Mo Stash Goes Gate-To-Wire In Transylvania

In the first graded win for young sire Mo Town (by Uncle Mo), Mo Stash (Mo Town–Making Mark Money, by Smart Strike) hung tough on the lead to win the GIII Kentucky Utilities Transylvania S. on opening day of the always-anticipated spring meet at Keeneland. Nagirroc (Lea), who finished one spot in front of the Transylvania winner in their only previous meeting, the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf over this course, was second with Webslinger (Constitution)–11th in the Juvenile Turf–third.

The complexion of the race changed when Chad Brown scratched Carl Spackler (Ire) (Lope de Vega {Ire}), who sported a field-high 92 Beyer in his last. Mo Stash, away cleanly from stall seven in the Transylvania, shook free of the others and slid down to the rail to mark the first quarter a length clear in :23.69. The field began stringing out, but Mo Stash kept his position, getting the half in :48.41 and the three-quarters in 1:13.84. He was joined by a host of challengers in the stretch only to repel all, including Nagirroc, who briefly looked as though he had the winner measured.

“There was a lot of pacing going on up there and I thought, 'Oh, geez, now we're going to have to set the pace,'” said winning trainer Vicki Oliver, who won the first Keeneland stakes of her career in the Transylvania. “We were kind of getting pushed down the backside, and then [jockey Luis] Saez slipped away and got out on his own, and he could relax a little bit, and when he turned for home prevailed on and ran a really good race.”

Tried for the first time beyond a mile in the Transylvania, Mo Stash spent the majority of his 2-year-old campaign sprinting. A maiden winner at Ellis last August, he's done some of his best work at Keeneland. He finished second in the Lexington oval's Indian Summer S. last October at 5 1/2 furlongs which propelled him to a fourth in the one-mile Breeders' Cup. Freshened until Mar. 11, he reappeared again at a mile in Tampa Bay's Columbia S. and secured a runner-up spot behind a 91 Beyer performance by Talk of the Nation (Quality Road). Mo Stash has run exclusively on the grass.

As for what's next, Oliver added: “It's still going to be a question mark about how far he will go, but today it looked like he just kept going and could go another sixteenth. That might just be his running style. There's a lot of races out there between a mile, mile-and-an-eighth. We'll just have to pick them out as we go.”

Pedigree Notes:

Ashford stallion Mo Town, winner of the GI Hollywood Derby on the lawn and the GII Remsen S. on the dirt, has sired three black-type winners in his first crop with Mo Stash being his first to win or place in a graded event. Mo Stash is out of a mare by the late Smart Strike, whose 159 stakes winners out of his daughters include a number of champions as well as reigning GI Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike (Keen Ice).

Mo Stash is the second stakes performer for his dam, Making Mark Money, whose 2021 GII Tampa Bay Derby runner-up and GIII Sam F. Davis third Hidden Stash (Constitution) also runs for BBN Racing connections and is also trained by Oliver. The 5-year-old's most recent start was a third in an optional allowance at Tampa Feb. 21 after an eight-month layoff. He ran 14th in the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby. It was at the 2021 Keeneland September sale that BBN picked up Mo Stash for $130,000. Making Mark Money's only foal since is a yearling colt by Practical Joke. She was bred to McKinzie for 2023.

Making Mark Money's granddam is the wonderful La Affirmed, a half to champion Outstandingly (Exclusive Native) and dam of four graded winners. Among her descendants are GISWs Sky Mesa (Pulpit), Maxfield (Street Sense), and Matareya (Pioneerof the Nile). The female line traces directly to La Troienne through her granddaughter Busanda, who contributed mightily to the breed, not the least through her Horse of the Year son and stellar sire Buckpasser (Tom Fool).

