WinStar Justifies Looking to the Future

[Wandering Eyes]

And so the year wheels round to its end, releasing the excitements of 2018 towards their eventual repose in nostalgia–while, at the same time, hauling our ambitions for 2019 from the comfortable realm of dreams into the pitiless daily pressures of works, setbacks and races.

This year, out of nowhere, that process yielded a colt of unprecedented accomplishment. But if it is too much to hope for another Justify (Scat Daddy) next time round, then at least the farm whose colours he carried in the GI Kentucky Derby can embrace the new cycle with an enthusiasm more than equal to any regrets they may have about closing the book on the last one.

For WinStar–along with China Horse Club and SF Bloodstock, also partners in Justify–already find themselves with two of the leading colts of the next Classic generation. Both are sons of the remarkable City Zip, who is making us mourn his death in nearly the same fashion as the late sire of Justify. There is talk of Royal Ascot for Bulletin, winner of the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint; while the success of Improbable in the GI Los Alamitos Futurity S. last weekend consolidated his credentials to bring Justify’s owners back to the Churchill winner’s circle on the first Saturday in May.

In volunteering himself to fill a void on the Triple Crown trail, moreover, Improbable also serves as a useful symbol of WinStar’s determination to move on; to keep looking to the future. For rather than follow the Justify whirlwind into his second career, Kenny Troutt and his team calculated that the champion could power something still more enduring. Justify was duly sold to stand at Ashford instead.

Not that it was an easy call. “It was extremely difficult to sell Justify,” admits WinStar president and CEO Elliott Walden. “But looking at where we are, in the timeline of our business and from a standpoint of financial resource, Coolmore’s 50 years ahead of us. Kenny is passionate about WinStar being successful on a lot of different fronts. He’s passionate about his contributions to different organizations: the racetrack chaplaincy, the PDJF, aftercare. But he is also a businessman. The number one asset in his portfolio is WinStar Farm, and he has a responsibility to his family and all the employees at WinStar to make it sustainable.

“He’s never taken a dime out of the business. Not once in 18 years has he asked for any money back. We have reinvested $56 million in bloodstock over the last three years. Those dollars are put back in the game, and in the pockets of our fellow breeders and racehorse owners. But at the same time he wants it to operate itself, he wants it to grow, he wants us to try and get better bloodstock all the time.”

Walden stresses his total faith in Justify’s prospects at stud. “That’s what made it so difficult a decision,” he says. “On one hand he was the kind of horse that could be a tremendous stallion, and I think he will be. In fact we’re breeding 12 mares to him. So we’re all in. On the other hand, the decision allowed us to reinvest. Already since [his sale] we’ve been trying to upgrade our broodmare band, and we’ve put a good group of nice yearlings together.”

This way, the whole farm gets a lift. Even the most glamorous individual addition to the stallion roster wouldn’t necessarily change the whole game. As such, it would be wrong to speak of Justify being “cashed in”. Far from trying to make a fast buck, WinStar was actually taking a longer view: play it this way now, and they might not have to sell if ever they are lucky enough to race a prospect like that again.

This willingness to see the bigger picture can also be seen in the farm’s response to the recession of 2008. Over the next couple of years, a conscious decision was made to expand the roster from six to 20 (now 22). Deals with Vinery and Pauls Mill respectively absorbed More Than Ready (Southern Halo) and Pioneerof the Nile (Empire Maker), Bellamy Road (Concerto) and Artie Schiller (El Prado {Ire}).

“At the same time, we also took our broodmare band from 60 to 150,” Walden elaborates. “We realized that the infrastructure of the farm, at that moment, was not sustainable with so few stallions and mares; that we needed to expand. And what we did is expand quickly, and cheaply. So the last five years we have been improving that bloodstock, and now we want to continue upgrading the next ten years.”

The present one, after all, is actually a good market for longer term investment. The elite animals, admittedly, are very expensive; but there is real value available in quality stock for the end-user who is not just seeking a rapid commercial return. And that is just as well, given that it is such a numbers game.

“I do think there is power in numbers,” Walden explains. “When you have a mare abort, and you own five mares, it’s a tremendous hit. If you have 150, there are economies of scale, you can take out the real peaks and valleys of the business. Because people get so caught up in thinking you have to have the best, there’s a great opportunity right below that for people to really grow themselves in this business.”

Along with the quality, WinStar has sought to improve diversity. Walden speaks of altering “silo” thinking on bloodlines, surfaces and racing disciplines. There have been partnerships with the likes of Newgate in Australia, for instance, notably producing G1 Sires’ S. winner Invader (Aus) (Snitzel {Aus}); while GI Woodward S. winner Yoshida (Jpn) (Heart’s Cry {Jpn}) is the result of a mission to Japan, aimed at repatriating the Halo line.

“We got fortunate that we got the right horse,” Walden accepts. “Yoshida was the best horse at the sale. It’s turned out he’s high class on dirt and turf and I think he’s going to have a tremendous year in 2019. The way the business is going, I think it’s very attractive to have a stallion that does both. He was a very good fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, beaten 1 3/4 lengths. And while the winner was the best horse, the way the race was run he was probably second best.”

