Thanks to the contentious prohibition of his ban by a gaming corporation, GI Arkansas Derby winner Muth is ineligible to give Good Magic a second GI Kentucky Derby from two attempts. (Though the Hill 'n' Dale sire might yet manage that with the same mare who gave him the first one, with Mage's brother Dornoch heading to the GI Blue Grass S. this weekend.) The stunning return to form of Fierceness in Saturday's other big rehearsal meanwhile renewed that colt's priceless service to City of Light.

Over the water, a Classic coronation is widely anticipated for the Justify colt who achieved equivalent superiority over his crop in Europe last year, City Of Troy. Oscar Performance, for his part, was so unabashed by last week's celebration of his work that his three runners last Saturday comprised two new stakes winners plus the neck runner-up in a graded stakes. Army Mule and Girvin have maintained terrific ratios from limited opportunity; the latter's neighbor Collected is quietly moving up the rail; and of course it was Bolt d'Oro who headed the whole class, as freshmen, in 2022.

Some of these impressive young sires will have to ride out a familiar bump in the road, their books having dwindled as commercial breeders showed their habitual nervousness about reputations actually being tested on the racetrack. The traffic of several duly rallied last year: Girvin, for instance, from 86 to 181; Oscar Performance from 63 to 160; Army Mule from 115 to 199; Good Magic from 126 to 179; Justify from 156 to 222. But that extra quantity, often matched by extra quality, obviously won't tell on the racetrack for a couple of years yet.

Expectations about City of Light had been so high (his fee, most unusually, was hiked from $40,000 to $60,000 after a stellar debut at the yearling sales) that he actually lost support last year, down to 85 from 132, but his quiet start was then redressed by the emergence from his second crop of Fierceness. Remember that City of Light was himself a fairly late developer, not really breaking out until the GI Malibu S. at the end of his sophomore campaign, and none of his stock has yet reached the maturity that disclosed the peak of his prowess. Nonetheless he has been prudently returned to $35,000 for the current season, an acknowledgement that he still only has one other winner at graded stakes level (Mimi Kakushi, UAE Oaks).

It says much about the way these Thoroughbreds like to tease us that the owner of Fierceness, such a committed spender at the yearling sales, should have come up with consecutive champion juveniles that were respectively a $110,000 Book 4 yearling (co-owned with St. Elias Stables) and a homebred.

As has been well chronicled, Fierceness is out of a daughter of Nonna Mia (Empire Maker), named for Mike Repole's grandmother (“nonna”) and one of the foundations of his program when acquired as a $200,000 Saratoga yearling in 2008. Herself precocious and Grade I-placed, Nonna Mia gave Repole a homebred scorer at that level in Outwork (by the horse that really put him on the map, Uncle Mo), while her own pedigree had meanwhile been gilded by the emergence of three-parts brother Cairo Prince (Pioneerof The Nile).

In a light career, Nonna Mia's daughter by Stay Thirsty, Nonna Bella, won her first two starts and only missed black type by a neck. Nonna Bella's first two named foals, both by Uncle Mo, did not make the track, but the explosive debut of Fierceness at Saratoga last summer certainly proved well timed for the family: a couple of weeks later Nonna Bella's half-brother by Into Mischief topped the September Sale at $3 million, Repole himself retaining a stake alongside West Point Thoroughbreds, Woodford Thoroughbreds and Chuck Sonson.

All in all, then, this has become a pretty illustrious family and Fierceness, when he goes to stud, can duly be promoted as born for the job-especially if his own sire, having capitalized on its precocity and class, can now keep consolidating.

Background Genes Needed Against Throwback Horse

Muth's performance the same afternoon itself underlined the freakish talent of Fierceness, as he had been the least embarrassed of his panting pursuers at the Breeders' Cup last fall.

Muth | Coady

In contrast with all the action under Nonna Mia, Muth has a compressed page: he's the first foal of a mare who was herself one of just two named foals out of her own mother. Obviously shoppers at OBS last March had all the evidence of functionality they could require, however, and Muth duly turned himself into a spectacular pinhook: sold to Bishop Bloodstock for $190,000 at Keeneland the previous September, he left Top Line Sales for $2 million. The gentleman who signed the docket is a genius at any level of the market, and Muth has already paid off three-quarters of that investment with a stud career now secure.

Muth was bred by Don Alberto Corporation out of Hoppa (Uncle Mo), who had shown bright ability in a curtailed career, romping in a Churchill sprint maiden on her second start but derailing next time. Hoppa had herself been acquired in utero when Don Alberto gave $170,000 for her dam Handoverthecat (Tale Of The Cat), winner of two of five starts, at the 2015 Keeneland November Sale. Unfortunately they appear to have lost her after delivering only one more foal, a son of Tiznow, though at least he covered her purchase cost-to the cent-when sold as a yearling. And Hoppa has meanwhile become so valuable that an attempt to cash her out at Fasig-Tipton last November, carrying a sibling to Muth, stalled at $1.9 million.

Though his foreshortened page obviously doesn't increase their actual influence, Muth must advertise such interesting genes as he can and those are all clustered around his fourth dam, Beautiful Bedouin (His Majesty). She was an unraced half-sister to Silver Hawk, third in the Derby at Epsom and one of the most inspired stallion discoveries of the late Brereton C. Jones.

One of her daughters similarly had a transatlantic impact: Wandering Star (Red Ransom) was a stakes winner in Europe before being acquired by Joseph Allen and winning the GII E.P. Taylor S., while two of her sons became juvenile Group winners in Allen's silks: War Command (War Front) won two of Britain's signature juvenile prizes for Ballydoyle (G1 Dewhurst/G2 Coventry); and Naval Officer (Tale Of The Cat), the G3 Prix de Conde.

Beautiful Bedouin had two other foals by Red Ransom: one produced a Classic winner in New Zealand, Rollout The Carpet (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}); the other is the third dam of Muth. She, too, was unraced, meaning that the first four dams of Muth have a grand total of eight starts between them.

That history of fragility finds a striking contrast in the colt whose pursuit of Muth on Saturday carried him so far clear of the third. The way Just Steel (Justify) is thriving on his 11 starts is not only a trademark of his venerable trainer but also offers his young sire scope for a historic double, hours after City Of Troy is scheduled to line up for the G1 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket.

A $500,000 vote of faith in D. Wayne Lukas by BC Stables in Book I of the 2022 September Sale, Just Steel's teak constitution completes one of the most wholesome and cosmopolitan packages on the Triple Crown trail. He's out of an Australian Classic winner by the top-class distaff influence Fastnet Rock (Aus), and has siblings that have cut the mustard at Group level in both hemispheres; while his third dam was an Affirmed half-sister to matriarch Fall Aspen (Pretense). That puts Just Steel on the fringe of one of the modern breed's great dynasties and, with a throwback tenacity apt to his name, he will have more relish than many for the demands of the Derby.

Darling's Double Derby Impact

It feels like only a matter of time before the Japanese give American breeders the ultimate wake-up call in the GI Kentucky Derby itself. Whether or not Forever Young (Jpn) (Real Steel {Jpn}) proves to be the horse to deliver that shock to the system, his rehearsal in the G2 UAE Derby for now actually locates the race's genetic center of gravity in familiar territory.

For, quite remarkably, we now find that two of its strongest candidates share the same granddam. Forever Young's mother Forever Darling (Congrats) is a half-sister to GI Alcibiades S. winner Heavenly Love (Malibu Moon), whose son Sierra Leone (Gun Runner) is favorite for the GI Blue Grass S.

