Breeding Digest: A Win Win Scenario

Three 'TDN Rising Star' debutants last weekend followed up in graded stakes to confirm their place among the leading juveniles of the summer. Two were by established big guns Uncle Mo and Curlin. But GIII Sorrento Stakes winner Nooni is by a $5,000 Florida rookie who had already that day celebrated his first black-type winner, by nearly five lengths, in his backyard at Gulfstream.

That's some day at the office for Win Win Win, and confirms the contrasts emerging from the early skirmishes in the freshman table. Obviously the cavalries representing expensive Bluegrass rivals should gain momentum round a second turn through the rest of the year. For the time being, however, some big punches are being landed well above weight.

Last week we saluted class leader Complexity for producing leading juveniles on both sides of the ocean, at $12,500. And we've also drawn attention to two very cheap stallions (albeit with contrasting ammunition) in Thousand Words and Caracaro, who deservedly exploited a short field to decorate their excellent starts with second and third in the Sorrento.

Runner-up Vodka With a Twist had already won a stakes, despite having changed hands for just $2,500 at Fasig-Tipton's Fall sale as a yearling. At the same auction, remember, another Thousand Words filly barely brought more at $3,500, but as The Queens M G recently won the GII Adirondack Stakes.

Third on Saturday was perhaps a little disappointing, meanwhile, for the $775,000 filly that had put Caracaro on the map at OBS April. But the Crestwood sire has meanwhile moved onto five winners from seven starters, and here bumped into the star of a still more remarkable auction coup for Win Win Win.

The son of Hat Trick (Jpn) had buttonholed prospectors with his very first yearling into the ring last year, a $150,000 colt at the July Sale. Another son then brought $250,000 at Keeneland September, but Win Win Win reached wild new heights when Nooni blitzed a quarter in :20 1/5 at OBS March, prompting no less a judge than Donato Lanni to top the sale at $1.8 million for Zedan Racing.

Before giving due attention to Win Win Win himself, we need to acknowledge this amazing illustration of the skills sustaining Ocala Stud's highwire breed-to-breeze program in support of its stallion roster.

Nooni | Benoit

The O'Farrell family enters competition with some of the sharpest horsemen in the business–who can sieve the yearling sales for athletes adapted to a highly specific shop window just a few months down the line–from the day they decide their matings. Then it's just about trusting the process, all the way from foaling straw to under-tack show.

Of course, it doesn't always work out. A Union Rags filly failed to meet her reserve at $65,000 at OBS in 2017 and then, as Unanimity, showed only a glimmer of potential in a light career. But she then entered production, having been dignified with a Kentucky covering as a member of a family that had flourished remarkably since the purchase of her mother, Lady Discreet (Boundary), for $45,000 in 2004.

Lady Discreet had been a frustrating, 15-race maiden, but her dam Pretty Discreet (Private Account) had lately produced Pretty Wild (Wild Again) to finish second in two juvenile Grade Is. But the page would soon catch fire. Pretty Discreet went on to produce two Grade I winners in Discreetly Mine (Mineshaft) and Discreet Cat (Forestry), as well as the dam of another in Awesome Maria (Maria's Mon).

Daughters of Lady Discreet, moreover, have been contributing nicely. Courtesan (Street Sense) won a couple of stakes, for instance, while The Shady Lady (Quality Road) has produced two very talented performers from her first four foals. First came Devious Dame (Girvin), whose career was cut short after romping in the Astoria; and then followed Hades (Awesome Slew), who won the GII Holy Bull Stakes earlier this year.

Now Unanimity is doing her bit, too. For after a gelded son of The Big Beast (won on debut but since slipped into claimers), Nooni is only her second starter.

It would be nice to credit some of Lady Discreet's impact to a double dose of the great Damascus, sadly only a tenuous influence nowadays. For her sire Boundary was out of a Damascus mare, while her dam was one of the many distinguished females by his son Private Account.

Regardless of that, it's a family eligible to assist Win Win Win in the repatriation of the Sunday Silence line. But he can also draw on some fairly solid maternal genes of his own. He's out of a Smarty Jones half-sister (derailed after winning her maiden) to GIII Noble Damsel Stakes winner Unbridled Humor (Distorted Humor), while their stakes-winning mother by Unbridled participates in a decent cluster of black type under third dam Icy Warning (Caveat).

Racing for his breeders at Live Oak, Win Win Win sampled various disciplines–a stakes winner on turf, for instance, after being tempted into stretching out for the Classics–before his dramatic success in the GI Forego Stakes. It was runner-up Complexity who reminded us of that strange affair last week, and now this breakout for Win Win Win can only heighten its resonance.

Because if Nooni is doing no less than her price anticipated, her sire's other stakes scorer on Saturday–previously winner of a state-bred maiden by 7 1/2 lengths–was a $12,000 OBS Winter Mixed Sale graduate.

These remain very early days, of course. On the other hand, young stallions today only get a brief window of opportunity. We must give particular credit, then, to those who hit the bull's-eye when the arrows in their quiver are so few and/or cheap.

Showcasing Strong Genes, However They Mix

But, yes, the other two juveniles mentioned at the outset are both by sires doing just what they are paid to do: produce elite talent, at elite fees.

