It’s an Instant Breakout for Uncaptured

[Wandering Eyes]

Catch him if you can.

Well, actually, Goldencents (Into Mischief) already has–and others will doubtless be getting their act together soon, as their first juveniles mature and stretch out. But if Goldencents has edged into a midsummer lead in the freshman sires’ table, by winners and prize money, in other respects it is Uncaptured (Lion Heart) who leads the way at Ocala Stud in Florida.

Four of his nine starters have won. Of these, two have promptly added a stakes success–and one of those is the only one of the crop so far to win a graded race.

That was Catherinethegreat, who earned the first black type of the Saratoga summer in the 100th running of the GIII Schuylerville S. Previously a 10 1/4 length maiden winner at Gulfstream, here she blazed an opening quarter of 21.78 before cruising four lengths clear in 1:09.98.

Catherinethegreat duly vindicated her status, at $170,000, as the most expensive of the 19 yearlings (from 23 offered) whose $47,880 average and $40,000 median–against a covering fee of $6,000–both qualified Uncaptured as the leading freshman outside Kentucky at the sales last year. She was bought by trainer Mark Casse for John Oxley, just like Uncaptured himself before they made him Canada’s first juvenile Horse of the Year in a generation.

Casse bought Uncaptured for $290,000 at the Keeneland September Sale of 2011, in turn making him the priciest member of the final U.S. crop sired by Lion Heart (Tale Of The Cat) before his export to Turkey. Lion Heart, an unbeaten Grade I winner at two, had proceeded to finish runner-up in the Kentucky Derby–pluckily holding off all bar Smarty Jones (Elusive Quality) after throwing down the gauntlet from the front–and to win the GI Haskell Invitational. He offered breeders class, soundness and lovely motion. But not height. And his stock had only been allowed two seasons on the track before a package deal, also including Dehere (Deputy Minister) and Powerscourt (Sadler’s Wells), was agreed between the Turkish Jockey Club and Ashford Stud.

The timing of Lion Heart’s exit could not have been much worse; or better, I guess, depending which side of the deal you stood. In 2010, their sire’s first year in Turkey, Kantharos won the GII Saratoga Special S. by seven lengths in an unbeaten juvenile season; Dangerous Midge, a slow-maturing member of his first crop, won the Breeders’ Cup Turf as a 4-year-old; Line Of David beat subsequent Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver (Maria’s Mon) in the GI Arkansas Derby; and, at Bill Graham’s Windhaven Farm in Ontario, an Arch mare named Captivating delivered a colt on March 19.

Her son would become one of five GSW among the final American foals of Lion Heart. In fact Uncaptured would win six of seven starts at two, graduating from three black-type races on the synthetic at Woodbine to win the GIII Iroquois S. and the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. on dirt at Churchill Downs.

Those wins had the look of a Kentucky Derby reconnaissance, but he proved unable to rise from relative shallows at three when his finest moment instead brought domestic prestige, in the Prince of Wales S. (second leg of the Canadian Triple Crown). And though back on an upward curve when beaten barely half a length by Palace Malice (Curlin) in the GII Gulfstream Park H. the following spring, he came out with an injury and that was him done. Still, he retired as a good-looking millionaire and those guys are seldom short of company in the Florida winter.

His arrival at Ocala Stud in 2015–Oxley retaining a good stake–gave its clients an alternative to Kantharos, another son of Lion Heart who would soon be packing his bags for Kentucky after finishing seventh in the national rookie standings with seven black-type performers from 32 starters (moved to Hill ‘n’ Dale last year).

Florida breeders took their cue, sending Uncaptured no fewer than 137 mares in his first season, 108 for his second and 140 last year. That made him the busiest sire in the state but he has entertained even more this time round: a bumper 173, in fact.

That extraordinary fourth book shows how Uncaptured has overcome the usual inclination to “wait and see” a sire’s first runners. His debut at the 2-year-old sales can only have helped: of 31 hips, he shifted 28 at an average $114,500 and median $93,500–capped off by a $350,000 filly at OBS April. These are knockout returns for a $6,000 regional cover.

“Really, there has been a huge buzz about the horse since day one; since the day we brought him to the farm,” said Ocala Stud manager David O’Farrell. “He was very well received by breeders locally–he’s a beautiful individual–and the momentum started building from the time his first foals hit the ground.

“With the majority of stallions, especially in the regional marketplace, historically you do tend to see a blip in those third and fourth years. But you can see from the size of his third and fourth books the confidence he has been giving breeders.”

Uncaptured appears an impressive specimen, evidently rather bigger and scopier than his sire. Just as important, however, is what Casse described as the “mind of steel” he brought to training and racing. Sure enough, already in midwinter his foals were being credited with an obliging disposition by major 2-year-old consignors. And then his very first starter won her debut as favorite over 4 1/2 furlongs at Gulfstream in April.

