Tag: Kitten’s Joy

Son Of Alice Springs Debuts At The Curragh

Observations on the European Racing Scene turns the spotlight on the best European races of the day, highlighting well-pedigreed horses early in their careers, horses of note returning to action and young runners that achieved notable results in the sales ring. Saturday's Observations features a son of Group 1 winner Alice Springs (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}).

1.25 Curragh, Mdn, €17,000, 2yo, 8fT
HIPPODROME (IRE) (Galileo {Ire}) is one of three Ballydoyle newcomers in this maiden won by TDN Rising Stars High Definition (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Duke De Sessa (Ire) (Lope De Vega {Ire}) in the last two runnings. A son of the 1000 Guineas and Irish 1000 Guineas runner-up Lightning Thunder (GB) (Dutch Art {GB}), the 650,000gns Book 1 graduate is joined by fellow newcomer Covent Garden (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), a full-brother to Johannes Vermeer (Ire) and Wembley (Ire), and the Ryan Moore-ridden Hiawatha (Ire) (Camelot {GB}), the full-brother to Luxembourg (Ire) who has the benefit of two runs.

 

2.00 Curragh, Mdn, €16,500, 2yo, 7fT
CANUTE (Quality Road) is the second foal out of the G1 Falmouth S., G1 Matron S. and G1 Sun Chariot S. heroine Alice Springs (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and is one of another Ballydoyle trio alongside Ryan Moore's pick Continuous (Jpn) (Heart's Cry {Jpn}), a relative of Saxon Warrior (Jpn), and Charles Bianconi (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}), a 320,000gns Book 1 half-brother to Dame Malliot (GB) (Champs Elysees {GB}) who carries the Evie Stockwell silks. They are met by Qatar Racing's fellow newcomer High Court Judge (Kitten's Joy), a Johnny Murtagh-trained son of the GII Lake Placid S. and GII Churchill Distaff Turf Mile winner Proctor's Ledge  (Ghostzapper).

 

4.25 Sandown, Mdn, £9,900, 2yo, f, 7fT
CATCH A STAR (IRE) (Cracksman {GB}) is a notable Godolphin newcomer on a day replete with exciting Classic prospects, being a daughter of the G2 Flying Childers S. scorer Sand Vixen (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) who has produced the top-level winners Dream Castle (GB) and With The Moonlight (Ire) from matings with Cracksman's sire Frankel (GB). Charlie Appleby has charge of the March-foaled bay, whose rivals include the similarly-unraced Beautiful Star (Ire) (U S Navy Flag), Amo Racing Limited's Richard Hannon-trained half to Wichita (Ire) (No Nay Never).

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This Side Up: Oasis or Mirage?

In this instance, you really can't say that the grass is any greener on the other side of the fence. Take your dystopian pick: the floods of Kentucky, or the desiccation of Europe, where I've just returned from a vacation that seamlessly united the city parks of England and Italy in the same wasteland, with just a few bleached spikes still protruding from the baked, ashen earth.

However illusory, then, it's a relief to find enough recognizable vegetation salvaged Stateside at least to host all three of Saturday's Grade I races. True, it evidently hasn't been at all straightforward doing so at Churchill, where they have resuscitated the Arlington Million and Beverly D. on an oasis card otherwise contested entirely on the main track.

After breaking so many hearts by closing its cherished Chicago home, Churchill have not only restored the Million but also a commensurate prize. It would be interesting to learn the duration of this commitment; and indeed to have some update about the funds generated in Arlington's final year, exceeding $750,000, in principle reserved for its 2022 purses. The last I heard, Illinois horsemen were pretty vexed about the idea that Churchill could sit on that dough pending some “successor” investment.

Even if Churchill might this time be credited with vaguely altruistic intentions, this feels like a pretty uncomfortable sanctuary for the races evicted from Chicago: a turf track that has evidently been a nightmare to bed down, and can't accommodate a 10th furlong anyway. That certainly seems to have been the conclusion of most European stables. Even domestically, the races appear to have fallen somewhat between stools: on the one hand, their abbreviation has put off the stayers; on the other, they've now had to compete with the GI Fourstardave H.

