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2023 Mating Plans, Presented by Spendthrift: JCB Stables

As we approach the opening of the 2023 breeding season, the TDN staff is once again sitting down with leading breeders to find out what stallions they have chosen for their mares, and why. Today we caught up with JCB Stables' Ezequiel Cesar Valle, who represents the aforementioned American branch of Haras Firmamento, one of the largest farms in Argentina.

MAID OF HONOR (6, Medaglia d´Oro–Lovely Regina, by Deputy Minister), to be bred to Street Sense
We bought five mares at the last Keeneland November Sale, and she was the most expensive at $260,000 carrying her first foal by Twirling Candy. She was originally a $400,000 yearling.

Maid of Honor is a half-sister to MGSW Thiskyhasnolimit (Sky Mesa) and her second dam, Cara Rafaela, literally fills the page. We are sending her to Street Sense because he is one of the best stallions in America; a top sire and sire of sires who will suite her physically, too.

BELLA AURELIA (6, Medaglia d´Oro–My Miss Aurelia, by Smart Strike) to be bred to Hard Spun
Another purchase from Keeneland November. You do not have to explain too much about her; she is the first registered foal out of champion 2-year-old filly My Miss Aurelia. She has a colt by Munnings and now is in foal to Maclean´s Music.

Hard Spun is the real deal. There are not too many proven stallions like him with 15 career Grade I-winners.

BY THE HOUR (5, Tapit–Miss Super Quick, by Rock Hard Ten) to be bred to Twirling Candy
Another Keeneland November purchase, this one carrying her first foal by American Pharoah. We love her pedigree, she is from the immediate family of GI Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver, and many other Grade I stakes winners.

Twirling Candy, one of the best sons of Candy Ride (Arg) at stud, suites her perfectly. Candy Ride numbers with Tapit mares are incredible and he has already shown a remarkable affinity for the A.P. Indy branch

CLEOPATRA'S CHARM (6, Pioneerof The Nile–Careless Jewel, by Tapit), to be bred to Hard Spun
Our first purchase. We bought her at Keeneland November in 2021 in foal to Omaha Beach and we have a very nice and strong colt. Her first foal is a Bernardini filly that we acquired at the last Keeneland September sale for $155,000. She is currently in foal to Blame and I like Hard Spun for her this year because the Hard Spun/Empire Maker cross is proven (Silver State, for example).

Cleopatra's Charm's dam is a Grade I stakes winner and she is a 3/4-sister to Reframe, a very famous filly in Japan who won a Listed race.

BRASSY (6, Medaglia d´Oro-Cheeky Charm, by A.P. Indy), to be bred to Nyquist
Brassy has a lovely pedigree. Her dam is 3/4-sister to Sky Mesa and Velvety, the dam of Maxfield. Her third dam is the influential mare La Affirmed, ancestress of Bernstein, for example. She was our last purchase at Keeneland November, in foal to Hard Spun.

Brassy is booked to Nyquist, one of the best young sires in America and who also crosses well over mares from the Medaglia d´Oro and A.P. Indy lines.

STREET SLAYER (4, Street Sense–Ghostslayer, by Ghostzapper), to be bred to Twirling Candy
Street Slayer is a half-sister to GSW Biddy Duke (Bayern) and descends from the same family as Forte, Folklore, Contrail, and Essential Quality, among other Grade I-winners.

We bought her as a broodmare prospect at Keeneland November and she is now booked to Twirling Candy, too. Twirling Candy is out of a Mr. Prospector line mare and has found success with mares from that line. And as I mentioned before, there are not too many active, proven stallions in Kentucky as good as him for $60,000.

KNOCKOUT KISSES (4, Into MIschief–Transplendid by Elusive Quality), to be bred to Blame
We acquired Knockout Kisses as a broodmare prospect at the Fasig-Tipton July sale last year. She is a young half-sister to GSW Dennis' Moment (Tiznow). She has a lot of Into Mischief and we chose Blame because it's a great physical match as well. We really like Blame, he is a proven stallion and he offers good value even at the increased fee of $25,000.

Interested in sharing your own mating plans? Email garyking@thetdn.com.

