing at longer distances.

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In addition to Gunite's second in the Saratoga Special, champion Gun Runner is one of three freshmen sons of leading sire Candy Ride with a stakes winner. Both Unified and Gun Runner have a pair of stakes winners. Eagle is the third son of Candy Ride, and he stands in Texas at Valor Farm. His daughter Eagle Express won the Pan Zareta division of the Texas Stallion Stakes at Lone Star. Eagle has eight foals in his first crop, whereas Gun Runner has 103 and Unified has 88.

Unified's daughter Behave Virginia won the Debutante Stakes at Churchill Downs on June 26, with Gun Runner's daughter Wicked Halo third. Unified added his second stakes winner on Aug. 15 when Roger McQueen won the Ellis Park Juvenile, and Gun Runner's son Costa Terra was third.

Last weekend, Gun Runner had his first two stakes winners when both Wicked Halo and Pappacap won. At Saratoga on Aug. 8, Wicked Halo won the G2 Adirondack Stakes by 3 ½ lengths, and the previous day, Pappacap won the G2 Best Pal at Del Mar by 4 3/4 lengths. Thanks to this positive stakes activity, Gun Runner sits atop the freshman sire standings with $802.863.

While Candy Ride is riding high with three well-regarded freshmen, both Tapit (Mohaymen and Divining Rod) and Malibu Moon (Gormley and Stanford) have two sons each in the top 15 at this point.

The lengthening distances and increasing competition will continue to illuminate the merits of the sires and their offspring, while providing fascinating racing in the coming months.

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All Stakes Cross Country Pick 5 Pays $93,103

Saturday's all-graded stakes Cross Country Pick 5, featuring top-caliber action from Saratoga and Arlington Park, paid $93,103 for selecting all five winners for the 50-cent wager. The total pool was $328,609.

Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., started the action when High Oak drew away for an impressive 4 1/4-length win in the $200,000 Grade 2 Saratoga Special presented by Miller Lite in Race 9. Trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, High Oak won the 6 1/2-furlong main track sprint for juveniles in a final time of 1:16.53 under jockey Junior Alvarado. Off at 10-1, he returned $22.40 on a $2 win wager.

The remainder of the sequence featured all Grade 1 contests, commencing with the $400,000 Beverly D. for fillies and mares 3-years-old and up competing at 1 3/16 miles on the Arlington turf in Race 7. Even-money favorite Santa Barbara [$4], the winner of the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational last month at Belmont Park, posted a three-length win under rider Ryan Moore, who traveled from Europe for the mount. Conditioned by internationally acclaimed trainer Aidan O'Brien, Santa Barbara completed the course in 1:54.55.

In Saratoga's 10th race, Got Stormy bested males to win the $500,000 Grade 1 Fourstardave for 3-year-olds and up for the second time in her career. Trained by Hall of Famer Mark Casse, Got Stormy, the 2019 Fourstardave winner, bested Set Piece by 1 1/2 lengths under Tyler Gaffalione, hitting the wire in 1:33.09 for the one-mile inner turf contest. Got Stormy [$27] won at 12-1. Her sire, Get Stormy, won the 2010 edition of the Fourstardave.

The premier race day at Arlington – located in Arlington Heights, Illinois – closed the wager with the final two races, starting with Point Me By's 2 3/4-length win in the $300,000 Bruce D. for 3-year-olds going one mile on the turf in Race 8. The Bruce D., formerly known as the Secretariat, saw the Eddie Kenneally-trained Point Me By win as the favorite, returning $5.40. Luis Saez, who traveled from Saratoga for the card, piloted Point Me By to victory, notching a final time of 1:37.70.

Arlington's Race 9 concluded the sequence when Two Emmys edged heavy favorite Domestic Spending by a neck in a thrilling finish to the $600,000 Mr. D. for 3-year-olds and up competing at 1 1/4 miles on the turf. It was potentially the last running for the contest formerly known as the Arlington Million and renamed for long-time Arlington owner Richard Duchossois, honoring the 99-year-old World War II veteran. Two Emmys, trained by Hugh Robertson and ridden by James Graham, went gate-to-wire and put his nose on the wire at 2:03.34 to get the win.

The minimum bet for the multi-track, multi-race wager is 50 cents. Wagering on the Cross Country Pick 5 is also available on track, on ADW platforms, and at simulcast facilities across the country. Every week will feature a mandatory payout of the net pool.

The Cross Country Pick 5 will continue each Saturday throughout the year. For more information, visit NYRABets.com.

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