Bolt d'Oro an Instant Hit

As we saw in the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff, if there's anything more exciting than a duel to the wire, it's the intrusion of a third nose. And that's pretty much the way a remarkable contest for the freshman sires' title is playing out entering the stretch.

The first thing to stress is that it really shouldn't matter which of the stallions involved happens to bank the critical extra cents to claim the crown. That won't be how the marketing teams of their respective farms are viewing things, naturally, but any sensible breeder will consider the state of play on Dec. 31 as wholly random, given that a single maiden winner at Oaklawn or Fair Grounds could conceivably suffice to alter the standings 24 hours either side.

Far more importantly, all three have met historic standards that would in many years have secured them each the laurels. Through Wednesday, at $2,402,870, Bolt d'Oro had maintained the advantage he retrieved when Instant Coffee laid down a marker over the Derby course in the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. at Churchill last Saturday. That could prove a pivotal moment, as he was chased home by Curly Jack–a son of Good Magic, who similarly leads the pursuit of Bolt d'Oro on $2,282,082. Breathing down their necks, meanwhile, is Justify with $2,231,749.

Though all three would have been left gasping behind the record-breaking Gun Runner last year, Bolt d'Oro is about to nudge past 2020 champion Nyquist. In 2019, his current tally would have split American Pharoah and Constitution. And all three of the present protagonists have already comfortably exceeded each of the preceding champions until you reach Uncle Mo in 2015.

Each, moreover, has established a core of quality that measures up pretty creditably even to Gun Runner. Justify's six stakes and four graded stakes winners are a match for the Three Chimneys freak last year; Bolt d'Oro and Good Magic both have five and three. (Nyquist had just two stakes winners, but both won Grade I races!) In terms of overall stakes action, however, it is Bolt d'Oro who stands alone with 14 black-type operators at a remarkable 19.2% of starters. Gun Runner had eight at 12.7%.

As colleague Sid Fernando recently remarked, the rookies also have a strong presence in the overall table of juvenile sires. Into Mischief has a clear lead but presumptive champion Forte's sire Violence is only narrowly holding second from the contending trio. As Sid noted, with fellow freshmen Sharp Azteca seventh and Army Mule eighth, this table confirms how debut books are nowadays loaded to meet an ever-narrowing window of commercial opportunity.

Sid has since examined how Justify can be expected to keep consolidating, while I had already marked Good Magic's achievement as first to a Grade I success through Blazing Sevens in the Champagne S. It feels like high time, then, that “The Third Man” also received some attention.

Auspiciously, though his own sophomore career eventually tailed off into anti-climax, Bolt d'Oro actually feels no less entitled than his rivals–first and second in the GI Kentucky Derby, with Bolt d'Oro down the field (made only one subsequent start)–to produce horses that keep progressing at three.

How could he not, when his parents are respectively by El Prado (Ire) and A.P. Indy? His half-brother, moreover, is that admirable creature Global Campaign (Curlin), himself now at stud with WinStar after breaking into the elite late in his 4-year-old campaign. Bolt d'Oro offers all the requisite size, stretch and stride, too.

Bolt d'Oro romped in the 2017 FrontRunner | Benoit

With that in mind, he was a remarkably accomplished juvenile: he broke his maiden in a Del Mar sprint before winning two Grade Is in California, notably the FrontRunner S. by nearly eight lengths for a molten 103 Beyer. That ensured he started at short odds for a GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile staged in his backyard, but he was ridden via Nantucket, wide all the way, as Good Magic famously broke his maiden (the pair divided by the FrontRunner runner-up).

On his resumption Bolt d'Oro was awarded the GII San Felipe S. after taking a bump from head winner McKinzie (Street Sense); and is actually still seeking an equivalent promotion in the courts after Justify beat him three lengths in the GI Santa Anita Derby. According to the last I read on this–it's been hard to keep up!–Mick Ruis has a hearing in March to keep alive his complaint against Justify's retention of this prize, despite a drug overage.

