2025 Mating Plans, Presented by Spendthrift Farm: Blue Diamond’s Stonereath Farm

[Wandering Eyes]

We are now in our second full year of operation at Stonereath Farm. As our Kentucky division, it has allowed Blue Diamond Stud to diversify and is now home to 16 of our mares. We are very lucky to have an excellent team to oversee the farm, headed by our CEO Ted Voute, farm manager Jenn Laidlaw and financial controller Erin Dilger.

TDN chats with Imad Al Sagar to find out about the operation's mating plans for 2025 in America.

ANGLE OF ATTACK, 7, Maclean's Music–Bourbon Warfare, by Colonel John. In foal to Bolt d'Oro. Visits Practical Joke.
Angle Of Attack is a young stakes-winning mare. We used Practical Joke last season on another young stakes winner, Dancing Kiki (Blame), who is being rested this year. Practical Joke is going from strength to strength and we were keen to support him again with this mare who should really suit him physically.

When we visited Ashford Stud in November, we also had a good look at Domestic Product. It's hard not to be impressed with him–he's very good looking with size and scope and we thought he'd suit another of our mares, New Jazz. She's a winning daughter of Scat Daddy, a line that Practical Joke has obviously done very well with in Chile.

ARWA, 11, Holy Roman Emperor–Another Storm, by Gone West. In foal to Elite Power. Visits Blame.
Arwa is a winning half-sister to European champion Order Of St George and a granddaughter of American champion 2-year-old Storm Song. It's a versatile family that is effective on both sides of the Atlantic, turf and dirt. Blame's stud record is underpinned by a similar versatility, plus he has a good relationship with mares carrying Danzig and Danehill. We are keen to bring in more Roberto blood into our stock and have regularly used Blame to that effect in recent years.

Both of Arwa's runners to date have won and her 2-year-old filly by Wootton Bassett goes to Andrew Balding.

BEAUTE CACHEE, 6, Literato–Sign And Seal by Hurricane Run. Visits Justify.
Beaute Cachee was a top-class racemare who won the GI Jenny Wiley Stakes and the GII Ballston Spa Stakes. She was also very tough, winning six races overall from two to five years. So we were delighted to add her to Blue Diamond in November–especially as being a daughter of Literato, she descends from Grey Sovereign via Kendor. Our strategy is to develop a broodmare band built on diverse bloodlines, we were keen to bring this particular line into that and physically Beaute Cachee is what you'd expect from a granddaughter of Kendor. She's going to receive every chance, firstly by sending her to Justify, a stallion we've already done well with as the breeder of Wonderful Justice. With bases in Newmarket and Kentucky, it's appealing that the resulting progeny should work in either Europe or the US.

BLUE DIAMOND, 6, Galileo–Pearling by Storm Cat. In foal to Siyouni. Visits Justify.
A homebred sister to our multiple GI winner Decorated Knight and out of Pearling, a sister to Giant's Causeway and Gleneagles' dam You'resothrilling. The cross of Justify over Galileo has obviously been very successful and we hope to follow that pattern with this mare from one of our most successful families. Blue Diamond's first foal, a 2-year-old colt by Siyouni, will be trained by John and Thady Gosden.

CHANTRY VIEW ROAD, 4, Quality Road–Molly Corbin by War Front. Visits McKinzie.
A new addition, Chantry View Road is out of a half-sister to champion Peeping Fawn and from a family previously associated with Stonereath being a direct descendant of Best In Show, who resided at the farm while it was under the ownership of Darrell and Lindy Brown. It's obviously one of the deepest and most international families in the stud book and we're going to give her every chance, starting with McKinzie. What he has achieved with his first crop is impressive and we were keen to support him.

CHILI FLAG, 6, Cityscape–Flag Day by Pivotal. Visits Not This Time.
We were thrilled to add Chili Flag in November. She has a similar profile to Beaute Cachee in that she was a very sound, hard-knocking GI winner, in her case when winning the Just A Game Stakes at Saratoga, who belongs to a sire line–Sharpen Up–that is unfortunately becoming harder to find. Chili Flag is a strong mare quite typical of her sire Cityscape and his sire Selkirk, who continues to remain very relevant through his daughters as we've seen again in recent years through the likes of Elmalka and Inspiral. We've been supporters of Not This Time for several seasons, impressed with what he's done in both the US and Europe off lower fees, and feel he should suit this mare both physically and on paper. There is also the potential for the progeny to work in either the US or Europe, especially as Chili Flag is a granddaughter of Blue Duster, a brilliant 2-year-old in her day for David Loder, from the good Blue Note family.

