Taking Stock: Los Al Futurity’s Predecessor Produced Sires

When it comes to “sire-making races,” the Gl Metropolitan H. is usually the first that's thrown into the conversation. Quality Road, the 2010 winner, is the most notable recent example, and before him it was Ghostzapper in 2005, but that's about it for the past 20 years despite the race's vaunted reputation. The Gl Florida Derby is a better recent gauge for making stallions: Nyquist (won in 2016), Constitution (2014), Dialed In (2011), Quality Road (2009), Scat Daddy (2007), Empire Maker (2003), and Harlan's Holiday (2002) are a stronger group than the Met Mile winners since 2002.

Harlan's Holiday sired Grade l winner Into Mischief in his first crop, and Into Mischief holds a wide-margin lead over second-place Quality Road on the general sire list with a month to go, $27,148,605 to $20,426,226, despite Quality Road's son Emblem Road's 2022 earnings of $10,110,758 – most of that from winning the world's richest race, the G1 Saudi Cup.

Into Mischief stands at Spendthrift for $250,000 live foal and has led the general sire list each year since 2019, and this will be his fourth consecutive year doing so.

The Spendthrift kingpin's lone Grade l win came in the CashCall Futurity at Hollywood Park in 2007. The race is now called the Los Alamitos Futurity and is a Grade ll event. It will be contested on Dec. 17 during the six-day Winter Thoroughbred Meet at Los Alamitos, which begins this weekend and features the Gl Starlet S. for juvenile fillies Saturday. Both races could have an impact on the leading freshman sire race.

Among colts, Justify's (Scat Daddy) promising son Arabian Lion is being targeted for the Futurity. At the moment, Hill 'n' Dale's Good Magic (Curlin), who sired Gll Remsen S. winner Dubyahnell Saturday; Spendthrift's Bolt d'Oro (Medaglia d'Oro), the sire of Gll Kentucky Jockey Club S. winner Instant Coffee the Saturday before; and Justify are in a heated three-way battle for the championship. Each has at least one colt for the Classics preps so far–Justify's Champions Dream won the Glll Nashua S. on Nov. 6, and before that, Good Magic's Blazing Sevens won the Gl Champagne S. Oct. 1–but the standout division leader is three-time Grade l winner Forte, who will be named champion juvenile colt of 2022.

Forte is by Hill 'n' Dale's Violence (Medaglia d'Oro), who also won the Gl CashCall Futurity, in 2012. Like Into Mischief, the race was Violence's only top-level win. Those two alone could give the CashCall Futurity some clout as sire-making race, but there's more.

The race was called the CashCall Futurity for seven years at Hollywood, from 2007 to 2013, and two other winners of it with subsequent stallion bona fides were the now-deceased Pioneerof the Nile (won in 2008), who stood at WinStar, and Coolmore America's Lookin At Lucky (2009). Into Mischief, Pioneerof the Nile, and Lookin At Lucky each has a Gl Kentucky Derby winner: Authentic, Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, and Country House, respectively. It's four if Mandaloun is thrown in for Into Mischief. That's four of the last eight winners of North America's most prestigious race – quite the haul, isn't it? Will Forte make it five of nine?

Synthetic Surface

If all of this wasn't surprising enough, recall that the CashCall Futurity was contested on a synthetic surface at Hollywood. In retrospect, the facts belie the longstanding hypothesis held at the time by many in the business that all-weather racing would lead to the ruin of dirt sires, which Into Mischief, Pioneerof the Nile, Lookin At Lucky, and Violence decidedly are. And, no slight to the others, Into Mischief is an iconic stallion who inhabits another sphere altogether.

Into Mischief also happens to be the only one of these four CashCall Futurity winners to race entirely on all-weather. Trained by Richard Mandella for B. Wayne Hughes, Into Mischief won three of six starts and was second in each of his other three starts, earning $597,080.