The true refugees, of course, aren't the races themselves, but those Illinois horsemen who for so long worked at one of the jewels of the American Turf. That's why there will be plenty of horsemen at Colonial Downs and elsewhere raising a glass, this weekend, to the memory of Noel Hickey.

Hickey's loss could not have been more poignantly timed–evoking, as it did, memories of a heyday (above all in grass racing) that Irish Acres shared with Arlington itself. Never mind the big guy, Buck's Boy, how about Bucks Nephew, another son of Hickey's beloved stallion Bucksplasher, who was still winning stakes at eight? And some of the other stalwarts, at a lower level, were still more indefatigable: Plate Dancer (16-for-69) and Classic Fit (23-for-76), for instance, both kept going to 11.

Their breeder resolved to buy Bucksplasher, despite a mediocre race record, after discovering that only eight Northern Dancer mares were ever bred to Buckpasser. Hickey was a colorful character, a gifted athlete himself in his youth before building up a payroll of 940 employees as a broker. But he does now seem to belong to another era, which makes it all the more remarkable that a near-contemporary should be extending such an exhilarating rejuvenation.

Wayne Lukas will be 87 a couple of days before the GI Spinaway S., where he now hopes to saddle Naughty Gal for a captivating showdown with another daughter of Into Mischief, Prank–herself yet another credit to the extraordinary work of the Lyster family at Ashview Farm. Having found a potential heir to Secret Oath (Arrogate) in last weekend's GIII Adirondack S. winner, Lukas has meanwhile eagerly commenced the next turn of the carousel by crossing the road to Fasig-Tipton and spending nearly $2.7 million on five yearlings, half of it devoted to a single Medaglia d'Oro colt.

Lukas apparently predicated this spree on a theory he has developed, over the years, “on angles and skeletons [and] the way they're put together.” If he wants to cover his costs, he could just jot the details down on a piece of paper and offer it to the highest bidder.

I am always bewildered by the way owners stampede to fashionable young trainers, especially in Europe where neglect of seasoned operators tends to be even more bovine. With horses, you would have thought that all the enthusiasm and energy in the world will never measure up to sheer experience. If you owned the Kentucky Derby favorite, and he came up with a problem on the eve of the race, would you rather the decisions were being made by someone dealing with the issue for the first time, or someone who has done so hundreds of times over several decades?

We associate youth with audacity, but we're really talking about a form of naivete. It's experience that truly fortifies your nerve. And that can also be true of jockeys. (At least, that is, until the poignant parting of the ways after they suddenly figure that there must be jobs out there where you don't have to be followed all day by an ambulance.) It took an insight and assurance years in the making, for instance, for Mike Smith to show such glaring restraint with Life Is Good (Into Mischief) at Saratoga last summer that the Equibase comment baldly states: “overconfident handling.”

Never mind that running Jackie's Warrior (Maclean's Music) to a neck over seven furlongs shows the kind of generosity that simply doesn't require coercion. This was one of those occasions–returning from a six-month lay-off, and for a new barn–when the jockey's top three priorities were: the best interests of the horse, the best interests of the horse, and the best interests of the horse.

People seldom dare to say so, because so much of the sport's funding comes through the windows, but there are times when even the wagering dollar has to step in line. After all, the kind of handicapper who thinks he or she deserves the homage of horsemen should reciprocate with a little respect the other way; should understand (and be reconciled to) the possibility that a prudent jockey, in these quite particular circumstances, might want to avoid giving his mount an experience that could cause him to regress.

They can cope with that idea when a horse makes its debut, and here was another case that blatantly called for their absolution. Whether or not connections share this view–and the fact is they have named other jockeys ever since–I feel pretty certain that Life Is Good is only as good as he is because Smith rode him that day with such length of perspective.

You very rarely see a horse break with quite the gusto that suffused Life Is Good last weekend. He was practically airborne, so eager has he remained for his vocation. And, however innate his competitive instinct, Smith certainly made sure that it was not soured.

If only more American jockeys could show corresponding conviction when riding a route on grass. On the same card last weekend, War Like Goddess (English Channel) won the GII Glen Falls S. off a halfway split of 1:17.51. And this was scalding, compared with her previous win at the Keeneland spring meet, where they had staggered along in 1:19.88.

