Don’t Forget the Other Name on the Ticket

Most of us have voted early, and voted often, when it comes to the biggest impact recently made by a new stallion–and now, it seems, we've celebrated his official inauguration. Because a Classic winner for Gun Runner rounds out the narrative that so excited everybody last year, when his first juveniles showed such startling speed and precocity relative to his own Horse of the Year campaign, around two turns as a 4-year-old.

Sure, Gun Runner himself managed to win his first two (of three) juvenile starts, and then added the two big Fair Grounds trials before making the GI Kentucky Derby podium. But it was only in maturity that he reached his full potential, streaking through five Grade Is by an aggregate 27 1/2 lengths. Given the many Classic influences in his pedigree, then, he was surely only getting started when a GI Hopeful winner and champion 2-year-old filly contributed to a first-crop earnings record of $4.3 million. Sure enough, this spring Gun Runner had already followed through with winners of the GI Arkansas Derby and GI Santa Anita Derby, and now Early Voting has sealed the deal in the GI Preakness S.

We know that a ruthless price is exacted from young stallions if failing to capitalize on the one opportunity they tend to be given by commercial breeders, and even Gun Runner–despite having absolutely lived up to his billing at the yearling sales–was trimmed by Three Chimneys last year from $70,000 to $50,000, just to keep him in the game pending the launch of his first runners. But while many peers have meanwhile begun the usual, inexorable slide, he had already been hoisted to $125,000 for this spring and has been quick to reassure investors that his advent among the elite will be as lasting as it has been unmistakable.

By this stage, then, nobody still needs to be told that Gun Runner is a landslide success. But let's not forget the second name on the ticket. Because the other half of his genetic equation is certainly going to assist Early Voting, as and when he gets the chance to open up the next frontier for Gun Runner–as a sire of sires.

Pitch it short or drive it long, Early Voting's maternal family will sit very prettily in a stallion brochure. His dam is a Tiznow half-sister to an outstanding stallion in Speightstown; and full sister to a highly accomplished runner in the tragic Irap. And the quality of this dynasty–which eventually unspools, as seventh dam, to the Virginia matriarch Hildene–can be judged by reminding ourselves that Speightstown, though a first foal, brought $2 million as a yearling.

The line admittedly tapers pretty thinly by the time it reaches Hildene, foaled in 1938 and a foundation mare at Christopher T. Chenery's Meadow Farm, eventually famed for the nativity of Secretariat. Though Hildene (like her first two dams) was mediocre on the track, and apparently a bleeder, her five stakes winners included Hill Prince, Horse of the Year in 1950; and First Landing, champion juvenile of 1958.

First Flush was one of Hildene's less distinguished foals, unplaced in a light career. But if that seemed unsurprising in view of her paternity–her sire had won steeplechases in France–the fact is that she went on to prove a fertile source of stakes performers and/or producers. These included Copper Canyon, whose sire Bryan G. had been selected after coming up with triple champion Cicada from one of First Flush's half-sisters. Three of Copper Canyon's daughters would go on to produce Grade I winners, including an unraced daughter of the great Buckpasser named Insilca who delivered GI Turf Classic Inv. scorer Turk Passer (Turkoman).

Insilca's daughter by Bold Ruler's son Chieftain, Silken Doll, ran up a sequence of four as a sophomore (crowned with a stakes win) before in turn becoming quite a useful producer. Her foals included a Group 1-placed juvenile (admittedly regressive after) in Britain by Silver Hawk; the dam of GII Indiana Derby winner/GI King's Bishop runner-up Star Dabbler (Saint Ballado); and a Storm Cat filly named Silken Cat, whose three processional wins round Woodbine qualified her as Canada's leading 2-year-old filly of 1995.

Silken Cat, who had been bred in Quebec by Ferme Du Bois-Vert and sold to Sam-Son Farm as a yearling, was at this point acquired by Aaron and Marie Jones but had to be retired after a single sophomore start (and first defeat) in California. Any disappointment was soon assuaged, however, when her first yearling colt, by Gone West, brought that $2 million from Eugene Melnyk. Though Speightstown took his time to repay his investment, at one stage surfacing only twice in 30 months, he put it all together as champion sprinter at six, bowing out in style at the Lone Star Breeders' Cup.