DAWN OF HOPE, 12, Mastercraftsman–Sweet Firebird by Sadler's Wells. In foal to Justify. Visits Blame.
Another pencilled in this year to tap into Roberto blood via Blame. Listed winner Dawn Of Hope is a valued member of our band whose first three foals have all won. Andre Fabre has her 3-year-old filly, Gaugamela (Sea The Stars), and will train her 2-year-old colt by Pinatubo. Blame, being a versatile sire who has been effective with European type Danzig-line mares before, should suit, plus the mating brings in inbreeding to Special.

FLORET, 9, Galileo–Ventura by Spectrum. In foal to Justify. Visits Not This Time.
A half-sister to Moonlight Cloud from the Doff The Derby family whose first foal Shamran (Kingman) won for us last year. We have retained her third foal, a 2-year-old filly by Palace Pier, to go to Ralph Beckett. She has a yearling filly by Blame to follow. As outlined above, we are keen to make use of Not This Time given his upward curve and how versatile he is when it comes to the US or Europe, turf or dirt etc. Plus he's produced several stakes winners to Sadler's Wells-line mares already.

Free Look, I'm Wonderful, and Dawn Of Hope | Courtesy Blue Diamond Stud

FREE LOOK, 5, Tapit–Wild Mint by Medaglia d'Oro. In foal to Gun Runner. Visits Curlin.
A Grade II-placed relation to Violence, Free Look will visit Curlin. The success of the Curlin – A.P. Indy cross is well known and more specifically through Tapit via the likes of Cody's Wish and Tenfold. Free Look is a very good-looking mare full of quality who was a good 2-year-old, so there's plenty of reasons to think she will complement Curlin. With her race record and pedigree, especially being by such a dominant broodmare sire in Tapit, we have high hopes for her.

I'M WONDERFUL, 9, Giant's Causeway–Rebridled Dreams by Unbridled's Song. In foal to Tapit. Visits Gun Runner.
A well-bred young stakes producer. I'm Wonderful is a sister to GI winner Carpe Diem whose first foal, Wonderful Justice (Justify), won the Black Gold Stakes for us. Her 3-year-old filly Sashay Away (Curlin) also won on debut last year and she has a yearling colt by Blame to come. She's still only 9 but being already proven, she warrants going to the best. By sending her to Gun Runner, we inbreed to Giant's Causeway–however the fact that Gunite, one of Gun Runner's top horses, is inbred to him gave us the confidence to head down that route.

MANASAROVA, 12, More Than Ready–Manaahil by Mr Greeley. In foal to Blame. Visits Karakontie.
Dam of French stakes winner Sicilian Defense and stakes-placed herself, Manasarova heads to Karakontie, a proven GI stallion who we feel consistently punches above his weight. This mating mirrors the cross that produced She Feels Pretty while on broader terms, it's notable how well he's done when more Hail To Reason blood is added, Princess Grace and Sugoi being good examples.

NOURIYA, 19, Danehill Dancer–Majestic Sakeena by King's Best. Visits Justify.
Our first homebred stakes winner, Nouriya's first foal was our G2 Duke Of Cambridge Stakes winner Aljazzi, whose Frankel filly sold for 4,400,000gns last year. She's a mare who continues to deserve the best and Justify fits the bill, especially given how effective he's already proven to be with mares carrying Danehill.

OCEAN SAFARI, 6, Temple City–Media Access by Devil's Bag. Foaled colt by Not This Time. Visits Tapit.
Ocean Safari is a stakes-winning daughter of Temple City who joined Stonereath in November 2023. We have it in the back of our mind to utilize some of these older stallions while we still can and Tapit obviously fits that bracket. He's perfect as a proven option for a young mare and particularly in this instance in that Ocean Safari's pedigree is a combination of two lines of Hail To Reason, an influence Tapit has fared well with.

QUEEN OFTHE TEMPLE, 7, Temple City–Queenameina by Read The Footnotes. In foal to Uncle Mo. Visits War Front.
The second of our stakes-winning Temple City mares and a particularly tough one typical of the Dynaformer line who is from a hard-knocking family. War Front still remains among the best when it comes to the figures, such as his 11% black-type winners to foals of racing age, and not only should he suit this mare physically but there's also his well known affinity for mares carrying Roberto blood.

TAIGA, 6, Bernardini–Winter Forest by Forestry. In foal to Curlin. Visits McKinzie.
We have been looking for a Bernardini mare for several years and were delighted to add Taiga, a young winning relation to Arabian Knight, at the Keeneland November Sale. We're keen to support McKinzie after the success of his first 2-year-olds and Taiga seemed the natural choice seeing that Chancer McPatrick is also out of a Bernardini mare.

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