Pioneerof the Nile, a son of Empire Maker, raced on dirt and turf as well as all-weather, winning a Saratoga maiden special at two on turf in his second start for Bill Mott. In his next start in the Gl Lane's End Breeders' Futurity at Keeneland on all-weather, Pioneerof the Nile was third. After that, he was fifth in the Gl Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Oak Tree's all-weather Santa Anita meet, and then he was switched by owner Zayat Stable from Mott to Bob Baffert and kept in training in California.

For Baffert, Pioneerof the Nile next won the CashCall Futurity. The colt began his 3-year-old season with three consecutive wins at Santa Anita in the Gll Robert B. Lewis, the Gll San Felipe, and the Gl Santa Anita Derby. He made his first start on dirt in the Derby, finishing second to Mine That Bird. After an 11th-place finish in the Gl Preakness, Pioneerof the Nile was retired with a record of five wins from 10 starts and $1.6 million in earnings. All of his stakes wins were on synthetic surfaces at either Hollywood or Santa Anita. Before his premature death at age 13, Pioneerof the Nile stood for $110,000 at WinStar.

Baffert also trained Lookin At Lucky, a champion at two and three for owners Mike Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman. Lookin At Lucky, by Smart Strike, won five of six starts at two, all on all-weather, including the Gl Del Mar Futurity in addition to the CashCall Futurity at the highest level. Unlike Into Mischief and Pioneerof the Nile, Lookin At Lucky also won on dirt, including two Grade l races, the Preakness and the Haskell Invitational. Altogether, the colt won nine of 13 starts and earned $3.3 million before entering stud at Coolmore America, where he's still a productive stallion standing for a bargain fee of $10,000. In Chile, where he has shuttled through the years, he has an exceptional record of Group 1 success.

Todd Pletcher trains Forte and also trained his sire, Violence, who ran for Black Rock Stables. Like Lookin At Lucky, Violence won on dirt as well. The Medaglia d'Oro colt won a maiden special at Saratoga in his first start and followed up with a win in the Gll Nashua at Aqueduct before crossing the country for the CashCall Futurity. He made only more start after that, a second-place finish in the Gll Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream and was retired with a record of three wins from four starts and $623,000 in earnings.

Like Into Mischief, the CashCall Futurity was his lone win at top level. Violence will stand for $50,000 next year, up from $25,000 this year, and in Forte he has a legitimate Triple Crown contender and his first champion. Before Forte, who won the the Gl Hopeful at Saratoga and the Gl Breeders' Futurity at Keeneland in the lead-up to nailing the juvenile championship with an impressive upset of previously undefeated Cave Rock in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Violence was mostly known for three Grade 1-winning sprinters, Dr. Schivel, No Parole, and Volatile.

Forte has elevated Violence's profile into the Classics realm, and if the colt continues to progress and lands the Derby, he'll put Violence into an elite club of CashCall Futurity winners who have sired Derby winners. But even if Forte doesn't win the Derby, these four stallions have put the CashCall Futurity up there with other races that are more frequently associated as sire makers.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

The post Taking Stock: Los Al Futurity’s Predecessor Produced Sires appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Taking Stock: Flightline and that Share

About an hour or so after one of 40 shares in Flightline, a son of Tapit and the Indian Charlie mare Feathered, was sold for an unimaginable $4.6 million in an historic special session at Keeneland Monday, Flightline was led out of his stall at Lane's End and posed behind the stallion barn, oblivious to the hubbub on the sales grounds about 10 miles away.

He's a stunning and athletic physical specimen, standing 16.2 hands, with length to go with height and balance. He's so well put together and pleasing to look at that at first glance no one single feature jumps out and grabs the eye, because all of him does at once, flooding the senses. But zoom in here and there and it's evident that the parts that make up the whole are of the finest quality: a well-defined and chiseled masculine shoulder with depth; strong forearms over clean and smooth limbs with short cannons; pasterns at exactly the right angles that are neither too short nor too long; a big hip and butt; and hind legs set perfectly underneath. He'd first caught the eye of Lane's End Bloodstock's David Ingordo as an early and unfinished yearling at breeder Jane Lyon's Summer Wind, and later that year, in August, was purchased by his current ownership group on Ingordo's advice for $1 million at Fasig-Tipton's marquee Saratoga sale.