KENTUCKY UTILITIES TRANSYLVANIA S.-GIII, $396,250, Keeneland, 4-7, 3yo, 1 1/16mT, 1:43.05, gd.
1–MO STASH, 118, c, 3, by Mo Town
                1st Dam: Making Mark Money, by Smart Strike
                2nd Dam: Kapsiki, by Danzig
                3rd Dam: La Affirmed, by Affirmed
1ST BLACK TYPE WIN, 1ST GRADED STAKES WIN. ($130,000
Ylg '21 KEESEP). O-BBN Racing, LLC; B-Rhineshire Farm LLC
(KY); T-Victoria H. Oliver; J-Luis Saez. $229,400. Lifetime
Record: 6-2-2-0, $392,275. *1/2 to Hidden Stash
(Constitution), MGSP, $291,382. Werk Nick Rating: A+.
Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Click for the
free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Nagirroc, 118, c, 3, Lea–Emma Spencer (Ire), by Zamindar.
O-Little Red Feather Racing, Madaket Stables LLC and William
Strauss; B-Chervenell Thoroughbreds LLC (KY); T-H. Graham
Motion. $74,000.
3–Webslinger, 118, g, 3, Constitution–Arana, by Hard Spun.
1ST GRADED BLACK TYPE. ($45,000 RNA Ylg '21 KEESEP;
$25,000 Ylg '21 FTKOCT; $45,000 RNA 2yo '22 OBSAPR;
$50,000 2yo '22 OBSOPN). O-D. J. Stable LLC; B-Kenneth L. &
Sarah K. Ramsey (KY); T-Mark E. Casse. $37,000.
Margins: 1, 1, 1. Odds: 5.48, 3.63, 4.96.
Also Ran: Mi Hermano Ramon, Andthewinneris, Candidate, Freedom Trail, Dude N Colorado (GB), Wonderful Justice (GB), Movisitor, Rarified Flair. Scratched: Carl Spackler (Ire).
Click for the Equibase.com chart and the TJCIS.com PPs. VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.

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Uncle Mo Has Three-Year-Old Mo-Mentum

When Golden Pal retired to Coolmore America for the 2023 season, he became the second son of Uncle Mo to join his sire at the farm, alongside Mo Town.

A 15-year-old stalwart of the Coolmore stallion roster, Uncle Mo is currently enjoying a bit of a hot streak with his group of 2023 three-year-olds.

Arabian Knight is the #1 ranked horse on the TDN's Derby Top Contenders off one start-the first race on the Breeders' Cup Saturday card–indicating just how impressive that race was. The $2.3-million sales topper at OBS April was named a `TDN Rising Star' and won by 7 1/4 lengths. He was Uncle Mo's 13th TDN Rising Star.

In the first two weeks of the year, Kingsbarns, an $800,000 Fasig-Tipton March 2yo, broke his maiden in his first start in an $84,000 allowance as the favorite at Gulfstream Park Jan. 14, and Scoobie Quando won the Turfway Prevue S. in his career debut Jan. 7 at Turfway.

This comes, of course, after the year in which he had his second Classic winner with Mo Donegal in the Belmont (joining Nyquist's Derby win).

As the breeding sheds prepare to open, Eddie Rosen, General Manager for Mike Repole's Repole Stables, who campaigned the champion two-year-old, agrees with the `hot' assessment, but takes a bit of umbrage that it's a current phenomenon. “He's very hot right now. But it's important to remember that he has been hot for a very long time. Consistently.”

The industry, he points out, is too often consumed with the shiny new toy. “So often, the concentration is placed on breeding to young stallions, new stallions that have been recently retired. But very few, if any stallions have succeeded like Uncle Mo from the beginning to the current time. He started out with a Derby winner and his very first crop in Nyquist, and he has continued year after year with stakes winners of all kinds.”

In fact, Nyquist leads the list of Uncle Mo's fairly staggering 24 sons at stud, topping the list with a stud fee of $55,000 at Darley. Golden Pal and Yaupon (at Spendthrift) are next at $30,000 each. An informal survey finds only Speightstown and Tapit, who each have 25 sons at stud standing in the U.S., with more.

But while Tapit turns 22 this year, and Speightstown 25, Uncle Mo is far younger.

Uncle Mo is now 15, and he's on an incredible run,” said Coolmore America's Adrian Wallace. “He's been with us at Ashford Stud now for all of his stallion career. We're privileged to have him. He's been a horse that obviously as a racehorse left no doubt as to how good he was when trained by Todd Pletcher for Repole Stable to be Champion two-year-old. He's imparted a lot of that precocity on his stock but his run continues to flourish.”

Wallace points out that Uncle Mo's recent Grade I winners ranged from Golden Pal at 5 furlongs in the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint to Mo Donegal over the Belmont's 12 furlongs on the dirt. “It's a great depth and breadth of winners he has had, siring a Belmont Stakes winner in Mo Donegal and a very fast champion sprinter-elect on the turf in Golden Pal. I think the horse is definitely going from strength to strength every single year. He has horses running in all the best races, but the great thing is they do it short, long, dirt, and turf in this country on and all around the Northern Hemisphere.”

Arabian Knight wins in his Keeneland debut | Coady photo

But right now, it's Arabian Knight capturing everyone's attention.

“Arabian Night is obviously very much at the forefront of everyone's imagination being at the top of the TDN's leading Derby contenders for 2023,” said Wallace. “His much-anticipated debut here on the Breeders Cup undercard at Keeneland was highly, highly professional and brilliant. Hopefully, he will be seen to good effect in the in the Santa Anita Derby.”

