Breeding Digest: Blue-Collar Mares and Bluebloods

Okay, so the top price at Fasig-Tipton last week was paid for a mare by Frankel (GB), followed by daughters of Justify and his damsire Ghostzapper. But next, at $3.6 million, came a daughter of Flintshire (GB), Surge Capacity, while her own dam Strong Incentive made $2.75 million, despite also being by a Kentucky reject in Warrior's Reward. Other seven-figure sales included mares by Speightster, Frac Daddy and Marking, while the first such transactions at Keeneland next day concerned daughters of Mastery and Bird Song.

It's the same every year. Seven-figure mares at Keeneland last time round included daughters of Big Brown, Afleet Alex, Pastorius (Ger), First Samurai and (again) Mastery. I'd congratulate any highly paid counsellor, asked to seed a breeding program, who might dare to recommend using such sires.

These mares have elevated their value by disclosing a genetic functionality–whether through performance or production–that allows investors to indulge their unfashionable sires, who were typically working a brief window of opportunity in their earliest books. Blue hens have certainly emerged from obscurity.     Families evolve. Some rise, some fall, most do a bit of both. But between blue-collar and blueblood, one way or another the bull needs his herd.

It was certainly striking, last weekend, how a series of graded stakes scorers happened to be descended from landmark mares.

The fourth dam of GII Red Smith Stakes winner Integration (Quality Road) is Chic Shirine. GIII Hill Prince Stakes winner Deterministic (Liam's Map) traces to Courtly Dee as fifth dam. GIII Long Island Stakes scorer Be Your Best (Ire) (Muhaarar {GB}) is out of a great-granddaughter of Up the Flagpole. Lady Be Good features as sixth dam of GIII Bessarabian Stakes winner Stormcast (Mitole). And if you go back far enough, you'll even find that GII River City Stakes winner Battle of Normandy (City of Light) eventually leads you to Busher.

What does all that prove? Not much, perhaps. The influence of these matriarchs is surely too attenuated to explain athletic prowess here and now. But it would be less contentious to suggest that the whole culture they represent, of patient curation, secures a depth of genetic soil that has conjured these blooms as only the latest among many.

The seeding of these families was almost invariably the work of owner-breeders, who chose matings with the quaint objective of producing a fast horse, and not just a fast buck. Perhaps we should not be surprised that four of these five horses won on turf, and the other on synthetic, not an environment, as we know, favored by many commercial breeders today.

Old-school diligence (and resources!) won't pay off all the time, of course, and many good horses, equally obviously, emerge from commercially improvised pages. Perhaps it simply boils down to what gives us most confidence, as individuals, in judging how best to build on the work of our predecessors.

For instance, the three dams dividing Integration from Chic Shirine are by Scat Daddy, Sky Mesa and that excellent distaff influence, Lyphard. The first two are both by sires tracing to the Claiborne matriarch, Narrate, the third dam of Johannesburg, granddam of Pulpit. I couldn't pretend to know quite how that may have helped Integration's dam Harmonize become a Grade I winner, and now replicate that talent in her son; any more than I could say what the same pair–Pulpit, as sire of the second dam; Johannesburg, as grandsire–together contributed to Justify.

But I do find it comforting whenever sheer breadth of quality neutralizes the unpredictable distribution of genetic influence. Seeing Sky Mesa behind a mare, for instance, would always reassure me. His extremely solid output, from limited opportunity, is rooted in the elementary combination of a superbly bred sire and a superbly bred dam (tracing to Busanda).

The same elementary formula (genetic gold x genetic gold) produced Mineshaft, who performs a similar role in Battle of Normandy's pedigree, as sire of the second dam. He was by A.P. Indy out of Prospectors Delite, herself by Mr. Prospector out of Up the Flagpole–and that blend, as it happens, is strongly echoed in the granddam of Be Your Best, who was by A.P. Indy out of Up the Flagpole's daughter by Nureyev, Flagbird.

Obviously all these winners owe much to their sires, too, and the way their genes complement the maternal family. But we should never forget how the market's obsession with stallions is often primarily a matter of convenience. Modern book sizes, in particular, provide a helpfully legible statistical handle. But what actually unlocks the door, very often, is family.

Never Too Much of a Good Thing

If you want to take this saturation of quality a step further, there's no more blatant technique than inbreeding–something conspicuous in another of the winners mentioned above.

Stormcast is out of a Quiet American mare, which will always guarantee certain flavors. Famously, not only are Quiet American himself and his sire Fappiano both out of Dr. Fager mares, but those mares are themselves both out of a daughter of Cequillo (Princequillo).