It's evident that Flightline gets some of his looks from broodmare sire Indian Charlie, who also had size, strength, masculinity, and similar patterns of muscling, except Indian Charlie was slightly back at the knee and had rough ankles, neither of which plagues Flightline.

What stands out the most about Flightline is his mind and presence: he's non-plussed, intelligent, and kind. Here he was, two days after he'd clobbered a high-level field in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, calmly and confidently surveying his new home, and it's easy to understand how he overcame several mishaps and one major injury along the way and continued to train on with gusto and win at the highest levels.

At the moment, Flightline is being let down cautiously, spending time in a round pen when he's not in his stall. It's expected that by the end of next week he'll be in a paddock like the other studs at the farm, as he's transitioning quickly from a life of hard training at the track to an easier life on the farm for his next career as a stallion.

The Share

Flightline is owned by a 40-share syndicate, with Kosta Hronis and family controlling 15 shares; Lyon's Summer Wind, 10 shares; Terry Finley's West Point, seven shares; Bill Farish and partners' Woodford, four shares; and Anthony Manganaro's Siena Farm, four shares. Lane's End will get breeding rights for standing the horse, and a few others are in the hands of trainer John Sadler and David Ingordo.

The share–a 2.5% fractional interest–that was auctioned came from the West Point group, which is composed of seven individual partners with one share each (2.5% of 40 is one share). Some of them pooled portions of their fractional interests to form one share or 2.5% to offer at auction, and Freddie Seitz, as agent for an undisclosed Seattle-based owner and client with interests in the coffee business, held off underbidder Coolmore to secure the share for the $4.6 million, placing a “value” of $184 million on Flightline's head. In comparison, Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy) had a book value of $75 million as a new sire just a few years ago.

The big share price is, of course, a trophy prize, and in the strictest sense it will not bear a direct relationship to his stud fee, which is $200,000 live foal–as much as the entering fees of American Pharoah, Ghostzapper, and Devil's Bag. At that fee, based on a four-year return and, say, a 160-mare cap, a traditional market value for a share would likely be about $2.8 to $3 million based on pure back-of-napkin math without expenses: two seasons each year (each shareholder gets two seasons) is $400,000, multiplied by four years, is $1.6 million; and on the back end, a bonus pool of $12 million a year (say 60 mares at $200,000 is $12 million), divided by 40 shares, is $300,000 per share per year, times four years, is $1.2 million. Extending this example over five years, a case could be made for $2 million in stud fee income and $1.5 million in bonus-pool money (assuming the stud fee stays the same), for a value of $3.5 million, plus depreciation. And there's also the possibility of added bonus-pool monies from expanding his book and from breeding Flightline at Lane's End on Southern Hemisphere time.

The Flightline syndicate, of course, is tightly held by the colt's original ownership group, which is to say that not many shares will become available. That scarcity–think of it as an illiquid market–means that the shares that do become available will be snapped up by those few that have the means to pay premium-plus, like the unnamed buyer at $4.6 million and the underbidder, Coolmore, at $4.5 million.

For such owners, that type of money may not be as outlandish as it seems to some. An entity like Coolmore, for example, could breed to Flightline a mare like Gamine, who was purchased for $7 million, and race the offspring, hoping to get a top-class winner. And if Flightline becomes a success at stud like undefeated Frankel, who will stand for about $315,000 in 2023, that would be money well spent in hindsight.

Betting on any unproven stallion is a gamble, but Flightline has the impeccable credentials to succeed as a stallion. Not only is he a son of the elite stallion Tapit, whose son Constitution will stand for $110,000 at WinStar in 2023, he's from a mare, Feathered, who won a Grade 3 race and placed three times in Grade I races, earning $577,474. Moreover, Feathered, who was bred by Teresa Viola, spouse of Vinny Viola (who has a Flightline share under the West Point umbrella), is from the sought-after Phipps family of Blitey/Lady Pitt and was purchased by Lyon in 2016 at Keeneland November for $2,350,000.

