Hip 202 had been well advertised leading up to the sale, and clearly the team at Gainesway Farm knew what they had, as the son of burgeoning super sire Gun Runner garnered $2.3 million from Peter Brant's White Birch Farm in partnership with Coolmore's M.V. Magnier. Magnier had just finished signing a $1.4-million ticket for another son of the Horse of the Year and Three Chimneys resident. Hip 202 was bred by Debby Oxley out of GI Darley Alcibiades S. winner Heavenly Love (Malibu Moon).
If this is seeing the future, then maybe it really will work. Among all these tiny, straggling groups negotiating the arid wastes of the dirt stakes program, we finally reach a true oasis in the GI Caesars Belmont Derby Inv. Here is a field that matches quality with quantity: a win for the owners, and a win for the bettors.
It is also, lest we forget, staged on a benign surface. As such, it is also a win for a whole community that needs to present its way of life to the wider world with absolute confidence. To a degree, you could almost say that the rapid maturity of the elite turf schedule devised by NYRA has become one way for the East Coast to complement the fantastic recent work, celebrated here a couple of weeks ago, on the dirt tracks of California.
In fact, you could even argue that it also dovetails with the progressive aspirations that have just inaugurated the HISA era. We know that some people will cling stubbornly to the wreckage, fiercely opposing federal interference with their constitutional right to treat the training of Thoroughbreds as a branch of pharmacology. But it's good to see so many industry stakeholders beginning to see the bigger picture; to recognize the trouble we've been inviting for ourselves, and to do something about it.
Click the play button below to listen to this week's edition of This Side Up.
And that's heartening, because right now we only have to look around to realize what a special product we have to share, if only we get our act together.
Look at last weekend, and look what's coming down the tracks, and shout it from the rooftops: we have a great game here. Provided we care for them as they deserve–and that includes the provision of scrupulously maintained dirt tracks, and a properly respected turf/synthetics division–we could have no more captivating advocate than these noble horses of ours.
So long as we have Saratoga, we still have a chance. Much as can again be said of Santa Anita, here's a sanctuary from the cares of life to win over even the most surly and snarling of sceptics. And the meet looks more exciting than ever after Olympiad (Speightstown) and Life Is Good (Into Mischief) threw down the gauntlet for the GI Whitney S.
The one pity is that they've dropped all talk of Flightline (Tapit) shipping back across for that race, too. Connections would evidently rather stay in his backyard, this time, even at the cost of a more abrupt step up in distance. We won't reprise our irritation that this huge talent should have become such an extreme example of the modern horseman's dread of actually racing a racehorse. But we all know that while life may indeed be good, it seldom contrives its very best possibilities. And experience sadly tells us that the idea of all three of these horses converging on the same race at the Breeders' Cup, in the same form as now, is a fanciful one.
What we do know is that right here, right now, we could put on one of the great races of our time. Nobody can be complacent about that happening in November, especially if their respective fortunes in the meantime happen to make the Dirt Mile more tempting than the Classic. Of course, we can't expect individual horsemen to base their gameplan on sheer altruism, when they need to redeem such heavy stakes already committed to the industry. But it does just seem a shame that when people start comparing horses to greats of the past, very often they don't see them measured even against the best of their contemporaries.
That became a familiar charge against Frankel (GB), albeit without eroding his status as one of the undisputed giants of the breed. The relentless style trademarked by his stock, in what is proving a no less brilliant stud career, has only heightened regret that he spurned both the Arc and the Breeders' Cup Classic.
But we have long become bleakly familiar with the schism nowadays dividing the industries either side of the pond. The only real trafficking between them today is about plugging the gaps in American grass racing. Frankel's two daughters in the GI Belmont Oaks show that this can be done by participation or trade: one, homebred by Godolphin, mounts a raid from Newmarket; the other was imported from that same town as a yearling. A third way is elaborated, however, by the presence in the colts' race of Stone Age (Ire), a White Birch-bred son of Galileo (Ire) shared by farm owner Peter Brant with partners from Coolmore. It's a massive tribute to the impresarios behind the Turf Triple that once again, as with last year's winner Bolshoi Ballet (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), this race has been chosen as the next target for Ballydoyle's principal candidate in the Epsom Derby itself.
Yet while the import market for European horses-in-training and yearlings grows ever stronger, it somehow remains impossible even for highly eligible European stallions to achieve commercial traction in Kentucky. Flintshire (GB) (Dansili {GB}) was retired as the highest earner in the history of the Juddmonte program, and supplanted only by a member of his own family in Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}). Yet during his final spring in the Bluegrass–when his first crop had just turned three, one of its members flying into fifth of 19 in the G1 Prix du Jockey-Club–he was outrageously reduced to just eight mares.
American horsemen increasingly talk a good game about turf, but in practice most of them are no less culpable than Europeans about dirt blood. I know this is a drum I have long since banged to a pulp, but it's worth reflecting that all four of Stone Age's grandparents were bred in Kentucky: the icons Sadler's Wells and Urban Sea obviously stand behind Galileo, while his dam is by Danzig's son Anabaa out of an Alysheba mare. Stone Age's maternal line actually tapers to none other than La Troienne (Fr), but as eighth dam she is also the first not to have been conceived with Kentucky seed.
