Breeding Digest: Nearly Time For A Surprise Package

[Wandering Eyes]

I've never understood this business of Dry January–the one month when those of us who take a glass of cheer are most grateful for a little respite from the dark and cold. Okay, maybe not a problem in California, but those of you battling all that snow and ice will surely see the merit of Dry February instead. It's shorter, for a start; and ends with the days lengthening and spring tangibly in the air.

It's perfectly natural, however, for stallions to have a dry January. Certainly nobody will be paying much attention to a general sires' list for now topped by Exaggerator, and the booty contested in the desert over the coming weeks may well distort the early standings. That said, time may yet show that a significant marker was laid down by one stallion in particular during the opening skirmishes of 2026.

Sooner or later, after all, Into Mischief's monopoly must come to an end. And, while the Spendthrift veteran continues to underpin his prowess with corresponding libido and fertility, one of the two pretenders to the crown (the other obviously being Gun Runner) could conceivably have made a decisive thrust last week.

First came news that Into Mischief's champion juvenile Ted Noffey is off the GI Kentucky Derby trail. Then Not This Time responded not only with a standout candidate to fill the vacancy, in GIII Holy Bull Stakes winner Nearly, but also with On Time Girl, whose GIII Forward Gal Stakes success on the same card earned 20 gate points for the GI Kentucky Oaks. Following on from Six Speed's Dubai romp a week previously, Not This Time duly ends January as the only American stallion with three graded winners. Among the rest, only Quality Road even has two.

As we keep stressing, these Not This Time sophomores belong to a crop still only sired at $45,000.

Not This Time | Sarah Andrew

Every effort is evidently being made, in terms of the access to a stallion now trading at $250,000, to ensure that the champion turf sire of 2025 tilts his versatility back towards the core of the commercial market. There will doubtless be much satisfaction, then, that his early headlines this year are coming on dirt. Not even the best stallions, however, can take all the credit. And Nearly has also been able to draw on some conspicuously curated maternal blood.

For his dam Ib Prospecting doubles down on one of the ultimate Classic dirt brands, Weekend Surprise (Secretariat), whose sons A.P. Indy and Summer Squall stand opposite each other as her grandsire and damsire respectively. Ib Prospecting is by A.P. Indy's son Mineshaft out of four-time Listed scorer Stormy Frolic (Summer Squall)–herself half-sister to GII Hawthorne Gold Cup winner/millionaire Super Frolic (Pine Bluff).

That “Surprise package”, plainly very deliberate, did not initially achieve many dividends in Ib Prospecting herself. She had to drop into claiming company as a 4-year-old to break her maiden, in a dirt sprint at Santa Anita in 2018, and then changed hands in each of three remaining starts for between $16,000 and $25,000.

The last of those claims was a case of third time lucky for Kristine Gibbons of Wind Hill Farm, Florida, who had targeted Ib Prospecting as being from the same family as Dessman (Union Rags), a farm graduate who had gone on to make big money at the 2-year-old sales that year. (Later beaten a nose in the GII San Vicente Stakes.)

Ib Prospecting's first foal, a Bolt d'Oro colt, immediately cleared costs as a $180,000 weanling. Unfortunately she subsequently lost a foal by Not This Time, but Gibbons stretched her budget to return her in 2022 and the resulting colt rewarded that perseverance by realizing $350,000 as a Keeneland September yearling. While his emergence as Nearly must be rather poignant for his breeders, who reportedly lost the mare last year, at least there's a Taiba yearling whose page has gone up in the world.

Actually the pedigree has also been lately served by Ib Prospecting's half-sister by Vindication, Frolic's Revenge, dam of three stakes horses including Drew's Gold (Violence), a GI Woody Stephens Stakes runner-up who last month won a Group sprint in Dubai.

In trying to depose Into Mischief, of course, Not This Time is extending a rival line of the breed-changing Storm Cat. It is fun, therefore, to see the Storm Cat model (by Storm Bird out of the Secretariat mare Terlingua) mirrored in Nearly's third generation by Summer Squall (another son of Storm Bird, with Weekend Surprise also a daughter of Secretariat). Moreover Storm Cat and Summer Squall respectively sired Nearly's grandsire and granddam out of mares by sons of Blushing Groom: Giant's Causeway was out of the famous Rahy mare Mariah's Storm, and Stormy Frolic out of Mt. Livermore's graded stakes-winning daughter Lindsay Frolic.