Forever Young | Dubai Racing Club

Their dam is Darling My Darling (Deputy Minister), purchased as a yearling at Keeneland in 1998 by John C. Oxley for $300,000. Her dam, GI Ballerina H. winner Roamin Rachel (Mining), was sold in the same ring that November to Nubuo Tsunoda for $750,000, a price vindicated the following summer when Darling My Darling (her second foal) won on debut at Saratoga and then finished second in consecutive Grade Is. Roamin Rachel was sold carrying a Storm Cat filly, who produced three Group winners in Japan, while her next cover by Sunday Silence produced Japanese Horse of the Year Zenno Rob Roy (Jpn).

This appeared to do curiously little for Darling My Darling's daughter by Congrats, who was pinhooked at $8,000 to become a $65,000 R.N.A. at OBS the following April. Surfacing in the silks of a partnership including trainer Richard Baltas, Forever Darling won a Santa Anita maiden on her second start and then the GII Santa Ynez S. on her sophomore bow. With her family thriving in Japan, Katsumi Yoshida moved to secure her in a private deal and, while she did not really continue her progress, she has since handsomely vindicated him in her second career.

Forever Darling was certainly given purposeful covers, starting with Frankel and Deep Impact (Jpn), and her son from the second crop of Real Steel made a sum equivalent to $700,000 as a yearling. (Yes, second crop! Forever Young is yet another Derby candidate sired by a stallion from the 2019 intake.)

This son of Deep Impact is a more resonant proposition overseas than some Japanese stallions, both as a winner of the G1 Dubai Turf in 2016 and as brother to ground-breaking Breeders' Cup winner Loves Only You. His third dam, moreover, is none other than the great Miesque (Nureyev)-one of the jewels of the program that also, as we'll see in a moment, played a key role in the headline act at Meydan.

Deep Impact | Junji Fukuda

A River Swollen by Niarchos Tributary

What Laurel River did in the desert on Saturday is hard to comprehend, but if any Thoroughbred is capable of doing that, it might be one bred like him.

If anything, he has now surpassed even two Kentucky Derby winners as the ultimate proof of how a steep upgrading of Into Mischief's mares has enabled him to stretch his trademark speed to Classic distances. Having been around as long as he has, Laurel River was admittedly conceived at no more than $75,000, but his dam certainly offered the Spendthrift phenomenon plenty of complementary stamina. In fact, Laurel River's first three dams are GI Belmont S. winners to a man: Empire Maker, Touch Gold and A.P. Indy.

True, his mother couldn't break her maiden in eight starts; nor could her own dam in six. But it was the latter whose recruitment by Juddmonte (for $550,000 at the 2005 Keeneland September Sale) gave one of the world's great breeding programs an invigorating injection of the best genes cultivated by another. Soothing Touch (Touch Gold)-who has additionally given Juddmonte multiple Grade I winner Emollient (by Empire Make, so a sister to Laurel River's dam) and GI Florida Derby runner-up Hofburg (Tapit)-was a granddaughter of Coup De Genie (Mr Prospector), one of several foals to qualify her dam, Coup De Folie (Halo), as a cornerstone of the modern breed. Having just noted that Forever Young's sire traces to Miesque, we really must salute again the Niarchos family's priceless legacy.

Coup De Folie was inbred 3 x 3 to Almahmoud, through her celebrated daughters Natalma and Cosmah. That's a blend for which I will always forage, even with its inevitable attenuation by the generations. In fact, that's one of the reasons I deplore the way breeders nowadays hop from one unproven new stallion to the next, with books as many as seven times greater than was standard in the old days. It means that too many modern pedigrees squash down the generations: how many foals born this spring, for instance, will be by very young sires out of mares by stallions that never achieved lasting viability?

Into Mischief's own pedigree shows what you risk that way. His granddam was sired by Stop The Music when 19 years old. I'm not sure how many commercial breeders today would still send a mare to a stallion with his kind of profile, at that kind of age. And that just makes it harder and harder for modern pedigrees to retain a meaningful trace of precious brands like Stop The Music's sire Hail To Reason (who of course also gave Halo to Cosmah).

Regardless, Into Mischief is surely on his way to beating his own earnings record as well as a sixth consecutive general sires' championship. He has never needed one of these modern megaprizes to dominate his rivals, but Laurel River has got him up to $12.6 million by the start of April, now just a few cents behind Senor Buscador's veteran sire Mineshaft. With his unrelenting quantity matched by the ongoing elevation of his mares, Into Mischief appears a lock to exceed his 2022 haul of $28.56 million.

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Comic City (8, City Zip–Comic Marvel, by Distorted Humor) will be bred to Olympiad.

Comic City is a City Zip mare from a top Juddmonte family. Olympiad is the total package. He is a beautiful horse by a top sire, he was a Saratoga 2-year-old old winner himself over some fantastic horses, then showed the ability to consistently dominant at the top levels at four.

Dance Awhile  (6, Curlin–Dance Quietly, by A.P. Indy) will be bred to Not this Time.

This is a young Curlin mare from a terrific family. Not This Time is off to an amazing start at stud, the team at Taylor Made has done a great job getting him mares, and his performance is incredible. He is an ideal sire for a young mare that we have high hopes for.

Delightof the Nile (5, Pioneerof the Nile–Delightfully, by Indian Charlie) will be bred to Liam's Map.

This is a filly we bred and recently bought back. She is a beautiful filly out of a favorite mare of ours. Sometimes matings don't have to be too hard. She is a half-sister to the very talented Dr Ardito that we bred, a New York stakes winner and graded-placed son of Liam's Map. We have had great success with Liam's Map, breeding Grade I winner Juju's Map, and we love him to get a mare started.

Desert Tempest (4, American Pharoah–Stormy B, by Cherokee Run) will be bred to Twirling Candy.

Another new mare to the fold, this is a young American Pharoah who displayed some ability on the track. We have been very fortunate with Twirling Candy, breeding a pair of Grade I winners by him. She is from a family that has shown the ability to consistently get stakes horses, and Twirling Candy is the best sire in Kentucky to get your mare going.

Giant Win (13, Giant's Causeway–Win's Fair Lady, by Dehere) will be bred to Good Magic.

Giant Win is the dam of Grade I winner Pinehurst, by one of our favorite broodmare sires, Giant's Causeway. Good Magic is a sire we have been a supporter of since the beginning. We love the speed and determination that his foals exhibit. They always show up and love their job. This is a great type-to-type mating that hopefully produces another Grade I-winning 2-year-old.

Laughing Matters (9, Medaglia d'Oro–Hearty Laugh, by Distorted Humor) will be bred to Mage.

Another homebred mare, she is the dam of the super impressive Saratoga MSW winner last year Sugar Hi, and then sold a More Than Ready colt for $310,000 last September. Mage's performance in the spring of his 3-year-old year was super impressive, he was willing to fight every fight and not back down. When I went to see him, I was blown away. We really love his sire and Mage is a great version of his father.

More Respect (14, More Than Ready–Search and Seizure, by War Chant) will be bred to Constitution.

She is the dam of multiple graded-placed High Opinion from one of our favorite families. We have been involved with Constitution since he went to stud and have so much respect for what he has accomplished. He has demonstrated what great stallions do–improve their mares and sire winners at various distances and surfaces.