In other words, Flightline was bred to be a superstar, and he's that rare example of a horse that realized his lofty potential–and some.

Combine this pedigree with Flightline's exceptional looks, astonishing talent, and undefeated race record, and he is–as the share price reflected–the most desirable new prospect to enter the marketplace in a long time.

   Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

The post Taking Stock: Flightline and that Share appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Taking Stock: David Ingordo and Flightline

David Ingordo of Lane's End Bloodstock doesn't smile much, and when he does, it's usually a half-smile. But he does have a sense of humor. On Sunday afternoon, he was spotted at Keeneland outside the Lane's End consignment wearing a gray vest with the name “David DeVaux” embroidered on the chest, a nod and a wink to his trainer wife Cherie DeVaux.

Ingordo likes to be incognito and shuns the spotlight whenever he can, but he's very much in that spotlight at the moment, thanks to Flightline (Tapit), who first caught Ingordo's eye as a short yearling on breeder Jane Lyon's Summer Wind Farm. Flightline is under the care of another trainer, John Sadler, with whom he has a longstanding relationship. Sadler has known Ingordo since Ingordo, 46, was in a crib–Ingordo's father, Jerry Ingordo, a well-known jock's agent who handled Laffit Pincay Jr., among others, had been a mentor to the young Sadler when he was 21 and starting out.

Relationships are important to Ingordo. Seventeen years ago at this same sale at Keeneland, Ingordo was behind the $60,000 purchase of Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Moss's Zenyatta (Street Cry {Ire}). That iconic mare was trained by John Shirreffs, who's married to Ingordo's mother, Dottie Ingordo-Shirreffs, and Zenyatta's success made Ingordo one of the most sought-after bloodstock agents in the business. Will and Bill Farish of Lane's End were quick to hire Ingordo after Zenyatta, and he's been with Lane's End ever since, developing a particularly close relationship with Bill Farish, whose Woodford Racing is one of the partners in Flightline, along with Summer Wind, Hronis Racing, Siena Farm, and West Point Thoroughbreds. On Monday, it was officially announced that Flightline would stand at stud at Lane's End upon the conclusion of his racing career.

Ingordo's Eye

A strongly made bay colt by Medaglia d'Oro from the Distorted Humor mare Pauline Revere, a half-sister to the 2022 American Pharoah Grade I winner American Theorem, was the first horse through the ring Monday. Consigned by Lane's End, the colt was bred by the partnership of Gage Hill Stables and W.S. Farish and was purchased by Talla Racing and West Point Thoroughbreds for $850,000.

A day earlier, Ingordo had the colt out for inspection for one more look before the sale. Bill Farish, wearing a Lane's End vest, was under the shedrow observing from a distance.

“At Lane's End, I've seen a lot of these horses growing up, so it's a little unfair to other horses. This horse has gotten better and better and better. I've probably seen this horse every 60 days his whole life. I like the horses that come forward each time I see them. This is my kind of horse. He's got substance,” Ingordo said.

Medaglia d'Oro was probably one of the most beautiful horses I ever laid eyes on,” said Ingordo as he walked around the colt, looking him up and down before patting him on the shoulder. Medaglia d'Oro, a son of El Prado (Ire), stands at Darley and was trained by Bobby Frankel, for whom Ingordo worked as a teenager. He was one of the first Sadler's Wells-line horses to succeed at top level on dirt in N. America, and from his first crop he got Rachel Alexandra, who was produced from a Forty Niner-line mare like the yearling Ingordo was critiquing.

“[Medaglia d'Oro] is probably in my top 10 of all time physicals. This horse has got the right blend of Medaglia and Distorted Humor with the strength. The pasterns aren't too long. He's got a big forearm and gaskins–I hate a light forearm and light gaskin on studs; fillies, I can give them a pass. This colt has good bone. One of the biggest problems we have in our breed is that we're breeding the bone out of these horses. This horse could stand training for my taste.”

