Breeding Digest: East and West Sides to Bernstein Story

When he succumbed to colic in October 2011, aged just 14, there was a poignant sense that Bernstein had never quite lived up to his glamorous billing.

He was a celebrity even as an embryo, carried through the Keeneland ring at the 1996 November Sale by a $1.9 million mare–La Affirmed (Affirmed), the second most expensive broodmare auctioned in America that year–as a full-sibling to two graded stakes winners by Storm Cat. On his safe delivery, his dam's purchasers at Brushwood Farm sent Bernstein back the following November to defray much of that investment as much the priciest weanling of his crop, at $925,000. (Brushwood would go on to make a terrific bargain of La Affirmed, though rising 14 at the time of her purchase. One of her later Storm Cat yearlings, in fact, would bring $5.5 million on his own.)

Bernstein looked worth every cent when blitzing his pursuers in his first two starts for Ballydoyle. But he emptied quickly when stepped up in class and distance on soft ground next time and finished stone last when resurfacing in the G1 2,000 Guineas the following spring. His remaining four starts, spread between five and nine furlongs, suggested him to have become a real puzzle. While he did manage to win a couple of times, it was pretty hard work despite an ease in grade, and he had meanwhile been thoroughly eclipsed at Ballydoyle by another son of Storm Cat in Giant's Causeway. (The latter's dam, incidentally, had been the only broodmare to make more than La Affirmed at an American auction in 1996.)

Bernstein was duly sold back to his native state to start a stud career at Buck Pond Farm. But an anti-climactic career on European grass made it tough to compete with other sons of Storm Cat that had made their reputations locally, and his first three Kentucky crops (at a fee between $10,000 and $7,500) aggregated to no more than 109 live foals.

Nonetheless his first juveniles included a graded stakes winner, and sufficient glimpses of further promise to earn a transfer for 2005 to Castleton Lyons at a time when that farm had high ambition for its stallion roster. (Malibu Moon, for one, had arrived from Maryland not long before.) From his new base Bernstein produced a couple of domestic Grade I winners, Dream Empress and Miss World, plus Goshawk Ken in Japan, but none of those really consolidated. It was only in Argentina, where his shuttle crops had produced a series of champions, that his premature loss could be grieved as depriving breeders of an important influence.

As so often happens, however, Bernstein had already planted the seeds of his redemption. His final crop, comprising 80 live foals, turned out to contain a colt and filly that would between them transform his legacy. On the racetrack, they won consecutive runnings of the GI Breeders' Cup Mile-and now, following a remarkable few days either side of the Atlantic, they have suddenly raised our debt to their sire to fresh heights.

First came the poignant success at Newmarket of Delacroix (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}), the final foal out of Bernstein's outstanding miler Tepin-just six days after his 3-year-old half-sister Grateful (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) had won the G1 Prix de Royallieu. Then, a few hours later at Keeneland, She Feels Pretty became the second Grade I winner by his standout male heir, Karakontie (Jpn), in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup. We'll give each due consideration shortly, but for now let's just remind ourselves of their shared inheritance.

For Bernstein represents one of the cornerstone formulas of the modern American breed, his fourth dam Busanda having branded one of several key lines (such as those associated with Striking and Searching) tracing to the combination of War Admiral with daughters of La Troienne (Fr).

In drawing on the constitution and stamina she had shown on the track (if only when in the mood), Busanda's principal bequest was the legendary distaff influence Buckpasser. But it is her daughter by Nasrullah, a modest runner named Finance, who demands our attention here.

After some early struggles in the breeding shed, failing to produce a live foal in five attempts, Finance eventually produced three moderate sons and, with what proved to be her final chance, a daughter by Round Table. This was La Mesa, whose own limitations as a racehorse would be effaced by several daughters that became good winners and/or producers from Harbor View Farm, notably champion juvenile filly Outstandingly (Exclusive Native) and La Affirmed herself.

In addition to Bernstein, La Affirmed produced Classic-placed Della Francesca (Danzig); Emmaus (Silver Deputy), the dam of Wiseman's Ferry; plus those two other graded stakes winners by Storm Cat, Country Cat and Caress. The latter has particularly assisted the family, as dam of one stalwart Kentucky stallion Sky Mesa (Pulpit) and second dam of a younger gun in Maxfield (Street Sense).

