A Different Role but Still Made to Measure

Keeneland Breeders' Spotlight

When Saint Ballado came to the farm, Duncan Taylor recalls Les Brinsfield telling him to try Mari's Book mares.

“Mari's Book!” he exclaims now. “It's not like there were Mari's Book mares all around, out there in the population. But Les was a smart guy, very analytical.”

And it was easy to see the logic: Mari's Book was by Northern Dancer out of a Maribeau mare; and Maribeau, like Saint Ballado's sire Halo, was out of Cosmah–whose half-sister Natalma, of course, gave us the sire of Mari's Book. Plenty of genetic wheels within wheels there, then.

“So we bought this mare by Mari's Book, Goulash, [for Aaron Jones] and bred her to Saint Ballado four times,” Duncan resumes. “And we got like three stakes winners, one of them being Ashado. And it really made the stallion. But then Mr. McNair had a mare with very similar breeding, and I kept saying, 'You've got to breed her to Saint Ballado, got to!' So he did. And he got a swayback.” He chuckles. “Named it Duncan.”

Just one snapshot, this, of the breadth of experience that have given the Taylor brothers their plain-talking sense of how to make the best of a difficult game; and a wholesome, hard-headed scepticism about any theory or system purporting to make it easy.

And that, in turn, is why we've seized the pretext to visit two of them, Duncan and Mark, in a rather different capacity from the usual: to hear how the family ended up breeding an elite sprinter in Sibelius, winner of the G1 Golden Shaheen in Dubai.

Taylor Made is obviously far better known as the largest consignor in the business, and also for standing the likes of Not This Time, the sire of Sibelius. But anyone familiar with the energy and imagination they have always brought to their principal roles can only be curious to hear how they adapt their know-how to the kind of challenge that occupies the majority of their clients.

“Anytime you're big, you get exposed to more people, with more theories and more thoughts,” reasons Duncan, who formally handed over to Mark as President and CEO last year but remains a vital influence as Senior Consultant. “So you're able to soak those in, and get to talk about lots of different aspects. Where a guy that's out on his farm with his 15 broodmares, that's all he is focused on. He can read all the books, but–well, we're not even trying to hear stuff and we hear it.”

And that ties into a parallel conviction: that the best breeders, historically, have been able to weave many different strands of horsemanship together.

“I'm not knocking anyone else,” stresses Duncan. “But in my lifetime, just watching what's gone on, there's been two or three people that you just thought really knew what they were doing. John Nerud was one, Alec Head was another. There was a guy named Bob Bricken at Elmendorf that was a guru of breeding. And, like Tesio himself, what did they have in common? They basically had a 360-degree view of every horse. They knew how to train, knew how to raise horses. And they were around every single one, watching and looking and trying to figure out what worked best where.”

Mark Taylor | Keeneland

“Nobody is going to breed a terrible stall-walker to a terrible stall-walker,” agrees Mark. “Nerud, if he trained the sire and the dam, would know that this filly had a lot of talent but wasn't so good between the ears. So he'd need to give her something to balance that out. But a lot of these people doing matings on a computer, honestly they may never even have seen the mare or the stallion and they certainly have no idea about any of these other characteristics.”

And even when a Nerud or a Head noticed a recurring motif, they didn't make sweeping extrapolations.

“Say they see a Nodouble mare coming through this, this and this, and they could all run,” Duncan says. “Well, if I brought up a Nodouble mare that looked the exact opposite, they would know: 'Just because that S.O.B. is by Nodouble, it isn't the Nodouble that I want. I want one that looks like this one over here.'”

And seeing the bigger picture cuts through the whole program. “When you have control over the entire operation, you're not sending your horse to Trainer X,” Duncan says. “Because Trainer X is thinking, 'I could probably back off this horse and he would be okay later on, maybe win a stake or two. But he might be my only chance ever to win a Kentucky Derby. So I'm going to keep training hard on him.' And then he breaks down.