These numbers condemn American horsemen just as instructively as the dismal averages of most turf stallions at the yearling sales. A mile and a half of grass gives these guys a nosebleed. War Like Goddess is by a wonderful stallion–and all this ties in pretty obviously with our lament a couple of weeks ago, over the crisis in Kentucky turf breeding now that Kitten's Joy is also gone–but these glacial splits show a community that cannot come to terms with the perplexing combination of grass and distance.

The fact is that hardly anybody takes these horses seriously. That's nearly always the case at the sales ring, while jockeys ride them as though indulging some kind of niche, semi-humorous weirdness. But do you remember Highland Reel (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), under a proper Irish horseman, being rushed into a clear lead to win the GI Breeders' Cup Turf? He reached halfway in 1:12.7. That's over seven seconds faster than in that Keeneland race! And they couldn't lay a glove on him.

As I'm always saying, there's no less of a cultural logjam on the other side of what should always be a two-way street, with Europe's disastrous detachment from dirt blood. But all you guys who have flown from Saratoga to Deauville, if you want to import serious grass blood, then please get your teams to wake up and import some serious grass attitude, as well.

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This Side Up: The Vital Quest for New Joy

Polite but perfunctory. That was pretty much the tone in which people tended to praise Kitten's Joy while he was with us, and I guess it should be no different now that he's gone. Even so, it strikes me that his loss has been inadequately lamented. Not just in his own right, as an avowed turf stallion who freakishly contrived two general sires' championships in North America; but also, virtually unremarked, as a final straw in what has over the past nine months become an outright catastrophe for the enlightened minority persevering with grass breeding in Kentucky.

Last November, the sustained challenge of English Channel to the primacy in this sphere of Kitten's Joy was unraveled by a sudden illness at 19. In March, Crestwood lost Get Stormy out of the blue at 16. And now we must bid farewell to the elder statesman himself, at 21.

 

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Given the grim commercial odds to be overcome by anyone attempting to launch a turf sire in Kentucky, this trio's departure represents a colossal test of the way many Americans talk a good game about populating an expanding turf program. Because when it comes to walking the walk, they have tended to head straight to the exit the moment a yearling with chlorophyll in its pedigree is led into a sale ring.

One breeder's existential challenge, admittedly, can be another's game-changing opportunity. There are some promising young stallions around with the potential to fill these intimidating vacancies. Karakontie (Jpn) has been getting black-type action at an auspicious percentage, and should kick on again once over a numerical bump in the road with his current sophomores. In fact, he has just had three stakes winners in three days, one becoming his first millionaire. Oscar Performance, meanwhile, has been launched with real panache by a farm making a welcome return to the stallion game, and is already making a mark with his early runners.Even as it was, however, we're already well accustomed to the American turf program being farmed by European imports, whether as horses in training or, increasingly, from the elite yearling sales. Both the Grade I prizes contested on grass over the past two weekends were harvested by Chad Brown with one of each model, Adhamo (Ire) (Intello {Ger}) being acquired as a French Group winner last fall and In Italian (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) as a Book I yearling at Tattersalls.

But this kind of lopsided trade stores up trouble on both sides of the water. While a lucrative export market offers a crucial avenue to viability for European horsemen contesting inadequate prizemoney, it may ultimately contain the seeds of its own demise through the ongoing dilution of standards. And while purse money is plainly superior in the U.S., it surely can't supplant commercial breeding as the driver to sustainable investment. It's great that these imports can earn big on the racetrack, but they won't ever offer that home run in the breeding shed unless or until the Bluegrass changes its commercial perspective on turf blood.

Because right now you wouldn't give even a new Nasrullah (Ire) much of a prayer. We obviously wouldn't have had Bold Ruler or Nashua, and everything they have since entailed, if Kentucky breeders in the 1950s had been as insular in their outlook as their successors today.

The same farm that imported Nasrullah had, of course, already demonstrated the transferability of European turf blood through the likes of Blenheim (GB) and Princequillo (Ire). But if they could now bring even Frankel (GB) over the water, I wonder how low his fee would have to go before commercial breeders thought he would represent a feasible play.

