Breeding Digest: An Authentic Ray of Hope

[Wandering Eyes]

If you're among the many currently absorbed by his autobiography, you'll be indebted to Arthur Hancock for sharing a series of Charlie Whittingham maxims. And one is of particular value to anyone routinely assessing pedigrees: “Never say anything bad about a horse until he's been dead at least 10 years.”

Plenty will have been sorely tempted to disregard that stricture in the case of Authentic, after the 2020 Horse of the Year fell so far short of his billing with his first juveniles last year.

Retired at $75,000, much the highest of his intake, the son of Into Mischief started with 229 mares and the resulting yearlings were received with the habitual docility of those managing other people's money, who almost invariably replicate fee rank in the first-crop sale averages. Authentic duly dominated that table at $286,076, and his “bubble” book last spring held solid at 196.

Well, people weren't quite so keen by the time his second crop reached the ring. Despite a class-high 92 starters, Authentic's juveniles mustered a single black-type success (at Albuquerque) among 24 winners overall.

As a result, the median cost of his second crop ($65,000) didn't even cover their conception fee ($70,000). It was all pretty excruciating. But he's managed by the same team that made his own sire, who know far too much about the game to be burying their heads in the sand. Having given Authentic a couple of routine trims, to $60,000 and then $50,000, this spring they made no bones about his predicament. Initially halved to $25,000, Authentic found himself among the many Kentucky stallions given an additional cut as cold headwinds hit the market. He's now advertised at $15,000.

But let's not forget that Authentic was himself a later developer. (Indeed, the Tiz the Law camp might wonder whether a controversial rescheduling of the 2020 Kentucky Derby allowed this May 5 foal to retrieve a deficit in precocity.) Perhaps his stock is matching that template. No freshman, after all, beat his 15 scorers round a second turn. And now, for those who have kept the faith, a sunbeam has suddenly broken through the clouds.

A Derby winner at the first attempt would certainly cover a multitude of sins, and the GII Wood Memorial success of Rodriguez showed a May 20 foal now progressing rapidly towards the cream of the crop.

In fairness, Rodriguez can also draw on potent genes in his own family. His fourth dam is the classy runner and producer Race the Wild Wind (Sunny's Halo), who rounded off her career winning the GI Santa Maria Handicap and was sold for $700,000 at the 1997 Keeneland November Sale.

The Nureyev colt she was carrying that day turned out to be G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest winner King Charlemagne, whose debut second proved his sole defeat in six starts. In the meantime his brother had been sold to Shadwell as a yearling, and he too would prove very able on turf: Meshaheer was a particularly fast juvenile, beaten half a length at Royal Ascot before winning a Group sprint (added a Group 2 at five).

But their dam's legacy had already been secured through two fillies bred by Brandon and Marianne Chase before her sale. From Chasetheragingwind (Dayjur) they bred GI Forego Stakes winner Here Comes Ben (Street Cry {Ire}), as well as Gottahaveadream (Indian Charlie), subsequently dam of GI Frizette winner Dayoutoftheoffice (Into Mischief); while from Chasethewildwind (Forty Niner) they bred Grade I winners Albertus Maximus (Albert the Great) and Daredevil (More Than Ready).

That pair's half-sister by Touch Gold, Chasethegold, meanwhile accentuated the family's turf streak as runner-up in the GIII Senator Ken Maddy Handicap; and later her daughter by Political Force managed second in the GII Golden Rod Stakes, a rare distinction for that sire. While her other foals proved modest, a daughter by Cherokee Run named Cayala (sole win in a five-way photo for a turf sprint maiden) became one of the earliest to confirm Into Mischief's ability to upgrade mares.

Her first foal, One Liner, won the GIII Southwest Stakes, prompting breeders Kingswood Stud and David Egan (who had bought the mare for just 17,000gns at Tattersalls) to persevere with Into Mischief as his fee climbed. They were rewarded with yearlings that made $550,000 and $600,000, the latter becoming dual sprint stakes winner Provocateur.

Her 2022 foal, by Into Mischief's rookie son Authentic, brought $485,000 at the September Sale. His name, of course, is Rodriguez. Whether he can stretch his speed another furlong can't be guaranteed: close relative Provocateur was a sprinter, and the family's best have tended to be dirt milers or turf sprinters.