Obviously, the dams of Tepin and Karakontie brought plenty to the equation themselves, especially the latter as a granddaughter of the mighty Miesque; and, as we'll see in a moment, She Feels Pretty comes from a remarkable line of her own. Nonetheless it's gratifying to see that the real Bernstein was the one who disappeared after his first couple of starts, and that his posthumous rehabilitation remains ongoing.

A Pretty Amazing Family

The first thing to say about Karakontie's big Keeneland winner is that Lael Stables were “witty and bright” in evoking “I Feel Pretty”-the West Side Story song written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim-for a filly by a son of Bernstein out of a mare named Summer Sweet.

More pertinently, perhaps, She Feels Pretty had a significant head start in life, raised as she was on Stone Farm for breeders Payson Stud. She duly made more than all but one of Karakontie's fifth-crop yearlings in 2022, bringing $240,000 as Hip 2466 at the September Sale.

Karakontie at Gainesway | Sarah Andrew

As we all know, it's tough to stand a turf horse in the Bluegrass. But Antony Beck and his team at Gainesway understand not only that every roster benefits from balance, but also that someday commercial breeders must finally recall how their more enlightened predecessors grasped the transferability of sheer class.

Karakontie has perhaps the most cosmopolitan pedigree in Kentucky. As intimated above, his granddam shares with Kingmambo and East of The Moon the honor of having been suckled by Miesque; his own mother was by Sunday Silence, himself raised at Stone Farm and later the transformer of the Japanese breed and, of course, Bernstein extends a branch of the international Storm Cat sire-line. All this told in the acceleration that secured Karakontie a juvenile Group 1 and mile Classic in France, before a dashing win on a faster surface at the Breeders' Cup.

The breeders of She Feels Pretty appear to have prized the formula that produced Karakontie's dam, Sun Is Up (Jpn): she was by a son of Halo (Sunday Silence, as noted) out of a Woodman mare; and so, too, was Summer Sweet's sire More Than Ready (who was by Southern Halo). Underpinning that symmetry, moreover, is a bottom line that reconciles the Niarchos family's work with Miesque to one of the earlier endeavors of their program's founder.

For it was Stavros Niarchos who acquired the sixth dam of She Feels Pretty, G1 1,000 Guineas runner-up Konafa, for $625,000 at the Keeneland November Sale of 1980. She was by Damascus out of Royal Statute (Northern Dancer), the E.P. Taylor mare who subsequently tied together the pedigrees of Pour Moi (Ire), Lammtarra and Golden Sixty among many others.

The Mr. Prospector filly Konafa was carrying at the time was named Proskona by Niarchos, and went on to win a couple of Group races in Europe. Konafa's next foal was Korveya (Riverman), later sold to British breeder Gerald Leigh after failing to reach her reserve at $700,000 at the 1989 Keeneland November Sale. It would turn out that Korveya already had two colts on the ground who would each win the G1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains for Niarchos: her yearling by Woodman became Hector Protector; and her Procida weanling, Shanghai. Leigh himself proceeded to breed another Classic winner from Korveya, in Hector Protector's sister Bosra Sham, and had unsurprisingly returned the mare to Woodman to sell her (albeit to partners already in the mare) for a record-equalling $7 million back at Keeneland in 1998, when she was already 16.

Unsurprisingly Leigh formed quite an attachment to this family! He had also ended up buying Proskona, and later went back to Niarchos for Proskona's granddaughter Summer Sonnet (GB) (Baillamont). From the latter he bred a top-class colt in Act One (GB) (In The Wings {GB}), only ever beaten by one horse, Sulamani (Ire), in what proved his swansong in the G1 Prix du Jockey-Club. Leigh died soon after, the bulk of his equine program being sold off to Sheikh Mohammed in a colossal private deal.

Prior to Act One, Summer Sonnet had produced a couple of useful fillies by Caerleon: Summer Symphony (Ire), a Group 1 runner-up at two, and stakes winner Summer Solstice (Ire), who was astutely included among the stock retained by Leigh's daughter Sarah.