One way or another, there has never been a dull moment with this horse. Trained by his owner for most of his career, Bolt d'Oro duly got plenty of attention on the Derby trail. Ruis, who retained a major interest in his deal with Spendthrift, bought a 330-acre farm outside Lexington to accommodate the mares that would support a colt he had bought for $630,000 as a Saratoga yearling. (An instructive price, considering that Global Campaign was then an unnamed weanling.) The young stallion gained less welcome headlines with his aggression, at one stage proving such a handful that help was sought from an equine behaviorist. In his first book, Bolt d'Oro was dignified by a visit from the dam of Rachel Alexandra–who was, of course, by his own sire Medaglia d'Oro–and the resulting colt made $1.4 million at Saratoga. (And actually made his debut, seemingly in need of it, half an hour after Instant Coffee came up the same track on Saturday.) The following spring, Spendthrift themselves sent Bolt d'Oro farm champion Beholder (Henny Hughes). And now he finds himself in this extraordinary fresh battle with two old racetrack rivals.

Medaglia d'Oro | Darley photo

Even Spendthrift couldn't launch Bolt d'Oro on quite the same scale as Ashford did Justify and Mendelssohn, who corralled 252 mares apiece. But he certainly saw predictable business at $25,000, with 214 mares in Kentucky followed by a shuttle stint in Australia. (In this connection, breeders in this day and age should always remember also to sort the freshman table by earnings-per-starter. On those terms Good Magic is doing best of the title protagonists–but not as well as Awesome Slew! And Oscar Performance deserves a mention here, too.)

Bolt d'Oro entertained another 146 mares in 2020, but could clearly have had more but for the prudent management of his boisterous conduct at the time. Given a businesslike trim to $15,000 last year–in line with his farm's wider approach to the uncertainties of the pandemic market–he maintained business at 153 mares. Interestingly, however, both his fee ($20,000) and his book (174) moved back up this spring after a warm reception for his first yearlings.

Though he had taken as many as 114 to market, he found a home for 97 of them at $155,097. That average put him behind only Justify, who obviously had to turn round a much bigger opening fee ($150,000) and did so at $373,083; and City of Light, who made such a stellar start at $337,698. Just behind came Mendelssohn and Good Magic, at $153,611 and $151,708, respectively.

This year, remarkably, Bolt d'Oro has bucked the usual trend and actually advanced his average with his second crop of yearlings. He processed 54 of 61 offered at $172,027, still third but closing the gap on Justify ($304,692) and City of Light ($237,047) and edging away from Good Magic ($131,760) and Mendelssohn ($98,969).

In between, moreover, he had been credited with the most expensive filly by a freshman sire at the 2-year-old sales when Spendthrift gave $1.2 million for an $85,000 yearling pinhook from Tom McCrocklin at the Gulfstream Sale, in the process assisting their own sire to a juvenile average of $239,549–surpassed only by Justify.

Bolt d'Oro's $1.2-million filly out of Rich Love this spring | Fasig-Tipton

Everything that has ensued on the racetrack, then, only maintains a wider momentum for Bolt d'Oro, whose fee for 2023 has been set at $35,000.

One of the most pleasing aspects of his success is its contribution to the tragically abbreviated legacy of his dam, who died after delivering only her third foal. He turned out to be Global Campaign; the first was Grade II-placed, multiple stakes winner Sonic Mule (Distorted Humor). Seldom has the expression “three strikes and out” been so poignantly apt.

Globe Trot, sold by her family's curators at Claiborne as a yearling, was out of triple graded stakes winner Trip (Lord At War {Arg}), herself half-sister to the stakes-winning dam of Zensational (Unbridled's Song)–the legendary Jimmy Crupi pinhook ($20,000 to $700,000) who won three Grade I sprints as a sophomore.