Ingordo dropped down and pointed to a large vein running down the upper part of the colt's inside hind leg. “All these other guys do heart scans and everything, but see that vein inside? That big vein is something that I always look for. I like to see it be very prominent.”

Ingordo has great knowledge of pedigrees–some are judges of pure physical specimens only–and he wants what's in front of him to match closely to what he sees on the catalog page. “It's like a BMW, to use an example. It's got the symbol on the front. You might have different designs of BMWs, different models, but the models fit a spec.”

Ingordo asked the handler to walk the colt. “It's not a walking contest,” he said, “but if they're a little close behind or something, it doesn't bother me. I don't mind if they're a little choppy or this or that, but I want them to use their hindquarters and reach with their shoulders. This colt is nice. He's wide. A nice swing to his tail. It looks like he'd push off and go. He's a nice moving horse, he uses himself. That's what I like to see.”

Like most judges, Ingordo prefers a well-defined shoulder set at the right angle, a beautiful neck, ample girth, short cannon bones, and overall balance, but he also looks for good length on a line from the point of hip to the tip of the hock–“That's the lever,” he said.

And he's a stickler for rear-end construction. “I always stand behind them. I want to see like a beam, a big, broad beam, when you draw this line. It's a flat square. You got the big gaskins and you drop down with these two pillars being the hind legs. This horse has a nice square hind end on him. It's actually not dissimilar to a horse like Flightline. Everything is defined and nice and strong.”

Flightline

Before Flightline became Flightline, an undefeated winner of five starts who won his last race by an astonishing 19 1/4 lengths in 1:59.28, eased up in the 10 furlongs of the Gl Pacific Classic S., he was bay yearling gamboling in a paddock in early 2019 with another chestnut Tapit colt at Summer Wind named Triple Tap, a half-brother to American Pharoah who's now won two of six starts for Bob Baffert and owner/breeder Summer Wind.

“In January of Flightline's yearling year, shortly after the holidays, Bill Farish told me we have to go out to Ms. Lyon's place to look at a Tapit half to American Pharoah,” Ingordo said. “The impetus was that Jane [Lyon] had talked to Bill Farish on wanting to stay in on Triple Tap and putting a partnership together to race him. We got in the car and drive out, and they bring out two colts by Tapit. The first one was Flightline, but he was the paddock buddy of the one we're supposed to look at. So, after we're looking at them, I kind of say out loud, I like this brown one better. Bill's like, shut up and look at the other horse. That's who we're here to see. You know, don't be rude kind of thing.”

Over the next few months, Ingordo would see both colts on a regular basis, and he made a mental note about Flightline.

As chance would have it, months later Ingordo ended up catching a ride on a Tex Sutton flight taking Lane's End-consigned yearlings to Saratoga for the yearling sale. “One of the guys on the flight who knows my wife said, 'David, you care to snap a shank on a couple of them yearlings? It's getting ready to be bumpy.' I said, 'Yeah, I'll do that.' So I get up and see this brown horse and I'm petting him–I like horses–and snap a shank on him. I look down at the halter and it says 'Flightline.' I say, 'Oh shoot, it's that horse.' Later on, I'm shortlisting and I look at all our Lane's End yearlings, and I said to Bill, 'That's the horse. He's the horse we liked on the farm when we were out looking at Triple Tap.'”

Ingordo said Farish spoke to Lyon about the colt. “Bill said she wants a lot of money for the horse but would stay in for a leg, but we have to put a deal together around the horse. So we sat down and penciled who we could call.”

The rest is history. The colt sold for $1 million to West Point at Saratoga.

Ingordo is quick to point out that the partners in the horse–“the best group of owners”–are instrumental in his success, because each owner was 100-percent behind giving the colt the time he needed to realize his potential at every step in the process. And, Ingordo noted, there were several hiccups along with way before the horse even got to Sadler that would have tested the patience of others.