Summer Solstice produced two stakes-winning sons plus a daughter, Summer Solo (Arch), who won her first three and ran third in the GI Belmont Oaks on her only other start. After Sarah Leigh's death in 2015, Virginia Kraft Payson recognized the quality condensed in this remnant of the line. When Summer Solo went under the hammer at the 2016 January Sale, in a part dispersal of Sarah Leigh's estate, the Payson Stud team duly paid $700,000 to top the auction. Moreover they also paid the next highest price of the sale, $550,000, for Summer Solo's half-sister by More Than Ready, who had just turned two.

Summer Solo has since produced a couple of useful fillies in GII Demoiselle Stakes runner-up Maedean (Tapit) and GIII Selene Stakes winner Solo Album (Curlin). The More Than Ready filly, for her part, took 11 attempts to break her maiden (on dirt) before later adding a Belmont allowance on grass. But she is Summer Sweet, and She Feels Pretty is only her second foal.

Full marks to Karakontie, for his contribution. He has maintained a very healthy ratio of stakes action, relative to his opportunities, throughout his stud career. Given the quality of his blood, indeed, it would be marvelous to see him find a male heir. For now, his three principal achievers remain female: Spendarella, his first Grade I winner in the Del Mar Oaks last year; multiple graded stakes winner and millionaire Princess Grace; and now She Feels Pretty.

Nonetheless we must cede the principal laurels for last Saturday to the winner's maternal line. That's because, incredibly, it had actually claimed the same race last year, as well: Proskona, as noted the fifth dam of She Feels Pretty, is also the third dam of Mawj (Ire) (Exceed And Excel {Aus}), who in 2023 followed up her G1 1,000 Guineas success in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup.

Mawj, of course, is half-sister to Modern Games (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}). Some family, however, when two even Classic winners out of the same mare must be counted old news! Consecutive winners of this cherished prize, however, represents a fresh and pretty remarkable distinction.

Tepin's Parting Flourish

Much like her sire, meanwhile, Tepin has quickly magnified her legacy after a tragically premature exit. Her loss last year must have shattered her owners at Coolmore, who had paid $8 million for the champion racemare carrying a first foal by Curlin at Fasig-Tipton in November 2017. Any kind of silver lining was hard to find: her first two foals failed to make the track, and none was registered for 2020. Perhaps the next one, Grateful (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), was named for the fact that Tepin was at least producing daughters that might yet replicate her prowess. But she finished down the field in her only juvenile start, by which stage her owners must have felt thankful only for the smallest mercies.

Tepin at Saratoga in 2016 | Horsephotos

Things feel very different now. Grateful herself, for a start, has repeatedly regrouped whenever she has had reverse, startlingly so as her stamina was drawn out. If that suggests a greater inheritance from her sire, so be it. She now hastens to the paddocks, where she will not lack suitors eligible to supply some extra dash. But the big news meanwhile is that Dubawi appears to have given Tepin's final foal, and only son, rather more of those attributes that might entitle him to diffuse her legacy with a stud career.

Green on debut, Delacroix made all over seven furlongs on fast ground next time. And while he still looked raw when promoted to Group company, closing late, he looked a lot more professional last weekend, dragging another smart prospect well clear.

To be fair, the seeding of his maternal family has been entrusted to speed brands: Bernstein himself, obviously, in the case of the dam; while Tepin was out of a mare by another Ballydoyle sprinter in Stravinsky. The latter did not last the course, in time moved on to Japan, but his footprint in Europe was certainly all speed: think Soldier's Tale, Balmont, Benbaun (Ire).

His daughter Life Happened, famously found for just $4,500 by Machmer Hall before producing Tepin (as well as Into Mischief's early star Vyjack), was unraced but her dam Round It Off (by Moccasin's son Apalachee) had been stakes-placed over five furlongs of turf.

Round It Off additionally produced dual graded stakes winner Disco Rico (Citidancer) to be champion Maryland-bred sprinter of 2001. And her own dam was a graded stakes-placed (6f) daughter of the hardy Maryland mare Turn Capp (Turn to Reason), whose 20-for-44 career featured three minor stakes including at six furlongs. Turn Capp also features in the pedigree of that fast horse Smoke Glacken, as third dam.

None of this, naturally, will have been lost on the Coolmore team, who went all-in for Tepin after identifying speed-packing mares as the ideal complement to Galileo. But it may turn out that switching her to their former antagonists' top gun Dubawi-who has always imparted far more zest than his dour maternal seeding might suggest-has redeemed Tepin's sadly abbreviated contribution to their program.