Arabian Knight worked five furlongs in 59.60 at Santa Anita, but trainer Bob Baffert-who told jockey John Velazquez to ride him like he was Uncle Mo– said that he had not picked out the colt's second start yet, and would take his time with him.

“But there's not just one,” said Wallace. “I think Scoobie Quando made a very impressive debut for Ben Colebrook winning the Turfway Prevue as a maiden in a stakes race. So, we think the future is very bright hopefully throughout this classic season for Uncle Mo.”

But then again, Rosen will tell you that his future has always been bright. “He doesn't have peaks and valleys,” he said. “He's consistently coming up with stakes winner after stakes winner. He continues to make the front pages of the TDN. He's emerging as a sire of sires. He is emerging as a top broodmare sire, which proves to continue on his legacy as a great sire. I feel like every night, something good happens that's worthy of mention.”

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Value Sires for ’23: Part V, First Sophomores

Today we finally come to a group that has at least had some initial opportunity to show whether or not they can replicate their own racing prowess. By the same token, of course, this means that their level of support–which in many cases will already have declined through each preceding year, as racetrack exposure draws perilously closer–may now fall off a cliff.

If the stampede to unproven sires is ludicrous, then so is the haste with which they are abandoned. Stallions whose stock should plainly be granted time to mature round a second turn are often prematurely judged. Even more precocious types often find themselves long since abandoned by the most ruthless commercial breeders, who can annually move on to a fresh group whose reputation is usefully invulnerable to any appraisal more meaningful than hype.

For most stallions, then, this is a time when sales averages are coming down, along with fees and books. It's very rare that a young sire emerges from his opening racetrack skirmishes with the authority of Gun Runner, whose first sophomores spectacularly consolidated their record-breaking domination of the freshmen preceding the group we consider today. You more often find yourself dealing with an Overanalyze, champion freshman five years ago and meanwhile discarded to South Korea.

To be fair, however, this lot have laid down a very purposeful marker as the freshmen of 2022. The top six, indeed, can also be found among the top 10 of the overall list of juvenile sires. Auspiciously, moreover, there are grounds for thinking that several, judged on the template of their own performance and pedigree, can stimulate further progress from their maturing stock.

Arguably, the best long-term value right now rests with those who might emulate the way the tragic Arrogate transformed his legacy with his first sophomores, after they had made a quiet start as juveniles. On the other hand, those sires that had assembled monster books as commercial rookies should expect to be judged pretty sternly, pretty quickly.

So we have to strike a balance. Already second crop yearlings have typically registered a depreciation of many sire brands in the sales ring. On the other hand, investors of sufficient patience, vision and bravery may decide that this is precisely the moment to roll the dice on a slower burn.

Bubbling Under:

BOLT D'ORO closed out the year strongest to secure the freshman laurels after a sustained battle with two other very promising young sires, a distinction that formalized the superiority he showed both in the sheer breadth of his quality–a stellar one-in-five starters getting black type–and notably in the sales performance of his second crop, which uniquely among the trio managed to advance the values achieved by his first.

His median, always the key measure, rose to $152,500 from the $110,000 achieved by those debut yearlings who had meanwhile been showing that it was money well spent. That's an exceptional vote of confidence, albeit perhaps partly also reflected a rather narrower choice for purchasers after numbers had to be controlled (along with his boisterous behavior, at the time) for his second season. Bolt d'Oro was back up to 174 mares for his fourth book last spring, and the quality of his mares will only be going up with his fee-now $35,000 after slipping to $15,000 in 2021. Obviously he has to work harder to achieve the same ratios now, with the stakes raised, but he has made an exemplary start.

Fairly steady stuff on the track from MO TOWN (illuminated by Myrtlewood S. romper Key Of Life) does not tell half his story, as he is an unusual example of a stallion whose business soared in his third and fourth seasons. His second crop of yearlings emerge from a book of 104 mares, but he then covered 204 in 2021 and 218 this spring. If that generates renewed momentum on the track, in a couple of years from now, this could turn out to be a smart time to get involved at just $5,000.

Army Mule | Sarah K. Andrew

BRONZE: ARMY MULE (Friesan Fire-Crafty Toast by Crafty Prospector)
$12,500 Hill 'n' Dale
This has always looked a stallion who could only have extreme outcomes. He was either going to be a dud, or prove himself exceptional value. Happily, there already seems little doubt that the switch is “on” and Army Mule appears set to build something pretty imposing on the fragile foundations of a track career that showcased freakish ability across barely four minutes, and a somewhat left-field pedigree.

