Breeding Digest: A Poster Boy for Tapit's Daughters

The old patriarch can't have failed to notice all the activity around the Gainesway stallion barn, with four new lads settling in and another relatively recent arrival meanwhile leading a desperate race for the freshman laurels. At nearly 23, in contrast, Tapit's own book is being prudently managed and he was confined to 79 mares last spring. Yet this remains not only the neighborhood boss, but also the most venerable stallion in the land.

True, the gray's status as America's most productive stallion is inexorably menaced by Into Mischief, who's about to extend his reign as champion sire to a sixth year. In fact, Into Mischief is now cents away from his latest landmark of $200 million in progeny earnings, closing ever faster on Tapit ($213 million).

But while they are now actually tied on 166 stakes winners apiece, Tapit retains a clear lead (from very similar volume, Into Mischief having assembled bigger books through four fewer seasons) in his other ratios: by 32 Grade I winners to 22, for instance; and 105 graded stakes winners to 79.

And at Aqueduct last Saturday, Tapit made his seniority tell in another way–making an impact on the two big juvenile races still more profound than that of Munnings, who sired the winners of both. (Fear not, Munnings will receive all due credit from colleague Jill Williams in her Saturday Sires series).

For not only are Poster (GII Remsen Stakes) and Muhimma (GII Demoiselle Stakes) both out of Tapit mares; so, too, were the runners-up in both races. (Whose respective sires, Medaglia d'Oro and Uncle Mo, duly came close to following up big scores from the same crop, through Good Cheer and First Resort, at Churchill the previous weekend). Moreover the Remsen third, Tux, precisely transposed the cross that produced the winner: being by Tapit himself out of…a Munnings mare!

For good measure, another daughter of Tapit reciprocated on the opposite coast through Tenma (Nyquist) in the GII Starlet Stakes; while yet another came up with Laurel stakes winner Tony Eclipse (Not This Time). The fact that these are all juveniles confirms that Tapit's distaff legacy will only keep growing from here. Even as it is, however, Saturday left him behind just Street Cry (Ire) in the broodmare sires' table, by 2024 earnings, and top by stakes and graded stakes winners (32/15).

Despite the debut success at Aqueduct the very next day of another young filly on the same cross, in Juddmonte homebred Ramify, I leave to believers in “systems” the discovery of some golden nick uniting Munnings and Tapit mares.

Their most conspicuous success to date is millionaire Bonny South, albeit her biggest win, in the GII Fair Grounds Oaks in 2020, happened to eclipse an odds-on favorite who was also by Munnings out of a Tapit mare. Her name was Finite, and I couldn't think of a better word for the value of the software that so many people expect to unlock Thoroughbreds as reliably as it does their more conventional investments on Wall Street.

Of course, the wheels of our game turn slowly and it may be that the 2020 endeavors of Bonny South and Finite encouraged the respective breeders of Poster and Muhimma to send their Tapit mares to Munnings in 2021. Personally, however, I would sooner believe that Saturday's coincidence derived, first and foremost, from the thoughtful matching of physically appropriate specimens. And while Poster and Muhimma share three of their four grandparents, if anything it would generally be the fourth–as gateway to the maternal family, and often to years of patient curation by expert breeders of the past–that would tend to interest me most.

Muhimma | Sarah Andrew

That is certainly the case with Poster, whose dam Pin Up (sophomore maiden winner in a light career) is a Tapit half-sister to that phenomenal distaff influence Bernardini.

Their dam Cara Rafaela had helped to introduce Goncalo Torrealba to the American Turf after he bought her from breeder Mike G. Rutherford for $70,000 at the 1994 Keeneland September Sale. She proved as tough as she was classy, making her first 16 starts (of 24) inside 13 months–including one win and seven placings at Grade I level. In 2002, Torrealba cashed out, selling Cara Rafaela privately to Sheikh Mohammed, carrying the A.P. Indy colt who would become Bernardini.

In pondering her son's impact as a broodmare sire, we are inevitably drawn to two factors that set Cara Rafaela apart: her constitution, and the strength of the genetic flavors behind her. Her sire Quiet American has a famously concentrated page, both his own dam and that of his sire Fappiano being by Dr. Fager out of half-sisters, while both parents of her damsire Spectacular Bid were out of To Market mares.

Torrealba did some doubling down of his own after retaining Cara Rafaela's first foal, the Grade I-placed Ile de France (Storm Cat), by sending her to Bernardini's sire. A.P. Indy, of course, resembled Storm Cat in being out of a Secretariat mare. That worked a treat, producing dual Grade I winner Love and Pride, who has continued to develop the dynasty at Torrealba's farm.

Love and Pride's daughter by the Three Chimneys top gun, Bella Runner (Gun Runner), won the Zia Park Oaks; while it was nice to see the story brought full circle when her Volatile filly made $1.15 million at the 2023 September Sale, from none other than Mike Rutherford. (Cara Rafaela's breeder has named her great-granddaughter Bundle, and she's now working towards a debut at Fair Grounds).

Unfortunately for Godolphin, Pin Up herself was culled at Keeneland as recently as January for $130,000. The purchasers, signing as Imagine, chose their moniker well. She was carrying a colt by Nyquist, whose 2025 fee alone is greater than the sum that secured a 12-year-old Tapit half-sister to Bernardini, since exalted as dam of a three-for-three Remsen winner. Imagine!