“When he had the freak injury to his hindquarter in February of his 2-year-old year–it was a freak thing, and these things happen–we did the right thing and gave him the time, and nobody panicked,” Ingordo said. “And then when he was getting ready to ship to California–I literally had him booked on the plane–a little odd thing happened. Just tweaked something. Never had surgery, nothing like that. We had to give him more time, sent him to Kentucky, had him checked out, gave him the time again. There was no hesitation on anyone's part. It was just, do the right thing. Then he ran, and after that, later, he stepped on a rock and got a deep foot bruise that popped out. That took more time.

“But this is a textbook case of, if you want to run a top-level horse that puts everything into his races and has been unlucky with a couple of bull-crappy things, this is how you do it from an ownership standpoint.”

Ingordo never went to California to see Flightline race in the Pacific Classic, but he'll have a front row seat at Keeneland for the Gl Breeders' Cup Classic. He'll be in the spotlight there whether he likes it or not.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

The post Taking Stock: David Ingordo and Flightline appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Taking Stock: Hickey’s One-Man Show Produced Buck’s Boy, Lady Shirl

The news last week of P. Noel Hickey's death Aug. 8 at 94 was a reminder of how much racing has changed over the years. Hickey owned a stud farm in Ocala, Irish Acres; stood his own stallions that he patronized; bred the runners he raised and raced; and trained them, including one Eclipse Award winner and another near champion, both foaled in Illinois and from stock far off the perimeter of prevailing fashion. Who does that these days?

Back in the day, it wasn't unusual to see regional areas populated by trainers who bred and raced their “backyard” runners. These horsemen/women typically ran small-scale enterprises that incorporated poorly raced or unfashionably bred private stallions and small bands of undistinguished mares, but they enjoyed the protection of restricted state-bred monies that allowed them to ply their trade and make a living at the edges of the bigger game. Sometimes, a “big horse” would occasionally pop from such a program.

In Maryland in the 1970s, for example, Robert Beall ran a restaurant but trained some horses he bred on the side. He had his own stallion and a few mares and trained their offspring around his workday schedule. Beall's stallion, Friend's Choice, was by the Spy Song horse Crimson Satan and had won eight of 46 starts and earned $50,169. Though not a stakes winner, Friend's Choice was bred by Leslie Combs ll and shared the same fast female family of Mr. Prospector, who was also bred by Combs. Both had Miss Dogwood as their third dam. This female line, Miss Dogwood/Myrtlewood/Frizeur/Frizette, is one of the most storied in the Stud Book, and Seattle Slew is a member as well–his fifth dam was Myrtlewood.

Beall had a modest mare named Duc's Tina, a daughter of the Spy Song stallion Duc de Fer, that he bred to Friend's Choice in 1974, and the resulting foal was Dave's Friend, who was inbred 3×3 to Spy Song by Beall's design. Beall trained Dave's Friend to win several graded races and then sold the gelding to John Franks, who raced him until he was 11. For several years Dave's Friend was among the best sprinters in the country and retired as the all-time money earning Maryland-bred with a record of 35 wins from 76 starts and $1,079,915 in earnings.

Hickey elevated the Beall and similar models to a much larger scale, and he executed his plans in a precise and novel manner, particularly in Illinois from about the mid-1980s to the late-1990s when the state's restricted program had grown in scope with the rejuvenation of Arlington. And if he needed any inspiration that an “off-bred” horse could scale the heights at Arlington, he got it in the form of the first winner of the Gl Arlington Million in 1981, John Henry, a gelded son of Ole Bob Bowers who was bred on the wrong side of the tracks. Soon, Hickey's “Ill-breds,” as Illinois-breds were derisively referred to at the time, were dominating the turf course at Arlington. In 1990, Hickey led the trainer standings at Arlington with 49 winners, all of them owned by Irish Acres. The next year, he had 61 winners, a record for the track.