Next came Capture Your Dream, whose training for a small barn (smart work, Anna Varsi) was such that she was heavily backed against a Pletcher favorite for a maiden over the same track. She exploded through a 21.7 opening quarter and won by 10 1/2 lengths.

Oxley promptly bought Capture Your Dream from owner/breeder Kathy Machesky–the filly is, after all, out of a half-sister to the dams of two others who punched above their weight in Ron The Greek (Full Mandate) and Musket Man (Yonaguska)–and moved the filly to Casse’s Palm Meadows barn. Last Saturday she became her sire’s second stakes winner in the $100,000 FTBOA Florida Sire S.

So what’s happening here? The parallels with Kantharos plainly speak well of the stud who launched them both, and Uncaptured can only have profited from his former studmate’s example.

“There’s no question Uncaptured stands on his own merit, but Kantharos certainly gave people confidence,” O’Farrell said. “They’ll have had his success in the back of their minds when they first came to look at Uncaptured.

“But if you stood them up side by side, though they’re both good-looking sons of Lion Heart, you would see that Kantharos and Uncaptured are very different horses. Kantharos is a racehorse sire: he produced a high volume of runners. You can see the Arch in Uncaptured. He is just a gorgeous horse.

“It’s always important to have a horse that can come to hand quickly, that can develop at two. But people were drawn not just to his precocity, but also to his physique.”

Daughters of Arch have already produced I’ll Have Another (Flower Alley) and Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie), among others. Arch also causes a 4×5 echo in Uncaptured’s pedigree, as Lion Heart’s mother was a granddaughter of Hail To Reason–whose Roberto-Kris S line is extended by Arch.

You would suspect there may be some turf angles to be worked through here. Remember that Uncaptured was himself adaptable, in terms of surface, while his dam Captivating had previously produced Dancing Raven (Tomahawk), a stakes winner over a turf mile and also over 6f on a synthetic track.

“Uncaptured was a versatile horse,” O’Farrell remarked. “He broke his maiden at 4 1/2 furlongs, but was able to carry his speed over 1 3/16 miles at three. He started out on synthetics in Canada and moved onto the dirt at Churchill. Kantharos is proving versatile too, and that gives you reason to believe they can both go a long way. Because while a lot of commercial breeders rely on dirt horses, there’s definitely a move towards the turf: I really think racing is making something of a paradigm shift in that way.”

Captivating, herself unplaced in two starts, is a half-sister to a number of multiple winners including a smart one in Gold Star Deputy (Silver Deputy), who set a couple of track records at around 10 furlongs in winning 11 races, including at stakes level. Another half-sister has produced a couple of Grade II-placed stakes winners, one of whom is the dam of triple Grade I winner Curalina (Curlin).

Their stakes-placed dam Andrea Ruckus was by Bold Ruckus, Canada’s multiple champion sire–albeit a Florida-bred, as they might stress down at Ocala. Bold Ruckus was a zippy grandson of Bold Ruler and Raise A Native, but less familiar paths must be taken along the bottom line. In fact the next two dams are by Right Combination, who I think was unraced but was granted a place at stud as a son of Round Table out of a half-sister to Buckpasser; and Stratus, a son of the Derby winner (and inconsequential sire) Nimbus imported by E.P. Taylor.

Stratus did manage to break a track record–over a mile and a half on turf at Atlantic City. He features here as a result of Taylor pairing him with the dam of Canadian champion older horse Giboulee, Victory Chant-herself bred from two foundation stones of the whole Windfields empire, Victoria Park and Orchestra.

In some respects Victoria Park was a pathfinder for Northern Dancer, his Preakness and Kentucky Derby podiums emboldening Taylor that a Canadian-bred horse could take on the Bluegrass bluebloods in their own backyard. Since Taylor also bred Storm Bird, whose sireline extends through Lion Heart, he holds together both top and bottom lines for Uncaptured.

So this story links polar points of the North American Turf, in Ontario and Ocala. For a long time its only link to the northeast was through Uncaptured’s barn nickname, “Whitey Bulger”–for a notorious Boston crime boss who spent 16 years on the run (i.e. uncaptured) from the F.B.I. Now he has a landmark winner at the Spa.

One stakes winner does not a summer make; nor even two. But O’Farrell is adamant that this is only the beginning. “We stood Kantharos for Stonestreet and he’s now off to bigger and better things,” he said. “It does appear that Lion Heart is going to have a lasting impact, despite leaving when he did. He had that speed, and he carried it.

“And the race that always stuck out to me, with Uncaptured, was his last one–against Palace Malice. That was a really solid field and arguably the winner ran his best race, but Uncaptured didn’t flinch the whole way round. So he wasn’t just a very quick 2-year-old, he could carry that speed a long way. Which is what we’re after.

“He’s an awful nice stallion for us in Florida. It’s so exciting, to get these two stakes winners straight off the bat. And without knocking the pedigrees of these horses, he’s not started with the best mares in the world. We have some [coming through] on the farm we’re extremely high on. I think the word’s out. But the best is yet to come.”

 

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