I have regularly cited the same program's Flintshire (GB) as an especially flagrant example of the way things are today. Supplanted as Juddmonte's highest earner only by a member of the same family in Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}), he was nonetheless reduced to a final Kentucky book of eight mares before finally returning to Europe in despair. If Kitten's Joy and English Channel couldn't earn the indulgence of the market, with its inflexible prejudices on physique, then what chance did Flintshire ever have—even at a farm as far-sighted as Hill n' Dale?

It was John Sikura, of course, who gave Kitten's Joy a fresh Kentucky platform when his owners had become so incensed by commercial indifference that they very nearly put pen to paper to stand him in Europe instead. In the parallel world where that deal was done, however, it would have been instructive to see what kind of reception Kitten's Joy would have had over there. Even after finding a European champion in Book I of the 2016 September Sale for $160,000—and the tragedy of Roaring Lion only raises the stakes for Oscar Performance and others, in terms of their sire's legacy—David Redvers was still able to return to the same auction two years later and buy a G1 2,000 Guineas winner for barely half that price. European investors, it seemed, had learned little more respect for the horse than the local market.

Little wonder, then, if they remain still more unimaginative when it comes to the kind of dirt blood that has, historically, stimulated cyclical regeneration in the European gene pool. For another constant complaint of mine is that this has to be a two-way street, and this mutual schism will ultimately prove equally damaging to the Europeans.

As things stand, we must simply hope that the plucky few who remain more interested in fast horses than fast bucks—and, on any sustainable model, that must also mean horses competent to run hard and long—can respond to the crisis with exactly the kind of flair that already sets them apart. Those who did keep the faith with Kitten's Joy, English Channel and Get Stormy must now stick to their guns, and seek out their replacements.

They know where to look, after all. The farm that grieved Get Stormy, for instance, perseveres stubbornly with the same brand: teak-tough runners and/or aristocratic pedigrees. Nor must we neglect the potential contribution of stallions that might, in this perverse environment, have their commercial credibility damaged if unduly promoted as equally effective influences on turf, such as American Pharoah, Not This Time, Twirling Candy or Blame.

But on the weekend when Zandon attempts to renew the fleeting impression he made on the home turn in the Derby, in a compelling race for the GII Jim Dandy S., it would be remiss not to finish with a nod to the farm that may have marked its 50th anniversary with the emergence of a new Indian Charlie or Harlan's Holiday in his sire Upstart.

Because Airdrie's fidelity to the kind of genetic resources most urgently required by the modern Thoroughbred gives breeders of sufficient vision a chance to roll the dice on a son of Kitten's Joy receiving precious little oxygen even in this suffocated division. Divisidero won graded stakes across five consecutive seasons, accumulating 13 triple-digit Beyers, and was denied his third Grade I in the Breeders' Cup Mile by barely half a length. Critically, moreover, the four mares in his dam's third generation are (drum roll, please): Miesque, Lassie Dear, Height Of Fashion (Fr) and a daughter of Cosmah. Not too many Thoroughbreds could better that, anywhere in the world.

True, his studmate Preservationist comes extremely close, with Natalma, Weekend Surprise and Too Chic. Down the shedrow, meanwhile, Cairo Prince is proving quite a flexible influence, in terms of surface, while Airdrie is also showcasing a son of War Front—the one patriarch of our time to have maintained elite stature at the sales despite an aptitude for turf.

Obviously War Front now has a luminous new dirt prospect starting out elsewhere, in Omaha Beach, but attractive channels for his versatility include not just Summer Front at Airdrie, but War of Will alongside his sire at Claiborne—who, promisingly, were pushed to their absolute limit in his debut book.

War Front's own traffic is naturally being managed more conservatively than ever, as he enters the evening of his career. He has long been beyond the reach of most breeders anyway, but remember that he only owes his credibility in Europe to opportunity (thanks largely to John Magnier). And that's the one thing—opportunity—breeders need to be brave enough to give some of these young turf stallions now.

