Breeding Digest: 48 Hours 48 Years in the Making

[Wandering Eyes]

We all found ourselves in the court of one ruler last weekend, but it would be wrong to treat the kind of transatlantic sovereignty charted by four Classic winners inside 48 hours, either side of the water, as an automatic outcome of greater aggregate expenditure than any program in Turf history.

Nobody knows that better than Sheikh Mohammed and his Godolphin team. He has been trying to dovetail his wealth and his passion, both obviously off the charts, for nearly half a century. (He had his first winner at Brighton, 48 years ago.) And we can all remember times when it felt as though one or other element of the machinery was underperforming. But most of us can also acknowledge that nobody is ever immune to the Thoroughbred's reliable role in our lives as a vehicle for humility.

That said, it does feel as though the Sheikh's ups and downs have in recent years leveled out into a more consistent yield. If that is indeed so, there will be no single or simple reason. There certainly appear to be specific factors, such as the stunning success of what had appeared a fairly obstinate solution to Godolphin's gravest crisis by the promotion of an unproven, internal candidate in Charlie Appleby. But there are also generic ones, such as the maturing of investments that demanded a patience seldom permitted to interfere with the relish some people discover in envy or resentment.

It is true that the winners of both the GI Kentucky Derby and G1 2,000 Guineas were vindicating a seven-figure play that few others can repeat so comfortably. Crowned (Bernardini), whose $225,000 date with Into Mischief in 2021 produced Sovereignty, never made the racetrack after her $1.2-million purchase through John Ferguson at the 2014 September Sale.

Ruling Court (Justify), meanwhile, cost $2.3 million at Arqana this time last year. But all the eligibility suggested by physique or pedigree will only solidify into achievement in the right hands.

Build Your Horse on Rock

While that obviously remains true once a horse reaches the racetrack, by that stage it could already be too late.

The importance of a good grounding was underlined by both the colts that won on Saturday. At Churchill, in fact, the point was made in nearly surreal fashion, in terms of probabilities, both the first two having graduated from the same pre-training program. Sovereignty and runner-up Journalism (Curlin) may have ended up on opposite coasts, but they started out together at Bridlewood Farm in Florida, where their education was supervised by Joan “Meda” Murphy.

Journalism was among the yearlings annually selected by Bridlewood in partnership with Eclipse Thoroughbreds, both camps having had him high enough on their Saratoga shortlists to stretch to $825,000. And Sovereignty was that year among the usual batch of Godolphin homebreds sent to Bridlewood to benefit from the same instruction as Cody's Wish.

Ruling Court, meanwhile, he is another feather in the cap of pinhooker Norman Williamson, whose previous Keeneland finds include War of Will (War Front). Williamson is one of many breeze-up consignors to have adapted skills initially learned with mature steeplechasing types to the discovery and schooling of young Flat talent–a paradox that must have some significance.

He was well paid for his work with Ruling Court, having picked him out for $150,000 at the September Sale. But one of the reasons people know to come to his Oak Tree consignment is because he has so shrewdly undertaken a similar process himself already. And he bought Ruling Court from a farm that gives its horses as sound a foundation as any in the Bluegrass.

Norman Williamson | Tattersalls

The man presiding over Nursery Place is so stubbornly self-effacing that I will spare him having to see his name in print again. But anyone who knows him will know that here they get horsemanship in its purest form: no bells and whistles, no social media, no catalogue photos, not even a hip sticker. (Would you think Marilyn Monroe/Cary Grant, according to your requirements, more alluring in the nude with or without a number slapped onto a thigh?) Zero short cuts. These horses are hand-walked from here to the moon. And as much benefit is eked from those few rolling fields, between the river and the trees, as from any of the glitzy farms stretching horizon to horizon.

Oh, and by the way, the latest chapter in the astonishing story of Puca (Big Brown)–Baeza (McKinzie) flying into third in the Derby–didn't just confirm that one of the most precocious blue hens of all time was well bought by John Stewart at $2.9 million. It also reminds us that her dam Boat's Ghost (Silver Ghost), having just turned 19, was bought for $17,000 at the 2023 Keeneland January Sale, only a few days before Mage made his debut, by ….Nursery Place!

Justify Closing Transatlantic Divide

So much for nurture. How about nature? For another factor in Godolphin's spree is the integration of gene pools–or rather, their re-integration, a schism between perceived dirt and turf lines having caused an unwholesome blockage for a generation or so.

Obviously the big international operations have been best placed to improve the situation, but we've just noted how Ruling Court is the work of a relatively small family concern. In other words, we all have a role to play.

His dam Inchargeofme (GB) (High Chaparral {Ire}) was found at the 2015 Keeneland January Sale as what you might call a short 2-year-old, duly slipping through the cracks at $80,000. (Her brother Johannes Vermeer (Ire) had run fourth for Ballydoyle in the G1 2,000 Guineas only the previous May, also Group 1-placed at two.)

