Breeding Digest: Nysos Hitting High Notes of a Familiar Song

[Wandering Eyes]

In approaching a Saturday that threatens to restore the Triple Crown viability of the American Thoroughbred-between Journalism (Curlin) here, and a son of Justify at Epsom-it feels timely to consider a horse often viewed as typifying the precarious compromise between size and speed, on the one hand, and soundness on the other.

The double-edged reputation of Unbridled's Song traces right back to his own sales history. He was the perfect commercial model for a 2-year-old auction, so big and fast that the Barretts hammer fell at $1.4 million, back then a record. A dream pinhook ($200,000 yearling) was derailed, however, when his Japanese purchaser returned the gray with an X-ray query that he felt might prove an ankle chip.

Unbridled's Song showed his brilliance intact in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile and GI Florida Derby, but later had to deal with various issues and broke down. At stud, despite anecdotal contention over the vulnerabilities implicit in that regal 17-hand frame, he built up a remarkable legacy.

It seldom pays to generalize about Thoroughbreds but there were certainly examples, including key heirs Arrogate and Liam's Map, where it paid off to give his stock time to build the strength to support their scale. Cross Traffic, indeed, didn't start until four.

All sires have foals that fail to fulfil their potential, for many different reasons, and it was certainly unfair to conflate such painful experiences as those of Buddha or especially Eight Belles. What did become incontestable, and soon, was that Unbridled's Song could replicate his class.

Among the stars of his debut crop was GI Breeders' Cup Distaff winner Unbridled Elaine. Not that he could claim all the credit. Her dam Carols Folly, though one of just 11 foals in her crop by a son of In Reality named Taylors Falls, had already produced Glitter Woman (Glitterman) to win five graded stakes including the GI Ashland. So when Unbridled Elaine won the Pocahontas Stakes, it was plain that Carols Folly-a stakes winner against Alabama-breds at Birmingham, no less, and sold to the co-breeders of Unbridled Elaine for $5,700-was packing more genetic prowess than her obscure antecedents might suggest. That fall she was duly recruited, in a private deal, to the broodmare band then being assembled at Summer Wind Farm.

Elaines were evidently on the mind of the Lyons family! They had already bought Evil Elaine (Medieval Man) on the eve of her son Favorite Trick's success at the 1997 Breeders' Cup, and would actually send that mare to none other than Unbridled's Song for her 2003 cover. Sadly, the resulting foal would prove her last-Evil Elaine died soon after delivering a filly named Unenchantedevening-and by tragic coincidence Carols Folly was also lost that same spring. But a happier one is that Unenchantedevening's grandson Citizen Bull (Into Mischief) today shares a barn with a brilliant descendant of Carols Folly.

For last weekend offered a typical snapshot of the huge impact of Unbridled's Song as a broodmare sire. We'll review a couple of other samples shortly, but Unbridled Elaine herself demands our attention as third dam of GIII Triple Bend Stakes winner Nysos (Nyquist).

Unbridled Elaine was cashed out by her owners three years after retirement, to Darley for $4.4 million at the 2004 Keeneland November Sale. Her yearling daughter by Rahy had made $260,000 in the same ring that September, but never made the racetrack and proved such a disappointing producer that she was discarded for $23,000 back at Keeneland 10 years later. She was back a couple of years later, moreover, when a $7,000 RNA was apparently prelude to a private sale to Texas.

Yet her first recorded foal, the unraced Zetta Z (Bernardini), has since emerged as dam of Nysos. Unfortunately for her vendors, Zetta Z was sold for just $35,000, less than the value of her Street Sense cover, at the 2021 Keeneland November Sale. Her Nyquist weanling, following her into the ring, brought $130,000. If his first pinhook cycle ($150,000 Fasig October) proved less lucrative than his second ($550,000 OBS, via Best A Luck Farm), his explosive start on the track catapulted Zetta Z's value to $2 million, a sale record, from Coolmore at Fasig-Tipton in February last year.

Apparently she had already changed hands once, before that auction, and hers has obviously been a tale of winners and losers. On the face of it, Nysos has flourished from fairly fallow soil, under two mares unraced through the kind of frailties often credited to the sire of the next dam. He has evidently had one or two hold-ups himself, but let's recognize the very fertile terrain behind.