Another Tapit Mare with a Clan Behind Her

The Demoiselle third, Liam in the Dust (Liam's Map), also served the Cara Rafaela legacy as yet another graded stakes performer out of a Bernardini mare. As for the winner, Muhimma, it would be no less disrespectful than to Poster if you were to view her primarily as the product of a cross. For she has now extended a seamless chain of graded stakes quality into a fifth generation.

Actually Muhimma is another Three Chimneys project, having been sold to Shadwell for $700,000 at the September Sale. Her homebred dam Princesa Carolina had been obliged to settle for serial podiums at graded level on turf, including in the GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup, albeit she did break a Kentucky Downs course record in the Dueling Grounds Oaks. But she was out of a dual Grade I winner on the same surface (American Oaks/Flower Bowl Invitational) in Pure Clan (Pure Prize), who had been bought by Torrealba for $4.5 million in 2012.

Liam in the Dust | Coady Media

Pure Clan's price was underpinned by her genes. She was already a half-sister to GII Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes winner Greater Good (Intidab), while another sibling has since enhanced the page as second dam of Finley'sluckycharm (Twirling Candy). In turn, they're out of a graded stakes-winning daughter of champion sprinter What a Summer (What Luck), the line eventually tapering to the Belair Stud foundation mare Flambette (Fr).

So, again, good luck if you want to boil a family like that down to a Tapit mare nicking with Munnings! Some people are too credulously hungry for a formula to disturb from their trance, expensive as they may find it becomes. But the beauty of this business is that we have a proving ground out there to settle all these questions.

Turf Page Unlocked by Gun Runner

Even though Muhimma had yet to make her debut, the next yearling out of Princesa Carolina proved an even bigger hit at Keeneland this September: her colt by Gun Runner, in bringing $2.2 million from Whisper Hill, represented the second biggest trade of the sale.

Unsurprisingly Torrealba appears to have “married” the mare, still only eight, to the Three Chimneys champion. They also have a weanling colt, and Princesa Carolina is again expecting to Gun Runner this time round. But if the value of these foals was principally elevated last Saturday by the mare, in producing an Oaks candidate by another sire, then Gun Runner also maintained his market standing through the blossoming of Locked in the GI Cigar Mile.

Locked | Sarah Andrew

Of course this horse already figured among Gun Runner's 10 elite scorers, having won the Claiborne Breeders' Futurity last year. But doubtless the “nicking” brigade will be excited that another of that group–and none other than Sierra Leone–also happens to be out of a Malibu Moon mare.

But just as it would be eccentric to underplay Sierra Leone's fourth grandparent, when another of her daughters this year produced a second of the three protagonists in the GI Kentucky Derby photo-finish, so we must give some attention to the granddam of Locked.

For she introduces some pretty exotic flavors to a dirt miler. Locked was bred by Rosa Colasanti out of her homebred mare Luna Rosa (Malibu Moon), whose track career ended in breaking her maiden at the fifth attempt. Luna Rosa's dam Gabriellina Giof (GB) (Ashkalani {Ire}) began her career in Italy before switching to California, winning a 5.5f stakes and then running second in the GII San Clemente Handicap over a mile. She didn't really build from there, however, and made no more than $75,000 from Federico Barberini as a 10-year-old at the 2008 Keeneland January Sale.

Fortunately for her purchaser, the last two foals delivered by Gabriella Giof prior to that transaction both stepped up to the plate. Always a Princess (Leroidesanimaux {Brz}) became a triple Grade II winner on dirt, while Gabby's Golden Gal (Medaglia d'Oro) did better yet, winning the GI Acorn Stakes and GI Santa Monica Handicap.

The latter race was then run on synthetic, and the mare's first foal for Colasanti, by Johannesburg, would in time produce a stakes sprinter on turf/synthetic by Noble Mission (GB). Locked certainly has plenty of chlorophyll down his maternal family. Gabriella Giof was one of no fewer than 12 winners in Italy out of a mare who was Group 1-placed there.

The next dam had been exported from Peru, and represents one of the oldest families in South America. But who cares about that, if all you need is the same cross as Sierra Leone…

No Mystery About Misty Family

While Locked has a pretty cosmopolitan pedigree, surely the most significant international page of the weekend lay behind the aforementioned Starlet winner, Tenma.

This is yet another case of a mare, like Pin Up and Gabriella Giof, getting an upgrade shortly after being sold. Tenma's dam Amagansett (Tapit) represents one of those culpably rare compounds (credit, for bucking the trend, to her breeders St Elias Stable) of a top dirt stallion with a premier European brand. She's out of a sister to the top-class Coolmore runner/producer Misty For Me (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}).

Tenma | Benoit

Bought as a Saratoga yearling by Bobby Flay for $875,000 in 2018, Amagansett never made the track and was culled at Fasig-Tipton last November to Kimura Hidenori for $400,000, in foal to Not This Time.

Her daughter by Nyquist, with the best possible grounding at Stone Farm, had made $200,000 at the September Sale before proving a lucrative pinhook through Wavertree as a $875,000 OBS Spring juvenile. But even that giddy investment has quickly paid off for Baoma Corporation.

Interestingly Amagansett's yearling colt was retained at $325,000 this September, so maybe there's another chapter to be written–especially as he's by Munnings. Perhaps that Munnings-Tapit cross will stand up here, as well. If it does, however, don't expect me to efface Misty For Me's sister from the deal!