Breeding Digest: Two Admirable Families Behind Dennis

[Wandering Eyes]

While it is neither the habit nor the place of this column to cite scripture, words that some of you may have heard last Sunday should resonate with everyone in this game: “Endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”

Certainly we wouldn't have much of a business if the reverses we endure could not be parlayed into those attributes. We often refer to the Turf as “character-forming,” which always feels rather ambivalent. After all, we might easily find ourselves turning into quite unpleasant characters! But a persevering nature tends to be a winning one, whatever happens on the track, and plenty will duly be rooting for Albaugh Family Stables the day they nail that first Kentucky Derby.

The prize that drives their investment has often shimmered on the horizon, only to dissolve into a mirage. Not This Time, probably their best candidate, had to be retired at two; but they have since won nearly all the principal trials, sending no fewer than seven into the Derby gate over the past decade, including third-placed Angel of Empire (Classic Empire) in 2023 and Catching Freedom (Constitution) who ran fourth the following year.

Last fall it looked as though the Iowa-based program might have found another candidate in a colt named for its founder Dennis Albaugh. After a 'TDN Rising Star' maiden score at the home of the Derby, however, Admiral Dennis (Constitution) proved too slow a learner–especially leaving the gate–to earn adequate starting points from his rehearsals. Instead, he regrouped for a fresh start in the inaugural Delaware Derby last weekend, where he suggested that he may yet measure himself, later in the year, against some that did make the first Saturday in May.

He certainly has the right shape to his pedigree, doubling down on the great Weekend Surprise (Secretariat): not just as fifth dam, but replicated in the same generation as mother of A.P. Indy, whose grandson Tapit is of course sire of Constitution.

The dam of Admiral Dennis, Gulf Coast (Union Rags), represented a fifth generation bred by William S. Farish and various partners, tracing to the purchase of Weekend Surprise's dam Lassie Dear. But while Gulf Coast's dam and granddam, Sweet Success (Candy Ride {Arg}) and Aspiring (Seeking the Gold), both managed a place in the GIII Bourbonette Oaks on the Turfway synthetic, this particular branch of the dynasty had otherwise fallen rather fallow. Only with the next dam, A.P. Indy's half-sister Lassie's Legacy (Deputy Minister), do we find its customary quality: her daughter Happy Week (Distorted Humor), herself a useful stakes operator, produced GI Jockey Club Gold Cup winner Happy Saver (Super Saver).

Gulf Coast was duly treated as the end of this particular line and sent to auction ($240,000 Keeneland September yearling/$300,000 OBS March). After surfacing in the colors of WinStar Farm, however, she showed plenty of ability in a curtailed career. Having won on debut, she ran second, first (Cash Run Stakes) and second in black-type company in her only remaining starts, all compressed between November and February. Whatever went awry then at least permitted an immediate covering by the farm's emerging star, Constitution, whose first sophomores had the previous year included Tiz the Law. The result is Admiral Dennis, who brought $425,000 as a September Book I yearling.

So the mare has made a flying start–just like Constitution. Having last year broken into the top five of the general sires' list, he has now established himself as a six-figure cover with his upgraded books cycling through onto the track. Albeit himself produced from the home herd, Admiral Dennis belongs to Constitution's first crop at $85,000, up again from $40,000 after his first juveniles had elevated him from an opening $25,000.

If anything, it feels surprising that he has only sired two Grade I winners since Tiz the Law, in Mindframe and Americanrevolution. (American Pharoah and Liam's Map, in the same intake, have seven and six respectively.) Constitution does have a whole bunch of elite winners in Chile, where his prolific early service might have unnerved some people after he mustered just two graded stakes winners in 2023. But his overall body of work, with 51 stakes winners and 102 such performers, remains commensurate with his fee at 6.9 and 13.8 percent of named foals. With that mare quality now fully in play, he continues to consolidate and currently stands sixth in the year-to-date table.

 

Drift Gathering Momentum

Catching Freedom, mentioned above, was the first Constitution yearling landed by the Albaugh family. While he remained unraced when they bought Admiral Dennis, he was evidently shaping well enough to offer plenty of encouragement (started hot favorite on debut just a couple of weeks after the sale).

