Breeding Digest: Gold Rush Continues With Medals For Mares

[Wandering Eyes]

Too much of a good thing? Not when it comes to maintaining the gold standard. For if we have only recently celebrated the way Medaglia d'Oro is confounding the self-fulfilling prejudice against aging stallions by continuing to produce runners like Good Cheer and East Avenue, then he now demands a sequel addressing his equal prowess in the kind of role more conventionally reserved for a stallion of 26–namely, as broodmare sire.

Last weekend, daughters of Medaglia d'Oro gave us GI Gamely Stakes winner Be Your Best (Muhaarar {GB}); GII Santa Margarita Stakes romper Seismic Beauty (Uncle Mo); and, no less lucratively despite the formal gap in grade, Texas Derby winner Instant Replay (Maximum Security). Two others meanwhile produced 'TDN Rising Star' debutants either side of the Atlantic. Already damsire of young stallions such as National Treasure, Prince of Monaco and Olympian, Medaglia d'Oro is attending to every aspect of his legacy.

Admittedly he can no more keep pace with Tapit, in this role, than anyone else. Tapit mares have already produced 19 stakes winners this year, including as many as 10 at graded level. But daughters of Medaglia d'Oro are now up to a dozen black-type scorers, ahead of 11 apiece for Jonabell neighbor Street Sense and their late buddy Bernardini.

To a degree, of course, the fact that those three should be clustered in pursuit of Tapit tells its own story. Each has (or had) access to the most expensively assembled broodmare herd in Turf history. Good Cheer herself, for instance, is out of a homebred Street Sense mare; while Medaglia d'Oro and Street Sense exchanged roles to come up with First Mission.

But that kind of mutual aid represents only a bonus in their overall records. So far as Medaglia d'Oro is concerned, even those of us most skeptical of formulaic breeding must concede the regularity with which his daughters have struck gold with Speightstown. But his daughters' work over the weekend reflected the versatility that remains the principal trademark of Medaglia d'Oro, not least in terms of surfaces.

Seismic Beauty | Benoit

As we noted the other day, while he has endured long enough to share in a welcome rapprochement, for a long time Medaglia d'Oro served as a rare crossover influence during a generation of culpable disjunction between European and American gene pools. Somehow he has managed to balance the contrasting profiles of his sire El Prado (Ire)–whose other principal heir, Kitten's Joy, dealt almost exclusively in chlorophyll–and a dam by Bailjumper. (Curious how sons of Damascus confined their imprint largely to daughters: not just the obvious case of Private Account, but also Ogygian as damsire of Johannesburg.)

Interestingly, both the Medaglia d'Oro mares who produced big dirt winners last weekend were in turn out of daughters of the same stallion: Smart Strike.

The one who produced Seismic Duty's dam Knarsdale (Medaglia d'Oro) is an interesting case. While Secret File (Smart Strike) didn't break her maiden until she was four, she progressed to run second in her stakes debut at Ellis Park in 2011. And look who joined her on the podium that day! The GIII Gardenia Stakes was won by an emerging filly named Groupie Doll (Bowman's Band), later a dual Breeders' Cup champion; while third home was Stage Magic (Ghostzapper), making her final racetrack appearance count before commencing the breeding career that has famously given us Justify.

Smart Strike, of course, was another sire to extend his influence across different surfaces. Secret File had herself won on synthetic before switching to dirt, and her 2013 mating with Medaglia d'Oro duly led to a corresponding adaptability in their daughter: Knarsdale won a dirt maiden on debut before later transferring to turf for an allowance score/stakes podium, all at sprint distances.

The choice of Medaglia d'Oro for Secret File, incidentally, may well have been inspired by his daughter Payton d'Oro, winner of the GII Black-Eyed Susan Stakes and twice Grade I-placed in 2011: she was out of a Jade Hunter half-sister to Secret File's stakes-winning dam Emery Board (Grindstone).

Knarsdale herself was later sold, with a maiden cover by Uncle Mo, at the 2020 Keeneland November Sale, to Determined Stud for $430,000. (Less demand, sadly, for her 15-year-old dam a couple of years later: Secret File was culled for just $2,000, four years after a son by Uncle Mo had brought $900,000 as a yearling!)

Seismic Beauty, as the foal Knarsdale carried into the ring, cleared most of that investment as a $400,000 weanling at Fasig-Tipton, and subsequent siblings have respectively raised $500,000 (Bernardini colt, won a couple of minor races at two last year) and $225,000 (Essential Quality filly) even without Seismic Beauty decorating the page on the racetrack.

Her performance at the weekend, as a five-length winner in a lightning time, will duly spread excitement well beyond her own camp: her dam is still only 11 and a shrewd return to Seismic Beauty's late sire accounts for her yearling daughter; and the stakes are rising also for LCI, purchasers of the Essential Quality filly.