At $300,000, as such, Showcase is looking a pretty alert purchase by Roy McAvoy out of the Machmer Hall consignment for Book 1 last September. He certainly has a Book 1 page; a stallion's page, potentially, being out of a sister to Volatile. And these days you're already quite a long way towards becoming a stallion if you put together a debut romp and a decisive success in the GII Saratoga Special Stakes.

Showcase | Sarah Andrew

Showcase's dam Buy Sell Hold (Violence) was also precocious, adding the Kentucky Juvenile Stakes to a blazing debut at the Keeneland Spring Meet, but did not progress at Saratoga and subsequently only salvaged some bonus black type when pouncing for third in the GIII Miss Preakness Stakes. But she's already produced Bourbon Bash (City of Light) to bank over $1/2 million over the past couple of years, while her dam (by Unbridled's Song) is one of three stakes winners out of dual Grade I winner Lady Tak (Mutakddim).

Buy Sell Hold was sold on her retirement from the racetrack for $205,000 at the 2018 Keeneland November Sale, to Machmer Hall, registered breeder of Bourbon Bash. But Showcase was bred by WinStar, who evidently determined to get into this branch of the Dangerous Dame dynasty. (Buy Sell Hold's fifth dam entwines the pedigrees of numerous outstanding runners either side of the Atlantic, from Sakhee to Capote.)

Showcase is raising the stakes nicely for owners Harrell Ventures. Affordable sons of Uncle Mo have always been in commercial demand since he went so quickly beyond the reach of most, doubling his fee to $150,000 after Nyquist won the GI Kentucky Derby for his debut crop. One of those sons, indeed, notoriously covered 293 mares as a rookie last year. And this fellow, as noted, has a page that would be easy to market.

Mind you, Uncle Mo (who had the Saratoga Special exacta) is an interesting case for the theory that especially potent stallions barely require complementary genetic excellence in their mares. That's not a position that appeals to those of us who admire the cultivation of families, and believe in depth across a pedigree. Nonetheless some people believe that rising fees and averages essentially represent the rising cost of recognition, rather than increasing caliber in a sire's stock.

Uncle Mo's debut crop, conceived at $35,000, indicated a sensational potency. Nobody could sensibly expect him to maintain such historic ratios every year, yet the first crop he sired at $150,000 actually posted some pretty ordinary percentages. The one after that did excel, only for the next to ebb somewhat behind a couple of headline acts.

One way or another, when you level it all out, their lifetime ratios for now make Uncle Mo a pretty similar achiever to, say, Ghostzapper. Of course, those who do believe in mare quality will expect Uncle Mo to keep consolidating. But for Ghostzapper to have ultimately become a really consistent sire–despite enduring profoundly unhelpful fluctuations in fee, on one occasion slashed from $125,000 to $30,000–perhaps confirms that often these horses will do what they will do, regardless of how we're pricing their semen.

Getaway Speed Identifies a Real Outlier

As for the other “son of a gun,” Getaway Car in the GIII Best Pal Stakes, it must be auspicious that a son of Curlin can be coasting clear of sprinters like that during his first summer on the track.

If two of his 2018 foals, Elite Power and Cody's Wish, have shown what Curlin's stock can achieve round one turn, they hardly altered perceptions of his precocity. (Each was unraced at two and then took four attempts to break his maiden, Elite Power doing so in the June of his 4-year-old campaign.) Even Curlin's champion juvenile Good Magic only broke his maiden at the Breeders' Cup.

Getaway Car | Benoit

So we can probably assume that Getaway Car is drawing considerably on the dash of his dam Surrender Now (Morning Line), who won the Landaluce Stakes over 5 1/2 furlongs at Santa Anita on her second start–and in apt fashion, for that race, by eight lengths. That qualified her as hot favourite for the Sorrento, but she bombed out there, disappeared for the rest of the year, and ultimately returned to piece together only the odd stakes placing in turf sprints.

Curlin is of course by one of Mr. Prospector's diversifying influences in Smart Strike, who could certainly deal out a little time and distance. But Surrender Now brings in a different dose through her granddam, who was by Mr. P. out of GIII Busher Stakes winner Mackie (Summer Squall), herself a half-sister to Sea Hero.

Bred by Blue Heaven Farm & Curlin Syndicate, Getaway Car was pinhooked by FMQ Stables as a $300,000 Keeneland November weanling and elevated her value to $700,000 back in the same ring last September, sold through Gainesway to one of Bob Baffert's “alphabet soup” syndicates.

Much as with Showcase, then, these owners already have grounds to hope that the stallion endgame is nearly within reach. The big question will be whether Getaway Car can also call upon his inner Curlin, and stretch out his outlier early brilliance.

That would be reassuring, given that Surrender Now's half-brother Red Flag started nearly as well as she did, winning the GIII Bob Hope Stakes by seven lengths. But that was way back in 2020, and it was only a few days ago at Del Mar that he made his first visit to the winner's circle since–as a 6-year-old gelding. And he was promptly claimed for $40,000. Just goes to show, with these Thoroughbreds we can never get ahead of ourselves.