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The Week in Review: At Tampa Bay Downs, An Unlikely Win for the ‘Little Guy’

As the field turned for home in Saturday's Suncoast S. at Tampa Bay Downs, Dreaming of Snow (Jess's Dream), trained by Gerald Bennett, had the lead, but it sure looked like she'd never hold on. It wasn't just that she was 38-1 and had been pressed most of the way, it was who was chasing her, monsters from the stables of super trainers Mark Casse and Todd Pletcher in Wonder Wheel (Into Mischief) and Julia Shining (Curlin). Could a horse from the barn of a 78-year-old claiming trainer who had won all of two graded stakes in his career and none in 33 years, possibly pull this off?

She could and she did.

In what was arguably the biggest upset of the year in a major race, Dreaming of Snow, who was a tiring fourth in the seven-furlong Gasparilla S. in her previous start, defeated champion Eclipse Award winner Wonder Wheel by a neck in the Suncoast. It was another 1 1/4 lengths back to Julia Shining in third. In what has become more and more rare in this sport, a David beat not one, but two Goliaths.

“To win a race like this, that's what you dream of,” Bennett said.

Though Bennett, entering Sunday, had 4,090 winners, 14th best among all North American trainers, he has always operated well outside the spotlight. Born in Nova Scotia, he began training in his native Canada in 1976 and in 2021 became the winningest Canadian-born trainer of all time. He moved on to the now-defunct Michigan circuit, where he became a force at places like Detroit Race Course and Hazel Park and, later on, Great Lakes Downs. In the late eighties and in 1990, Bennett got a brief taste of what it was like to win at the highest level when he campaigned Beau Genius (Bold Ruckus), whose 13 career stakes wins included victories in the GI Philip H. Iselin H. and the GII Michigan Mile and One-Eighth H. He has not won a graded stakes since Beau Genius's win in the 1990 Iselin at Monmouth Park.

At an age when a lot of trainers would be slowing down, Bennett has been enjoying some of his best years. He is leading the current standings at Tampa Bay Downs, where he will be seeking his eighth straight training title. He has won 830 career races at Tampa, where, when it comes to the higher-class races, it's not unusual to see shippers from the top stables based at Gulfstream.

“Those guys ship in here all the time,” Bennett said. “You have to have a nice horse who can compete with them. It was a great thrill to do that, to beat those guys. The last time it happened for me was quite a few years ago, in 2002, in the Super S. Mark Casse had a horse named Exciting Story, who had just won the Met Mile. We beat him and set a track record. That was another great thrill.”

On paper, Dreaming of Snow didn't appear to have much of a chance. She had never run beyond seven furlongs or around two turns and she was coming off what looked like a lackluster effort in the Gasparilla. In Wonder Wheel and Julie Shining, she would be facing two of the best 3-year-old fillies in training. But Bennett was convinced she could win this race.

“When we ran her in seven-eighths race [the Gasparilla], she sat back and we tried to make a run with her,” he said. “The track here, they had a lot of rain and they hadn't bladed it for a while. The track got biased favoring the outside. The inside was extremely deep for a while and that's where she was in that race. Anybody who was down on the inside couldn't finish. She ran an even race last time. But we have been high on this filly from the start and always thought she'd be a nice horse. I thought she had a shot [in the Suncoast].”

Dreaming of Snow was purchased for $60,000 at the 2022 OBS March sale. It was more than Bennett usually pays.

“I go to the sale and buy these horses for $17,500, for $25,000,” he said. “We paid $60,000 for this one. I like going to the June sale in Ocala. It seems like you get more value there and don't have to overpay for them. If they run well and get a big number, usually I'll sell them.”

Some, no doubt, will consider the Suncoast result to be a fluke. Bennett doesn't see it that way. He believes that Dreaming of Snow is a legitimate contender for the GI Kentucky Oaks and is looking to run her next in the GIII Fantasy S. at Oaklawn Apr. 1.

“When she turned for home, she drew off a bit,” he said. “She's a fighter and she wouldn't let them pass her. Wonder Wheel was the class of the race and had all the hype. [Casse] had been preparing for this race for a while. He said she got tired, but the jockey was whipping on her well before the wire. You can't take anything away from our horse. She ran a monster race and she wasn't tired. In the winner's circle, she wouldn't have blown out a match.”

Asmussen Vs. Suarez

Steve Asmussen was bearing down on the 10,000-win milestone last week. Entering Sunday's races, he had 9,996 career wins, a remarkable total and one that will surely keep growing for many years to come as Asmussen is just 57. But he still has a way to go before he can be crowned as the winningest trainer in the history of the sport.