Nagambie (11, Flatter–Charming N Lovable, by Horse Chestnut {SAf}) will be bred to Uncle Mo.

The dam of Juju's Map visits Uncle Mo this year. He keeps producing at the top level and we are excited for a colt or filly from her by Uncle Mo. She sold a really impressive Not This Time last year and has a Gun Runner we are really excited about for 2024.

Tulira's Star (12, Congrats–Tulira, by General Assembly) will be bred to Forte.

Tulira's Star is a graded-stakes placed filly in Saratoga, and has already produced the good Mullikin, a son of Violence. We are excited about breeding to Forte, his 2- and 3-year-old form was very impressive and he is a great individual.

Zero to Sixty (7, American Pharoah–Cat Moves, by Tale of the Cat) will be bred to McKinzie.

Zero to Sixty is a young mare for us, she was a super impressive Saratoga first-time out winner herself, going short on the turf, and she is out of the sprint Grade I-winning Cat Moves.  We are breeding her to McKinzie, who is a sire we were in love with from the beginning. Similar to the mare, he is out of a top-class speed mare himself, as his dam won the Alicibiades. Everything we are hearing from Ocala gives us a lot of confidence in the horse.

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The foal, a filly, was born at Jay Goodwin's Kentucky-based Goodwin Farm out of a mare not named in the release. The dam of the new filly is reported to be “out of a stakes-producing Gone West mare whose dam is a full-sister to [Canadian] Horse of the Year Dance Smartly and half-sister to the breed-shaping stallion Smart Strike.”

The bay filly is “big and strong with a ton of class,” said Goodwin.

Winner of the GI Haskell S. and two other graded events, Mandaloun was also promoted to first from a runner-up finish in the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby. He will stand in 2024 for a fee of $20,000 LFSN.

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Elite Power, who was retired after his second consecutive Breeders' Cup win on Saturday, will stand for a fee of $50,000, live foal, and joins 2021 GI Kentucky Derby winner Mandaloun (Into Mischief), who will stand his second year at Juddmonte in 2024 for a fee of $20,000, live foal.

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Champions California Chrome, Arrogate (Unbridled's Song) and Songbird (Medaglia d'Oro), all in their first year of eligibility, joined jockey Corey Nakatani in the contemporary class of 2023. Fernando Toro was selected by the Historic Review Committee. Three people–the late John Hanes II, the late Leonard Jerome and Stella F. Thayer–were inducted as Pillars of the Turf in the ceremony at the Fasig-Tipton Sales Pavilion.

Award-winning journalist Edward Bowen, a museum trustee who has chaired a number of Hall of Fame committees, was presented with the inaugural Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Award for his contributions to the museum.

With his big cowboy hat in hand, Coburn accepted for California Chrome, winner of the GI Kentucky Derby, GI Preakness S. and G1 Dubai World Cup and a two-time Horse of the Year. California Chrome won 16 of 27 starts, a total of seven Grade I races and earned $14,752,650.

Coburn thanked the horse for taking him and his wife in a remarkable journey over five seasons. He praised the work of trainer Art Sherman and his son and assistant Alan, and the staff, who he named, for the way they developed and handled the horse.

California Chrome's story–from his modest breeding, to difficulty the mare Love the Chase had with his foaling, to his personality and his connections–blended nicely with his success on the track and produced a legion of fans who called themselves “Chromies.”

“The mare had problems giving birth to Chrome, so as a baby, he was in the stall with the mare,” Coburn said. “He wasn't turned out with the rest of them. The only time he got to play with anybody was when they came to check on him. That's how come he became so loveable to people. He just liked people. I don't know how to express the love that people gave this horse. The Chromies are here. They've come in from all over the place, you know. Thank you.”

As he moved to the end of his remarks, Coburn, hesitated for a moment to control his emotions.

“Last but not least, I would like to thank that little nervous filly, Love the Chase,” he said. “Without her we wouldn't have Chrome and for Chrome to be inducted into the Hall of Fame it's indescribable. Just like winning the Kentucky Derby. This is a good way to say that story has come to an end. I told Laffit Pincay, III after he won the Santa Anita Derby, 'Mark my words. This horse is going to go down in history.' And today's the day. Period.”

Plenty of emotion from Steve Coburn, as he accepts the plaque for 2023 @nmrhof inductee: California Chrome pic.twitter.com/09u9qydCdC

— TDN (@theTDN) August 4, 2023

Nakatani, 52, was the final inductee on the program. He came to the sport as a teenager with no background with horses, but fashioned an outstanding 31-year career. He won 3,909 races; 10 of his 341 graded stakes wins came in the Breeders' Cup. His $234,554,534 in purse earnings ranks 14th.

To describe his attitude and determination, Nakatani told the story of what he did in a game of youth football. He said he weighed about 58 pounds at the time and was told by his coach to run around a defensive player to score a touchdown. Instead, he decided to try to run over the other player and was stopped on the two-yard line.

“Long story short, that was the first time that I was told not to do something and was like 'I better just go it.' That tells my career in a nutshell,” he said as the audience roared.

Nakatani was built to be a jockey, and, despite his lack of experience, he developed the skill needed to succeed against the odds on the tough Southern California circuit.

“The guys I was riding against were Gary Stevens, Chris McCarron, Laffit Pincay,  all these Hall of Fame riders,” he said. “I was very fortunate to have an opportunity to ride with them and take a lot of learning from all of it. Sandy Hawley. Alex Solis. All the guys that I had the chance to ride with, even the King of Saratoga, Angel (Cordero, Jr.). These guys have a special place in my heart.”

Toro, 82, did not make the cross-continent trip from his home in California and will be honored at Del Mar. The native of Chile, was a top rider in his home country before moving to California in 1966. He retired in 1990 with North America totals of 3,555 victories and purse earnings of $56,299,765. He won 80 graded stakes. At the time of his retirement, he was sixth in stakes wins at Del Mar, eighth at Hollywood Park and tied for eighth at Santa Anita.

During the ceremony, a video was shown of how California turf writers Jay Hovdey and Jay Privman told Toro that he had been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Arrogate, trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, showed that he had the makings of a superstar in the 2016 GI Travers just down the street from the sales pavilion at Saratoga Race Course. In his first graded stakes attempt, he won by 13 1/2 lengths and broke a 37-year-old track record for 1 1/4 miles. He went on to win the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, edging California Chrome, the 2017 GI Pegasus World Cup and the 2017 Dubai World Cup in a seven-race win streak. The gray colt owned by Juddmonte Farm retired with a record $17,422,600 in purse earnings.

Dr. John Chandler accepted on behalf of Juddmonte Farms, the racing powerhouse launched by the late Saudi Prince Khalid bin Abdullah.

“It's very sad that Prince Khalid himself unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago,” Chandler said. “He would have liked to have been here and appreciate the recognition.”

Arrogate was a departure from the norm for Prince Khalid's international stable.

“For many years at Juddmonte, we had a lot of turf horses, because our racing started in England,” Chandler said. “We were going through a bad spell after our trainer Bobby Frankel passed away. The Prince had been looking through all the results, week after week, and he said, 'This man in California, Bob Baffert, is doing very well isn't he, training a lot of winners. Why don't we send him some horses?'”

