Guineas Win Is Sweet For Forgotten Mare

In bloodstock circles, plenty of air is devoted to rueing the unforgiving nature of the market, not least the tendency to toss a mare out with the bath water should she fail to sparkle with her first few foals.

When Kameko (Kitten's Joy) won the G1 2000 Guineas on June 6, he made a fairly strong case for perseverance. His dam, the well-bred graded stakes winner Sweeter Still (Ire) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}), had been the co-second highest priced lot at Keeneland's January Sale in 2014 at $750,000 in foal to Galileo (Ire), carrying her second foal and bought by Phyllis Wyeth to breed to her GI Belmont S. winner Union Rags. Four years later, Sweeter Still was plucked out of the ring at Keeneland November by the little-known T. Lesley Thompson for $1,500.

Bred by Annemarie O'Brien, Sweeter Still is out of the Belmez mare Beltisaal (Fr), who had herself commanded a modest price tag when bought by O'Brien's father Joe Crowley for 8,000 Irish guineas in 2001, having a relatively light pedigree at the time. Sweeter Still was given every chance when put into training with Annemarie's husband Aidan at Ballydoyle, but after just one start at two was sold to American interests.

Sweeter Still put together a productive campaign at three, winning a listed stake at Santa Anita at second asking and two months later adding a Grade III going a mile on the turf. She failed to shine at four and five, however, and after making one early season start at six was retired and covered by Giant's Causeway. Though she aborted that pregnancy, Sweeter Still returned to Giant's Causeway the following season and produced the $100,000 foal Dreaming Of Stella (Ire).

Sweeter Still made a brief return to her native land to foal Dreaming Of Stella and visit Galileo (Ire), and by the time she visited the ring at the 2014 Keeneland January Sale her pedigree had enjoyed a few significant updates. In 2012 her three-quarter-brother Kingsbarns (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) had won the G1 Racing Post Trophy, making it three pattern winners for the dam, and under the third dam Rip Van Winkle (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) had been a top-class miler in 2009. Sweeter Still shared the top of the leaderboard at Keeneland with the likes of Life Happened (Stravinsky), whose daughter Tepin would go on to win the G1 Queen Anne S., as well as the dams of GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner Mucho Macho Man (Macho Uno) and G1 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches victress Flotilla (Mizzen Mast).

Returned to the ring in November of 2015 carrying her second colt by the then-unproven Union Rags, Sweeter Still was led out unsold at $325,000. By the time she reappeared at Keeneland a year later carrying Kameko, neither of her first two foals had made the races-a massive knock in the modern marketplace, and Calumet Farm was able to scoop her up for $35,000. After foaling out Kameko at Calumet a stone's throw from the sales pavilion, Sweeter Still was covered by four-time Grade I winner Big Blue Kitten, resulting in a three-quarter-sister to Kameko who was a $5,000 Keeneland September yearling and who goes through the ring at the July 1 Arqana Breeze-Up Sale as part of the Church Farm and Horse Park Stud draft.

Sweeter Still made the short trek to Keeneland once again in November of 2018 with a covering to Calumet's Optimizer, a son of English Channel. By that time two additional unraced produce were weighing down her record, and the former blueblood went through almost entirely unnoticed at $1,500.

To say Sweeter Still fell through the cracks would be an understatement; she positively plummeted through them. And a month later, her first foal Dreaming Of Stella would be offloaded for 2,000gns at Tattersalls December to Elwick Stud.

Kameko had been similarly overlooked when he visited the same ring for the September yearling sale two months earlier. The bay colt in the Paramount Sales consignment on day two of the sale was a brother to Nobody-quite literally: his 2-year-old brother Nobody (Union Rags) was the highest achieving of his siblings on the racetrack at the time, having been beaten a combined 50 lengths in a pair of maiden claimers at Delta Downs.

Kameko's $90,000 pricetag paid homage to a good physical, but emphasized the coolness of the market to both his underachieving dam and to his overachieving but underappreciated sire Kitten's Joy. Onlookers, though, should have been shaking in their boots when they saw the name on the ticket: David Redvers. Two years earlier, the advisor to Qatar Racing and Bloodstock had paid $160,000 for a colt by the same sire at the same sale, and at the time Kameko was hammered down, Roaring Lion had won the G1 Coral-Eclipse and G1 Juddmonte International and had been third in the G1 Investec Derby. Four days after Kameko was secured, Roaring Lion won the G1 Irish Champion S., and five weeks after that he clinched champion 3-year-old and Horse of the Year honours when backing up to a mile to win the GI Queen Elizabeth II S.

Meanwhile, Kameko was seeing out his 30-day quarantine at Hunter Valley Farm in Versailles, Kentucky, where Sheikh Fahad boards his Kentucky-based mares. Hunter Valley is owned by a quartet of Irishmen and managed by part-owners Adrian Regan and Fergus Galvin.

“We quarantine all the Qatar [Racing] yearlings that are bought at the sales here before they go [to Europe],” Regan said. “So we got to see Kameko for 30 days. He was a very attractive colt at the time, a very nice yearling, but I'd be lying if I said I called Tweenhills and said, “This will be your next Group 1 winner.”

Sweet Deal

Early last summer, as Kameko was gearing up for a racecourse debut with trainer Andrew Balding, Fergus Galvin said he received a call from Redvers.