“Whereas if Nerud had him, he'd have said, 'Nope, we ain't running in the Derby. Back to the farm, and give him all he needs.' Because when that horse hits, it affects the value of eight others in his operation.”

The Taylors' own remarkable story, of course, attests to the fruitful combination of nature and nurture. Their father Joe literally wrote the book on farm management, having supervised Gainesway for 40 years; and any congenital flair for horses was further underpinned by the discipline and faith of their upbringing. And whatever they have in common, even this closest of clans are hardly cookie-cut, whether in aspect or outlook.

Duncan Taylor | Keeneland

“Well, we had eight in our family,” muses Duncan. “And you can see a common look. But we're all different–and it's a 100% nick. It's the exact same with horses. The evolutionary scheme of genetics has so many variables.”

No guarantees, then, but nonetheless there are plainly rewards available if you put the work in. Another thing Duncan did when Saint Ballado arrived, for instance, was create a scoring system on every mare ever bred to his full-brother Devil's Bag.

“Let's say the ancestor was Buckpasser,” he explains. “Anytime Buckpasser was in the first six generations, I said, 'Okay, was it a stakes winner or not?' So if it was one-for-49, I know I don't like a lot of Buckpasser in there. And so on, for all the relatives. I had them in an alphabetical order and knew the rate that they hit at. And as Saint Ballado came through the ranks, we started keeping the same statistics. You're trying to see which ancestors are going to go with the horse, and sometimes you'd find others carried along the same way.”

But only sometimes.

“And what you find in this business is that most people want a simple answer,” he continues, in exasperated tones. “If there's 12 pies here, they want to be told that this one will taste best because it has half the ingredients my grandmother used, and she baked a hell of a pie. But the other half of the pie, we don't know what the damned ingredients are. And when I eat it, it doesn't taste like grandma's. But that pie brings more.”

“It's the microwave mentality, unfortunately,” Mark adds. “Whether it's accurate or not, they don't care, they just want something they can understand. So I get into fights all the time with people that just get fixated on one tool, which a lot of times will send you in totally the wrong direction. To me, if you look at what works on 'blood' then you find a lot of times it makes sense as a physical mating, from a conformation perspective.”

Sibelius wins the G1 Golden Shaheen | Erika Rasmussen

But we're forgetting why we troubled these gentlemen in the first place. And this Sibelius (targeting his first start since Dubai in the GII True North S. at Belmont on June 10) is a nice story, bringing together some of the most cherished stalwarts of this remarkable family firm.

He's out of Fiery Pulpit (Pulpit), an unraced half-sister to graded stakes winner Clamorosa (Seattle Dancer), acquired as a 7-year-old for $55,000 at the Keeneland November Sale of 2011. There's quite a gang involved: Pat Payne, who might almost be another brother; Jeff Hayslett, who's been working here for over 30 years; and two of the farm's oldest clients, in Louis Brooks and Sam Pollock.

“This mare is a good example of any breeding success that we've had,” Mark says. “Because most of the mares we own are in partnership with customers. We've never aspired to go out and say we're going to build some world-class broodmare band, become great breeders. It's more just coming alongside partners, who like to be commercial breeders. And in this mare's case, it was an interesting group. Pat was a partner of ours. Jeff was our farm manager and then our first Thoroughbred Advisor. The Pollocks have probably been with us 30 years, and the Brooks family maybe 40. The first yearling I ever took to the sales ring was a Secretariat filly [co-]bred by Louis.”

(That was the old July Sale at Keeneland in 1983: Wayne Lukas gave $525,000 for her and, as Fiesta Lady, she ended up a Grade I winner.)

Fiery Pulpit had managed to produce a minor stakes performer by Broken Vow, a son of Unbridled, so they tried her with Unbridled's Song. The result was a $400,000 Keeneland September colt who won seven times. Next came a colt by Graydar, this time a son of Unbridled's Song: Peter O'Callaghan bought him as a Keeneland November weanling for $185,000, and he became a hard-knocking, 11-for-48 campaigner. Then a colt by Will Take Charge made $250,000 at Keeneland September.

