Breeding Digest: A Long Road to Washington

[Wandering Eyes]

I'm not going to apologise for saying it again: in the old days, before veterinary science released the shackles, quality was locked into stallion books. To reach a top sire, you had to earn the right.

In 1962, Hirsch Jacobs requested access to Swaps for Searching, a granddaughter of La Troienne, winner of 25 races, meanwhile in the Hall of Fame. After all, she had got to Swaps for her first cover, two years previously, and there was a nice filly duly entering training named Affectionately. But John Galbreath told Jacobs that he was sorry, he just couldn't fit Searching in this time.

Well, too bad. Jacobs didn't have to ask anyone's permission to send Searching back to his own young stallion, Hail to Reason. (She had just delivered their daughter, Admiring, later one of Paul Mellon's greatest matriarchs.) Jacobs named the resulting filly Priceless Gem.

Swaps ended up siring 430 named foals across 16 seasons, an average of 29. Hail to Reason had 319 in 15, which works out at 21. Golden Pal covered 502 mares in his first two seasons. Maybe he's going to be a top stallion. He'd better be…

In September 1965, the same week that Affectionately (“Queen of Queens”) was denied her 14th Aqueduct stakes by a nose, Jacobs saddled Priceless Gem for a showdown with Buckpasser in the Futurity Stakes.

A couple of weeks previously she'd made an impressive return from a layoff with sore shins. On the same day, however, both the male and female crop leaders had all but sealed their titles: Buckpasser with his eighth consecutive success, in the Arlington-Washington Futurity; and Moccasin by winning the Matron Stakes.

Ten days later, Priceless Gem won the fastest juvenile race of the year at Aqueduct (1:09 4/5). And now, just FOUR days on, she took on Buckpasser.

“Sure I'll run her,” Jacobs had said. “I paid $250 to keep her in, so I might as well try to get it back.”

The match-up would showcase the developing La Troienne dynasty. Buckpasser's dam Busanda was by War Admiral out of her daughter by Blue Larkspur, Businesslike. Priceless Gem's dam, Searching, also by War Admiral, was out of her daughter by Black Toney, Big Hurry. (Black Toney, moreover, was Blue Larkspur's grandsire: he had conceived Big Hurry at 25.)

Jacobs had bought Searching in the paddock at Belmont. He was saddling a filly in the next stall and said to Ogden Phipps, “I see you have another daughter of Big Hurry in here.” “Yes,” Phipps replied. “And you can have her after the race for $15,000.”

Jacobs was not put off by failing to get a win out of an earlier daughter of Big Hurry, No Fiddling, after claiming her for $7,500. (No Fiddling's daughter by Stymie, sent to Hail to Reason, would produce the champion juvenile filly of the following year, Regal Gleam, later granddam of Caerleon). Nor by the fact that Searching entered the Jacobs barn off a 20th consecutive defeat. Sure enough, after her new trainer diagnosed and treated tender feet, Searching won 25 of her remaining 69 starts.

Now her daughter saw off Buckpasser in an epic, by half-a-length, the pair 10 clear. But though adding the Frizette, she couldn't keep an appointment with Moccasin at the end of the year and ceded all the laurels. (Ah, Moccasin, with her full siblings Ridan, Lt. Stevens and Thong! Four of just 186 named foals by Nantallah, across 14 seasons…)

In 1970, Priceless Gem was sold for $395,000, a record for an in-foal mare. But she had already delivered her second foal, a filly by Sea-Bird (Fr), purchased as a yearling by Daniel Wildenstein. As Allez France, she won eight Group 1s, including the 1974 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

Of five named foals out of Allez France, much the most accomplished was Action Francaise (Nureyev), a Group 3 winner in a light career and dam of four group performers or producers as well as listed scorer Astorg (Lear Fan). Astorg in turn produced Asti (Ire) (Sadler's Wells) to be beaten a neck in the G1 Priz Saint-Alary, albeit she proved only a bit player in graded stakes when tried in the U.S.

Astorg also had a daughter by Peintre Celebre, Azalee (Ire), but that one never made the track and was culled at Tattersalls in 2008 for 22,000gns. She certainly offered an intriguing pedigree. Aside from her distinguished maternal line, she was inbred 2×3 to Nureyev (Peintre Celebre's sire/Astorg's damsire). And while a fairly modest producer overall, Azalee did come up with Azaelia (Fr) (Turtle Bowl {Ire})–whose fourth in the G1 Prix de Diane earned her a transfer over the water.