Instant Replay | Coady Media

No Rewinding But Replay Gives Maximum Pleasure

The other Medaglia d'Oro mare out of a daughter of Smart Strike? Well, doubtless that's a bittersweet topic for Gary and Mary West. On the one hand, they will be delighted to see Maximum Security come up with a son as talented as Instant Replay; on the other, the annual cull essential to any program of their size in 2023 unfortunately included his dam Academy Gal (Medaglia d'Oro) for just $5,000 at the Keeneland November Sale.

Having regressed sharply in just three career starts, the 7-year-old was found lurking at Hip 3452 by Gaelic Bloodstock. Her first foal, by American Freedom, then remained an unraced juvenile (second last month in a maiden claimer); while the vendors were retaining two sons by Maximum Security. The younger has since been named Final Thoughts, but second thoughts may have ensued now that Instant Replay has won consecutive stakes after closing for third in the GII Louisiana Derby.

But hindsight is not a wonderful thing. It's just really irritating. It says much about Academy Gal's apparent prospects that her own dam, Flashy Gal (Smart Strike), was sold for $1,000 at the same auction. The catalogue showed that Flashy Gal had unequivocally failed to repay generous opportunity, producing a second daughter by Medaglia d'Oro (unraced); a daughter by Tapit (ditto); and two foals by Quality Road with a single, unplaced start between them.

And yet, and yet… Purchasers Harper Ridge Thoroughbreds evidently reminded themselves that Flashy Gal had won a Belmont maiden on her second start before running third in a stakes over the same turf; and later won a couple of Churchill allowances. And she had cost $250,000 as a yearling, being out of a stakes-placed Deputy Minister half-sister to two elite winners: Hold That Tiger (Storm Cat), a champion juvenile in Europe; and Editor's Note (Forty Niner), winner of the GI Belmont Stakes in 1996.

Well, let's at least give Maximum Security credit for stoking up these embers. It was through no fault of his own (nor of his owners) that his amazing rise was derailed, first by his rider in the Derby and then by the imprisonment of his trainer. One way or another, he became such a hard sell that he is now standing at $5,000. But Maximum Security has so far fielded 33 winners from just 68 starters, including three graded stakes/Group performers. He has many a peer whose genetic functionality, despite far greater chances, for now remains less apparent.

A Family Where The Best Comes As Standard

The weekend's biggest score for a Medaglia d'Oro mare takes the least explanation. Be Your Best (Ire) extends one of the most aristocratic families in the book, with matriarch Up the Flagpole (Hoist the Flag) as fourth dam.

Be Your Best | Benoit

Be Your Best's dam Kamakura is out of a daughter of A.P. Indy and Up the Flagpole's European Group 1 winner Flagbird (Nureyev), herself once runner-up in the Gamely. That pedigree strongly echoes GI Jenny Wiley Stakes winner Dickinson (Medaglia d'Oro), whose mother, GI Ashland Stakes winner Little Belle, is by A.P. Indy out of Flagbird's daughter by Mr. Prospector.

It would be hard to claim that Be Your Best's own sire quite measures up to all these brands. Indeed, a couple of years after Kamakura (Medaglia d'Oro) delivered Be Your Best, Muhaarar (GB) was moved from Britain to France and cut to just €5,000. In fairness, he sired a French Classic winner the following year, and has since coaxed his fee back up to €14,000.

It was precisely the way Muhaarar cooled off commercially, after advertising what had appeared optimal commercial speed on the track, that prompted Mike Ryan to keep Be Your Best within his St Croix Bloodstock program. That had now proved a great blessing.

Not that Kamakura owed him anything. She was culled by Godolphin for 150,000gns as an unraced Godolphin sophomore, at the Tattersalls July Sale of 2016. By that stage her full brother Bay of Plenty had contributed a Saratoga stakes (dirt 9f) to this famous family; and half-brother Fortify (Distorted Humor) had operated just a tier down from the best juveniles of his crop (Grade I-placed).

Kamakura immediately discharged the investment, her first son by Kingman being sold at Tattersalls October for 625,000gns–to Godolphin! He was a winner and so too, already, is Kamakura's latest 2-year-old: a Too Darn Hot colt sold to Blandford Bloodstock last fall, again in Book 1 at Tattersalls, for 270,000gns. Named Postmodern by Wathnan Racing, he looked Royal Ascot material in his five-length 'TDN Rising Star' debut at Yarmouth last week.

And Royal Ascot is presumably also an option for Outfielder (Speightstown), similarly anointed a 'TDN Rising Star' after melting the clock for Wesley Ward at Churchill the very next day. The $850,000 Saratoga yearling is out of Notte d'Oro (Medaglia d'Oro), so there's that Speightstown cross again. If that will obviously be drying up now, no matter: it feels like these Medaglia d'Oro mares are barely getting started.

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