His every trajectory is upward. Most importantly, his first juveniles have excelled, elevating him to fourth in the table from a smaller book (and much smaller fee) than those above him. Of his 24 winners from 61 starters, as many as five won at black-type level-the top three were tied with just one more-in tipping $2 million in purse money.

This performance had been anticipated by a stunning debut at the yearling sales, when Army Mule's first crop averaged nine times their $10,000 conception fee. In response, there was a further rebound in the size of his 2022 book, after he had slumped from 140 mares to 47 in his second season. He has now received 83 and 115 partners in the two years since. And while he couldn't quite replicate his initial yield with his second crop of yearlings, he again punched way above the kind of ratio you might expect at this stage, averaging $69,272 for 22 yearlings sold (from only 25 offered). Unsurprisingly, given his own giddy history as a yearling pinhook ($35,000 to $825,000) he also achieved dividends as high as $450,000 at the 2-year-old sales.

Originally, no doubt, breeders may have been torn between his six-length GI Carter H. success, in 1:20.94, on what proved to be the final of just three starts; and, on the other hand, some fairly unfashionable genes (albeit second and third dams both graded stakes winners). One way or another, however, things are plainly functioning in a repeatable fashion. You know what they say when it walks like a duck…

If Army Mule already sires runners like a good stallion, and sells horses like a good stallion, the chances are that he's a good stallion.

Accelerate | Lane's End

SILVER: ACCELERATE (Lookin At Lucky-Issues by Awesome Again)
$10,000 Lane's End
Of the three stallions launched into this intake at Lane's End, CITY OF LIGHT was always the golden boy. Though slow to get going, his 11 winners since midsummer already feature three at stakes level. Nobody, in short, still needs telling what he can still hope to achieve at $60,000.

At the sales, however, it has meanwhile proved much tougher going for the second crop of yearlings by the pair who started alongside him. Nonetheless I am unhesitatingly keeping the faith with the one I have liked all along.

In this series we've already nailed our colors to the Lookin At Lucky mast with Country House, believing the Ashford stalwart as likely to be underestimated as a potential sire of sires as he has always been in his own right. And there's no doubt in my mind that Accelerate is an absolutely astounding amount of horse for just $10,000.

Did anyone for a moment think that Accelerate was going to start off with a cavalcade of sprint maidens at the Keeneland spring meet? Yet having looked after his supporters very nicely with his first yearlings, he found himself childishly neglected with his second crop.

Accelerate did muster 14 juvenile winners, including one at stakes level, which is as much as could have been sensibly expected for a horse that himself required four sophomore starts to break his maiden in high summer. He then rolled on to win a stakes and the GII Los Alamitos Derby before finishing third in the GI Dirt Mile at the Breeders' Cup. Lest we forget, runner-up in that race was another sophomore who was only laying down foundations: horse name of Gun Runner (Candy Ride {Arg}).

Nobody should need reminding of the heights Accelerate achieved in his own maturity, winning five Grade Is at five. His only defeat that year? By a neck to none other than City Of Light, giving weight, the pair 10 lengths clear.

Accelerate laid down a perfect marker with his first sophomore runner, on New Year's Day at Laurel, where a filly making her fourth start broke her maiden easily over a bare six furlongs. That's a similar template to Winters Lion, who had run fifth, third and second in Churchill maidens before putting it all together to romp by 6 1/2 at Oaklawn in December. Anyone can see that all this is pure groundwork and breeders blessed with that rarest of commodities, patience, will recognize the value they're getting if their primary objective is to put a winner under their mare. (Which should, after all, be just about the most commercial thing anyone can do…)

Remember that Accelerate is out of an Awesome Again mare (representing the distaff gold of Deputy Minister) who also produced siblings, respectively, placed at Grade I and Grade III level, her own dam being a half-sister to a Grade I winner. (And the line traces to a fifth dam, Smartaire, whose son Smarten gave us the dam of Accelerate's grandsire Smart Strike.)

It's a dismal measure of the world we live in that Accelerate was retired at a fee as accessible as $20,000, lower than several horses he had left gasping in his wake-and that he has since taken three cuts in three years. What exactly are people after? This horse earned $6.7 million by dint of class, constitution and a physique prized at $380,000 as a yearling, despite his ostensibly uncommercial paternity. Bar a historic Triple Crown winner, Accelerate would have been a lock for Horse of the Year and I remain confident that he will, gradually and cumulatively, retrieve respect in his second career.

He actually has a very solid numerical base, with as many as 380 mares across his first three books. Given that his opening crops seem very likely to keep thriving with time, he could wind up with plenty of headlines overlapping in the coming years. As such, this feels like a very good moment to get ahead of the game with Accelerate. Sure, that suggestion might irritate those who suffered from the myopic treatment of his second crop at the sales. But someday people may look back at this horse, at this fee, as one of the great missed opportunities.

