Breeding Digest: Nyquist Headlining Claims As Uncle Mo’s Successor

[Wandering Eyes]

They understand how it goes with livestock, of course, and have enjoyed many clusters of high fortune as well. But the loss of Wootton Bassett must still seem a callous twist of fate to a Coolmore team that has also, within the last year, grieved the abrupt death of Uncle Mo, equivalent talisman on their Kentucky roster.

True, an unapologetic commitment to volume–extending, in this case, to shuttling a 17-year-old to Australia–means that neither of these sires will be lacking a footprint by which to extend their legacy. And we have seen how accessibly priced sons of Uncle Mo are emulating him in the numbers game, from Golden Pal on his own farm to Yaupon elsewhere.

Having been much the slower burn, Wootton Bassett will doubtless bequeath further stallion sons among the stock yet to emerge from the steep upgrading of his mares in Ireland. In contrast, Uncle Mo landed running as champion freshman in 2015, his debut crop headlined by a horse who has since consolidated a reputation as premier as well as first among his heirs.

At stud Nyquist matched his sire with a flying start, champion freshman in 2020. Some dazing lurches in fee admittedly ensued: subsiding to $55,000 for a couple of years, after mustering a solitary graded stakes winner in 2021, but since catapulted to $175,000.

His status as one of the Bluegrass big guns is underpinned by that useful knack, conspicuous in certain stallions, of ensuring that his good ones are terribly good. Of 11 stakes winners in 2024, Nyquist had no fewer than four at Grade I level. With 13 black-type scorers already, this time round, he has had 10 in graded stakes and three at the elite level. Overall his nine Grade I performers this year represent a 3.7 percent clip, to starters, rivalled among the big guns only by the Indian summer of Medaglia d'Oro. (Of the top three in the table, Into Mischief and Not This Time have been getting their 2025 Grade I protagonists at 1.9 percent, while Gun Runner is batting 2.7 percent.)

In another fertile weekend, two of Nyquist's Grade I scorers amplified their Breeders' Cup claims with Grade II wins at Santa Anita. On Saturday, Johannes added the City of Hope Stakes to his Shoemaker Mile last year, taking his turf record round Santa Anita to eight-for-eight. Next day, over on the main track in the Zenyatta Stakes, Cavalieri extended her immaculate record on her first start since winning the Beholder Mile.

Both are out of mares by sons of A.P. Indy, in Congrats and Stephen Got Even, and it would not have been easy to predict their contrasting aptitudes.

Johannes actually started out sprinting on dirt, only thriving once switched to grass. He's the first foal out of the first Thoroughbred purchased by Joe and Debby McCloskey, for $50,000 at the 2014 September Sale. Cuyathy (Congrats) divided her three wins in 20 starts between synthetic, turf and dirt, on which surface she also gained a stakes placing. Cuyathy's second foal, Sea Dancer (Mastery), similarly won her maiden and allowance on turf before later adding a couple of stakes on dirt; while her next, by Gun Runner, made only a brief experiment on dirt and owes her Listed podium to grass. Now Cuyathy has a Knicks Go filly underway, a debut winner on turf at Del Mar before running midfield in a stakes last month.

In other words, this mare is imparting either versatility or an outright preference for grass despite covers primarily associated with dirt. So where is this coming from?

Her mother Dance Darling was an unraced daughter of Devil's Bag: a dirt brand, albeit let's not forget that his full sister Glorious Song (Halo), herself a dirt champion, produced turf monsters Singspiel (Ire) (In The Wings {GB}) and Rahy (Blushing Groom {Fr}).

Dance Darling's most accomplished runner was Join in the Dance (Sky Mesa), who missed the GII Tampa Bay Derby by a neck and led them a mile in Mine That Bird's Derby. More pertinent, perhaps, is her unraced daughter by Uncle Mo's sire Indian Charlie: Elm Drive (Mohaymen) first made a splash winning the GII Sorrento Stakes, but ended up switching to grass, where she was a Listed winner repeatedly placed in graded stakes.

The next dam was a dirt stakes winner whose best foal (among several black-type performers and/or producers) by Miswaki also won three stakes on dirt. She was admittedly by a stallion who made a huge impact in Europe, in Danzig. But her own mother was by Buckpasser, and delivered a dual graded stakes winner on dirt in Canadian champion Pennyhill Park, by Danzig's European export Ascot Knight. Only when reaching Cuyathy's fourth dam, both of whose parents were foaled in France, do we find a deep well of chlorophyll.

In summary, there aren't sufficient green zones in Cuyathy's background to discourage me from concluding (yet again) that horses are simply more versatile, in terms of surface, than we allow them to be.

And, another favorite motif, if Johannes can find a place at stud, I'd be more interested in the quality that might filter through a family seeded by sons of A.P. Indy and Halo, and then by Danzig and Buckpasser, than the fact that he has given Nyquist another major talent–following dual Royal Ascot winner Crimson Advocate–on turf.

Congrats | Louise Reinagel

Stiffed Gets Even

That last remark is admittedly sheer prejudice. We all know many cases of top runners and/or sires from families carrying few of those breed-shaping brands.

Whereas Cuyathy's sire Congrats can be acknowledged a good broodmare sire–with the likes of Forever Young (Jpn) (Real Steel {Jpn}), Caravel (Mizzen Mast) and Shedaresthedevil (Daredevil) on his resume–the two best runners out of a Stephen Got Even mare seem to be Cavalieri herself and her half-sister, GII Gulfstream Oaks winner Affirmative Lady (Arrogate). Their third dam, meanwhile, is by the largely forgotten Marfa. Yet something in their background, demonstrably, is functioning.

Cavalieri and Affirmative Lady are out of the expressively named dual stakes winner, Stiffed. She was bought by Alastar Thoroughbred Co. for $320,000 at the 2018 Keeneland November Sale and fortunately failed to meet her reserve, at $140,000, when sent back a couple of years later carrying Cavalieri. (The latter proved a tremendous pinhook, from $170,000 September yearling to $900,000 OBS juvenile.)

With two out of her first three starters so talented, Stiffed has at the very least repaid a couple of well chosen covers. Her unraced dam High Noon Nellie (Silver Deputy) did not fare so luckily, overall, but nonetheless came up with three stakes winners, all at Monmouth, by Mr. Speaker, Sea Wizard and of course Stephen Got Even. Moreover Stiffed's full sister added to the family's Monmouth black-type record when her son Great Navigator (another Sea Wizard) won the New Jersey Breeders' Handicap only last month.

A Grade III success for the next dam, Full and Fancy (Marfa), puts her pretty close behind his outlier Farma Way in the output of their sire. Overall this is an old American family, tracing to a mare imported from England in 1888, but there has lately been little other than longevity to lend it an aristocratic allure.

As noted, daughters of Stephen Got Even haven't otherwise set the world alight. But while his sire A.P. Indy will achieve only a sporadic connection, from the third generation, it's fun to see him doing so with a touch of his own tremendous prowess as distaff influence.

Is that perhaps what we saw across the spectrum last weekend, not just with Johannes but also between Bracket Buster (Vekoma) in the GIII Oklahoma Derby and Locked (Gun Runner) in the GII Woodward Stakes? For the damsires of both are also by A.P. Indy. And while Locked is out of a daughter of Malibu Moon, Bracket Buster was rescuing his damsire–Dance With Ravens!–from total oblivion.

Ultimate Love | Jeffrey-Snyder/MJC

Patience Achieving Ultimate Reward

How much we credit A.P. Indy for his principal distaff influence, Bernardini, is also a matter of conjecture. But even if Ultimate Love (Curlin) becomes the latest champion out of a mare by Bernardini, the latter will have to share the plaudits with one of the breed's greatest families.

For Live Oak Stud to travel to Tattersalls in December 2002 and top the sale at 1.8 million guineas, for a barely formed May weanling, was pretty nerveless stuff. But she was by Giant's Causeway out of Urban Sea (Miswaki), whose 1998 foal Galileo (Ire) had won the Derby the previous year.

The immediate dividends were gratifying, My Typhoon (Ire) retrieving around half the investment in prizemoney, notably winning the GI Test Stakes as a 5-year-old. To have persevered that far showed an edifying love of the sport, but her most precious assignment still lay ahead–especially given that she retired to the paddocks even as another half-brother, Sea The Stars (Ire), was dominating Europe.

And, on the face of things, she flunked it. She was unfortunate to assemble a flew blanks on her breeding record; and most of the foals she delivered proved anonymous. All but one of her colts were soon gelded; and her Bernardini filly, Tsunami of Love, was vanned off from her only start.

In her second career, moreover, Tsunami of Love started out no more productively. But after Ultimate Love's Selima Stakes last weekend, everything may finally have fallen into place. Who knows, someday she may yet become as valuable as her granddam.

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