Its multiple echoes make this a most elegantly crafted pedigree. Gibbons only breeds half a dozen mares a year, and yet the first she ever bought produced Stellar Jayne (Wild Rush) and Starrer (Dynaformer). And that's quite apart from Wind Hill's role in honing the athleticism of the young Nearly, who apparently loved to roll a beach ball around his paddock.

Just like Six Speed, incidentally, Nearly ultimately traces to La Troienne (Fr): Six Speed's ninth dam is her 1935 daughter Baby League (Bubbling Over); Nearly's eighth dam is her 1936 foal Big Hurry (Black Toney). Not a bad start to the great matriarch's centenary year.

 

ANOTHER WHO'S NOT JUST ABOUT THE DADDY

Weekend Surprise also has a vestigial footprint behind On Time Girl, whose unraced third dam Miss Kilroy was by A.P. Indy. Miss Kilroy was the first foal of Miss Caerleona (Fr) (Caerleon), who had been imported by Stonerside from the Lagardere program in France and subsequently produced Karen's Caper (War Chant), beaten a nostril in both the G1 Coronation Stakes in Britain and the GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup once switched Stateside; and also GII Davona Dale winner Miss Coronado (Coronado's Quest).

After buying the Stonerside program, Darley retained a couple of Miss Kilroy's daughters: Abby's Angel (Touch Gold) became a stakes winner and dam of a Group 1 sprinter, Comicas (Distorted Humor); while Miss Jean Brodie (Maria's Mon) ran second in the G1 Irish Oaks on only her third (and final) start. But Miss Kilroy herself had meanwhile been sold for just $15,000, as an 11-year-old at the 2009 January Sale.

Her new owners sent her to Unbridled's Song and the resulting filly, Cara Marie, after changing hands a couple of times, ran a length third in the GII Lake George Stakes (also won a turf stake round Horseshoe) and so earned a final sale–for $650,000, carrying a first foal by Speightstown, at Keeneland in 2016–to China Horse Club. They sent her for her next cover to Uncle Mo, and sold the resulting yearling to Albaugh Family Stables for $500,000.

Girl Daddy wins the GIII Pocahontas Stakes | Coady Media

As Girl Daddy, this filly emerged as one of the best female juveniles of 2020: a 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard', on debut at Ellis Park, she then won the GIII Pocahontas Stakes before running third at the Breeders' Cup. Unfortunately, she derailed there and already next spring was covered by Into Mischief.

The Albaugh team will not have needed reminding that Girl Daddy's profile was uncannily similar to that of a certain son of Giant's Causeway whose premature retirement four years previously so disappointed them. They decided to let Not This Time console her that all was not lost.

Her Into Mischief filly was sold for $700,000 and has never run. But her “in-house” daughter by Not This Time was retained–and named On Time Girl. So here's another case of a mare playing her part, even for a “daddy” then starting to punch way above fee.

 

AN AUTHENTIC HELP

West Coast Equine found a bargain at Keeneland last September when a half-sister to Nearly, who then remained unraced, brought just $10,000. That price presumably reflected the market froideur for her sire, Authentic, down this spring to just $15,000 after starting at $75,000.

Given the quality and quantity of his support, there's no denying that the 2020 Horse of the Year has disappointed expectations, despite a Grade I winner from his second crop in Iron Orchard. But the theory that he would never have won a Derby at its regular slot in the calendar is not wholly to his disparagement, if you now take the position that some of his stock have simply needed time.

Authentic | Sarah Andrew

The $700,000 yearling Westwood, for instance, took six attempts to break his maiden (admittedly highly tried in the process) and last week confirmed himself a maturing talent by winning the GII San Pasqual Stakes.

Authentic's fourth graded stakes winner (and eighth at black-type level) admittedly comes from a class-high 212 starters. Where would Complexity (who also has four, plus 12 stakes winners, from 137 starters) have taken the same mares? Who can say. But Authentic was also a little unfortunate that another member of his first crop, Rodriguez, hit problems after his GII Wood Memorial breakout last year.

Something about that colt's family obviously works for Authentic, as we saw again last week with an exotic 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard', performance by Salloom in Dubai. True, it is a consistently productive one. But this fellow is out of a Congrats half-sister to Cayala (Cherokee Run), whose three stakes winners include none other than Rodriguez.

 

The post Breeding Digest: Nearly Time For A Surprise Package appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article