This Side Up: Renewal Starts at Grass Roots

If this is seeing the future, then maybe it really will work. Among all these tiny, straggling groups negotiating the arid wastes of the dirt stakes program, we finally reach a true oasis in the GI Caesars Belmont Derby Inv. Here is a field that matches quality with quantity: a win for the owners, and a win for the bettors.

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.

 

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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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Smart Digging Strikes a Rich Seam

Well, if it was hard enough to make sense of his performance, then don't expect things to appear any more conventional when you look at the pedigree of Rich Strike. His grandsire and dam share the same paternity. His mother was discarded a couple of years ago for $1,700; his half-sister was claimed only last month for $5,000; and his sire's only previous stakes winner had emerged in Puerto Rico.

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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Saturday Insights: Full Siblings to Vasilika, Point of Honor Debut

5th-AQU, $80k, Msw, 3yo, 6f, 2:50p.m. ET
After hitting an eye-catching $735,000 at Keeneland September two years ago, and still missing his reserve, Mystic Quest (Curlin) will go to post here for his breeders Siena Farm in partnership with Cash Asmussen. At the helm for the full brother to MGISP & GSW Point of Honor and half to GI Frizette S. winner Wicked Whisper (Liam's Map) as well as two other stakes winners, Todd Pletcher sends out a colt carrying big expectations against a field of eight others from the far outside. This is the family of 10 other graded stakes horses including millionaire Mr Freeze (To Honor and Serve). TJCIS PPs

12th-GP, $60k, Msw, 3yo, 1mT, 5:43p.m. ET
With success running thick in the family, Klaravich Stables' $300,000 KEESEP procurement Growth Capital (War Front) will try to beat home a well-bred field of maidens in the night cap at Hallendale. His dam Room Service is half to $1.9 million KEENOV purchase Oscar Party (Dixie Union) and GSW Major Gain (More Than Ready). To Growth Capital's outside is stablemate in the Chad Brown barn, Thistle (Arrogate), who is the first foal of racing age for GSW High Ridge Road (Quality Road). The full-brother to MGISW Vasilika (Skipshot), Chasing the Crown, breaks from the outside of the field which also comprises of Father Red (Quality Road) who is half to GSW Arrest Me Red (Pioneerof the Nile) and Calumet homebred Double Clutch (Optimizer), whose dam claims GSW & MGSP Gear Jockey (Twirling Candy). TJCIS PPs

8th-OP, $84k, Msw, 3yo, 1 1/16m, 4:45p.m. ET
Rigney Racing sends out their flashy $450,000 FTKSEL graduate Ludwig (Mastery) to hopefully make some beautiful noise in this maiden race. His dam's first to the races, the female family includes GSW & MGSP Gemswick Park (Speightstown) and the dam of G1SW Poet's Voice (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}). TJCIS PPs

10th-OP, $84k, Msw, 3yo, 6f, 5:49p.m. ET
Lundberg (Uncle Mo) is a $400,000 KEESEP graduate under the tutelage of Brad Cox, who sends out the colt for the partnership of Albaugh Family Stables and Donegal Racing. Dam Runway Ready (Mr. Greeley) is a half to GSW New York Central (Tapit) and GII Saratoga Special S. winner Corfu (Malibu Moon). This is the family of MGISW Peace Rules (Jules). Also in the field is $375,000 OBSMAR (:9 4/5) purchase Plausible Denile (Pioneerof the Nile), half-brother to three stakes horses including MGSW Lucy N Ethel (During). Trainer James Divito will send the grey to post after purchasing him as agent for owners Doubledown Stables. TJCIS PPs

6th-SA, $67k, Msw, 3yo, 6 1/2f, 6:05p.m. ET
By far the priciest of the notable debuters on Saturday, Ganadora (Quality Road) will carry the silks of Baoma Corporation to post as a $1 million score from the Keeneland September sale. Out of GSP Beloveda (Ghostzapper), who began her racing career in Poland before being imported to the States and recently changed hands for $510,000 at FTKFEB going to Gainesway, the filly is a half-sister to SP Mistress of Love (Scat Daddy) and two other winners including full-sister Hana Road. Through the second dam Mysterious Angel (Saint Ballado) there are at least 13 black-type earning runners. Bob Baffert sends Ganadora to the gates. TJCIS PPs

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Tactius Heads List Of Nominees For Fayette At Keeneland

Juddmonte's homebred Tacitus, fourth in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Classic here last fall in his lone Keeneland appearance, heads a list of 27 horses nominated to the 64th running of the $200,000 Grade 2 Hagyard Fayette going 1 1/8 miles on the main track to be run Oct. 30, closing day of the 17-day Fall Meet at the Lexington, Ky., track.

Trained by Bill Mott, Tacitus has earned more than $3.7 million in his career with five placings in Grade 1 events and three Grade 2 victories. In his most recent start, Tacitus finished fourth behind top 2021 Breeders' Cup Classic contender Knicks Go in the Grade 3 Lukas Classic at Churchill Downs.

Other nominees of note with Keeneland success include Steve Landers Racing's Night Ops, who was second in the Grade 3 Ben Ali this spring; Thumbs Up Racing's well-traveled Sleepy Eyes Todd, winner of the Lafayette Presented by Keeneland Select here last fall; and Fern Circle Stables and Three Chimneys Farm's King Fury, winner of the Grade 3 Stonestreet Lexington this spring and recent 13-length winner of the Bourbon Trail at Churchill Downs.

Closing day of the Keeneland meet will feature two other stakes: the 17th running of the $150,000 Bryan Station for 3-year-olds going a mile on the turf and the new $150,000 Bowman Mill for 2-year-olds going 6 furlongs on the main track.

Homewrecker Racing's Point Me By, winner of the Grade 1 Bruce D. Stakes at Arlington Park on Aug. 14, tops a list of 38 nominees to the Bryan Station. Eddie Kenneally trains Point Me By.

Other nominees of note are Madaket Stables and Ecurie Ades-Hazen's Grade 3 Virginia Derby winner Wootton Asset (FR), trained by Graham Motion, and trainer Rusty Arnold's duo of Calumet Farm's Cellist, third in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby, and Ashbrook Farm's Ginsburned, who was third in the Bruce D.

Robert and Lawana Low's My Prankster, fourth in the Grade 1 Champagne in his most recent start for trainer Todd Pletcher, tops the list of 20 nominations for the Bowman Mill.

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