 

The late Unbridled's Song, a cornerstone of Taylor Made's stallion barn | Taylor Made

“Before we got ahold of her, her babies weren't bringing anything at all,” Mark notes. “But just by knocking on this Unbridled's Song thing, she became a slot machine, paying off every year.”

Typically, however, the one exception was her foal from the first crop of Not This Time–who has turned out to be her best runner. Offered as a short yearling at Keeneland January, he was a $62,000 RNA and it was a similar story after he had been moved on, returned at $75,000 in the same ring that September. Bottom line, however, is that Sibelius currently has a 19-7-3-3 record: pretty robust, for a horse that didn't vet.

“He was a beautiful horse,” Mark emphasizes. “Just sesamoiditis. We got him sold privately. It's like Duncan's just been saying about breeding theories. Vetting, X-rays, they're a tool, get you part of the way. But people want to be told that it's simple.”

That said, commercial breeders nowadays tend to think about the ring sooner than the racetrack–a reality in which Mark cheerfully acknowledges complicity.

“My winning post is making money,” he accepts. “The one thing I don't have the luxury of doing is breeding something that might come out ugly, and the market's going to reject it, but it might be a great racehorse. I can't afford to do that. I'm trying to breed a good-looking horse.”

Sadly it feels as though age may be catching up with Fiery Pulpit herself. She required colic surgery and, donated to one of the Taylor Made sales team who has a small farm, successfully conceived to Catalina Cruiser. After Sibelius won in Dubai, Mark called and said: “Hey did you see that? She just got a Grade I winner!” Unfortunately the reply was: “Didn't you get my text last night? She had a dystocia, the foal died.”

 

 

 

So much can go wrong, at any time. But just as people shouldn't pretend that the game is easy, nor should we make the simple things complicated. A lot of it is common sense.

“Basically, when we're breeding a mare, we're looking at the value and we're looking at the conformation,” Duncan says. “And not only the conformation of the two horses. If the mare's had foals before, you look at those too. Because she might not be toed-in herself, but three of the first four foals have been. So you're not going to breed to one that toes in.”

Maybe you'd have bred her to Unbridled, though, as he toed out somewhat. Duncan, indeed, remembers the team more or less having to beg people to support the horse pending his first runners.

“And then Unbridled's Song comes out of his first crop, and Grindstone,” he recalls. “Well, if Unbridled's Song had died foaling and Grindstone broke down before the Derby, maybe he'd have been in Turkey or something.”

The margins are always so fine. Duncan remembers deciding that Mutakddim mares might work with California Chrome, whose damsire was a half-brother to that horse's dam. That was a Mari's Book type of call. But sure enough, just about the best runner Chrome left behind was Cilla, whose second dam is by Mutakddim.

“Of course all the knockers of my theory can say, 'Cilla's out of an Into Mischief mare, you can breed anything to that horse,'” he admits. “But Mutakddim, I picked a random horse. Most of his horses are in South America. And he ends up in the pedigree of California Chrome's best horse. So there's something to it. But if you bred every Mutakddim mare to California Chrome, it still might only be three or four out of 100 foals. And then two of them, the trainers mess up, and another one gets loose on the track.”

Current Taylor Made stalwart Not This Time | Mary Ellet

Back we come, then, to the holistic approach. Because it's no good getting everything else right, and then having the whole thing unravel because you haven't matched the horse to the right trainer.

“If you want someone to coach a bunch of egomaniacs that all want to be the star, and turn them into the Bulls, you get in Phil Jackson,” Duncan reasons. “Somebody else is coaching them, it probably would never have happened. Same with trainers. The mating's one key factor. But you could have the smartest mating in the world, and you have a bad trainer or a bad foaling man, it's never going to come to fruition. So you need a team.”

He mentions one highly successful program. Could just be lucky, maybe, but he ticks off the quality of its land, farm management, sales scouts, trainers. “And if that gets a stallion from 10% stakes winners to 15%, that's a hell of a change in the economic value of that stallion,” he says. “Because he becomes the superior horse.”