For sure, some horses are more versatile than others. Tiz The Bomb (Hit It A Bomb), for instance, was plainly born for chlorophyll. His connections were originally talking about a tilt at the Classics in Britain, only to be seduced to Churchill–understandably enough–when he found himself with those coveted starting points. Look closer, however, and you'll see that this horse, too, cautions against a prescriptive view of surfaces: his first two dams are by avowed dirt influences, in Tiznow and A.P. Indy, yet both ended up on turf.
His trainer also saddles recent recruit Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway), famously one of three colts from the final crop of one of the last of the old school, a crossover force in both careers. As befits a son of the Iron Horse, he is being turned round just two weeks after his debut for the barn. That kind of thing makes Kenny McPeek a real outlier, in this day and age. And that's why, when I see the future, actually I don't see it working at all.
Not, that is, until breeders start renewing the kind of cross-pollination that previously opened such dynamic cycles in the evolution of the Thoroughbred, from Nasrullah going one way to all those sons of Northern Dancer going the other. In those days, we bred robust horses by the constant, mutual invigoration of the gene pool, either side of the water. If cynical, in-and-out, fast-buck trading in the freshman window is producing horses that can only run every couple of months, that's actually a welfare issue. So while we have found one welcome oasis, we must navigate with care if our final destination is not to prove a mirage.
Observations on the European Racing Scene turns the spotlight on the best European races of the day, highlighting well-pedigreed horses early in their careers, horses of note returning to action and young runners that achieved notable results in the sales ring. Today's Observations features a close relative of this year's dual Group 1-winning 2-year-old Perfect Power.
1.58 ParisLongchamp, Debutantes, €27,000, 2yo, c/g, 9fT EPIC POET (IRE) (Lope de Vega {Ire}) starts out for the White Birch Farm and Jean-Claude Rouget connection and is a 450,000gns Tattersalls October Yearling Sale Book 1 graduate from the immediate family of this year's G1 Prix Morny and G1 Middle Park S. hero Perfect Power (Ire) (Ardad {Ire}). Among his peers is The Aga Khan's Caraghann (Fr) (Almanzor {Fr}), one of the last Alain de Royer-Dupre runners and a half-brother to the G2 Prix Maurice de Nieuil and G2 Prix de Royallieu winner Candarliya (Fr) (Dalakhani {Ire}) who was also second in the G1 Prix Vermeille.
The Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale got off to a strong start with eight lots selling for 200,000 guineas or more and a top price of 360,000 guineas for Tally-Ho Stud's Practical Joke filly.
A total of 65 of the 76 offered lots sold for 6,485,000 guineas, at an average of 99,769 guineas and a median of 80,000 guineas, and a clearance rate of 86 percent.
The top lot on the opening session of the Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale was the Practical Joke filly out of Purr and Prowl who realized 360,000 guineas to the bid of agent Alex Elliott. The Tally-Ho Stud consigned filly was purchased on behalf of Peter Brant's White Birch Farm.
“She is a beautiful filly and she is going back to the U.S. and to Chad [Brown], who trained Practical Joke,” said Elliott. “She has been very highly thought of from day one, Roger has raved about her all along. I am delighted to get her, I think she is a perfect filly to go back to the States.
“She is a May foal, she is going to need a bit of time, but she is the one. She did everything. She is a typical Craven Sale type – scopey with quality and will need bit of time, but the more time I think you can give them, the better they can be.”
By the U.S. sire sensation Into Mischief, the Ashford Stud-based stallion Practical Joke was a dual Grade 1 winner as a 2-year-old and finished third in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, whilst at three he won the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens Stakes at Saratoga.
Consignor Roger O'Callaghan, who previously sold the G1 Natalma Stakes winner La Pelosa at this sale in 2018, commented;
“She is as good a filly as I have had to breeze. She has been a genuine natural from the start. I bought her as a foal with Archie St George, she didn't make the yearling sale and we brought her here. The sire line through Into Mischief is magic.”
Stroud Coleman's Matt Coleman and Peter Swann's Cool Silk Partnership secured the Night of Thunder filly out of Militate for 265,000 guineas, the second highest priced filly on the opening day. The filly is from a classic Juddmonte family with her granddam being the Group 3 winner Orford Ness, dam of the Group winners Weightless and Main Aim, the latter also runner-up in the G1 July Cup.
Swann, who has enjoyed such great success from the breeze-ups, was keen to talk about his purchase:
“We thought her breeze was excellent. She is a real specimen, very strong. She has got a great pedigree – if we can win a race with her we are half way there aren't we? She did the job well. We are delighted and she is the sort of breeze-up horse we are always looking for – she is just built for it, she is not too long in the leg. We just felt it was worth a go,” said Swann, who was wearing a Scunthorpe United face mask as chairman of the football club.
He added: “We don't know a trainer yet, we are just going to wait – I haven't accessed my phone yet, I am sure there will be calls. We have got some great trainers that we use, whoever gets her will do a great job. Of the immediate plans, we will assess her over the next 24 hours and then decide.”
Continuing with plans for the new filly, Swann said: “We hope we can have a go at Royal Ascot, and try and win the bonus before everyone else! That would be nice. We are looking forward to Royal Ascot and hope the filly takes us there.”
Of the success he, Cool Silk and Coleman have enjoyed from breeze-up purchases, Swann said: “I think we have had 62 winners now. We've been doing it a long time.”
The sale was a pinhooking triumph for consignors Star Bloodstock who purchased her last autumn at Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale for 95,000 guineas.
