Breeding Digest: Still The Best Way To Justify A Stallion

[Wandering Eyes]

It's not just the horses that are called upon. Horsemen, too, must measure up to the challenges of our sport. To many, that now means rescheduling the Triple Crown series. To some of us, however, it means the very opposite.

Our community was similarly divided in 2023 by the loss of two horses easing to Grade I success, right in front of the Saratoga grandstand. That trauma prompted many to demand that all dirt tracks be dug up. Others, however, urged persevering with the ancestral core of American racing so long as we applied–and accepted–exacting standards. With this broadened embrace of collective responsibility, 2024 proved the safest year to race your horse since the Equine Injury Database began in 2009, with dirt fatalities (1.18 per 1,000 starts) nearing parity with synthetic (1.02).

The Triple Crown debate feels somewhat comparable. Once again we are being implored to renounce tradition; and those resisting change again find themselves accused of clinging to tradition for its own sake.

Hopefully, then, you'll indulge a brief diversion from the specifics generally explored in this column for one or two more generic observations. Because it seems a deeply eccentric moment to reinvent the Triple Crown, precisely as its latest winner is demonstrating its validity as a signpost to the genes we should be looking to replicate.

Justify is restoring the good name of the American breed in Europe in a fashion reminiscent of the regeneration once achieved by sons of Northern Dancer. His second crop produced the Epsom Derby winner; his third may yet do the same, Ruling Court having already won the 2000 Guineas.

That would put him two-thirds of the way to a British Triple Crown last won in 1970, being indeed more widely spaced in time but also in distance (eight to 14 furlongs). Whatever happens, for this brawny dirt model to be making such an explosive impact in Europe–home to five of Justify's eight elite winners–feels like a transformational moment.

Yet the defection of Sovereignty (Into Mischief) from the GI Preakness Stakes is being widely considered the last straw for the Triple Crown as we know it.

Actually, even those of us averse to change can readily shrug off this particular decision. A Triple Crown completed over 10 furlongs at Saratoga wouldn't really qualify as a Triple Crown at all. Yes, it would still advertise resilience; but it wouldn't do the same for versatility. The set-up we have inherited makes exceptional demands of both–and that, of course, is the whole point.

Apparently it is no longer conscionable to put a 21st Century American Thoroughbred on such a grueling schedule. Nevermind that two horses have so recently proved equal to the challenge, despite diminishing numbers even being given the opportunity. We are instead supposed to infer, from the refusal of modern trainers to run horses as frequently as their predecessors, that commercial breeding has eroded the constitution of the Thoroughbred.

That may well be true. If it is, however, then the place to start is the huge footprint of unproven stallions, when the great majority will soon be revealed as weak or even damaging influences. In the old days, limited access to elite sires locked in the quality. If you got to Bold Ruler, damned sure your mare was eligible–leaving the rest to spread their favors in furtherance of diversity and/or yeoman solidity.

But it's hard to know exactly what Thoroughbreds might still be capable of, when hardly anyone is prepared to find out. Certainly the trainer of the last Preakness winner, the great survivor of the old school, is achieving more than his numbers (whether the size of his barn, or his age!) might allow.

Seize the Day (Arrogate) thwarted the Derby winner on the same two-week turnaround, having won the GII Pat Day Mile. But the trainer of Mystik Dan (Goldencents) is another who's braver about his percentages. As a result, he punches wildly above weight. It says a lot that we couldn't identify the outstanding trainer of 2024 as a guy who not only won the Derby with a son of Goldencents, out of a $9,500 RNA mare, but also turned a $40,000 Fast Anna filly into Horse of the Year.

So before we start discovering inherent defects in an “antiquated” Classic schedule, let's first ensure–just as with an “antiquated” surface–that we're not limiting horses' potential through our own failings.

Hill Road Bred To Keep Ascending

I've often remarked on a repeating quality in broodmare sires. Take Dehere, for instance. He was by one great distaff influence, Deputy Minister, out of a mare by another in Secretariat. Sure enough, his 1997 mating with a daughter of Secretariat's half-brother Somethingfabulous resulted in quite a mare.