Conversely, some stallions face adverse odds from the outset. At a given market level, they will only tend to get mediocre mares–and that won't just tell in the genes.

“Mortality and conception rates are hugely important to a stallion,” Mark says. “With lesser stallions, the conception rate tends to be just not as good because most of their mares come from farms that don't have the same resources or organization. So from the very beginning that stallion has more to overcome.”

“There's so many variables,” concludes Duncan. “But if that's a curse, it's also a blessing. Because if it was easy to do, these rich people wouldn't be intrigued as they are. They know it's hard, and that's just what keeps everybody interested.”

The post A Different Role but Still Made to Measure appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Amermans Credit Performance to Best Supporting Actors

Most of us, in this business, have experienced times when we would implore Jerry Amerman to leave that flier, promoting a horseracing syndicate, right where her husband John had thrown it–in the wastebasket. Happily, while they have sampled the full spectrum of the Turf's ups and downs in the 35 years since, their sense of fulfilment only continues to grow.

And the sport has itself welcomed corresponding gains from their presence: John's judgement, seasoned by a stellar business career, has been drafted by numerous regulatory and benevolent bodies; Jerry's love of animals, besides prompting service of her own, has forged a special place in the community of horsemen; and now, in an unexpected sequel, they find themselves creating a living legacy in a young stallion with the potential to seize an important moment in the evolution of American grass racing.

But first let's go back to that wastebasket. It wasn't their first mailshot from Barry Irwin at Clover Racing and John, wearily going through the post after another long day at work, had promptly disposed of this postcard the same way.

“More junk mail,” he said.

“Wait a minute,” said Jerry, fishing it out again. “It says: 'You too can own a Thoroughbred racehorse.' Isn't that what we're always talking about doing?”

Well, yes it was. So they dipped their toes. A couple of their early experiments never got anywhere, and the first to do so had to be retired after winning her graded stakes debut. But they were impressed with the way the syndicate was run and stayed aboard as it evolved into Team Valor–where they would enjoy an especially thrilling ride with that tireless globetrotter Star of Cozzene (Cozzene).

“You know, the camaraderie with the other people in the syndicate was great,” John reflects. “But most importantly, we learned a lot. If you're just getting into horseracing, a syndicate is a great way to start; a great learning exp

erience.”

By the time Star of Cozzene was sold to Japan, John was approaching the end of a spectacular stint as CEO of Mattel. When he took the helm in 1987, Barbie and her friends were in big trouble: the company had just soaked up a loss of $113 million. As early as 1990, John had turned things round for a record $91-million profit. In between, unsurprisingly to those in our industry who have since come to appreciate his affability and teamwork, he had prioritized morale at workshop level. He became a familiar daily presence around headquarters: eating in the cafeteria, encouraging questions, expanding horizons.

John Amerman at Santa Anita last year | Benoit

John stood down as CEO in 1997, having radically expanded international trade, and in the preceding couple of years he and Jerry had resolved to branch out into their own racing stable. Asked whether he adapted any lessons from his Mattel experience to this new enterprise, John doesn't hesitate.

“Good people,” he says. “If I think back to my days at Mattel, we had terrific people. And horseracing is a complicated sport. It's very spread out. You really have to rely on others, to find the right mix. If you have good people working on your behalf, it makes things a lot simpler. If you're trying to do these things without knowing who the good people are, and knowing their backgrounds, then it just becomes so much harder for the horse. And all the way through we've been very blessed by having excellent support people.”

Take, for instance, bloodstock agent Bob Feld. They had observed his expertise with the syndicates, and he was duly enlisted to help lay foundations for their stable. One inspired early find was GI Hollywood Futurity winner Siphonic (Siphon {Brz}), whose loss to a heart attack was a harrowing moment for the Amermans. But there was a happier sequel for another Grade I winner acquired by Feld as a yearling, Balance (Thunder Gulch), whose A.P. Indy colt made $4.2 million as a yearling after her half-sister proved to be none other than Zenyatta (Street Cry {Ire}).