On the face of it, Silken Cat then appeared to produce a series of costly duds. There was a winner in Malaysia, but that was it. Three never even made the starting gate: a $1.5 million sister to Speightstown; a $1.75 million Tiznow filly; and a colt by Unbridled's Song, plainly unraceable, discarded for just $8,000 as a 2-year-old at the Keeneland November Sale. By the time the very difficult delivery of a Tiznow colt caused her retirement, 16 years after she had produced Speightstown, Silken Cat had burned enough fingers for her final son to fail to reach his yearling reserve at $140,000.

Pinhooker Bobby Dodd did a deal, however, and managed to advance the colt's value to $300,000 at OBS the following March. The very same day, Silken Cat lay down peacefully in her paddock at Taylor Made and died. Her work, albeit protracted and fitful, was done: 11 yearlings sold for over $8.5 million.

Her final bequest, this Tiznow colt, was always campaigned like a talented horse by Doug O'Neill and a shock success in the GII Blue Grass S. showed why. Irap later added the GIII Ohio Derby and GIII Indiana Derby before making the podium in the GI Travers, only to succumb to laminitis that fall.

In the meantime, two of those ostensible “dud” siblings have enhanced their dam's legacy in astounding fashion. The Unbridled's Song colt written off for $8,000 was bought by John McKee, who offered him to West Virginia breeders at Beau Ridge Farm as a half-brother to Speightstown. Fiber Sonde has since accumulated 21 black-type winners, two at graded stakes level, including the 15-for-27 millionaire and Charles Town stalwart Runnin'toluvya.

And then there was that very expensive Tiznow filly, named Amour d'Ete, unraced after her acquisition as a yearling by incoming Three Chimneys chairman Goncalo Borges Torrealba at the 2013 September Sale. Evidently a stunning physical, she apparently suffered a fungal infection in training that nearly cost her an eye. The Three Chimneys team did try to cash her in, with a Super Saver cover at the November Sale of 2016, but in the end held their nerve and retained her at $725,000.

That has turned out to be an inspired gamble. True, her daughter by Super Saver was sold as a yearling for barely a tenth of that sum, at $75,000, and only won a maiden claimer. But how Ten Strike Racing must be congratulating themselves after claiming this filly for $50,000 at Churchill in November! Because she now finds herself half-sister to a Preakness winner.

Things had started to turn round for Amour d'Ete immediately after she was retained at the November Sale, her full brother Irap coming good the following spring. And fortunately her 2019 foal by the farm's rookie stallion Gun Runner (apparently still immature when making $200,000 at the Keeneland September Sale, to join Klaravich Stables) was striking enough for her to be bred straight back.

As a result, Three Chimneys find themselves not only with both the sire and dam of a Preakness winner, but also a full sister–along with several other new shoots on this long-flourishing family tree, Amour d'Ete having otherwise produced only fillies. Her first foal, by Distorted Humor, required patience but did break her maiden stylishly at four; after Early Voting's sister, now two, came a yearling by another recent breakout sire in Constitution; while just last month the farm welcomed a filly by Volatile.

So let's now just take a step back and consider the mating that produced a Preakness winner. Apart from sheer quality of blood–both Gun Runner and Amour d'Ete, after all, are real aristocrats–the first thing that stands out is a nice echo behind Silken Cat, blue hen as she has unmistakably become, and Gun Runner's great damsire Giant's Causeway. Because Early Voting's second dam, as noted, is by Storm Cat out of Chieftain's daughter Silken Doll; and Giant's Causeway, also by Storm Cat, was out of a granddaughter of a Chieftain mare.

While his contribution to the package is plainly limited, Chieftain is a wholesome kind of brand to find top and bottom. Though he never established his own branch of the Bold Ruler line, he was a conduit not just for speed and durability but for some regal genes: he was a half-brother to Tom Rolfe, while their dam was out of How, the Kentucky Oaks winner whose sister delivered Sham.

How sire Princequillo tends to recur in almost any worthwhile American pedigree and this one is no exception. For instance, he also helps to lace together the very familiar pedigree of Quiet Dance, whose mating with Giant's Causeway produced the dam of Gun Runner. (Quiet Dance, of course, also gave us Saint Liam by Saint Ballado.) Quiet Dance's second dam was by a son of Princequillo, while the famously close inbreeding to Dr. Fager in her sire Quiet American was in each case via daughters of Princequillo's prolific producer Cequillo.

