Breeding Digest: A Cry Echoing Down The Street

All of us involved in this game tend to be exposed to its ups and downs on a scale proportionate to our means. That being so, there have unsurprisingly been some pretty wild extremes–for better and worse–in the story of the most lavishly funded program in its history.

Just think back, for instance, to the last days of April 2001. Sheikh Mohammed had sent Street Cry (Ire) back to the United States, where he had been skillfully developed as a juvenile by Eoin Harty, with the mission of winning the GI Kentucky Derby after wintering in his desert homeland. But now Street Cry had been struck by an ankle inflammation, and would have to be scratched.

Within the week, nobody on the Godolphin team was still giving that disappointment a moment's thought. At least Street Cry would be back in a few months. Over in Britain, in contrast, the horse that the Sheikh cherished above all others had just lost a harrowing battle with grass sickness.

The following year Street Cry would emulate the tragic Dubai Millennium–who had in 2000 fulfilled the destiny for which he had been renamed–by winning the G1 Dubai World Cup. Another runaway Grade I success when commuting back Stateside volunteered him as a potential Horse of the Year, but a recurrence of his ankle issue instead saw him retired to Jonabell.

That farm had been purchased the previous year as part of Godolphin's increasingly international agenda. And he certainly had an apt profile for reconciling different racing cultures, having proved a dirt champion despite being out an G1 Irish Oaks winner by Troy (Helen Street (GB), whose full-sister of course produced Shamardal).

Street Sense | Sarah Andrew

Street Cry's first crop, conceived at $30,000 and delivered in 2004, would include Zenyatta, whose public reach has perhaps been matched among modern fillies only by another of his daughters, the 2011 foal Winx (Aus). But it also featured a couple of colts who would both end up following their sire to Jonabell, in 'TDN Rising Star' Street Sense and Street Boss.

Street Sense's 2-year-old championship elevated his sire's fee to $50,000; his Kentucky Derby, to $100,000. Then Street Boss blossomed with two Grade I sprints as a 4-year-old, and Zenyatta won the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff, taking Street Cry to $150,000.

But this, Winx apart, would prove one of many stallions whose record did not particularly improve with the presumed caliber of his mares. His two most accomplished Australian runners besides Winx, Shocking (Aus) and Whobegotyou (Aus), both belonged to his first shuttle crop; and arguably he made no greater impact as a six-figure cover in the U.S. than through star juvenile New Year's Day.

While the latter is now represented at stud by Maximum Security, the principal conduit for Street Cry's branch of the Machiavellian line has meanwhile led through those two first-crop sons who stood alongside their sire at Jonabell.

Street Cry himself having died aged 16, in 2014, they have carried the torch nobly. Street Sense, in contrast with his sire, enters the evening of his career with an ever-stronger legacy, the succession being contested with notable vigor by such young sons as 'TDN Rising Star' McKinzie, Maxfield and Speaker's Corner. Street Boss, similarly, has Anamoe (Aus) recently starting out in Australia with nine elite wins to his credit.

Overall, despite his 'TDN Rising Star' and GI Kentucky Oaks winner Cathryn Sophia, Street Boss has proved so much more effective in Australia that he moved there permanently in 2022. His daughter Accomplished Girl did manage another black-type success at the Fair Grounds on Saturday, but for Godolphin it was sooner as damsires that both he and Street Sense dovetailed for a gratifying Thanksgiving weekend.

Mindframe | Sarah Andrew

Perhaps we should not be surprised. Though Zenyatta proved a notorious anti-climax as a broodmare, Street Cry's daughters have lately produced such good horses as Vino Rosso (Curlin), Just F Y I (Justify) and Rebel's Romance (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}). That reminds us how gradually distaff influence tends to burn, but Street Sense's daughters have already produced the likes of European champion Roaring Lion (Kitten's Joy) and one of this year's leading sophomores in 'TDN Rising Star' Mindframe (Constitution).

As winner of the GI Ogden Phipps Stakes and GI Beldame Stakes, Wedding Toast arguably remains the best female runner by Street Sense. She had plenty of genetic help from her dam, a half-sister to that extraordinary creature Congaree, and has naturally been given every opportunity in her matings. Unfortunately her first three foals to make the track, by Dubawi and Tapit, have proved most disappointing: a Tapit gelding did win at Remington Park a couple of weeks ago, but under a $5,000 tag. Now, however, her 2-year-old daughter by the venerable Medaglia d'Oro, Good Cheer, is four-for-four after landing the GII Golden Rod Stakes at Churchill.

(Which success incidentally complemented another graded stakes for Medaglia d'Oro a couple of days previously, Loved having beaten another Godolphin filly, Tarifa, in the GIII Falls City Stakes. Loved is a half-sister to one of Street Sense's young guns in Maxfield, their dam Velvety being by distaff phenomenon Bernardini (himself additionally sire of Tarifa) out of Bernstein's $3.1 million sister Caress (Storm Cat).)

On the same Churchill card, the GII Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes fell to First Resort (Uncle Mo)–whose dam, Fair Maiden, was like Wedding Toast a homebred Grade I winner for Godolphin, albeit her success in the La Brea Stakes came as rather a shock. First Resort is her first foal and, while the next couple of generations are quite fallow in terms of black type, the fourth dam is GI Kentucky Oaks winner Secret Status (A.P. Indy)–whose son by Unbridled's Song, Dunkirk, won the GII Florida Derby.