In the case of Stormcast, however, second dam Millie's Delight additionally doubles down on Buckpasser. Her sire El Gran Senor is out of Sex Appeal, Buckpasser's daughter out of the celebrated Best In Show, while her dam Defer (Damascus) is out of I Pass, who was by Buckpasser out of Impish (herself daughter of Lady Be Good and Majestic Prince).

Over recent days, however, perhaps no pedigree has been more concentrated than that of Paris Lily (City of Light), a Godolphin homebred who broke her maiden at Churchill last Friday. We're long familiar with Secretariat's distaff footprint, but he tramples all over this filly. Her first two dams are by sires out of Secretariat mares (Storm Cat and Lion Cavern); so, too, is City of Light's damsire Dehere; while his great-grandsire is Lion Cavern's brother Gone West, and his granddam is by Secretariat's half-brother Somethingfabulous.

Battle of Normandy | Coady Media

Paris Lily, incidentally, contributed to a healthy run for City of Light, who had taken time to consolidate his breakout champion Fierceness. The latter could hardly have done more, in defeat, than he did at the Breeders' Cup. The aforementioned Battle of Normandy is their sire's sixth graded stakes winner. Illuminare resumed his progress with a 98 Beyer in an optional allowance at Aqueduct and another sophomore, the $750,000 juvenile Benedetta, continued to regroup in a similar sprint at Churchill.

City of Light found himself in a hot intake and cannot yet match the cumulative stakes ratios of several peers. But his fee has been adjusted accordingly, even as he has taken a step forward with each of his three years with runners–giving his stock a profile consistent with his own, as one that thrived with maturity.

A Fertile Field

The point expounded earlier, about the long-term percolation of curated quality, is further attested by Elysian Field, winner of the GIII Maple Leaf Stakes–a timely illustration, during the breeding stock sales, of how breeders sharing the same principles can tap into each other's work.

Her granddam Initiation (Deputy Minister), sold as a yearling to Augustin Stable, represented six generations of stewardship by Peter Blum all the way to his foundation mare Mono. (Blum had actually sold Initiation's dam, but later repented and bought her back).

Despite winning a stakes in a light career, Initiation was later culled to St Simon Place (confirming its extraordinary flair for bargains) for just $9,000 at the 2020 November Sale. She was 15, and proving a modest producer. That same spring, however, her half-sister Treasure delivered a Quality Road colt who would eventually become GI Preakness and GI Met Mile winner National Treasure.

National Treasure | Sarah Andrew

In the meantime, Initiation's daughter by Smart Strike, Elysian, had been sold to Anderson Farms after winning three times in the Strawbridge silks, for $100,000 at Keeneland January in 2018. She was sent to Hard Spun, and Elysian Field is the result.

Despite making no more than $50,000 as a yearling, with her dam moved on soon afterwards, Elysian Field won the Woodbine Oaks last year (also runner-up in the King's Plate) and her graded stakes breakthrough makes Zilli's Fasig-Tipton Digital purchase last October of her dam, carrying a full-sibling, appear a tremendous strike at $55,000.

“Strike” is the operative word, Hard Spun having lately been on quite a roll with Smart Strike mares. Saturday's runner-up, Millie Girl, herself represents the same cross. So, too, does GII Hillsborough Stakes winner Sparkle Blue; likewise, sophomore stakes scorers Give It a Whirl and Good Lord Lorrie.

Hard Spun has clicked with many different influences and I leave to others any excitement that three of his four sons (Two Phil's the exception) contesting an eventual succession in Kentucky are also out of mares by sires tracing to Mr. Prospector.

It always baffles me that the same people who “brand” entire sire-lines scoff at the idea that class might be concentrated beneath similarly recessed mares. They can dismiss as ancient history the fact that Blum bought Mono 50 years ago because she was out of a sister to Assault, but they can't really have it both ways.

Because of the precious link Hard Spun provides to Danzig, and a Smart Strike mare doing the same with Mr. Prospector, doubtless Elysian Field will be acclaimed as “Northern Dancer over Mr. Prospector.” But who could sensibly say the same of Occult (Into Mischief), the GIII Monmouth Oaks winner who last month claimed her third Grade I podium when runner-up in the Spinster Stakes?

Each to their own. But I'm rather more interested that Occult's fifth dam is Mono, and Blum and his team have expertly developed the line right down to her sale as a $625,000 yearling, than in finding Northern Dancer five generations behind Into Mischief and Mr. Prospector three behind Empire Maker.