Since Baffert mainly trained dirt horses, Chandler said the turf horses bred by Juddmonte would not be a good fit. He said the Prince said, 'So, we'll buy some dirt horses.' The trainer and Garrett (O'Rourke, Juddmonte's U.S. manager), went to the sales and they bought some horses, some nice, expensive dirt horses. One of them turned out to be Arrogate. That brought the Prince more pleasure than anything else that I'd seen in a long time. We're very grateful to the Hall of Fame committee to take our horse. All I can say is thank you.”

Songbird, owned by the late Rick Porter's Fox Hill Farm, started her career with 11 consecutive victories and retired in 2017 with a record of 13 wins and two seconds from 15 starts. Trained by Hall of Famer Jerry Hollendorfer, she secured Grade I victories at two, three and four and earned $4,692,000.

“In her 15 races, it took being a champion to beat Songbird,” said Fox Hill manager Victoria Keith. “She lost, finishing second twice, to Beholder and champion Forever Unbridled.”

Keith described Songbird as a talented but laid-back filly.

“You often hear that great racehorses have a fiery side and this contributes to them being a great race horse,” she said. “You particularly hear this about speed horses. Songbird was a speed horse but she had no fiery side. She's a sweet, loving and gentle horse.”

Keith and Porter's widow, Betsy, accepted Songbird's plaque.

“We are so pleased that Songbird is being inducted into the Hall of Fame,” Keith said. “We consider it not only an honor for Songbird, but also for Rick Porter and Fox Hill Farm. It is bittersweet because we dearly wish that it was Rick on the stage today.”

ICYMI: Watch SONGBIRD's induction into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame! #FasigGrad #FasigSaratoga @nmrhof pic.twitter.com/4YRAbNLaaw

— Fasig-Tipton (@FasigTiptonCo) August 4, 2023

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“Laurel is very unexposed,” Juddmonte's racing manager Barry Mahon said. “Last year we threw her in the deep end after two easy wins and it looked for a minute like she was going to pull it off in big style. That day there was a little bit of bias towards the stands' side and I think a combination of greenness and the other horse just getting a nice run up the rail saw her just get run out of it late on.”

Let The Games Begin

With Godolphin's Modern Games (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) setting the standard bidding to provide the operation with a record-extending ninth renewal, the race to the Queen Anne is well and truly underway for the older milers. Sunderland Holding's My Prospero (Ire) (Iffraaj {GB}) has something to find at this trip, but showed the best form of these overall as a 3-year-old when a close-up third in the G1 Champion S. at Ascot in October. Still unexposed and low on mileage, the William Haggas trainee made relentless strides after his third in the G1 St James's Palace S. at Royal Ascot to Champions Day and he may just be the class act in the line-up.
Haggas is cautious, with the homebred having missed his intended reintroduction last month. “I wanted very much to run him in the Paradise Stakes at Ascot, but his scope wasn't very good,” he said. “The reason I wanted to run there was to see if he was quick enough for the Queen Anne, or the Prince of Wales's Stakes. I'm pretty sure he's Prince of Wales's. So, having missed that, we are then a bit on the back foot and it was either this or the Prix d'Ispahan and I thought the d'Ispahan was a bit too close to Ascot for his first run, so we're coming here. I'm pretty sure a mile is not his best trip, but he's fresh and well and I think he'll run a nice race. I hope he's got a big season ahead of him.”

Time For An Upset?

So far in 2023, the flat action at Newbury has seen fields strung out more than normal and Friday's big-priced winners suggest an upset is far from off the cards here. Kevin Ryan's horses have been ripping it up at York all week and the Hambleton handler has a live Lockinge contender in Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum's Triple Time (Ire) (Frankel {GB}), the latest notable out of the owner-breeder's remarkable Reem Three (GB) (Mark Of Esteem {Ire}). His first run back in 2022 resulted in an impressive success in the G3 Superior Mile and while this is another level, he is open to improvement. Another who has potential to shake things up is last year's G1 Prix Jacques le Marois runner-up Light Infantry (Fr) (Fast Company {Ire}), who was just a neck down on Inspiral (GB) (Frankel {GB}) when tackling a straight mile. “He's proven he's a group one performer,” trainer David Simcock said. “It is a very open Lockinge and I should think everybody thinks they've got a little shout.”

Can Yibir Complete The Trifecta?

There is plenty of intrigue on the Lockinge card, with the G3 Aston Park S. seeing the return of another of Godolphin's transatlantic stalwarts in Yibir (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}), whose last public sighting came when winning the G2 Princess Of Wales's S. at Newmarket's July Festival. After the successful comebacks of the 5-year-olds Hurricane Lane (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) and Adayar (Ire) (Frankel {GB}), it is up to the third of the big trio of 2021 to keep up Charlie Appleby's momentum. “He went for a racecourse gallop at Newmarket a couple of weeks ago and we were very pleased with how he went,” his trainer said. “If he can bring the level of form he showed as a three-year-old and what we saw last year, he is going to be the one they all have to beat.”

Haskoy Back For More

Yibir faces the potentially daunting prospect of facing Juddmonte's Haskoy (GB) (Golden Horn {GB}) on Saturday and the fast-improving St Leger supplementary is one of the more intriguing older fillies in action this term. Added to the Doncaster Classic following her impressive success in York's Listed Galtres S. in August, she was perhaps controversially demoted from second to fourth behind New London (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) and Friday's G2 Yorkshire Cup winner Giavellotto (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) and that form has a vastly more solid look after the way the latter and the Leger hero Eldar Eldarov (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) went through their race on Friday.
“She's a star–to jump up from winning a maiden on the all-weather, to then win a stakes race at York days later and then be thrown in at the deep end into a St Leger and finish second past the post,” Barry Mahon said of the Ralph Beckett trainee. “She's a good filly, but she's just taken a bit of time to come to hand.”

Star Style

Newbury also stages a fascinating renewal of the Listed BetVictor Carnarvon S., in which Godolphin's G2 Gimcrack S.-winning TDN Rising Star Noble Style (GB) (Kingman {GB}) backs up quickly after his highly creditable sixth in Newmarket's G1 2000 Guineas. Ballydoyle's own TDN Rising Star Aesop's Fables (Ire) (No Nay Never) continues on the sprinting route which could also lead to the G1 Commonwealth Cup, with his success in The Curragh's seven-furlong G2 Futurity S. not quite the distant memory his odds suggest here. TDN Rising Star material can also be found in the Listed Haras de Bouquetot Fillies' Trial S., where Juddmonte's Salisbury novice winner Bluestocking (GB) (Camelot {GB}) looks to stay in a competitive Oaks picture.
Another Beckett representative on an important day for the stable, Barry Mahon said of Bluestocking, “Unfortunately we missed Lingfield, which was where we wanted to go and she has taken time to come to herself like a lot of fillies this spring. We're just waiting for her to come and bloom and she's coming. Everyone is happy with her, she's not 100 per-cent there yet, but she's coming and just about ready to start.”

Fantastic Prospect At Iffezheim

Baden-Baden's G3 Japan Racing Association – Derby-Trial should offer some big clues ahead of the G1 Deutsches Derby, with likely favourite Fantastic Moon (Ger) (Sea The Moon {Ger}) out to put a latest drubbing at the hands of Mr Hollywood (Ire) (Iquitos {Ger}) behind him. Beaten 7 1/2 lengths by that TDN Rising Star in Munich's G3 Bavarian Classic at the start of the month, Liberty Racing's G3 Preis des Winterfavoriten winner faces four more unbeaten and unexposed colts including Gestut Karlshof's highly-regarded Straight (Ger) (Zarak {Fr}). A relative of Monsun's domestic Derby-winning siblings Schiaparelli (Ger) and Samum (Ger), he hails from the Andreas Wohler stable. A deep contest also features a TDN Rising Star in search of redemption in Gestut Rottgen's Aspirant (Ger) (Protectionist {Ger}), who is up in trip following his well-beaten fourth in Krefeld's G3 Dr Busch-Memorial with something to prove.