Like most who operated this way, Hickey didn't have access to the best or most fashionable stock, but he had a great understanding of the functionality of pedigrees and exploited this as a trainer. In fact, he'd frequently call Jack Werk, founder of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, to discuss sire and dam lines and their characteristics on the racecourse. Hickey also exploited another advantage – his Ocala farm. Hickey would ship his pregnant mares from Irish Acres to Illinois to foal and then ship the foals and mares back to Ocala as Illinois-breds in name only. They were raised and trained on limestone and sun in Florida, giving them a developmental leg up over their Illinois-raised contemporaries that endured comparatively harsh periods of cold weather.

During a long stretch, Hickey trained mostly for his own account, but there were some exceptions. One was the Hickey-trained Illinois-bred Buck's Boy (Bucksplasher), who won the Gl Breeders' Cup Turf in 1998 and earned an Eclipse Award as champion turf horse for George Bunn's Quarter B Farm. Altogether, Buck's Boy won 16 of 30 starts, earning $2,750,148, and he represents the apex of Hickey's long career as a breeder, owner, and trainer, which began in the early 1960s after he'd immigrated to Canada from his native Ireland and started fooling around with horses at Blue Bonnets, at the time a significant track in Montreal. Hickey bred Buck's Boy and initially raced him through his first three starts, winning twice, before selling the gelding in the summer of 1996 to Bunn.

Buck's Boy was a son of Hickey's stakes-placed Buckpasser stallion Bucksplasher, who stood at Irish Acres, and the champion gelding traced in tail-female to an imported Irish-bred mare Hickey had purchased in Canada in the 1960s named Cambalee (Ire), a foal of 1950. She was 18 and had already delivered nine foals by the time she produced her first for Hickey, Irish Molly, in 1968. Irish Molly's Verbatim filly Molly's Colleen was foaled in Canada in 1982, and Molly's Colleen foaled Buck's Boy in Illinois in 1993, at the J.P. Wenzel farm in Junction, a speck on the map about five miles west of Shawneetown, Illinois, in the southern tip of the state and not too far across the Ohio River from Kentucky.

Illinois Connections

I spoke with Hickey several times in the late 1980s and through the mid-1990s when I was bloodstock editor at Daily Racing Form and a columnist with Illinois Racing News. He'd been a youth track star, which helped him later as a trainer of equine athletes, and he had a professional background in finance. He'd left Ireland for Montreal in the 1950s to work in the financial sector before transitioning full time to horses, and his business acumen was vital to running a sprawling enterprise with many moving parts in different states, all under his direction.

To keep expenses low, for instance, Hickey would trade seasons in his stallions for board. “That's how I came to know him. I wanted to breed to Bucksplasher,” said Hugh David Scates, whose family has about 20,000 acres in agricultural use near Shawneetown. Scates and his brother Joseph, who stand the unraced Chuck Fipke-bred Soul of Ekati (Perfect Soul {Ire}), a half-brother to Fipke's Grade l winner Jersey Town, would foal “about 10 to 15 mares” for Hickey each year. “He needed the mares in the state by a certain date to qualify for the program, and his van driver would bring them in from Ocala,” Scates said.

One of the best horses raced by the Scateses, the fast Illinois-bred open stakes winner Island Riffle Cat (Cat Creek Slew), a winner of five of seven starts, was from the Hickey-bred mare Mugsey Molly–a half-sister to Buck's Boy. Island Riffle Cat was trained by Kelly Ackerman, who also happens to handle a Fipke string of fillies in the Midwest.

Before he started breeding horses for his own account in Illinois, Hickey had had success in the state as a trainer. An important horse for him was That's A Nice, with whom Hickey won the Glll Washington Park Handicap on turf in 1978 and 1979 at Arlington for Frank J. Sitzberger. That's A Nice was sired by the Noholme II (Aus) stallion Hey Good Lookin, not exactly a major stallion, but Hey Good Lookin's female line, Hickey pointed out, traced to Frizette. Hickey would later stand That's A Nice at stud, both in Illinois and Florida, and the stallion became a leading sire in Illinois and the sire of Hickey's homebred Grade l winner Lady Shirl, one of the best turf mares in the country in 1991 and at one time a live Eclipse Award contender. Lady Shirl won 18 of 41 starts, including the Gl Flower Bowl at Belmont and the Gll E.P. Taylor S. at Woodbine, and earned $951,523 in a six-year career from 1989 to 1994.