Paris Notion, purchased as a yearling by Ann Marie Farm for $52,000, never made the racetrack and her breeding career was tragically curtailed by a neurological condition. But she left a valuable bequest in her final colt, by Quality Road: he brought $710,000 as a yearling and duly turned into four-time Grade I winner City of Light.

A couple of years previously, Paris Notion had produced a filly by Lemon Drop Kid. Exotic Notion proceeded to be stakes-placed in Argentina and, following the emergence of City of Light, wasted no time in visiting Quality Road and returning to auction back in her native land.

The project didn't come off initially–she was bought back, and the foal was never registered–but she was successfully cashed out at the 2021 Keeneland November Sale, again in foal to Quality Road, for $800,000 to Avenue Bloodstock. The colt she was carrying is listed as bred by Lynch Bages Ltd & Camas Park Stud, two brands that denote exceptional acuity, and sold through Paramount Sales to Aguiar/McElroy for $350,000 as a Book 1 yearling at Keeneland September.

Hill Road | Susie Raisher

After starting his career for Amo Racing in Ireland, his longshot third when tried on dirt at the Breeders' Cup (nowadays all too rare a roll of European dice) prompted his transfer to Chad Brown. And success in the GIII Peter Pan Stakes last weekend has now volunteered Hill Prince for a tilt at the GI Belmont Stakes.

Certainly we can't give all the credit to Quality Road, albeit he has produced conspicuous talents from both dam and granddam. For the Somethingroyal mare who produced Paris Notion, Fabulous Notion, was not only a Grade I winner herself (in what is now the Santa Anita Oaks) but was presumably sent to Dehere because her daughter by his sire Deputy Minister, Fabulously Fast, had been a Grade I-placed juvenile the previous year (went on to win the GI Test Stakes that summer). Moreover, Fabulous Notion shared a dam with the exceptional grass performer Cacoethes, a Grade I winner here but best known for running Nashwan to a neck in an epic showdown at Ascot.

These are just highlights among a heavy cluster of black type under both Fabulous Notion and her dam Careless Notion (Jester), so the ambitious owners of Hill Road may soon find themselves with a very legitimate stallion prospect to sustain their U.S. division.

A Bridge Too Far

Hill Road functioned well enough on turf to be anointed a 'TDN Rising Star' on debut at Leopardstown, and there was further evidence this week that Justify is not alone in reopening the European theater to Kentucky stallions.

For a start there was Ruling Court's pinhooker Norman Williamson making another seven-figure sale to Godolphin at the Arqana breeze-ups, banking €1 million for a $70,000 Maxfield colt. Others to hit paydirt included those who sold an €800,000 Mitole filly (half-sister to Malibu Moon's G2 Norfolk Stakes winner Valiant Force) and a €650,000 Practical Joke colt, besides a €725,000 colt for the inevitable Justify.

Then there was the exotic spectacle of a $1.25-million Gun Runner colt, named Gun Carriage, by the Coolmore partners after his purchase at Keeneland last September, breaking his maiden on his second start–by a nostril at Killarney. Whether or not he appreciated the lovely scenery down there cannot be known, but his fourth dam is Too Chic so you couldn't be surprised if he turns out to be reserving his best for a rather different environment.

But while it's marvelous to see the versatility of these dirt sires tested more widely, the winds of change came too late for Kentucky's two outstanding grass stallions of recent times. Kitten's Joy did show what he could do, from mysteriously limited opportunity, after Roaring Lion and Kameko were burgled by David Redvers for $160,000 and $90,000, respectively; and moreover, he has an exciting heir in the Bluegrass, in Oscar Performance.

Nobody in Europe, however, gave any kind of chance to his longstanding rival English Channel, whose posthumous resume was expanded by a GII Man o' War Stakes 1-2 last weekend: both 'TDN Rising Star' Far Bridge and Anglophile, incidentally, being out of Kitten's Joy mares!

Behind his dam, Far Bridge's family has been seeded by A.P. Indy, Storm Cat, Pleasant Colony, Northern Dancer and Bold Ruler. That's because it traces to matriarch Lea Lark, whose dynasty features the breed-shaping Miswaki among many others. This branch produced Southern Halo and while it has been lying rather fallow hereabouts, we could rely on the perennially underrated English Channel to stoke up the embers. And with those influences behind him, who knows, perhaps Far Bridge could yet extend his sire's legacy.

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