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14.25 Deauville, Mdn, €27,000, 3yo, c/g, 6fT
TREMBLANT (GB) (Shamardal) is the latest representative of Juddmonte's dual listed-winning and multiple group-placed Joyeuse (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}), one of Frankel's half-siblings who has already produced the G1 Coronation S. third Jubiloso (GB) to a mating with Shamardal as well as the dual Group 1-placed Maximal (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) and dual listed-placed Jovial (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}). The only newcomer in the line-up, the Andre Fabre-trained bay is up against Al Shaqab's once-raced homebred Faleh (Fr), a Henri-Francois Devin-trained son of Frankel (GB) whose dam Al Johrah (GB) (Bated Breath {GB}) was the nearest pursuer to Lady Aurelia (Scat Daddy) in the 2016 G2 Queen Mary S.

HOW THEY FARED
1.55 Leopardstown, Mdn, €15,000, 3yo, f, 10fT
All Time Great (Justify), the daughter of the GI E. P. Taylor S. and G2 Ribblesdale S. heroine Curvy (GB) (Galileo {Ire}), was up with the pace from the outset before fading to be seventh.

2.30 Leopardstown, Mdn, €12,500, 3yo, c/g, 10fT
The Black Tiger (Justify), the son of Gagnoa (Ire) (Sadler's Wells), was strongly supported into 11-4 favouritism and raced prominently before finishing last of the nine. Aidan O'Brien later reported he had pulled a muscle in his hind quarters.

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In both cases, he explains, you're adding one plus one and hoping to get four. “Or six, or eight,” he says, smiling. “So, it's all about anticipating the future. In the clothing industry, you're always reading six, nine, 12 months ahead. In the horse industry it's even longer, because it's 11 months from conception to foal, and then a couple of years till they race. So there's always this thing that the future is going to be better than the past. You're going to find a better way to make this dress, or fit that jacket; you're going to find a way to produce a better racehorse. And that's just the way I was brought up, the way my mind works. I always believe that maybe the horses next year are going to run better than they did this year.”

He gives a shrug, another wry smile. “Sometimes they do,” he adds. “Most of the time they don't.”

Rosen inherited an aptitude for both these different worlds from his father Carl, who had turned the small Massachusetts dress company founded by his own father into fashion giant Puritan; and then, incredibly, made Hall of Famer Chris Evert (Swoon's Son) his first ever yearling purchase at Keeneland. His premature death, in 1983, created a challenging test of precocity in his 25-year-old son. In soon breaking out his own brand, however, Rosen would ultimately make the third Rosen generation in the trade the most successful yet. In the meantime, his parallel legacy on the Turf had already brought him to new heights virtually overnight.

Just weeks after losing his father, Rosen went to Claiborne and saw a Danzig colt, bred from Chris Evert's daughter by Secretariat, getting his basic training alongside the other yearlings. It was decided to name him for Rosen's father, who had been known throughout firm and family as “The Chief.”

“I remember looking at this colt with Seth [Hancock] and Roger Laurin, who was training the horses,” he recalls. “First crop of Danzig, a little on the small side but well-balanced. Who could have said, then, what was going to happen the next year? But I soon knew that something was different because Roger, before, was, 'Don't bother me, kid.' And then when Chief's Crown came around, all of a sudden, he was paying lots of attention to me! And actually, Roger and I ended up being amazing friends.

“Roger badly wanted to win the Kentucky Derby, because he should have won with Secretariat. He was the trainer of Meadow Stable when Eddie Neloy had a heart attack and died. Bull Hancock called him and said, 'You have a new job.' He had to give up his public stable to train for the Phipps family, but who wouldn't have done that? And he said, 'Well, okay, as long as my father can train these horses.' And that's how Lucien got to train Secretariat and Riva Ridge.”

In the event, Chief's Crown had to settle for third in the Derby, but it was nonetheless a remarkable and emotional journey for the whole Rosen family, with championship laurels secured in the inaugural GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

“Maybe in those days, so soon after Chris Evert, you didn't understand how hard it really was to have a horse of that caliber,” Rosen admits. “But he ran 21 races in two years and won eight Grade Is. That's unthinkable today. My father always wanted a Derby horse so something like Chief's Crown, that would have been the ultimate for him. He'd said to me, 'I don't want you to sell the horses, I think there's something special there.'”

Chief's Crown wins the 1985 Travers S. | Coglianese

Seasoned horsemen immediately recognized the caliber of the young heir, when the time came to syndicate Chief's Crown, and many cherished friendships have been maintained ever since. Rosen still talks most days with John Stuart of Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services, while a round of golf with Roger Laurin and Shug McGaughey identified a lasting successor once his first trainer retired.

“I have a lot of good relationships in the horse business,” Rosen says. “I understand the clothing industry: that's how I make my living. The horse racing, I'm still learning a lot. In both cases, it's what I grew up with, hanging out with my father. I would go with him to the factory or the office, and they're always talking about clothing. Same thing with the horses, though he was more into the gambling. He'd come home after a big day, and I'd be allowed to count the money and tell him how much he'd won. (And he'd give me $100!) So it was something that I just naturally gravitated towards, as I got older.”

Evidently his father made no more valued bequest than the counsel of his friend Miles Rubin, who did everything possible to redress the grievous void in a young man's life. But while plainly inheriting the same, uncommon acumen, Rosen's coolly confident and reflective nature has made him a contrasting if no less natural “chief” than his extrovert father.

“My father and I had a really great relationship,” he says. “Parenting in the '60s and '70s was not the same as today. But we had a connection: I understood how he thought, appreciated what he did, and learned so much from him. He died when he was young, and I was very young. But I'd had the opportunity to work with him, I'd been long exposed to what he did and thought, and that gave me a platform for the future.

“In some ways, I admire people that go off and do things very different from their family. But it felt like my responsibility to take over. I had a feel for the clothing business, and I had a feel for the horses. Everything was there for me, all I had to do was follow in my father's footsteps. And that's what I did, without ever looking back.

“I ask myself now, 'How the hell did I do that?' But my father was sick for a while, so he had prepared me as best as he could. And you're young, and bold, and confident. Sure, that there were things I did right and things I did wrong. But there's nothing I look back on and say, 'Oh, I should have done that differently.' Other than maybe when my mother called me the night before the Preakness and told me to change the jock!” (He couldn't do that, and Chief's Crown lost by a head.)

Going back to our opening premise, the common challenge both on the Turf and in couture is not merely to anticipate the future (i.e. demand) but to shape it, too. Is there perhaps some equivalence between breeding purely to sell and mass-producing cheap threads? Because surely, it's those who keep faith in quality who set standards, and ultimately set trends?

“I'm in the business I'm in because I love the clothing industry,” Rosen replies. “I want to do things that I'm proud of, and that people working for the company are proud of. I want to be able to inspire somebody. I'm not in that end of the clothing business which is just about finding a way to make money. I want to create something meaningful, part of the future of our industry. And I think it's a lot the same with breeding. I'm trying to produce horses that can run on Saturday.