Hickey had acquired Lady Shirl's dam Canonization because she traced in tail-female to blue hen La Troienne (Fr) through the Phipps mares Brilliantly, her second dam.

Like Buck's Boy, Lady Shirl was foaled at the J.P. Wenzel farm in Junction. Wenzel, by the way, had raced Mugsey Molly, the half-sister to Buck's Boy that later produced the Scates stakes winner Island Riffle Cat, and it's likely he'd acquired the mare in a trade with Hickey.

Wenzel died a few years ago, but I tracked down his daughter Holly Wenzel, who now lives in Wyoming. She'd worked closely with her father at the farm and at the track and was mentored by Hickey one year at Hawthorne when she had her father's string in training. “Every year, we foaled about 100 mares on the farm,” Wenzel said, “and about 70 to 75 would be for Hickey.”

And how did the relationship with Hickey develop? “Well, we raised alfalfa hay. And through advertisements, we ended up shipping loads and loads of semi-loads down to Ocala for Irish Acres. And then Noel found out we had horses, too, and blah, blah, blah. And we–me, dad and mom–went down and met him and Bobby”–Hickey's wife–“and that's when we created our little business of foaling mares for Noel in Illinois.”

Hickey's legacy

Hickey was a meticulous horseman who paid a great deal of attention to pedigree and trained according to that knowledge. He was generous in sharing his knowledge, too, said Holly Wenzel. “He was amazing. I was training my father's horses and Noel was in the same barn one year. He came down and gave me advice and told me what to do and how to do it. He'd watch my horses exercising with me in the mornings and help me decide the program for each horse, what races would be best for them, like say a six-furlong race on dirt or a long one or a mile on turf for this one or a state-bred race on turf for another. He taught me how to characterize all that.”

Holly Wenzel continued: “We loved Noel. And I don't think a lot of people realized this but Noel was so funny. He could crack a joke and make any bad situation into a good situation. He was friendly, he was very, very businesslike, but he treated everyone well. His employees, he treated them like royalty. He treated them very well. Even his van driver who would haul the mares from Ocala to Illinois and then take them back with foals by their sides loved Noel, and I wish I could remember his name, but he became like family to us, too, because he was up at our place so often.”

Two of Hickey's longtime assistants are still around. One is trainer Doug Matthews. The other is Hilary Pridham, an assistant now for trainer Mike Stidham.

Remnants of Hickey's breeding program have also endured and have links to the present.

On Saturday, Chuck Fipke's homebred Canadian champion and Grade I winner Lady Speightspeare (Speightstown) won the Glll Trillium S. at Woodbine. Her second dam is Lady Shirl, who Fipke purchased in 2005 as an 18-year-old mare for $485,000 at Keeneland November with Jack Werk signing the ticket. Fipke was attracted to Lady Shirl for her race record and her female line–as Hickey had been when he'd purchased Lady Shirl's dam.

For Fipke, Lady Shirl produced Grade II winner Lady Shakespeare (Theatrical {Ire}), the dam of Lady Speightspeare; and Grade l winner Perfect Shirl, a daughter of Fipke's homebred Grade l winner and champion Perfect Soul and dam of Fipke's 2022 Grade l winner Shirl's Speight (Speightstown).

Fipke, an independent thinker, probably has more similarities to Hickey than anyone else in the game. Fipke knows pedigrees and plans his matings accordingly, he exclusively races his homebreds in his own name and assumes 100-percent risk, he targets his horses for races and distances based on pedigree, and he supports his own stallions, including some that weren't stakes winners, like the unraced homebred Not Impossible (Ire)–sire of Fipke's Queen's Plate winner Not Bourbon.

It's fitting, therefore, that a part of Hickey's legacy continues with Fipke, and I'm sure Hickey would approve.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

The post Taking Stock: Hickey’s One-Man Show Produced Buck’s Boy, Lady Shirl appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights