Breeding Digest: Much Ado About a Beautiful Legacy

[Wandering Eyes]

The remarkable tribute paid to their mutual granddam by the first two in the Breeders' Cup Classic felt especially apt given that Fawn Leap Farm had lost Darling My Darling (Deputy Minister), at a venerable 28, since the same horses finished first and third the previous year.

Debby and John Oxley know that these things take time. In 2014 they had sold one of her daughters, by Congrats, for $8,000 as a yearling. At that stage, Darling My Darling was proving a dud in her second career: her first foal ended up under a $5,000 tag, and she was on a streak of five unraced foals. But this filly, as Forever Darling, went on to win the GII Santa Ynez Stakes before being sold to Japan, eventually producing Forever Young (Jpn) (Real Steel {Jpn}). Fortunately the Oxleys had meanwhile retained her 2015 half-sister by Malibu Moon, Heavenly Love, who won the GI Alcibiades Stakes. And of course Heavenly Love's second foal not only topped the Saratoga Sale at $2.3 million but has, as Sierra Leone (Gun Runner), proved very well bought at that price.

There was also a time when it looked as though an even more accomplished Oxley runner, Beautiful Pleasure (Maudlin), was not going to work out as a broodmare. Yet the Oxleys' recourse to the sire of Sierra Leone has now stimulated a parallel revival.

Darling My Darling's performance at the 1999 Breeders' Cup, dropping tamely away as one of the favorites for the GI Juvenile Fillies, was much easier to shrug off because of what had just happened in the previous race. Beautiful Pleasure had herself disappointed in the Juvenile Fillies, two years previously, and yet here she was in the GI Distaff, setting off fast but showing all her toughness to seal an Eclipse Award as champion older female. With a royal maternal line-her fifth dam, via Bimlette, was the great matriarch Bloodroot-everything was in place.

Now, I wouldn't presume to know how a program as successful as this might go about its matings. On the face of it, however, it wouldn't appear immune to sentiment. Darling My Darling's first three foals, for instance, were by Maria's Mon, who had just given the Oxleys a GI Kentucky Derby winner; then Monarchos himself; and then Sky Mesa, their GI Hopeful winner, now entering stud. And why not? So long as the physical compatibilities are there, why shouldn't people respond to the notorious unpredictability of this business by admitting emotional as well as financial investment?

The mating of Beautiful Pleasure with Monarchos, similarly, brought together two horses that had given the Oxleys immense fulfilment on the track. The resulting filly was aptly named To Dream About. Unfortunately, the dream did not materialize, and she never made the gate. But it's like we said: these things take time.

Four of To Dream About's first five foals, when she proceeded to the paddocks, were by Sky Mesa. The most competent of these was the first, Sky Dreamer, a close second in the GIII Arlington Oaks. To Dream About would owe her best foal, however, to Tapit: their daughter Dream Dancing got up to win the GI Del Mar Oaks by a nose, and has already produced the homebred Dreamaway (by another Oxley stallion, Flameaway) to win a juvenile sprint stakes on turf at Monmouth last year.

But now it is Sky Dreamer who's threatening to become the principal conduit for Beautiful Pleasure's legacy. Her first foal, Kimbear (Temple City), enjoyed a lucrative career in Dubai, including a couple of Group wins over a mile on dirt. And now, following a spell of fairly uneven production, the 16-year-old mare finds herself giddily elevated by her 2022 date with Gun Runner.

Perhaps that mating was emboldened by the way Heavenly Love's Gun Runner colt was shaping, heading towards the Saratoga Sale. One way or another, the result is GII Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes winner Further Ado.

A $275,000 pinhook at Keeneland last year, he doubled his value to $550,000 when recruited by Spendthrift at OBS in April. It has, of course, been a phenomenal year for Spendthrift's racetrack division. But while star juvenile Ted Noffey (Into Mischief) has contributed to a seventh consecutive title for the farm's champion stallion, Further Ado is assisting his own sire's duel with Not This Time for the right eventually to break that monopoly. Two other sons, Brant and Paladin, give Gun Runner three of the first six named in the latest Derby future pool.

In the case of this colt, however, it's also nice to acknowledge Sky Mesa as damsire, so soon after being pensioned at 25. Both he and his sire Pulpit extend particularly aristocratic maternal lines, often the bedrock for good broodmare sires, and smaller breeders know how consistently Sky Mesa punched above weight.

The bottom line is that you can't look at this pedigree- Beautiful Pleasure as third dam, first and second dams by Sky Mesa and Monarchos-and not think immediately of that blue-and-yellow checkerboard. And, with that in mind, it's perfect that Sky Dreamer, pending this upgrade, had meanwhile been bred to Flameaway.

 

Antonoe's Double Shows Lasting Virtue of Juddmonte

The avidity for Juddmonte culls at Tattersalls this week will hardly have been diminished by a stunning Grade I double for its mare Antonoe (First Defence) at Del Mar over Thanksgiving weekend, her sophomore son Salamis (Speightstown) winning the Hollywood Derby on Saturday and then her 4-year-old daughter Segesta (Ghostzapper) adding the Matriarch Stakes.

This pair extend into a sixth generation the impact of the $375,000 acquisition of Lost Virtue (Cloudy Dawn) at the 1986 Keeneland November Sale. Not, on the face of it, the most obvious foundation mare: rising 10, she was the unraced daughter of a mediocre sire. On the other hand she was out of a half-sister to Damascus, and had already produced Over The Ocean (Super Concorde) to win his second Group 3 prize at Deauville that summer.

Lost Virtue was carrying a Topsider colt, but her first Juddmonte mating (to produce a foal) was with Riverman in 1988. The outcome was All At Sea, a Group 1 winner at a mile who also ran second in the GI Oaks over 12 furlongs.

It would need a book to detail the stakes performers that have since proliferated under All At Sea, and not just for Juddmonte. She surfaced again, for instance, as fourth dam of one of the best horses in Europe this year: Ombudsman (Ire) (Night Of Thunder {GB}) is out of a 25,000gns Juddmonte cull at the 2017 equivalent of this week's auction.

All At Sea's first foal, Imroz (Nureyev), became granddam of G1 Prix Jean Prat winner Mutual Trust (GB) (Cacique {Ire}). But a daughter of Imroz and Dynaformer, Ixora, never made the racetrack and was culled to South Africa as an 8-year-old in 2013.

Fortunately for Juddmonte, however, Ixora had left behind a weanling filly by First Defence. Having started her career in France, where she won a Group 3 over a mile as a juvenile, Antonoe was switched to Chad Brown as a 4-year-old and won the GI Just A Game Stakes. Now she finds herself among the most precious even in the Juddmonte broodmare band.

First Defence himself was sold to Saudi Arabia in 2016. His fee had dwindled to $7,500, his book to 35 mares. But he has since proved himself to have been grievously underrated. The very next year emerged a sophomore named Close Hatches, whose racetrack championship has since been supplemented by her Tapit trio: Scylla, Tacitus and Batten Down. First Defence's final Kentucky crop, meanwhile, included Irish Classic winner Siskin, now standing in Japan.

These stallions can only be as good as the opportunity a market gives them. Speaking of which, those who peddle the self-fulfilling prejudice against ageing sires should note that Antonoe owed her freakish weekend to one stallion, Ghostzapper, who was 20 at the time of their assignation; and another, Speightstown, who was 23.

 

Priceless Broodmare Prospects Hard to Price

Having started with the Oxleys, we end with a Tapit filly acquired by that laudable program for $825,000 at the 2015 Keeneland September Sale. Named Pretty City Dancer, she dead-heated for the Spinaway Stakes-giving Tapit, also sire of Sweet Loretta, two Grade I winners in one race-and a disappointing sophomore campaign did not discourage Sheikh Mohammed from adding her to the Godolphin broodmare band for $3.5 million at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton November Sale.

Somehow that has already proved money well spent. Pretty City Dancer's second foal, Pretty Mischievous (Into Mischief), won the GI Kentucky Oaks; and now her latest starter, Bella Ballerina (Street Sense) has earned 10 gate points for next year's edition in the GII Golden Rod Stakes.

Besides a corresponding physique, Pretty City Dancer's page always assured residual value whatever she achieved on the track: her half-sister Lear's Princess (Lear Fan) emerged too late for the Oaks in 2007 but confirmed herself among the best of the crop when beating Rags to Riches (A.P. Indy) in the GI Gazelle Stakes.

The death was reported last week of that same champion. Let's hope one of her last foals-maybe her doubly poignant yearling by Uncle Mo-can redeem a rather “riches-to-rags” second career. For her royal genes to have functioned to historic effect on the track, but not since, just confirms how this whole business will ever remain a puzzle.

 

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