Zensational helps to make this one of the faster lines tracing to the matriarch Myrtlewood. Globe Trot and Trip, though both by stamina influences, operated around a mile; the next dam, a stakes winner by Forty Niner, was a sprinter. So, too, was Sonic Mule. Zensational's half-sister produced Cutting Humor (First Samurai), who set a track record in the GIII Sunland Park Derby. And Globe Trot herself was a half-sister to the dam of Recruiting Ready (Algorithms), who earned over $800,000 round a single turn (notably in the GIII Gulfstream Park Sprint S.). Even Bolt d'Oro was himself dropped in distance for what proved his final start in the GI Met Mile.

So there's evidently a nice balance here, complementing the sturdy influences behind Globe Trot: like her own sire A.P. Indy, her damsire Lord At War is an obviously wholesome distaff brand. The broodmare sire of Pioneerof the Nile and War Emblem was a guarantor of splendidly durable stock, especially on turf.

As such, Lord At War adds an interesting flavor to the sire line now being extended by Bolt d'Oro. The flexible influence of Medaglia d'Oro is well established, and the first two graded stakes winners by Bolt d'Oro himself both arrived in switching to grass: Major Dude in the GII Pilgrim S., and Boppy O in the GIII With Anticipation S. Bolt d'Oro has also had a $50,000 yearling, Bold Discovery, Group-placed in Ireland on his second start; plus a rather more expensive export, From Dusk ($900,000 OBS March 2-year-old), beaten a length in a field of 18 for a Group 2 in Tokyo.

Instant Coffee won Churchill's KYJC this past Saturday | Coady

But the versatility of Medaglia d'Oro also embraces rather more precocity than has sometimes seemed the case. Forte, don't forget, is another grandson featuring early on the Triple Crown trail; and now we can throw Instant Coffee into the mix for Bolt d'Oro after Owen's Leap (Sanford S.) and Agency (GIII Best Pal S.) both finished second in summer dirt sprints.

If only with a fairly formal credit as breeder, Instant Coffee represents a residue of Kevin Plank's attempt to revive Sagamore Farm. His dam Follow No One (Uncle Mo) was bought for $100,000 by farm president Hunter Rankin at OBS April in 2016, and went on to be stakes-placed the following year. When she failed to sell ($85,000 RNA) as a broodmare prospect at the Keeneland November Sale of 2018, Plank evidently agreed to a deal with Rankin's parents Alex and Sarah at Upson Downs Farm.

The choice of Bolt d'Oro as the mare's first mate itself had a nice Sagamore echo: the farm had raced Recruiting Ready, and partnered with WinStar in Global Campaign. With Hunter having meanwhile joined Alex on the Churchill Downs team, the Rankins certainly have an early rooting interest for the Derby!

Upson Downs sold Instant Coffee for $200,000 at the September Sale last year to Joe Hardoon, agent–the colt is trained for Gold Square LLC by Brad Cox–and returned this time round with his half-sister by Frosted. As luck should have it, Instant Coffee won on debut at Saratoga just a few days before the auction, helping her to realize $160,000 from HR Bloodstock. Unfortunately, Follow No One lost a Speightstown foal this year but she has been bred back to Maclean's Music.

Instant Coffee has an unusually compressed maternal family. Himself a first foal, he duly extends a sequence of young producers. Even his fifth dam was born as late as 1991; while the final foal of third dam Miss Mary Apples (Clever Trick), won the GIII Matron S. as recently as October. As foundation mare for KatieRich Farms, Miss Mary Apples had already produced three other stakes winners, including GI Kentucky Oaks-placed millionaire Lady Apple (Curlin) and Follow No One's dam Miss Red Delicious (Empire Maker), a hardy runner who won two dirt stakes at seven furlongs.

The recent action in this family actually stokes up the embers of one of the great beacons: Instant Coffee's sixth dam is a full-sister to none other than Affirmed. It has been well seeded, too: Uncle Mo, Empire Maker, Clever Trick and Holy Bull are a pretty resonant bunch of broodmare sires to find behind a horse with Derby aspirations.

For all the pep we've noted behind Bolt d'Oro himself, then, this is a pedigree strewn with Classic brands. And if Instant Coffee could parlay those into a Kentucky Derby, then who would still be counting the dimes won by his sire's other stock in the last days of December?