That title still belongs to Peruvian trainer Juan Suarez. As of Saturday, Suarez had 10,328 wins. However, Asmussen is gaining on him. Since Aug. 8, 2021, when Asmussen moved past Dale Baird to become the winningest trainer in the history of North American racing, Asmussen has had 440 winners while Suarez has had 332. While Asmussen is always active at several tracks in the U.S., Suarez's opportunities are limited since there is only one track in Peru, Hipodromo de Monterrico.

A Slow Race Or Not, Hit Show Impressed

The loaded Brad Cox-barn won another stakes race with a 3-year-old colt when Hit Show (Candy Rude {Arg}) captured Saturday's GIII Withers S. at Aqueduct. But what should we make of the time? He covered the mile-and-an-eighth in 1:54.71 and the final three furlongs were run in a leisurely :41.36.

That's not a reflection on Hit Show, but how slow the Aqueduct main track has been over the last few weeks. On the same card as the Withers, 3-year-old sprinters needed 1:13.09 to complete the Jimmy Winkfield S. On the day before the Withers, a mile-and-an-eighth race went in 1:59.04. Granted it was an $8,000 claiming race, but that very well could be the slowest time for the distance ever at a NYRA track.

Hit Show was given a 91 Beyer figure for his effort.

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Sunday Insights: No Shade on Hollywoodland at Gulfstream

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency

7th-GP, $84K, Msw, 3yo, f, 6f, 3:07 p.m.
Debut filly HOLLYWOODLAND (Quality Road) was a $500,000 KEESEP purchase as a yearling by owner Joseph Allen, who bred and campaigns recent GIII La Prevoyante S. winner Personal Best (Tapit). This filly's dam, Union City, is a sister to MGSW Dixie City, whose own offspring Reef Point (Giant's Causeway) produced MGSW Bubble Rock (More Than Ready). Not to be outdone, Union City is responsible for GII Peter Pan S. hero Unified (Candy Ride {Arg}). Breaking from the three hole on Sunday, Hollywoodland will get the services of Tyler Gaffalione. TJCIS PPS

9th-GP, $84K, Msw, 3yo, f, 1m, 4:06 p.m.
SHADE (Street Sense) was a $500,000 KEESEP purchase by now-retired agent Frank Brothers for Star Ladies Racing, LNJ Foxwoods and Gainesway Stable. Jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. will be in the irons aboard the Todd Pletcher trainee, who breaks from the outside. Second dam Carolina Sunrise (Awesome Again) has a pair of stakes winners to her credit, including Reveron (Songandaprayer) and Steal Sunshine (Constitution). Shade's dam Simply Sunny produced G3 UAE Two Thousand Guineas winner Fore Left (Twirling Candy), and is responsible for an unnamed colt by Flatter who fetched $360,000 at KEESEP in 2021. TJCIS PPS

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This Side Up: Do You Know The Way to San…Felipe?

How apt that one of Burt Bacharach's very first hits was The Story Of My Life. Because reading the tributes prompted by his loss a couple of days ago, it turns out that his music was pretty well a soundtrack to the lives of millions who–especially in the Sixties, an era of profound societal tension between materialism and idealism–wanted assurance that the essential bonds of humanity still united them all. He transcended those divisions much as he did musical genres, knowing that the middle-aged hosts of suburban cocktail parties and their rebellious adolescents both ultimately shared an abiding weakness for romance, optimism and style.

Though somewhat later on the scene, I too am indebted to Bacharach for a literal soundtrack of one particular evening. I was young and foolish, and had no real sense of my privilege in hearing him at a piano in a London venue that now strikes me as unbelievably intimate for a star of such magnitude. If the only real change since is that I am no longer young, my regret is compounded, by since having discovered that it must have been right around that time that he could have gone back late to his hotel room, and exploit the time zones to call Richard Mandella in California about one of the Derby colts he had bred in consecutive crops.