Oscar Performance | Sarah K. Andrew

GOLD: OSCAR PERFORMANCE (Kitten's Joy-Devine Actress by Theatrical {Ire})
$20,000 Mill Ridge
This guy will cost you a little more this time round-and so he jolly well should.

Most obviously, Oscar Performance has made an exemplary start on the track, with higher earnings per starter than any other top-10 freshman sire. From star managed to put him as high as eighth in the prize money table (slipstreaming Mendelssohn, with 90!) and featured not just 17 winners, a couple at black-type level, but also four placed in graded stakes company. These included a Grade II one-two when Andthewinneris beat Deer District at Keeneland in the fall.

We know, moreover, that these horses will keep building if they adhere to their sire's own template as a Grade I winner at two, three and four. And, crucially, even a commercial market so petrified of turf horses has managed to register his promise: bucking the usual trend, his second crop elevated their predecessors' yearling average from $43,149 to $57,474 (for a strong 38 sold of 44 offered).

But the real key for Oscar Performance is that he has emerged at an hour of need for the enlightened minority who actually want to connect the American bloodstock industry to huge racetrack opportunity on American grass.

Everyone knows how the turf program is expanding, and that a virtuous circle is underway between fully subscribed fields and purse money. And a lot of people, as a result, are investing heavily in elite European blood at sales over the water. On their own doorstep, however, they have now allowed both English Channel and Kitten's Joy to pass without ever having shown them anything like enough respect in the ring.

Now we have a blatant young talent emerging to blatant opportunity. There is generational room at the top, after the consecutive loss of his own sire, English Channel and Get Stormy. And here's a horse who had the brilliance to drop back from elite scores at 10 furlongs (Arlington Million/Belmont Derby) to make all in a Grade I mile; the soundness to bank $2.35 million across three seasons; and a pedigree that duplicates the same breed-changing alchemy top and bottom.

That's because his damsire is a son of Nureyev, who was by Northern Dancer out of the great Special (Forli {Arg}); while he extends the storied sire-line of Sadler's Wells, who was of course by Northern Dancer out of Special's daughter Fairy Bridge (Bold Reason). That may sound like way too much chlorophyll for a lot of Kentucky breeders, but I will never cease complaining about prescriptive, self-fulfilling assumptions about different bloodlines and different surfaces. Sure enough, Oscar Performance has already come up with Red Carpet Ready to win a dirt sprint by 10 lengths at Churchill on debut and then a 6.5f dirt stakes over the same track on her only other start.

Oscar Performance has been launched with unsurprising flair by a farm that once stood international influences in Diesis and Gone West. It's great to see them back in the stallion game, not least with so much “industrial” traffic cornered by the same few farms, and it's a typically thoughtful gesture-having trimmed him to $12,500 pending his first runners-to confine the increase in Oscar Performance's fee to $17,500 for those clients who had used him already.

The rest of us may have been less alert, but anyone can now see that Oscar Performance is on his way. He will surely rank high on the shortlists of European pinhookers as well. Roll out the red carpet!

 

 

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Frosted’s Ice Dancing Takes On Baffert Trio in Santa Ynez

Richard Mandella's Ice Dancing (Frosted), the only filly in a scratched-down field of five with a graded-stakes placing already to her name, will seek her first win since breaking her maiden in Sunday's rescheduled Santa Ynez S. at 'The Great Race Place.' The Grade III event, which was originally scheduled for last Sunday's New Year's Eve program, carries Kentucky Oaks points to the tune of 20-8-6-4-2, which will go to the top five finishers that are not associated with Bob Baffert.

A homebred for Bass Stables LLC, the newly minted 3-year-old took four tries to earn her first win after three consecutive finishes behind GISW And Tell Me Nolies (Arrogoate), including a third in the GI Del Mar Debutante S. Fourth behind both that rival and the Santa Ynez's scratched morning-line favorite 'TDN Rising Star' Justique (Justify) in the GII Chandelier S., Ice Dancing rebounded in her fourth start to break her maiden ahead of Bob Baffert's Doinitthehardway (Street Sense) at Del Mar Nov. 25.

Speaking of the Baffert barn, he will enter a trio in a bid to win what would be his fourth Santa Ynez in a row. It appears that Huntingcoco (Practical Joke), Fast and Shiny (Bernardini) and Parody (Distorted Humor) have not flashed much in the way of speed under the California sun over the past few months, so a game effort is in order if one of them wants to keep their conditioner's streak alive.

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