The foals delivered by Unbridled Elaine after her transfer to Darley included triple graded stakes winner Etched (Forestry); G2 Champagne Stakes winner Emotionless (Shamardal); and GIII Sham Stakes winner Out of Bounds (Discreet Cat). Two of Unbridled Elaine's half-sisters, meanwhile, had further confirmed the startling powers inherited from Carols Folly. One produced triple Grade II winner Lead Story (Editor's Note); while Glitter Woman herself gave us GI Suburban Handicap winner Political Force (by Unbridled Elaine's own sire).

One way or another, then, the plain record of his first two dams should not leave us too mystified regarding Nysos. Besides this deeper family, after all, the intervening seeding could hardly be more reassuring. His first three dams are by landmark distaff influences: daughters of Bernardini have already passed 100 stakes winners; Rahy's place him in the top four American broodmare sires, with 184; and Unbridled's Song, with 211, is behind only A.P. Indy and Storm Cat.

At stud, Nysos is bound to prove a popular conduit for his deceased grandsire and increasingly costly sire. And any smudging of detail, over the last couple of generations, will matter little against the vigor of those broader brushstrokes.

 

Another Harmonious Score…

Two other graded stakes winners last weekend evoked the distaff legacy of Unbridled's Song, as sire of their respective granddams. Curiously, moreover, both are also out of mares by the same sire, namely Giant's Causeway. (A cross best represented by Carpe Diem, albeit more conspicuously on the track than at stud.)

GIII Regret Stakes winner Fionn (Twirling Candy) is the first foal out of Gaelic Gold, who was placed three times among New York-breds in a light turf career. On retirement, she was found at the 2021 Keeneland November Sale by Dixiana Farms for $275,000. (Fionn, in utero that day, returned to the same ring as a yearling to make $75,000 from Michael Lea/George Messina.)

Gaelic Gold's dam Strike It Rich (Unbridled's Song), who won the GIII Boiling Springs Stakes on turf, has additionally produced hard-knocking Sea Foam (Medaglia d'Oro), whose $850,000 career included three New York-bred stakes on dirt.

As with Unbridled Elaine, however, we cannot give all the credit to Unbridled's Song. In fact, Strike It Rich's dam Belle of Perintown (Dehere) won the Pocahontas Stakes two years after Unbridled Elaine. And in her second career she further contributed to her own sire's excellent record as a broodmare sire: a daughter by Hennessy produced graded stakes winners Great Stuff (Quality Road) and Coffee in Bed (Curlin); one by Distorted Humor won a couple of stakes and placed at Grade II level; and, most notably perhaps, her son by Liam's Map (himself, of course, by Unbridled's Song) is Beau Liam, now recycling his lightning speed at Airdrie.

 

…Plus a Truly 'Grt' Chorus

The other graded stakes scorer whose dam represents the Giant's Causeway-Unbridled's Song cross was Caitlinhergrtness (Omaha Beach) in the GIII Belle Mahone Stakes. And she, too, draws Dehere into her third generation-this time on top, with her sire famously boasting Dehere's great daughter Take Charge Lady as granddam.

Like Fionn the following year, Caitlinhergrtness was bought in utero with her dam, the unraced Belatrix (Giant's Causeway), for just $40,000 at the 2020 Keeneland November Sale-even though Belatrix's half-sister Dogtag (War Front) had already won three stakes. Dogtag did better yet the following year, second three times in Grade II company and third in the GI Rodeo Drive, yet Belatrix returned to Keeneland in 2023 to make just $11,000 from Sean Perl.

Now Belatrix has clearly had her problems, no foal being reported the last couple of years. But the stakes have meanwhile been raised by a Canadian championship for Caitlinhergrtness, winner of the King's Plate last summer before adding a Grade I podium in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup.

North of the border, of course, they know all about Unbridled's Song as a distaff brand: Moira (Ghostzapper) herself is out of one of his daughters. Once again, however, there are many other factors in play. Caitlinhergrtness, in fact, is merely confirming continued functionality in one of the best international families of our time. (Belatrix is out of a stakes-placed Unbridled's Song half-sister to none other than Shamardal, with all that entails.)

Tragically Dogtag can no longer contribute to the page, her death having been reported last year-fortunately bequeathing to LNJ Foxwoods a filly by Into Mischief. (Incidentally, don't forget that the War Front-Unbridled's Song cross behind Dogtag nowadays has a gorgeous conduit in Claiborne stallion Annapolis.)

So let's hope that her latest owners can maybe eke one more filly out of Belatrix. She was covered this spring by Loggins, a choice that confirms their astute eye. He's by a noted broodmare sire (Ghostzapper), as is his dam (by Blame)-while his third dam was sired by a critter name of Unbridled's Song.

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