While she did win an allowance for Joe Allen and Peter Brant, Azaelia couldn't eke any further black-type before going to the paddocks. She was sent for her first cover to Allen's cherished War Front and the resulting colt, having won a turf stakes as a sophomore in 2022, appeared to have reached a plateau when hammered for $260,000 at Fasig-Tipton's HRA Sale the following July.

It is only this year, as a fully mature 6-year-old, that he has really started to thrive, winning three of his last four–including, last Saturday, the GI Arlington Million at Colonial Downs. The demise of the racetrack that gave us the Million remains a torment to many, but Fort Washington's maternal line reminds us that our world will always keep changing. Like it or not.

Noble Lines Also Behind Del Mar Duo

Besides emerging from the usual barn, the juveniles who last weekend laid down their respective markers among the West Coast's leading colts and fillies also shared a genetic imprint. The GIII Sorrento Stakes winner Himika is a daughter of Curlin, and so is the dam of GIII Best Pal winner Desert Gate (Omaha Beach).

On the face of it, Himika brought a pretty bald page to the OBS catalogue in April, quickly reaching her fourth dam. Yet her $900,000 sale was underpinned by some distinction in each of the intervening trio.

She's the first starter out of Motivated Seller (Into Mischief), who flashed plenty of talent across just six starts: won her first two, thwarted by just a neck on her stakes debut, signed off with a 5.5-furlong track record at Saratoga. Motivated Seller was out of a stakes winner by Empire Maker, while the next dam was runner-up in a Group 1 race in Australia. So albeit with little else in the vicinity, there's a thread of talent adequate to the fact that this line eventually tapers to none other than Cosmah.

Desert Gate | Benoit

Desert Gate also traces to aristocratic roots. His first two dams similarly showed plenty. He is out of dual stakes winner/Grade II runner-up Theogony (Curlin), whose own mother Upcoming Story (Tale of the Cat) was twice placed at graded level in a light career. But it's third dam Old Star (Arg) (Southern Halo) who takes us somewhere exotic. Group 1-placed in her native land, she begins a sequence of seven consecutive dams foaled in Argentina, extending all the way back to Parvula (Arg) in 1890. This was the most important daughter of Ante Diem (GB), one of the foundation mares of the South American Turf.

For a time, none of this seemed to be helping Theogony replicate her ability. Given expensive covers, her only starter from her first three foals was an Into Mischief gelding who made $12,000 as a yearling and made that look expensive on the track. Theogony was sold carrying Desert Gate for $70,000 at the 2023 Keeneland January Sale and, while he cleared that investment as a $125,000 weanling in the same ring that November, that did not appear to earn her a reprieve when sold–with as purposeful a cover as Medaglia d'Oro–for $3,000 deep in the next edition of that sale, last November.

Theogony's yearling colt by the same sire is offered as Hip 553 in the September Sale and, assuming all to be well in the meantime, someone out there will be very curious to see how the mare's upgrade plays out in the market.

Laurelin A Golden Tree

In their curation of a family tracing to 1980 Epsom Oaks winner Bireme (GB) (Grundy {Ire})–via a daughter herself since granddam to another Oaks scorer–how marvelous to see the kind of thought that Mark Dixon and Luke Lillingston put into the mating of her great-granddaughter Bari (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}) with Zarak (Fr) in 2021.

Zarak, of course, is a son of the great Zarkava (Ire), whose sire Zamindar was full-brother to Bari's damsire Zafonic. Both were by Gone West out of Zaizafon (The Minstrel), acquired in utero when Mofida (GB) (Right Tack {GB}) was recommended by the late James Delahooke as one of Juddmonte's foundation mares.

Laurelin | Sarah Andrew

The mating that replicates this combination also featured, in the same generation, some of the sturdiest staying brands in Europe: Deploy (GB), Kahyasi (Ire), Rainbow Quest. Few would expect to find those names behind an unbeaten stakes winner at two, but “stamina” very often just means “class,” the ability to carry speed.

Regardless, Laurelin duly reached a new high when raised in distance last weekend, going five-for-five in the GII Saratoga Oaks. Congrats to Mount Coote and partners, and their customers who exported Laurelin. There can't be many broodmare prospects in North America with a better profile.

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