“Sheikh Fahad and David recognized how good he was–I think it was about a month before he even ran–and asked us to look up the mare,” he recalled. “We were quite astonished to see that she had gone through the year previous for $1,500. She was a good race mare and has a good pedigree, but we all know the market is very unforgiving on those mares after four or five foals. And if they don't produce, they really can go through for any little amount.

“So we were able to come up with a deal with the previous owner [on behalf of Qatar Bloodstock]. We got the mare, and she had had quite a late foal [a filly] by Optimizer. So she wasn't bred last year, but we did get her covered early to Kitten's Joy this year. So she is carrying a full-sibling to Kameko for next year.”

By the time Sweeter Still, still just 15, visited Kitten's Joy this spring, Kameko had already seriously boosted the mare's fortunes. A debut winner at Sandown last July 25, he was beaten a nose when second in the G3 Solario S. and a neck when runner-up in the G2 Royal Lodge S. before coming good by 3 1/4 lengths in the G1 Vertem Futurity Trophy-the same race won by Sweeter Still's brother Kingsbarns. And as it goes, the market began to warm to the family, too: Catchingsnowflakes, the unraced Galileo filly Sweeter Still was carrying when she sold for $750,000, was bought by Mini Bloodstock for $120,000 at Keeneland November last year in foal to English Channel.

All the while, however, the Qatar Racing and Tweenhills Stud teams had been dealt a serious tragedy; a week before Kameko made his stakes debut in the Solario, Roaring Lion was euthanized in New Zealand after battling colic. He has left behind one crop of foals conceived at Tweenhills.

A week removed from Kameko's Classic coronation, Galvin and Regan were marveling at the fact that Qatar Racing and Tweenhills had managed to twice bottle lightning with colts by the same sire and from the same sale just two years removed.

“It's just unreal, unbelievable, for everybody at Tweenhills, Sheikh Fahad and [wife] Melissa,” Regan said. “After what happened with Roaring Lion, which was devastating, to come up with a horse like Kameko by Kitten's Joy again; it was just very thrilling, the whole thing. We were thrilled.”

“It was a bit surreal, really, watching the Guineas,” Galvin added. “What they went through with Roaring Lion was so gutting for them all. I know it was devastating for them. And you'd think you'd have to wait a lifetime to get one similar, but two, three years later, you're getting one by the same sire. It's quite unbelievable, really.”

“When they bought Kameko, the whole big question about him was the mare,” Galvin added. “She's after having 'x' amount of foals. She'd been to Galileo, the greatest stallion anybody has seen in our lifetimes, and you're thinking, “God, can this mare produce?” But it just shows you…”

“You don't give up on them,” Regan chimed in.

“You don't give up on them,” Galvin affirmed.

Scat Daddy Story Starts At Hunter Valley

Hunter Valley's association with Qatar Bloodstock and Tweenhills is a ringing endorsement for the relatively young boarding, breeding and consigning operation. Regan and Galvin-who had become friends while on the Irish National Stud breeding course together and who had moved to Kentucky around the same time-were both in managerial roles at other farms in 2004 but decided to take the leap into farm ownership with Chicago-based Irishmen Tony Hegarty and John Wade, who are in the construction business.

“John and Tony, our partners up in Chicago, have been great from the get-go,” Galvin said. “We weren't necessarily in a position at the time to be buying a 200-acre stud farm, especially in the location we were in, being so close to Keeneland. They were a huge help to us early on. They're great partners to have. They have a construction company up in Chicago and they come down here regularly. They just love the sport.”

It likely aided enthusiasm, too, that Hunter Valley's first-ever yearling through the ring at Keeneland in 2005 was none other than Scat Daddy. A newborn Scat Daddy and his dam Love Style were among the first boarders at Hunter Valley, and the group was able to purchase the pair of them. Trainer Todd Pletcher bought Scat Daddy for $250,000 at Keeneland September, and two months later the farm sold Love Style carrying a full-sibling to him for $350,000 at Keeneland November.

For the Hunter Valley team, purchasing Scat Daddy and Love Style was an early gamble that paid dividends.

“For us, at the time, it was a pricey package,” Galvin said. “We had to pull in a few partners. But Scat Daddy was a lovely horse from the get-go. He got better and better as time went on. Even the February of his 2-year-old year after Todd bought him we were hearing the birds chirping down in Florida about him. And sure enough, he turned out like he did. We were always big supporters of him when he was at stud through the highs and lows. And it was just such a shame, a horse just on the crest of the wave that he died, but even though he died a number of years ago we're still seeing his influence on the breed with his sons.”

Chief among those sons of course is No Nay Never, who was sold as a foal by-you guessed it-Hunter Valley. A member of Scat Daddy's fourth crop, No Nay Never was conceived for $15,000 and sold for $170,000 at Keeneland November in 2011 before later being pinhooked as a yearling.

“At the time he wasn't overly big,” Regan said. “But he was very athletic, beautifully balanced, and a very solid foal. The only thing he was lacking at the time was maybe an inch of height, but he was a beautiful foal. When he went to the sale, he was very popular. I do remember the day we were selling him. We knew we had popularity for him, but on the morning at the sale, he took off. It just seemed like the word had gone around the sale. Everybody was on him come the time we took him up to the ring.”

And Hunter Valley's fruitful association with the sire line marches on through their involvement with Qatar Racing and partners in Vitalogy (GB) (No Nay Never), a promising 3-year-old off a victory in the GIII Palm Beach S. going 1700 metres in February. The future looks bright, then, on both sides of the Atlantic for Hunter Valley and its riches to rags to riches resident Sweeter Still, with plenty more chapters likely to be written yet in both stories.