“I still think Siphonic was probably the best we ever had,” Jerry says. “What happened to him was one of the most painful things that we have experienced. But Bob has been invaluable. We've been buying horses together a long time, since the very beginning, really. Frankly, I tend to look at the whole horse and, if the whole picture looks good to me, I'll say 'yea'. But Bob will say, 'No, wait, there's a little problem here.'”

Balance | Sarah Andrew

Jerry's own eye for a horse, and curiosity as a breeder, was first stimulated by German Shepherds.

“At times I've had as many as four of those dogs in my house!” she says. “And several have been champions. And I tell you, it's been a great help watching horses. Because if you know Shepherds, movement is the big thing: their trot is incredible. And I've found that sharpens your eye for looking at how horses move, too.”

That was evidently one key to Jerry's warm relationship with an equally passionate dog owner, in his case Australian Shepherds. Because the surest way for any human being to get on the same wavelength as the late Bobby Frankel was to share his devotion to animals.

“I think Bobby liked us not because of me, but because of Jerry!” says John with a chuckle. “She just loves horses, so did he, and they just got along so well. Bobby took us to great heights. I think we've had close to 30 Grade I wins and Bobby was involved with so many of them. Just an amazing horseman. I remember one time on the backstretch Bobby was talking to me and, without even turning his head, just out of the side of his eye, he was able to call out to his assistant, 'Hey, Humberto, that horse is off in the back!'”

John will always remember Frankel calling to ask: “Would you like to buy a Grade I horse?”

“Well, sure.”

“There's only one catch. She's in Australia.”

“Well,” John said. “I guess we've got planes now.”

And that turned out to be their first elite runner: triple Grade I winner Happyanunoit (NZ) (Yachtie {Aus}). But the introduction for which the Amermans will always be most grateful was to Mill Ridge: initially to the late Alice Chandler and subsequently to her esteemed son and grandson, Headley and Price Bell. This was in 1998, still early days for their stable, and began with a partnership in a Gone West colt that had lacked commercial size.

“Bobby said, 'You need to go and talk to Alice Chandler,'” Jerry recalls. “Of course we knew about her, we'd bought yearlings from Mill Ridge, so we went and introduced ourselves. And it turned out she had this yearling, as she said: 'I just can't throw him to the wolves at the sale.' I said, 'Of course you can't.'

“So we went halves on that colt, who didn't do anything but bring us together. Which was so wonderful for us, because there was nobody like Alice. She should be everybody's hero. I admired her tremendously. And now I feel I have family in Kentucky: Alice was a terrible loss but Headley and Price are terrific, and it's so nice that Oscar can stand at the same farm where he was born.”

Ah yes: Oscar! Their premier racetrack earner, with nearly $2.5 million, Oscar Performance was homebred from Devine Actress (Theatrical {Ire}), who had been acquired after winning a maiden for another owner in the Dave Hofmans barn.

Oscar Performance (blaze) heads for home in the Woodbine Mile | Michael Burns

Headley and Price have now launched him as a stallion at a critical moment for turf breeding in the Bluegrass, following the loss of his own sire Kitten's Joy and also English Channel. Their farm long had international influence as home to Gone West and Diesis (GB), and the way Oscar Performance has started–with four graded-stakes performers already, from 11 first-crop winners to date–is highly auspicious, given how he continued to thrive after winning at the Breeders' Cup as a juvenile.

“Oscar has been pretty precocious, with winners spread all over the place,” John remarks. “But we were very proud, when he was running, that he could win Grade Is at two, three and four. Though from my perspective the best race he ever ran was the [GIII] Poker, where he tied the world record for a mile in 1:31.23. He just blew them away. He was a tremendous horse, and now he's proving it as a stallion as well.