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Classic Win Emphasises Lear Fan’s Broodmare Sire Legacy

Juddmonte homebred Westover (GB)'s seven-length thumping of the G1 Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby field last month was the second consecutive Irish Derby victory by a son of Frankel (GB) after Hurricane Lane (Ire) in 2021, but his achievement was also a timely reminder of the potency of his late broodmare sire Lear Fan. Born in 1981, the dark bay has also featured as the broodmare sire of another prominent Sadler's Wells-line runner, the two-time U.S. Champion Sire Kitten's Joy (El Prado {Ire}), who died at Hill 'n' Dale Farm at Xalapa in Kentucky on July 15, but more on that Ken and Sarah Ramsey homebred later.

A son of Derby winner Roberto (Hail to Reason), Lear Fan, trained by Guy Harwood for Ahmed Salman, went three-for-three as a juvenile, his campaign culminating with a victory in Doncaster's G2 Champagne S. Making his 3-year-old bow in the G3 Craven S., the colt had future Arc victor and sire Rainbow Quest (Blushing Groom {Fr}) back in second. He emulated his sire with a placing in the G1 2000 Guineas in the wake of the high-class runner and future star sire El Gran Senor (Northern Dancer).

Sent to France in search of a top-flight victory, Lear Fan trotted up in the G1 Prix Jacques Le Marois and was then second in the G1 Prix du Moulin. Although he participated in the first edition of the GI Breeders' Cup Mile at Hollywood Park, Lear Fan did not land a blow and was duly retired after a brief but brilliant eight-start career to Gainesway Farm in Kentucky, where he lived out the rest of his years as a stallion.

Despite not founding a mainstream male line, Lear Fan did well in the breeding shed with an above-average percentage of black-type winners, leaving 68 stakes winners (7%) and 32 graded/group winners from 914 foals. Among his 12 Grade/Group 1 winners were eight champions headed by 2008 Hong Kong Horse of the Year Good Ba Ba, a three-time winner of the G1 Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Mile from 2007-2009 and earner of over $7.4 million. Other standouts included Italian champion and seven-time Group 1 winner Sikeston, as well as the four-time Grade/Group 1 winner Ryafan, successful at the highest level in both France (Prix Marcel Boussac) and thrice in the States, who was named the Eclipse Champion Grass Mare in 1997.

However, it is through his daughters that Lear Fan, the sixth of 13 foals out of Wac, a daughter of noted broodmare sire Lt. Stevens out of a daughter of an even more significant broodmare sire in War Admiral, is maintaining his presence in pedigrees. Bred by Preston Madden, Wac was a full-sister to the stakes-placed Bel Sheba, herself the dam of dirt router par excellence and 1988 U.S. Horse of the Year Alysheba (Alydar), who won the 1987 Kentucky Derby and Preakness S., as well an additional seven Grade I races, including the 1988 Breeders' Cup Classic.

 

Inking His Legacy

Pensioned after the 2004 breeding season, four years prior to his death, Lear Fan's grandchildren began arriving in 1991, and it did not take him long to make his mark as a broodmare sire. The first inkling of his eventual 85 stakes-winning grandchildren came with the win of Tzar Rodney (Fr) (Assert {Ire}) in the 2100-metre Listed Prix Maurice Caillault at Saint-Cloud in March of 1995. The son of the winning Laquifan then became the first of 35 group winners for Lear Fan as broodmare sire with a win in the G3 Prix La Force later in the season.

The G1 Haydock Park Sprint Cup second by Danetime (Ire) (Danehill  in September 1997 was another notable milestone for his grandsire. Subsequently placed in the G1 July Cup too, Danetime was given a place at stud and served mares in both hemispheres before his death in Western Australia in 2005. The bay's progeny includes three Group 1 winners among his 30 stakes winners.

 

Just Desserts

Grade I winners that produce Grade I winners are few and far between, and those that repeat that feat are in another stratosphere entirely, but the 1996 Canadian champion Windsharp, who raced for Ahmed Salman's The Thoroughbred Corp., was one such quality filly. From Lear Fan's 1991 crop, she punctuated her career with top-level scores in the GI San Luis Rey S. and the GI Beverly Hills H. in the mid-90s, and even stretched her stamina when second, by only a length, in the 1 3/4-mile GI San Juan Capistrano Invitational H.