Perhaps what's most pleasing about First Resort is the fact that he's trained by the same man who supervised Street Cry, all those years ago, at the same stage of his career. Harty's self-effacing nature has long made him an admirable team player for Godolphin, but probably does not assist his promotion of what is nowadays also a public stable. Don't forget that he was also behind the scenes with Bob Baffert during the Silver Charm/Real Quiet era; nor that he is a fifth-generation horseman from one of Ireland's most respected racing families. Those genes are plainly telling in his handling of First Resort, much as those of his old buddy Street Cry have filtered through to the colt himself.

Beach Riding the Crest of a Wave

Street Cry's distaff influence was reiterated over the holiday weekend by Kehoe Beach (Omaha Beach), the GII Mrs. Revere Stakes winner being out of his daughter Sweet Awakening. That takes him up to 91 graded/group winners as damsire.

Kehoe Beach | Coady Media

Kehoe Beach's breeders bought Sweet Awakening for $45,000 at the 2008 Keeneland November Sale, following a curtailed track career, and tried to flip her in foal to Run Away and Hide in the same ring the following year. Fortunately she failed to meet her reserve, at $27,000, and three of the breeding partnership ended up racing the foal themselves: as Are You Kidding Me, he became a multiple Canadian graded stakes winner and banked over $1.3 million for Ronald Kirk, John Bates and Michael Riordan. Kehoe Beach, with her page duly illuminated, was sold to Cherry Tree Farm as a weanling for $180,000 before proving an excellent pinhook at $450,000 back in the same ring the following September.

As his fourth graded stakes winner, Kehoe Beach maintains a persuasive rally by her sire. On the face of it, Omaha Beach did not quite match his billing when fourth of the Spendthrift quartet who dominated the freshman table last year, having started out at the highest fee. But we shouldn't forget that he only broke his maiden at the fifth attempt, his subsequent blossoming yielding consecutive Grade I wins over nine and six furlongs.

The cream is duly rising with his maturing stock, and Omaha Beach now bestrides his intake across all indices of quality, notably with 21 black-type performers in 2024 at 14 percent of starters. (Across the two years, moreover, he's up to 18 percent.) He cannot match a handful for sheer volume of winners, but tellingly is clear on purse money.

Spendthrift's hopes of a freshman hat-trick (following Good Magic and Mitole) remain on a knife edge, with Vekoma holding a wafer-thin lead. The two horses that chased home First resort on Saturday, 'TDN Rising Star' Jonathan's Way and Tiztastic, each enhanced his status as principal earner for Vekoma and Tiz the Law respectively. Through Monday, Vekoma stood on $2,611,038 against Street Sense's son McKinzie on $2,598,391, with Tiz the Law, whose daughter Book'em won her third straight on that same Saturday card at Churchill, breathing down their necks on $2,543,857.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Most precious result of the week was surely the graded stakes breakthrough of Gun Runner's half-sister Pretty Ana (Quality Street) in the GIII Comely Stakes. But there will also have been plenty of relief in the City of Light camp that Formidable Man, in the Hollywood Derby, was able to become the second Grade I winner craved for the sire of 'TDN Rising Star' and champion Fierceness. And meanwhile there was also a significant breakthrough for freshman War of Will, whose daughter Will Then became his first stakes winner in the GIII Jimmy Durante Stakes.

Mrs. Astor | Benoit

Will Then was contributing to a remarkable week for Augustin Stables, as one of three homebred graded stakes winners at Del Mar, following Mrs. Astor (Lookin At Lucky) in the GIII Red Carpet Stakes and Truly Quality (Quality Road) in the GII Hollywood Turf Cup.

Truly Quality, a half-sister to recent Canadian graded stakes winner Mouffy (Uncle Mo), is out of a graded stakes-placed daughter of George Strawbridge's champion grass mare Together Forever (Belong to Me). But good breeders tap into each other's work and Strawbridge did just that with Will Then's dam Remember Then (Pulpit), whose family had been cultivated with a familiar touch of genius by his friend Arthur Hancock. Remember Then, who won her first three races in Strawbridge's colors, had been bought as a yearling from Stone Farm as a daughter of four-time graded stakes winner Owlsey (Harlan), whose own dam was similarly homebred by Hancock.

A parallel process accounted for Mrs. Astor, whose dam Causal (Creative Cause) was another yearling purchase by Strawbridge from an exemplary operation, in this case that of Brereton C. Jones of Airdrie Stud. Causal, a half-sister to two Canadian champions in Biofuel (Stormin Fever) and Tu Endie Wei (Johar), was confined to a very light career and was soon culled from the Strawbridge program, only to be sold on by her purchasers in a Fasig-Tipton digital sale in July (in foal to Army Mule) for just $48,000. Her alert purchasers were…Airdrie Stud!

There's no higher praise than to say that the team there are proving worthy of the BCJ legacy. The late Governor reached Thanksgiving matched in 2024 only by Godolphin in stakes winners bred, level on 18 apiece. First Resort has now edged Godolphin into the lead, but as a son of Uncle Mo is typical of the fee gap between the stallions typically used by these two programs. To have pulled clear of every other breeder in the land is a remarkable achievement.