Both looked authentic contenders in the GII San Felipe S., each thwarting a Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner: Soul Of The Matter turned over Brocco (Kris S.) in 1994, while Afternoon Deelites saw off Timber Country (Woodman) the following year. Glitzy days for our game, those, when Burt Bacharach could win a big Derby trial with a homebred, from a rival owned by the Bond movie producer Albert Broccoli. (It would be nice to think that someday we might restore all that glamor, but I'll leave you to decide whether we first need to demonstrate a collective commitment to getting syringes out of our barns; or simply to heed the intricacies of constitutionality to which our attention has been so kindly drawn by so many interested parties, from Alaska to Mississippi).

Click here to listen to this edition of This Side Up.

It's impossible for us to put a value on the enthusiasm of a man like Bacharach. He didn't just give us kudos, with all the headlines he generated on the Derby trail and elsewhere; he also gave us belief in what we were doing. It's always gratifying when somebody like that embraces our arcane way of life and exudes a sense that he is taking a step up in the world, and not the other way round.

Soul Of The Matter remains best remembered for nearly tearing up the script in the inaugural Dubai World Cup, but had earlier made history as the first West Virginia-bred to contest the GI Kentucky Derby, running fifth to Go For Gin; while Afternoon Deelites promptly became the second, though only eighth behind a horse he had thrashed at Hollywood Park the previous December in Thunder Gulch.

Soul Of The Matter was out of a half-sister to Bacharach's first star, Heartlight No. One (Rock Talk), who broke her pelvis and basically colicked weekly for the rest of her 18 years. The mare was indebted for that span of life to the round-the-clock devotion of a young lady named Catherine Parke, now familiar in the Bluegrass as the exemplary owner of Valkyre Stud. Catherine says that this was the experience that sealed her vocation; so you might even say that Bacharach wrote the story of her life, as well.

Who knows, then, what tendrils of fate may be quietly extending from the current renewal of the Derby trail? It does, regrettably, already feel as though this year will consolidate modern trainers' renunciation of everything that made the Derby the ultimate proving ground for the breed. The most accomplished juveniles have largely either disappeared or remain lurking in the wings–the champion not even scheduled to appear until March–while the later-developers will still have their races spaced out, leaving them with minimal competitive experience; and the fans with minimal engagement.

One thing that does tickle me about the emergence of Tapit Trice and Arabian Knight is that they are respectively out of mares by Dunkirk and Astrology. Other names high on my Derby list at this stage include Blazing Sevens, out of a Warrior's Reward mare; and Practical Move, whose dam is by Afleet Alex; while the Brad Cox team includes a couple out of daughters of Repent and Giant Oak. As I've noted before, with so many of the most expensive mares at auction similarly by unfashionable stallions, I'd be very wary if I were throwing millions at a breeding program and my advisors kept telling me that I need to pack out the broodmare band with the daughters of elite sires.

The Derby rehearsals this Saturday cannot measure up to the startling convergence of Wonder Wheel (Into Mischief) and Julia Shining (Curlin) in a non-graded stakes at Tampa Bay. Prairie Hawk has certainly been revving up for the GIII Sam F. Davis S., however, and it's obviously a home game for him. And I am really intrigued by Litigate (Blame) who traces to Numbered Account (Buckpasser) and must have a ton of talent to post a big number sprinting on debut with such a copper-bottomed two-turn pedigree. He had a bit of shock on his second start but was raised by one of the best small farms around (actually one of the best farms, period) and Pletcher has chosen him from eight nominations for a race he has harvested a record six times.

With the GII Remsen S. winner also in the field, and the runner-up lining up for the GIII Withers S. back at Aqueduct, we should at least get a firmer grip on the state of play in New York and Florida. Last week the GIII Holy Bull S. was dismally undermined by the performance of Cyclone Mischief (Into Mischief), who had looked so exciting against Litigate. It would be typical of the rate these young horses alter perceptions if Cyclone Mischief and Litigate were so swiftly to exchange the respective futures they were allotted on their sophomore debut.

Whether any of these can take us on a Derby ride as uplifting as the ones Bacharach shared not only with our community, but also with a curious world beyond, remains to be seen. At 31, Afternoon Deelites is actually the oldest surviving resident at Old Friends in Georgetown, Ky., a sanctuary long supported by Bacharach. In fact, there's a corner of that facility reserved for contemplation of his tragic daughter Nikki. And though himself blessed with a generous lease of life, even Bacharach would acknowledge the line from his collaborator Hal David as applicable to us all. “Weeks turn into years, how quick they pass.”

But if the story of our lives is told far too quickly, at least the soundtrack is pretty good.

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