At stud, she provided Lear Fan with his first two top-level winners as a broodmare sire in the form of the 2002 GI Hollywood Derby hero Johar (Gone West) and the Storm Cat filly Dessert, who won the GI Del Mar Oaks in August of 2003. Both were also Thoroughbred Corp. homebreds. Johar would go on to pad his reputation with a dead-heat victory that November–with High Chaparral (Ire) (Sadler's Wells) –in a memorable edition of the GI Breeders' Cup Turf. Offered at Keeneland, Windsharp later brought an eye-watering $6.1 million from John Ferguson to join the Darley broodmare band after her childrens' accomplishments that November.

Over one quarter of Lear Fan's 11 Grade/Group 1 winners earned that badge in 2003, with Volga (Ire) (Caerleon) following in the wake of Dessert with a victory of her own in the E.P. Taylor S. at Woodbine that autumn. Lear Fan's annus mirabilis ended on a high note with Vallee Enchantee (Ire) (Peintre Celebre) taking out the G1 Hong Kong Vase at year's end.

 

'Mour' Heights To Scale

The best runner out of a Lear Fan mare in Europe was undoubtedly the impeccably bred Aga Khan homebred Azamour (Ire) (Night Shift), a son of the Irish listed heroine Asmara. The John Oxx-trained winner of the 2004 G1 St James's Palace S. and G1 Irish Champion S. was also Classic-placed in both the 2000 Guineas and Irish equivalent earlier that year. Kept in training at four, he secured the G1 Princes Of Wales's S., the G1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond S., and ran third in the Breeders' Cup Turf at Lone Star Park in Texas.

At stud, he left 43 black-type winners (including five Group 1 winners), but sadly died at the relatively young age of 13. The 2015 G1 Irish Oaks heroine Covert Love (Ire), who was also successful in the G1 Prix de l'Opera, was the best of his progeny, which included the G1 Prix de Diane victrix Valyra (GB). However, his best male flagbearer was the gelded Best Of Days (GB), who struck in the G1 Cantala S. In Australia.

Johar, too, was given a place at stud, and came up with 16 stakes winners (10 at group level), with GI Breeders' Futurity S. winner Joha on dirt and New Zealand Group 1 winner Guiseppina (NZ) the two stars. Besides the latter, the admirable filly Keertana won a quintet of graded races and was third in the GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf in 2010.

 

Kitten's First, The Rest Nowhere

Initially not the most distinguished daughter of Lear Fan to grace the paddocks, Kitten's First made just $17,000 as a 1992 Keeneland September Yearling and was selected by Sarah Ramsey for $41,000 out of the OBS Spring Sale one year later as her first horse. The future blue hen achieved a debut win in a seven-furlong turf maiden special weight at Belmont Park in July of 1993 and was pulled up in her only other start, Monmouth's Junior Champion S., later that summer.

However, her true merits were revealed at stud, and she hit pay dirt with her very first foal–the dual stakes-winning and graded stakes-placed Justenuffheart (Broad Brush). As it stands, that branch of the Kitten's First family now features no fewer than 11 black-type horses out of Kitten's First's firstborn, anchored by 2006 Eclipse Champion 2-Year-Old Filly Dreaming Of Anna (Rahy), who won the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies.

Kitten's First visited El Prado (Ire) in 2000, and the resulting foal, Kitten's Joy, has guaranteed Lear Fan's influence well into the 21st century. A $95,000 RNA out of the 2003 OBS April Sale and named in honour of the late Sarah Ramsey, the blaze-faced chestnut was destined to become a dual Grade I winner in 2004 with victories in the Secretariat S. and Turf Classic for trainer Dale Romans. Although he was second in the Breeders' Cup Turf, his earlier efforts granted him a championship at year's end as the Eclipse Champion Turf Male. He returned the next year with a victory in the GII Firecracker Breeders' Cup H. and ended his career with an unlucky runner-up performance in the GI Arlington Million a few months later.