Andrew Rosen | Eclipse Sportswire

“I understand that there's a market for everything. The clothing industry is huge. I focus on one part of it, try to be really good at that. And horseracing is another enormous industry. As many people have tried to own it, and control it, it just doesn't work that way. So, again, I try to focus on what I think works for what I believe in.”

This aspiration has prompted Rosen to develop a transatlantic program that needs to be curated with exceptional skill, given how the competition at that level tends to enjoy apparently infinite resources.

“I always had the relationships in America but had to develop them in Europe as well, because I wanted exposure to bloodlines over there,” he explains. “I always felt that the 2-year-old racing in Europe was much better. It started earlier and, because it was all on the turf and on the straight, it was safer. You could get more runs into a horse, and aid its development that way. The 2-year-old racing there is pretty open and can be competitive for everyone. But then, as the horses get older, I think the big outfits-the Godolphins, the Coolmores, the Juddmontes-have a huge advantage. As the racing heats up for the 3- and 4-year-olds, it's pretty tough to compete.”

On this model, the likes of Icon Project (Empire Maker) and Theyskens' Theory (Bernardini) have thrived Stateside after laying foundations on European grass. With the right material, however, Rosen is also happy to keep campaigning indigenous stock in Europe. Last year, for instance, in partnership with Marc Chan he celebrated Group 1 success with Lezoo (GB) (Zoustar {Aus}) and Prosperous Voyage (Ire) (Zoffany {Ire}).

Prosperous Voyage was actually recommended by trainer Ralph Beckett when her original owners were looking to cash out; while Lezoo was proposed at the Arqana Breeze-Up by another of Rosen's trusted collaborators, Jamie McCalmont.

Rosen told McCalmont that she would bring €300,000 after a breeze like that, and that would be too much. “Jamie looked at me and laughed,” he recalls. “Then Marc saw her and liked her, so we said we'd follow her through. None of us thought we would get her at that price [€110,000]. Then, before she ran first time, Ralph told us that this one wasn't very good. 'Oh well,' I said, 'We have to go through bad ones to get good ones…' So she has been a very pleasant surprise!”

Rosen is hardly alone in recognizing how Beckett has now sealed a place in the European elite, but remains a grateful admirer of Brian Meehan along with Andrew Balding, Roger Charlton and John Gosden. “Although really good horses can overcome everything, it's obviously best if you can have them managed them the right way, put them in the right spots and so on,” he says. “But I'm very lucky that way, and I like having these relationships with a few different people over there. In America, basically all the horses go to Shug first. The American system is very different. But the racing is very different, too. The Americans don't really understand Europe, and the Europeans don't really understand America!

Jamie McCalmont | Fasig-Tipton

“But listen, that kind of polarization creates opportunities. The Americans are strictly focused on dirt racing, yet 60 percent of their major racing is on turf. That's why Europe has benefited from so many of us coming over to support the yearling sales and the secondary market. In the old days you had Gainesway and Claiborne and others bringing those top turf stallions over, and I do believe that we're not far away from that kind of horse working again [in Kentucky]. Peter Brant, a few other people are trying. The only reason it hasn't happened yet is because none of them has worked. But it only takes one.”

As things stand, a little over half of Rosen's 30-odd horses in training are based in Europe; while he has 10 broodmares either side of the water, respectively divided between Watership Down and Kilshannig, in Europe; and Claiborne, Gainesway and Merriebelle in America. If you add young stock, you're looking at around 70 to 75 horses. But there's constant refinement: fillies retiring from one division to the other; other horses culled or sold to fund reinvestment.

“My philosophy is that I want to sell enough to cover the overhead of my operation,” Rosen explains. “Generally, I would always sell the colts, and sometimes fillies as well. My intention is for the horseracing to be a business, too. So, I have to do things that are commercially acceptable, and try to make the pieces fit together that way. But I wouldn't think of myself as a commercial breeder. Ultimately, what am I trying to do? Just develop good racehorses so I can have better broodmares. But that process requires me to sell horses, for sure. Because my operation would [otherwise] cost several million a year to run, and there has to be some logic to it.”

“Ultimately, you want your business to get a little bigger, a little better, each year. You're always looking at how to build. So, I am a commercial breeder to the extent that if I ever need to sell something, I want somebody always to be interested in what I have produced.”

As the conversation proceeds, it feels increasingly as though Rosen's twin enthusiasms share the same impetus: a dynamic, empathetic interest in where we find identity, and how we might cultivate it into something better. Maybe that drive traces to his grandfather, a Russian immigrant who was a cutter in a dress factory until launching this remarkable, dynastic engagement with American opportunity.

At one point, for instance, Rosen discusses efforts to preserve the historic identity of the Garment District in New York. He recently started a company where everything is manufactured locally. That's not easy, when Americans today are evidently reluctant to sit at a sewing machine all day, while expecting wages far in excess if those that suffice in other economies. But the quality Rosen seeks can't be produced by robots.

“I understand that this has to be more of a niche, that it's not for everyone,” he says of this domestic venture. “And I know it's never going to come back to what it was in the '60s and '70s. But I do think it's important to have a manufacturing base close to your design, because they go hand-in-hand. The closer they are, the better both are going to be. It's just like the countries that have the best stallions will also have the best horses. But to make these things happen, you need vision, passion, commitment. Without that, and without integrity-well, you won't ever keep something just because you always had it before.”

That last remark applies to us all, in that we all share the same patrimony, the same cumulative bequest from breeders past. But it also applies to Rosen on personal level, in terms of a passion inherited from his father.

“My early days in horseracing were so exciting,” he reflects. “First the Chris Evert times, with my father, and then all of us remembering him with Chief's Crown. There was no way I could not like it. And I have enjoyed it, all the way, with all the highs and lows. The lows haven't scared me, neither have the highs deceived me into thinking it's always going to be that way. I have always just really enjoyed it all: not only the racing and the breeding, and the trading, but above all the people.”

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It is also, lest we forget, staged on a benign surface. As such, it is also a win for a whole community that needs to present its way of life to the wider world with absolute confidence. To a degree, you could almost say that the rapid maturity of the elite turf schedule devised by NYRA has become one way for the East Coast to complement the fantastic recent work, celebrated here a couple of weeks ago, on the dirt tracks of California.

In fact, you could even argue that it also dovetails with the progressive aspirations that have just inaugurated the HISA era. We know that some people will cling stubbornly to the wreckage, fiercely opposing federal interference with their constitutional right to treat the training of Thoroughbreds as a branch of pharmacology. But it's good to see so many industry stakeholders beginning to see the bigger picture; to recognize the trouble we've been inviting for ourselves, and to do something about it.

Click the play button below to listen to this week's edition of This Side Up.

And that's heartening, because right now we only have to look around to realize what a special product we have to share, if only we get our act together.

Look at last weekend, and look what's coming down the tracks, and shout it from the rooftops: we have a great game here. Provided we care for them as they deserve–and that includes the provision of scrupulously maintained dirt tracks, and a properly respected turf/synthetics division–we could have no more captivating advocate than these noble horses of ours.

So long as we have Saratoga, we still have a chance. Much as can again be said of Santa Anita, here's a sanctuary from the cares of life to win over even the most surly and snarling of sceptics. And the meet looks more exciting than ever after Olympiad (Speightstown) and Life Is Good (Into Mischief) threw down the gauntlet for the GI Whitney S.