Turning to those opposing strands of Storm Cat, his damsire Secretariat–besides being another son of Bold Ruler–introduces more Princequillo through his dam Somethingroyal. For the little it may be worth, moreover, Tiznow's damsire Seattle Song combines a Bold Ruler line with a mare by a son of Princequillo.

Doubtless these are fairly random tints to pick from a complex palette. In broader brushstrokes, however, we can say that Early Voting's prestigious family has had the benefit of commensurate seeding throughout–first four dams by Tiznow, Storm Cat, Chieftain and Buckpasser–and that there won't be a chink in his genetic armor when he goes to stud. His four grandparents are a developing sire of sires in Candy Ride (Arg); a half-sister to Saint Liam; a broodmare sire now up to 29 graded stakes winners, following We the People (Constitution) only the previous weekend; and the dam of Speightstown, Irap and Fiber Sonde.

To me, that's what makes a copper-bottomed pedigree: when all genetic contributors have established their worth through horses other than those who actually put them on the page in front of you.

Gun Runner's first crop has already drawn alongside that of Speightstown, which eventually mustered five Grade I winners. These largely proved typical of Speightstown's stock overall, however, in tending to need time to mature. For his half-sister by another fairly slow burner in Tiznow to have produced a Classic winner, then, certainly attests to the striking dynamism we're seeing in Gun Runner.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The previous Preakness winner in Early Voting's maternal line, Hill Prince, was also from his sire's debut crop. As we've just seen in this pedigree, that was the start of a road that led to one of the commanding summits of the modern breed. If Gun Runner can go on and become even half as influential as Princequillo, then he will indeed be looking at greatness.

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This Side Up: Horses, Not Humans, Back At The Epicenter

First things first: let's give their chance to the guys off the bench.

Okay, so there are going to be plenty of eyeballs rolled now that three of Bob Baffert's four Derby migrants are joining a former assistant, on the same circuit, with a total of 38 starters to his name this year—especially as it was the handling of another Baffert medication violation that reportedly caused the scuffle between this same gentleman and a fellow trainer at Clocker's Corner one morning last April. (Both were fined $500.)

The wiseguys will doubtless be finding a mischievous prompt in the name of one of these horses, Doppelganger (Into Mischief). But let's remember that Tim Yakteen learned the ropes not from one Hall of Famer, but two; and that the racing gods owe him, big time, after the harrowing loss of his breakout horse, Points Offthebench (Benchmark), in his final work before the Breeders' Cup. What might have been can be judged from that horse's posthumous Eclipse Award, while Yakteen has more recently reiterated what he can do, from modest resources, with Cal-bred Horse of the Year Mucho Unusual (Mucho Macho Man).

(Click below to hear this column as a podcast.)

The horsemanship of Rodolphe Brisset, meanwhile, has already made a significant contribution to Baffert's Classic resumé, in laying the foundations for the Triple Crown campaign of Justify (Scat Daddy).

So while these four horses are hardly following Life Is Good (Into Mischief) to a big rival on the East Coast, we should respect whatever combination of principle and pragmatism has governed their departure from Baffert's barn. You (and he) can argue about the level of his culpability, in piling so many storm clouds over his community, but Baffert deserves its gratitude in at least stating that his own interests—even where coinciding with precepts as critical to the functioning of our society as fairness in the workplace and the courtroom—are transcended by those of the sport, his investors and their horses.

In claiming personal credit as the impetus for their transfer, then, Baffert definitely gets some here. After all, we've repeatedly urged that the real test of decency in this situation was faced by Baffert himself—and not the friends and patrons who found their good fortune, in having a Derby horse, haplessly turned into some kind of public examination of character or fidelity. All parties had to remember that these horses are only passing through their stewardship, and that many, many others have had a stake in breeding and raising them.

To that extent, in fact, one hopes that the grooms who have been tending these horses have been given the opportunity of sharing their loan to other trainers. But it's edifying, regardless, that their boss and his patrons have in effect acknowledged that the Derby is bigger even than Bob Baffert; and not persevered in a stance that implied things to be the other way round.