Both horses were bred by WinStar, who similarly excelled in finding the dam of Catching Freedom–as can be judged from the way the previous foal out of Catch My Drift (Pioneerof the Nile), the 5-year-old Bishops Bay (Uncle Mo), continues to make up for lost time. Having missed most of 2024, last weekend he won his fourth consecutive prize in the GIII Salvatore Mile.

Catch My Drift was bought for $400,000 at Fasig-Tipton in November 2015, having won four of 10 starts including a 9f stakes at Saratoga, missing the GII Turnback the Alarm Handicap by just half-a-length. She was given due opportunity, but neither of her first two foals by Medaglia d'Oro and Tapit made the racetrack. Her third, Strava (Into Mischief), fortunately for his breeders failed to reach his yearling reserve and was instead sold at Keeneland for $825,000 after winning his juvenile debut on the adjacent track. While he did subsequently manage a couple of black-type places, he ended up being claimed for $32,000 last fall.

Catch My Drift's success since, with Bishops Bay ($450,000 yearling) and Catching Freedom ($575,000), has little blatant provenance. We are familiar with the astuteness of her breeders Fred W. Hertrich III and John D. Fielding (who sold her to Hidden Brook as a yearling for $95,000), but in this case they are strictly only breeders of record: they bought her in utero along with her $85,000 dam at the 2010 Keeneland November Sale.

That was Drift to the Lead (Yonagushka), who had taken seven attempts to break her maiden but then won three in four at Delaware Park. She had a half-sister by Pleasantly Perfect who won three stakes, but that did not prevent their mother, by Tabasco Cat, being discarded for just $6,500.

It's only in the next dam that we finally find a nugget: besides her 11-for-48, stakes-winning speed in Florida, Sigrun (Crafty Prospector) came up with a graded stakes winner who then became one of three stakes-producing siblings. That's pretty remote already, however, so we'll resist dwelling on the fact that Catch My Drift's fourth dam is a stakes winner by Baldski–having only last week noted that largely forgotten name lurking behind Justify himself.

 

A Wise Decision

The registered breeders of Catch My Drift get full credit, however, for Whiskey Decision (Into Mischief) after her successful resumption in the GIII Eatontown Stakes.

Messrs. Hertrich and Fielding evidently repented of serial attempts to sell her–RNA at both Keeneland September ($230,000) and Fasig October ($180,000) as a yearling, subsequently scratched from a 2-year-old sale–and she has vindicated that decision, whatever the implied influence of whiskey, in winning four of eight.

Bishops Bay | Adam Coglianese

She's duly rewarding their faith in her dam Funny Song (Distorted Humor), who showed little in two starts after finding her way into their hands from breeders WinStar. It was certainly alert to favor her with Into Mischief for a debut cover: even for those of us who pay little heed to nicks, the Spendthrift champ's record with Distorted Humor mares is conspicuous. (Last week we noted how Patch Adams has brought daughters of Distorted Humor up to one-fifth of Into Mischief's Grade I winners.)

Back then, however, her owners needed more immediate grounds for sending Funny Song to a $175,000 cover on the back of such an inauspicious track career. Sure enough, she already had a sensational page–and, happily, it has only continued to strengthen since.

Funny Song's unraced dam Music Room (Unbridled's Song) is a half-sister to a top-class pair in five-time Grade I scorer Music Note (A.P. Indy) and European Classic winner Musical Chimes (In Excess {Ire}); and their dam, in turn, was among a series of smart performers and/or producers out of champion It's in the Air (Mr Prospector).

In the meantime, Music Note's son Mystic Guide (Ghostzapper) has won a G1 Dubai World Cup; Funny Song's half-sister has produced Grade I-placed Moon Over Miami (Malibu Moon); and her full sister has added not only Grade III dirt/triple turf stakes winner She Can't Sing (Bernardini) but one of the top current sophomores in GI Arkansas Derby winner Sandman (Tapit).

Funny Song's next two foals were both sold as yearlings and, as fillies, their purchasers will be rubbing their hands. An $85,000 daughter of More Than Ready is still trying to break her maiden but ran second at Horseshoe Indianapolis last week; while the 2-year-old, a $525,000 purchase by Helen Alexander last September, is breezing at Saratoga.

And she's by none other than Not This Time–the Albaugh family's greatest legacy, and a perfect example of endurance turning into new hope.

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