The one pity is that they've dropped all talk of Flightline (Tapit) shipping back across for that race, too. Connections would evidently rather stay in his backyard, this time, even at the cost of a more abrupt step up in distance. We won't reprise our irritation that this huge talent should have become such an extreme example of the modern horseman's dread of actually racing a racehorse. But we all know that while life may indeed be good, it seldom contrives its very best possibilities. And experience sadly tells us that the idea of all three of these horses converging on the same race at the Breeders' Cup, in the same form as now, is a fanciful one.

What we do know is that right here, right now, we could put on one of the great races of our time. Nobody can be complacent about that happening in November, especially if their respective fortunes in the meantime happen to make the Dirt Mile more tempting than the Classic. Of course, we can't expect individual horsemen to base their gameplan on sheer altruism, when they need to redeem such heavy stakes already committed to the industry. But it does just seem a shame that when people start comparing horses to greats of the past, very often they don't see them measured even against the best of their contemporaries.

That became a familiar charge against Frankel (GB), albeit without eroding his status as one of the undisputed giants of the breed. The relentless style trademarked by his stock, in what is proving a no less brilliant stud career, has only heightened regret that he spurned both the Arc and the Breeders' Cup Classic.

Frankel / Juddmonte

But we have long become bleakly familiar with the schism nowadays dividing the industries either side of the pond. The only real trafficking between them today is about plugging the gaps in American grass racing. Frankel's two daughters in the GI Belmont Oaks show that this can be done by participation or trade: one, homebred by Godolphin, mounts a raid from Newmarket; the other was imported from that same town as a yearling. A third way is elaborated, however, by the presence in the colts' race of Stone Age (Ire), a White Birch-bred son of Galileo (Ire) shared by farm owner Peter Brant with partners from Coolmore. It's a massive tribute to the impresarios behind the Turf Triple that once again, as with last year's winner Bolshoi Ballet (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), this race has been chosen as the next target for Ballydoyle's principal candidate in the Epsom Derby itself.

Yet while the import market for European horses-in-training and yearlings grows ever stronger, it somehow remains impossible even for highly eligible European stallions to achieve commercial traction in Kentucky. Flintshire (GB) (Dansili {GB}) was retired as the highest earner in the history of the Juddmonte program, and supplanted only by a member of his own family in Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}). Yet during his final spring in the Bluegrass–when his first crop had just turned three, one of its members flying into fifth of 19 in the G1 Prix du Jockey-Club–he was outrageously reduced to just eight mares.

American horsemen increasingly talk a good game about turf, but in practice most of them are no less culpable than Europeans about dirt blood. I know this is a drum I have long since banged to a pulp, but it's worth reflecting that all four of Stone Age's grandparents were bred in Kentucky: the icons Sadler's Wells and Urban Sea obviously stand behind Galileo, while his dam is by Danzig's son Anabaa out of an Alysheba mare. Stone Age's maternal line actually tapers to none other than La Troienne (Fr), but as eighth dam she is also the first not to have been conceived with Kentucky seed.

For sure, some horses are more versatile than others. Tiz The Bomb (Hit It A Bomb), for instance, was plainly born for chlorophyll. His connections were originally talking about a tilt at the Classics in Britain, only to be seduced to Churchill–understandably enough–when he found himself with those coveted starting points. Look closer, however, and you'll see that this horse, too, cautions against a prescriptive view of surfaces: his first two dams are by avowed dirt influences, in Tiznow and A.P. Indy, yet both ended up on turf.

His trainer also saddles recent recruit Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway), famously one of three colts from the final crop of one of the last of the old school, a crossover force in both careers. As befits a son of the Iron Horse, he is being turned round just two weeks after his debut for the barn. That kind of thing makes Kenny McPeek a real outlier, in this day and age. And that's why, when I see the future, actually I don't see it working at all.

Not, that is, until breeders start renewing the kind of cross-pollination that previously opened such dynamic cycles in the evolution of the Thoroughbred, from Nasrullah going one way to all those sons of Northern Dancer going the other. In those days, we bred robust horses by the constant, mutual invigoration of the gene pool, either side of the water. If cynical, in-and-out, fast-buck trading in the freshman window is producing horses that can only run every couple of months, that's actually a welfare issue. So while we have found one welcome oasis, we must navigate with care if our final destination is not to prove a mirage.

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But if communal incredulity over the GI Kentucky Derby must have been flavored with extra piquancy for the breeders of the winner, who lost him to a $30,000 claim at the same track last September, then the bigger picture might yet permit them ample consolation.

Most obviously, albeit in somewhat haphazard fashion, a 10th Derby winner has refreshed the record established by Calumet Farm in its heyday as the premier Classic brand of the Bluegrass and highlights the wholesome aspirations sustaining its regeneration.

Eight Calumet homebreds won the Derby between 1941 and 1968, under Warren Wright, Sr. and then his widow Lucille, but the one subsequent success prior to Saturday had poignantly come in the same year, 1991, that the farm declared bankruptcy–courtesy of Strike the Gold, whose name obtains a curious resonance now that the baton has been seized by Rich Strike.

The Kwiatkowski rescue eventually paved the way in 2012 for Calumet's lease to Brad M. Kelley, who immediately found a horse to condense his priorities–not just for the renewal of the Calumet legacy, but also for a maverick challenge to the short-termism he evidently believes to be undermining the modern American Thoroughbred. Oxbow exhibited a teak constitution in campaigning without pause from October through July, taking in seven states and six different distances. At stud, admittedly, Oxbow struggled for commercial traction, but last year he came up with one of the key Classic protagonists in Hot Rod Charlie, who had changed hands for $17,000 as a short yearling.

Now Calumet has achieved virtually the same thing with Keen Ice. He, too, had to demonstrate rare physical resilience in soaking up four campaigns, the first three for Donegal Racing before Calumet entered partnership. And while his only two wins outside maiden company included one that nobody could sensibly take at face value, when shocking a Triple Crown winner in the GI Travers S., he banked $3.4 million in 24 starts, 15 at Grade I level. Much like his son last Saturday, he was never happier than when able to reel in a hot pace.

The Calumet model will always be too idiosyncratic for many commercial breeders, so presumably a monster opening book of 176 for Keen Ice featured a significant contribution from the farm's home herd. The average achieved by the resulting yearlings fell short of a (rather stiff) opening fee of $20,000 and traffic was quick to slide, through books of 73, 43 and 48. Keen Ice is now down to $7,500, the same as Oxbow, who himself was supported with 187 mares in his fourth book but was down to 15 three years later. Now, for a second year running, an ostensibly “uncommercial” Calumet sire is demanding renewed attention–this time with a Derby winner at the first attempt.

Calumet has more to celebrate than regret, then, despite allowing Rich Strike to slip from their racetrack program. Okay, so nobody should be running a horse under that kind of tag if he is 17 lengths better than the grade. But the team will definitely be hoping that Rich Strike can corroborate his breakout as well as did, say, Mine That Bird (Birdstone) when he proceeded to run Rachel Alexandra (Medaglia d'Oro) to a length in the GI Preakness S.

Keen Ice, after all, is earlier into his career than was Oxbow when Hot Rod Charlie made us ask how much he might owe to sire (his dam having already produced an Eclipse champion). If Keen Ice has really done very little besides this jaw-dropper, then there remains a feasible case for saying that his stock will only just be finding their stride with maturity. He has managed 20 other winners this year already, at a 27% ratio that stands up to the likes of Practical Joke, Connect and Caravaggio among rivals in the intake maintaining a higher fee. And while the Calumet breeding program can hardly match such quantity with seamless quality, it will be reliably oriented towards mares that pack in slow-burning assets of robustness and staying power.