Predominantly a miler by trade, although he did win beyond that in the Firecracker and turned in several noteworthy efforts in defeat at longer distances, Kitten's Joy achieved sire success beyond the wildest dreams of most breeders, with two American sire titles (2013 and 2018) and took every U.S. Champion Turf Sire crown from 2013-2018. Currently sitting at 111 stakes winners (53 graded/group winners), the late chestnut, who stood at Ramsey Farm until he was moved to Hill 'n' Dale in 2018, has also accrued 15 Grade/Group 1 winners.

Three of his offspring won Grade I races on the same day–Aug. 17, 2013–Big Blue Kitten in the Sword Dancer Invitational S. in New York and both Real Solution and Admiral Kitten stamped their names on historic Chicago fixtures–the Arlington Million and Secretariat S., respectively. His European stars were Group 1 winners Hawkbill, the late Cartier Horse of the Year Roaring Lion, and 2000 Guineas victor Kameko, while GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint winner Bobby's Kitten also won at listed level in Ireland. All four went to stud, though Roaring Lion's tenure was sadly short-lived. He died of colic after siring just one crop in Europe.

(For a more in depth look at the exploits of Kitten's Joy by Lucas Marquardt, please click here.)

The legacy of Kitten's First continued with her Catienus filly of 2003, Precious Kitten. Although a championship title evaded her, she did strike several times at the highest level in the 2007 John C. Mabee H. and Matriarch S., before adding her final Grade I in the Gamely S. at Hollywood Park in the spring of 2008.

As a broodmare, she has produced Grade III winner and sire Divining Rod (Tapit), who was second in the GI Cigar Mile H. and earned a Classic placing when third in the GI Preakness S.

 

Late To The 'Pizza' Party

Lear Fan's grandchildren continued to make an impact on the world stage after his death in 2008. Mutual Trust (GB) (Cacique {Ire}), out of the stakes winner Posteritas, claimed the 2011 G1 Prix Jean Prat, while Camilin Camilon (Per) (Unbridels King), a son of the winning Lear Dancer, struck in Peru's G1 Derby Nacional in 2013.

English Channel's The Pizza Man was the final top-flight victor for his broodmare sire prior to Westover, with a win in the 2015 Arlington Million. The immensely popular gelding, out of the multiple stakes-placed mare I Can Fan Fan, became a dual top-level scorer with a narrow tally in the Northern Dancer Turf S. the following year.

 

Go West My Son

The Juddmonte breeding programme is renowned near and far, and Westover's first three dams are all products of the storied operation. His 20-year-old dam, Mirabilis, gained black-type as a juvenile with a second in the G3 Prix Miesque, before improving to take the Listed Prix d'Angerville at three. Two more group-placings followed, among them the all-important Group 1 with a third in the Prix de la Foret. Sent Stateside, she captured the GIII Churchill Distaff Turf Mile S. as a 4-year-old and was also third in the GII Jenny Wiley S. and GII Buena Vista H.

A consistent producer, Mirabilis had three winners from three runners prior to foaling Monarchs Glen (GB). By European champion sire Frankel, the full-brother to the Irish Derby hero took the G3 Club S. Also, a stakes winner on American shores just like his dam, Monarchs Glen was placed in the GIII Mint Million at Kentucky Downs. Westover, who was also third in the Derby at Epsom, is the 10th foal from Mirabilis and is followed by the Expert Eye (GB) juvenile filly Japala (GB), who has yet to race.

The Ralph Beckett-trained Classic winner wasn't the only new stakes winner for his grandsire recently either, with Nick Papagiorgio (Outflanker) running out a half-length victor of Laurel Park's Find S. in Maryland on June 19.

With his youngest broodmare daughters now 17, most of the chapters on Lear Fan's immediate influence as a broodmare sire have been written, but Westover's victory illuminated once again what a conduit for class the Gainesway stallion yet embodies in pedigrees. That point could be illustrated even more poignantly on Saturday, with Westover entered in the G1 King George VI And Queen Elizabeth S. If he completes the Irish Derby/King George double, he would be the first 3-year-old colt to do so since Alamshar (Ire) (Key Of Luck) in 2003.

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