Justify | Sarah Andrew

Inchargeofme proceeded to win three races, throwing in a black-type bonus on her final start by flying into third in a Grade III on turf at Churchill. Two half-sisters–one Group 1-placed in France, the other producing a graded stakes winner–would further revive this branch of their family, their unraced dam Inchmina (GB) (Cape Cross {Ire}) having proved by no means the only anti-climax in the record of her own mother. More would have been expected of a group-placed half-sister to the admirable stallion Inchinor, as well as to the dams of GI E.P. Taylor winner Miss Keller (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}) and a GI Irish Oaks runner-up. (They were out of the diminutive matriarch Inchmurrin (Ire) (Lomond), who incidentally resurfaces as third dam of The Lion In Winter (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), the Ballydoyle colt who turned over Ruling Court at York last August, but had to miss the Guineas).

A ton of chlorophyll here, then, and the mating with Justify has tapped into a historic opportunity, a G1 Derby winner at Epsom from only his second crop having focused attention even among notoriously myopic horsemen over the pond. If Ruling Court proceeds to win at Epsom, it will really start to feel as though transatlantic cross-pollination is returning to where it was in the Northern Dancer era.

That revolutionary patriarch not only roots Justify's sire-line, via the Storm Cat branch, but combines his two premier European conduits in Inchargeofme: her sire High Chaparral, as a son of Sadler's Wells; and damsire Cape Cross as a grandson of Danzig.

Five of Justify's eight elite winners have been trained in Europe–and he's built like a Quarter Horse! Once he goes to stud himself, of course, Ruling Court will introduce Justify to a very different bunch of mares from those now favoring City Of Troy. Thankfully, their respective camps nowadays appear to be rivals sooner than enemies. Remember that it was precisely as transatlantic genetic exchange was stagnating that the Maktoums cut off another source of vitality by declining to support the sires of their regular antagonists…

Not Just a Bernardini Mare

Genetic diversity brings vigor, after all. And the G1 1,000 Guineas winner Desert Flower (Ire) (Night Of Thunder {Ire}) doesn't just combine European and American pools. (Out of a Hard Spun mare). She also introduces some thoroughly exotic blood through Brazilian granddam Aviacion (Brz), whose sire Know Heights (Ire) hopefully means more to you than he does to me. Though a Grade I winner in her native land, Aviacion's eligibility for the Godolphin broodmare band also seems fairly obscure until you reach her fourth dam, who turns out to be none other than Somethingroyal.

The perennially underrated Hard Spun is becoming as solid a broodmare sire as he has long been in every other way. But the arrival of Sovereignty, alongside Speaker's Corner and Maxfield, will confirm the daughters of his late neighbor Bernardini as a truly exceptional legacy.

Actually Sovereignty's tale entwines with Hard Spun in that the latter was bred by Betty Moran's Brushwood Stable–just like Sovereignty's dam Crowned (Bernardini).

As we've explored in the past, the $1.2 million paid to Brushwood for Crowned as a yearling was less than had twice been required for her own dam. Mushka (Empire Maker) was a $1.6-million yearling, being out of a stakes-placed daughter of Seeking the Gold and four-time Grade I winner Lakeway (herself by Bernardini's grandsire Seattle Slew). Success in the GII Demoiselle elevated Mushka's value to $2.4 million when sold to Brushwood at the end of her sophomore campaign. Kept with Bill Mott, who duly knows his way around her grandson, Mushka matured to win the GI Spinster and run second in the GI Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic.

Between those earnings and the $3.375 million banked for her first three yearlings, Mushka more than paid her way. But she then experienced fertility issues, eventually culled for $650,000 carrying what proved to be a penultimate foal. On the face of it, she'd become a disappointment. Her first foal, in two visits to the ring, made $1.65 million and $10,000; while her two Bernardinis never made the track. But like we said earlier, that's where the patience comes in.

Old Gold

Into Mischief himself, meanwhile, continues inexorably to match the narrative to the theory. The idea was always that his upgraded mares would stretch out his speed–and here he is, courtesy of a mare saturated with Classic brands, with a third Derby winner in six years. (Not forgetting that his first-crop son Goldencents joined the party with Mystik Dan last year.) Though now 20, Into Mischief only reached his peak fee with those mares who delivered his incoming juveniles, so he may yet find the fourth winner that would give him the Derby record outright.

Into Mischief | Sarah Andrew

Regardless, he will soon overtake Tapit (currently $216.3 million) as the richest American stallion in history, having now closed to $212.7 million. Bizarrely, after everything they have been through, at time of writing both have fielded precisely the same number (1,448) of starters!

There are also some striking parities between Into Mischief and Medaglia d'Oro, who continues to flout the self-fulfilling prejudice against ageing sires with his third Oaks winner, Good Cheer. While East Avenue couldn't add the Derby, their sire now stands third in the all-time rankings on $181.6 million, and remains uncannily in step with Into Mischief in many key indices.

Obviously, things are likely to change, given Into Mischief's career graph-lines, but for now they are maintaining a virtually identical clip: graded stakes winners, for instance, at 6% of named foals; and graded stakes performers at 11%. Their latest Classics, respectively, put Medaglia d'Oro on 25 Grade I winners–1,414 starters, again a strikingly similar output–and Into Mischief on 24.

Good Cheer | Horsephotos

With Spirit of St Louis winning his latest Grade I, and Nitrogen also scoring on turf in the GII Edgewood Stakes, Medaglia d'Oro is replicating his trademarks of class, looks and versatility deep into the evening of his career. It took a bit of nerve to put a 26-year-old stallion on top of a “value podium” during the winter. But whatever embarrassments other sires may be reserving for that exercise, $75,000 for this venerable creature is proving pure ageism.

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