So while certain farms, whether by accident or design, develop a reputation for standing a particular type of stallion, Walden feels that WinStar is now avoiding pigeonholes.

“I think we’ve grown, we’ve opened that up,” Walden says. “I would say five years ago we were probably focused on the mile-and-a-quarter dirt horse, but then made a conscious decision to go out and look for different opportunities.”

Hence, in fact, the investment in these two blazing youngsters by City Zip. Equally, however, a bullet breezer by Into Mischief out of a Gilded Time mare has proved able to stretch out for third in the Kentucky Derby. Audible returned from a layoff to win over seven furlongs on the Breeders’ Cup undercard and runs in the GIII Harlan’s Holiday S. at Gulfstream Saturday as a reconnaissance for the GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational.

“He’s really exciting and we couldn’t be happier, both with the way he ran and the way he came out of the race,” Walden reports. “Going down the backside in the Derby, with Justify going :45, my thoughts were: ‘Well, this is not going to hold up.’ So I started watching Audible, who was mid-pack, and he made a tremendous run to just get beat for second. He’s a very high class horse, arguably the best 3-year-old in the country behind Justify, and the most beautiful Into Mischief you’ve ever seen. He has Gilded Time qualities, too: muscle, balance and scope. And that’s something that excites us from a stallion perspective.”

In the meantime, there is already plenty of young blood on the roster–not least in the horse who preceded Justify on the Classic roll of honour. Always Dreaming (Bodemeister) will be standing alongside his sire, who arguably did not get sufficient credit for producing a Kentucky Derby winner from his very first crop.

“He hits the ground a little lighter than his daddy. Bodemeister‘s out of a Storm Cat mare, and is a little blockier. Always Dreaming is more of a cat, and I think that bodes well for his future. We’re really excited about that athleticism he has. I loved his [GI] Florida Derby on a fast racetrack, and his Kentucky Derby on a sloppy racetrack. And he comes from a very fast, Grade I-placed mare in Above Perfection (In Excess {Ire}), who has produced two Grade I winners [the other is Hot Dixie Chick (Dixie Union)]–as well as Positive Spirit (Pioneerof The Nile), who just won the GII Demoiselle S. by 10 1/2 lengths.”

Walden identifies rookie Good Samaritan as particularly good value among the younger stallions. “He just got beat a head in the [GI] Clark H. and won the [GII] Summer S., which is now a Grade I,” he says. “And if he’d won a Grade I he’d be standing for three times the money. As it is, he’s great value at $12,500: a beautiful horse, the last great son of Harlan’s Holiday from a tremendous family, with Outstandingly and Bernstein and Sky Mesa in there, and he was extremely versatile. He was also as hard-knocking a horse as we’ve had in recent times. He broke his maiden and then ran in 14 straight graded races.”

A personal favourite among new sires last year was Carpe Diem (Giant’s Causeway) and Walden confirms that his yearlings–73 sold at an average $134,704, fourth in the intake–are going down well. “They just look the part,” he says. “He’s out of an Unbridled’s Song mare and they have that scope, but they have the fast-twitch muscle too. And he was a really good 2-year-old himself. Exaggerator also has foals now, and they’re looking really good too. A young son of Curlin, three-time Grade I winner, good 2-year-old: of course we’re excited.

“But we’ve just got a lot of exciting young horses. Constitution (Tapit). Daredevil (More Than Ready), another that was an extremely fast 2-year-old. Commissioner, last son of A.P. Indy. So it could happen from a number of different directions where we could get our next great stallion.”

And, if it turns out that WinStar have just allowed one such to go stand somewhere else, then the comfort is that Justify’s sale will in the meantime have sponsored the kind of upgrades to the broodmare band that can help make not just one stallion, but many.

Moreover the whole joy of the Triple Crown adventure will never fade away. True, there was one small cloud when unworthy aspersions were muttered about the withdrawal from the Belmont of Audible, who actually had suffered bone bruising and lost zest in training. Walden is still hurt by suggestions that Audible was deliberately removed from Justify’s path as the moment of truth loomed.

“With the blessings, there’s always things that you have to deal with,” he says with a shrug. “We always try to do right by our horses and Todd [Pletcher] felt like the horse wasn’t ready to give his best effort. We were very willing to run. I felt that if Justify was supposed to be a Triple Crown winner, he would be a Triple Crown winner–and nothing could stand in his way.

“I had some experience in the ’90s with Real Quiet and Victory Gallop, and realized something about Triple Crown winners: they don’t get beat. There’s no excuse, there’s no rabbit, there’s no speed confrontation, there’s no troubled trip. If they’re supposed to be a Triple Crown winner, nothing will stand in their way. That’s why there’s only been 13 of them in the history of horse racing. That’s why it’s special.”

That’s also why nobody can sensibly expect a horse in the same colours to emerge, so soon, as any kind of worthy successor to Justify. There is, in fact, only one word to describe the odds against that eventuality. Improbable.

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