That willingness to play a long game, to remain stubbornly out of step with the fast-buck breeders who mate to sell, not run, is predicated on a faith that the Thoroughbred will ultimately have to adapt to a very different environment: one where trainers must can the pharmaceuticals, and where turf/synthetics are no longer commercially toxic. Kelley and his team, on that basis, will hope someday to do exactly what Keen Ice's son did on Saturday, and catapult from the neglected margins to the heart of the action.

Quite apart from promotion of his sire, then, they have another reason to hope that Rich Strike may have hit a genuine seam of gold–and that's to vindicate the kind of thinking that governs Calumet matings. Because here, too, Rich Strike is not an orthodox project.

True, one of the greatest breeding operations in history recently came up with a European champion with inbreeding of equally daring proximity: Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {GB}) is by a grandson of Sadler's Wells out of one of his daughters. Moreover Juddmonte had previously produced GI Pacific Classic winner Skimming by matching one son of Northern Dancer, Nureyev, with a daughter of another in Lyphard; while their sister matriarchs Viviana and Willstar were by Nureyev out of a daughter of Nijinsky (also, of course, by Northern Dancer). So if duplicating a noble influence as closely as the second and third generations was good enough for Prince Khalid, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

In this instance, Calumet chose to double down on Smart Strike–who gave us the sire of Keen Ice, Curlin, as well as Rich Strike's dam, the accomplished Canadian filly Gold Strike. That was an extremely hygienic choice. Smart Strike has proved a fine sire of sires. The farm's lamented English Channel, in his sphere, absolutely bore comparison with Curlin, while Lookin At Lucky is criminally undervalued as a sire of Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic winners now down to just $15,000. But the key to thickening out a pedigree with Smart Strike is surely the depth of his own family, as a half-brother to Dance Smartly (Danzig) out of one of the four champions foaled by one of the great misnomers, No Class (Nodouble).

But that's only the start of the way this pedigree has been carefully inlaid. The success of Smart Strike's sire Mr. Prospector opened unexpected horizons for his only older sibling Search For Gold, a stakes-placed sprinter at two. And though his stud career proved little more than opportunist, Search For Gold resurfaces here as sire of Rich Strike's third dam, Panning For Gold, a minor stakes winner at the old Greenwood Raceway.

Panning For Gold was mated with another forgotten name, Dixieland Brass–a son of Dixieland Band who broke down when odds-on for the Florida Derby and ended up standing in British Columbia for R.J. and Lois Bennett of Flying Horse Farm–who had added her to the home broodmare band a couple of years before his arrival. The resulting filly was unraced, but it was her match with Smart Strike that produced Gold Strike for Harlequin Ranches: champion sophomore filly of Canada, on the strength of her wins in the GIII Selene S. and Woodbine Oaks, and now dam of a Kentucky Derby winner.

All six of Gold Strike's named foals prior to Rich Strike had been fillies, notably GII Natalma S. winner Llanarmon (Sky Mesa). The latter's endeavors ensured that Calumet had to pay $230,000 for Gold Strike, though already 13, when she was offered carrying a sibling to Llanarmon at the Keeneland November Sale of 2015. When she went to the same sale four years later, however, she was picked up for just $1,700 by Tommy Wente of St. Simon Place. At that stage, eight years after foaling Llanarmon, she had been either been fallow or produced unraced foals; Rich Strike himself was listed as an anonymous weanling colt by Keen Ice.

Wente has a remarkable eye for a bargain mare. Incredibly, in fact, Rich Strike only got into the Derby because he had one more qualifying point than Rattle N Roll (Connect)–bred by St. Simon Place after his dam was picked up for $20,000 at the 2016 November Sale. That mare was cashed out for $585,000 in the same ring last November.

As it was, St. Simon was represented in the GI Kentucky Oaks by Hidden Connection (also by Connect), whose dam was a $9,500 steal before similarly making her home run at $450,000 at Fasig-Tipton last fall.

Unfortunately Gold Strike has evidently become a difficult breeder, with no foal since. She is in the best of hands right now, being evaluated for breeding, but obviously the odds are steepening at the age of 20. Regardless of how things play out, hats off to Wente. Anyone can get lucky and do something like that once, but this guy has done it time and again.

One other foal bred during Gold Strike's residence at Calumet did make the track the year after she was culled. My Blonde Mary, a filly by Oxbow who has won three claimers in 29 starts, was hooked for a basement tag at Tampa Bay last month by trainer Douglas Nunn and Winner Circle Stables LLC. Doubtless they had spotted her half-brother grab third in the GIII Jeff Ruby Steaks just a couple of days previously. Alert business, if so, for another creature of highly volatile value!

The real status of this family, not to mention his own stud prospects, may vary wildly according to what Rich Strike does next. Perhaps it will simply turn out that those Turfway synthetics were not to his taste, and/or that he has reserves of stamina that could only be drawn out, even at 10 furlongs, by the kind of ferocious pace that suited his sire. But if the jury must remain out, equally, on the lessons available in his pedigree, for now we must credit Calumet for achieving something so very conspicuous with such a “striking” blend of genetic flavors.

In addition to the Smart Strike overload, and the mirroring of Mr. Prospector with his brother along the bottom line, we should note extra seams of “ore” from their dam Gold Digger behind Keen Ice himself. His fourth dam, and absolutely pivotal to his appeal, is the Emory Hamilton matriarch Chic Shirine–a daughter of Mr. Prospector.

And actually there's another sliver of Mr P. lurking via the second dam of Awesome Again, damsire of Keen Ice. But the main service of Awesome Again, for those breeding to Keen Ice, is another extremely close reinforcement: his sire Deputy Minister is also responsible for the dam of Curlin. That gives a 3×3 footprint to one of the all-time broodmare sires. Almost as potent in Keen Ice, then, as Smart Strike in Rich Strike. This precious payload of Deputy Minister, combined with that Chic Shirine–Too Chic (Blushing Groom {Fr}) bottom line, will perhaps make Keen Ice especially attractive to anyone who wouldn't mind retaining a filly.

So Rich Strike and his sire each intensify one of the key influences on the modern breed. For both horses, what happened on Saturday may yet turn out to be too good to be true. In view of what Calumet stands for today, however, it would be extremely healthy if each proved able to build on this breakthrough.

You can be sure that some commercial breeders will no more buy into Keen Ice than they did Oxbow, following Hot Rod Charlie. But it's auspicious at least to see people challenged in such similar fashion, two years running. There may not be big bucks at ringside, yet, for the kind of hardiness, stamina and old-fashioned depth of pedigree sought by Calumet for their stallion roster. Perhaps, however, that might gradually begin to change as people see how these attributes, integral to the farm's original glory, remain just what you need for the first Saturday in May and that we will only need more of the same, if we continue cleaning up the game as we must.

Kelley and his team have realized that some of the least fashionable assets of the Thoroughbred are exactly what can make it most sustainable in an uncertain future. This particular Derby winner may or may not prove eligible to change perceptions and it won't necessarily be the Calumet team who find the stallions that ultimately end up doing so. But that won't alter the odds that the eccentricities of today may well become the orthodoxy of tomorrow.

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