Nor do I know whether he was named for the Rodriguez featured in Searching For Sugar Man. No spoilers, if so, because there's a real twist in that classic documentary. Suffice to say that it confirms Whittingham's warning against consigning anyone to history-horse or human-while they still have the means of coming back and proving you wrong.

 

Sunny Side of the Square
Brandon and Marianne Chase were still enjoying the rise of Race the Wild Wind when deciding to buy a yearling by the same sire. Irgun cost just $28,000, but you'll find him down there below Rodriguez in the Wood Memorial roll of honor (1994).

He ran Go for Gin off his feet that day, but had to miss the Derby and actually made his only subsequent start as a 5-year-old. Nor could Irgun redeem that disappointment at stud, but his brilliance in the Wood had evidently made an impression on the Whitham family. For he was out of a Secretariat mare, and the following spring they sent one of their own to Sunny's Halo.

Listen Well had only won a maiden in a light career but as daughter of a graded stakes winner, and half-sister to two more, she had been bought by Frank Penn Jr. for $150,000 at the 1992 Keeneland November Sale.

The cross duly paid off: Listen Well's daughter by Sunny's Halo, Beautiful Noise, matured into a rock-solid graded stakes operator on grass, never out of the first four in eight consecutive starts at that level, including a day in the sun in the GII Santa Ana Handicap.

But Listen Well had more than one string to her bow. For a start, the Night Shift foal she had carried into the Keeneland ring turned out to be dual Grade I winner Listening. (Albeit her owners doubtless prized still higher a success in the GII Bayakoa Handicap in 1996, a race recently renamed for the champion they imported from Argentina). Moreover one of Listen Well's later daughters, Solar Echo (Spinning Well), was twice denied a Grade I (on grass) by no more than half-a-length.

You can imagine how much it means to this exemplary program for a taproot investment in Listen Well to be producing dividends over three decades later. It must have been gratifying enough when Magical Lute (Maclean's Music), whose third dam is Listening, won a stakes at Prairie Meadows last summer. How much more thrilling, then, must be the dramatic GI Blue Grass Stakes of Burnham Square (Liam's Map)?

For he is out of Beautiful Noise's daughter Linda (Scat Daddy), herself winner of the GII Mrs. Revere Handicap. Burnham Square duly represents a third consecutive generation of graded stakes success in the Whitham colors. True, the Derby ride will have to be its own reward: Burnham Square was castrated, and both his dam and two half-sisters have slipped into other hands. But then he might himself have been claimed on debut, when similarly flying down the Keeneland stretch last fall-albeit only if somebody had found adequate nerve at $150,000!

However Burnham Square fares in the Derby, it's nice to celebrate anew the underdog winner of 1983. At stud Sunny's Halo hardly matched the influence of the previous Canadian-bred winner, albeit for a long time he held the earnings record in Texas. But two of his daughters united our two latest trial winners, as fourth dam of Rodriguez and granddam of Burnham Square.

 

Words Words Words
Whatever they have endured with Authentic, the Spendthrift team have found ample comfort in others who entered their barn at the same time. After winning the freshman title by a matter of cents, for instance, Vekoma has opened up on his rivals this spring: the exciting Colloquial's first black-type success, in the Lafayette Stakes at Keeneland, was already Vekoma's sixth of the year, among no fewer than 36 sophomore winners from 82 starters.

But there was another Lafayette Stakes over the weekend, at Evangeline Downs, where Cool Cowboy followed up his debut success in emphatic fashion. That was a timely tonic for Thousand Words, whose flagbearer The Queens M G ended her career in the GII Gulfstream Park Oaks (won, incidentally, by Vekoma's daughter Five G) the previous weekend.

The Queens M G, famously a $3,500 yearling, had lately added the GII Davona Dale to her black-type scores at Saratoga last summer. Remembering the Grade I placings of the still cheaper Vodka With a Twist, Thousand Words has fully earned his hike from $5,000 to $12,500 this spring. Cool Cowboy is his fourth sophomore to win a stakes, while his cumulative tally of five is behind only Vekoma on 10, and Complexity and Tiz the Law on six.

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