First and foremost, no doubt, that represents sound business. Certainly it feels way too much to hope that a similar breadth of perspective might now also prompt Baffert just to accept that it would be far better for everybody—perhaps even for his own sanity—to call off his lawyers, without having to cede an inch in terms of his grievances; to take his sanctions on the chin; and to reset.
As it is, he has already lost the services (and permanently, one imagines) of the G1 Dubai World Cup favorite; and must instead rely on a less theatrical but splendidly stubborn animal to draw the sting of Life Is Good.

Country Grammer (Tonalist) will be carrying the same silks as poor Medina Spirit (Protonico), who has posthumous representation in this field through two of his principal crop antagonists. For if it's the “Black Gold” beneath the surface that has effectively summoned Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) and Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow) to the desert, then you might say they are on pretty familiar ground. True, in helping to make the GII Louisiana Derby the strongest trial last year, they left undisturbed the status of the champion bearing that name, whose remains are interred in the Fair Grounds infield, as one of only two horses to win both that race and the Run for the Roses. Because Mandaloun (Into Mischief) gave no indication, that day at least, that he would be the one to benefit when Medina Spirit was effaced from the record.

The picturesque tale of Black Gold, named for the discovery of oil in Oklahoma, is much cherished among those who took local pride in the revival last year of the New Orleans road to Churchill. How poignant, then, is the loss this very week of the only other horse to do the double, Grindstone (Unbridled), just days after acceding (from Go For Gin) as the oldest living Derby winner.
That distinction has now passed to the 28-year-old Silver Charm (Silver Buck), as it happens in the same week that he was joined at Old Friends by his old rival Swain (Nashwan). Those two sure have a few memories to mull over together, notably the gray's photo-finish success in the 1998 Dubai World Cup.

In carving his name below that of Grindstone in the Derby roll of honor, Silver Charm represented something of a baton switch between Wayne Lukas and Baffert, albeit the senior of the two came back a couple of years later with his fourth winner in Charismatic (Summer Squall)—and could yet redeem this whole mess if Secret Oath (Arrogate) can become his fifth.

Incidentally, both Charismatic and Grindstone were out of mares by Drone, who as a son of Secretariat's sibling Sir Gaylord, duly magnified the Somethingroyal distaff brand. Somethingroyal's replication (twice) in the famous family of Summer Squall made Charismatic's failure at stud a dismal disappointment, though he was typical of the old-school priorities driving the Japanese investment that has ultimately produced 22 starters on the World Cup card.

There are never any guarantees with these animals, as we know. Black Gold's one and only foal was killed by lightning. On the other hand, the Derby trail is this spring celebrating the dynasty founded by Storm Cat, himself of course out of a Secretariat mare, through one of the final foals of Giant's Causeway and at least a couple of colts by Not This Time, including Louisiana Derby favorite Epicenter.

One of my more wearily familiar complaints is that the starting points system has stripped the sprint speed out of the first Saturday in May, and Epicenter certainly looks eligible to emulate Medina Spirit and several others to have lately controlled, pretty much at their leisure, what was previously just about the most extreme test of all for a maturing Thoroughbred. As we've discussed before, Epicenter has some copper-bottomed European stayers seeding his bottom line and somebody, somehow, is going to have to press him hard and long if he is to be softened up sufficiently for Call Me Midnight (Midnight Lute) to pounce late again.

Funnily enough, Call Me Midnight himself represents a very similar blend of American dirt speed and European grass stamina, his third dam Slightly Dangerous having produced an Epsom Derby winner among several other Classic protagonists. Someday, perhaps, people will notice how often this kind of formula, once standard but now sadly neglected, still pays off when given a chance.
In the meantime let's hope that the Louisiana Derby, in tribute to the passing of Grindstone, consolidates a revival also underlined by the return to the card, in an excellent race for the GII New Orleans Classic, of last year's fourth Proxy (Tapit).

Proxy! Now there's a word that nobody should be misusing over the coming weeks, as the Baffert exiles make a belated bid to get on the Derby trail. Why shouldn't Baffert and his supporters give an opportunity to people who are on his side, people he respects and wants to do well? It will be much easier to root for these horses, this way; and they know they will never win the cynics round anyway.

If not everybody is going to love the solution, that's tough. At least the Baffert team has resolved the impasse and, if only in one regard, finally started to move things on a little. And that deserves reciprocation. So let's give Yakteen and Brisset due respect. And—quaint, crazy notion—let's restore our attention, and that of the fans, from the flaws inevitable with any and all human judgement, our own included, and back onto these beautiful horses.

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