“Full credit to Mill Ridge. They hadn't had a stallion for a few years so we're just very pleased with what has happened. He's really prospered and it's been such fun, this late summer and fall, watching all the Oscar babies run. I don't think we ever thought having a stallion could be this exciting, but it's terrific. It's almost like they're your own, when you're watching them. And we're looking forward to the Breeders' Cup because, knock wood, we think he's going to have quite a few in the turf races.”

Coffee Clique | Horsephotos

Needless to say, the Amermans have supported the horse with their own mares, where compatible. Developing their own families has been one of the joys of their program, and the stock nowadays grazing Mill Ridge include fourth generation foals tracing to Society Dream (Fr) (Arakad {Fr}), imported by Neil Drysdale to win them a stake in California. Her daughter Miss Chapin (Royal Academy) was a sparkling winner on her only start for Frankel and, though now 21, has delivered consecutive sons for Oscar Performance. Previously Miss Chapin had produced millionaire Coffee Clique (Medaglia d'Oro), winner of the GI Just a Game S.; while another daughter, graded stakes-placed Royal Fury (Langfuhr), now has her first foal up and running in Furiously, a son of Oscar Performance who recently broke his maiden for Graham Motion.

Coffee Clique was actually culled at the Keeneland November Sale last year, in one of those disciplined decisions required of every elite program. The Amermans try to keep the broodmare band to around 15, and everyone knows that sales are essential to each new cycle–as, for instance, when shock GI Breeders' Cup Distaff winner Adoration (Honor Grades) was cashed in to Demi O'Byrne for $3.1 million at the equivalent auction in 2007.

This time round their star offering is imported GII Edgewood S. winner Gift List (GB) (Bated Breath {GB}).

“We're always interested in mares and fillies from Europe, as we feel there are good opportunities for racing and a residual value, too,” John explains. “And it has turned out that way with Gift List. We looked at her races in Britain and I thought she showed a tremendous kick. So we brought her over and she ran second in the [GII] Appalachian S. and then won the Grade II at Churchill by four and a half. We were on top of the world, to see her do that against horses like Aunt Pearl (Ire) (Lope de Vega {Ire}). Unfortunately she then got a chip, and didn't really return as well as we thought she might, but she's obviously very talented.”

Gift List | Coady

“It's pretty hard to let any mare go, when you have a stallion like Oscar,” admits Jerry. “But I do know that sometimes you have to.”

After many decades of practice, the Amermans have learned to trust each other's judgement: inevitably there are times when one spouse has to proceed with a purchase even when the other is not available to sign it off. But that's where the reliable caliber of their counsel is so crucial: whether Headley and Price Bell, or Bob Feld, or trainers like Brian Lynch, who handled Oscar Performance so well; or their valued pre-trainer in Ocala, Barry Berkelhammer.

And, with a profound sense of gratitude for their Turf adventure, both Amermans have reciprocated with their own experience and judgement. John has been on many boards, including as a steward of The Jockey Club, and especially enjoyed seven years with the American Graded Stakes Committee; while Jerry served on the University of Kentucky Gluck Equine Research Foundation. And then there's Peacefield Farm, their aptly named rehab sanctuary at Temecula, California, for racetrack warriors that require patching up.

“The last few years we had Beholder (Henny Hughes) here, and Ce Ce (Elusive Quality), and United (Giant's Causeway),” John says. “Many good horses that have been banged up a little bit have come here before going back to the track and excelling, so we're proud of that.”

It tells you everything that the race John singles out as his highlight, with Oscar Performance, was one he couldn't even bring himself to watch.

“I stood behind him,” Jerry remembers with a laugh. “And had to tell him what was happening.”

“But that's it, you get so involved,” John replies. “It's such an incredible sport. The lows are not fun, but the highs are so high. We got involved when I was just about to retire: after working for many years, I thought, 'Well, now I'm going to sit back and rest.' I soon discovered that running a business had been easy. It was horseracing that was really difficult. But it's been a very gratifying experience, and a very rewarding one. We just feel blessed. I'm so pleased that Jerry took that card back out of the wastebasket.”

The post Amermans Credit Performance to Best Supporting Actors appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights