Breeding Digest: Overcoming the Dirt Complex

There can't be many tracks that that deviate further from the standard American model than Goodwood. Even in Britain nobody today would dream of laying out a racecourse along a twisting ridge of downland, and we remain duly indebted to the militia officers who first eked out a little sport here 223 years ago. Not that the horses themselves share our appreciation for a gorgeous panorama of cornfields and woodland, focused as they are on keeping their balance over the swaying terrain and round sharp right-hand bends.

Yet last week “dirt” blood once again proved far more potent than its marginal representation in Europe should allow. Thursday's card alone featured Group scores for Justify and Complexity, while lesser prizes fell to American Pharoah, Tamarkuz's half-brother Without Parole and a son of Scat Daddy.

The Group winners each exemplified one the two principal conduits for a recent renewal of transatlantic exchange after an era of deplorable insularity. G2 Richmond Stakes scorer Black Forza (Complexity) had crossed the water thanks to the willingness of breeze-up pinhookers to roll the dice at American yearling sales; while the G1 Nassau S. success of Opera Singer (Justify) confirmed the European industry's debt to John Magnier for once again introducing some extraneous invigoration.

Justify has quickly established that the prowess which proved equal to the iconic challenge of dirt racing can be adapted to the demands of Europe. But Complexity is another story again.

Black Forza | Goodwood Racecourse

As a GI Champagne Stakes/GII Kelso Handicap winner by Maclean's Music out of a Yes It's True mare, the Airdrie sensation could hardly be expected to extend his flying start to the European theater. But it's remarkable how readily Europeans shed their distrust of dirt brands once a horse has been introduced to their domestic market by a local pinhooker.

That's presumably because the stopwatch is now so decisive at 2-year-old sales (“Oh, no, that's unfair–times are just one of the many factors we agents take into account yadda yadda yadda….”) that pedigrees have in that marketplace almost been neutralized. Breeze-up consignors know that if only they can demonstrate functionality, then European end-users will pay well for horses that would have made them run away screaming as yearlings.

Black Forza was actually born the same day that his dam (with her ex utero bonus) changed hands for $50,000 at Fasig-Tipton in February 2022, and was sold as a weanling at Keeneland that November for $27,000. Tom Whitehead of Powerstown Stud then risked $65,000 for him at the Fasig-Tipton July Sale last year, and received due reward when Michael O'Callaghan paid £220,000 at the Goffs U.K. Breeze-Up Sale in April. In other words, starting literally at birth, he had been a “commodity” four times before he ever entered a starting gate.

As colleague Brian Sheerin has told us, his emergence has meanwhile transformed the value of his dam Harlee Honey (Harlan's Holiday), picked out of a Fasig Digital Sale for just $11,000 last summer by Ashley Hillyard. The mare's half-sister California Nectar (Stormy Atlantic) won the GII Santa Ynez Stakes, while another sibling by Blame won an Ohio-bred stakes; and maybe some chlorophyll has percolated from her granddam, who was by that flexible influence Dixieland Band out of a half-sister to 1984 Epsom Derby winner Secreto.

Complexity | Sarah Andrew

But whatever her contribution, it's astounding for a $12,500 rookie like Complexity to have produced the winners of a keynote midsummer race for juveniles either side of the ocean, with Black Forza reciprocating Mo Plex in the GIII Sanford Stakes. This time last year, remember, Mo Plex was a $27,000 RNA in the New York catalogue at Saratoga, before selling for $45,000 at OBS in April. Setting the pace across all indices in the freshman table, it does look as though Complexity must be moving up his mares.

His unraced dam is half-sister to a Grade II winner and has otherwise produced graded stakes winner Valadorna (Curlin) to run second in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies; and the next dams were respectively Grade II-placed and an unraced half-sister to a dual Grade II winner. That's pretty solid for a family that has not been seeded too glamorously through recent generations. In a phrase I like borrowing from John Sikura, when a horse goes to stud “the genetic switch is either off or on.” But it's pretty rare that we find out as soon as this.

Wouldn't it be something if that surreal race for the GI Forego Stakes in 2020 turned out to be the key stallion signpost of that miserable year? It was run through mud and torrential rain, before empty stands, and Complexity absorbed such brutal fractions that Win Win Win could pounce from the other side of Albany to get virtually his first call on the line.

In the ring and in his first skirmishes on the track, Win Win Win has himself been doing things that should be beyond a $5,000 cover. There were plenty of horses putting themselves in line for much bigger fees that year, but Thoroughbreds will always keep us guessing. And long may that continue.

High and Low Points in Grace's Journey

Into Mischief has been a lock to retain his title ever since Laurel River loaded up his saddlebags early in the year, but the Spendthrift phenomenon would by now top the standings even without that help. Of course, he does have quantity to match his quality. That's increasingly less true of deposed champion Tapit, who must be duly saluted for producing his 32nd elite winner in Arthur's Ride.

At 23, Tapit is being managed by the Gainesway team with all the veneration he has earned. Already last year he was restricted to precisely 100 mares and so far in 2024 he has fielded barely a third of the cavalry started by Into Mischief.

Arthur's Ride | Sarah Andrew

Arthur's Ride is out Points of Grace (Point Given), who won the GII Dance Smartly Stakes for Live Oak, also breeder of her first few foals. But she was sold for just $30,000 as a 10-year-old, signed for by Mersad Metanovic at the 2015 Keeneland November Sale, in foal to none other than the emerging Into Mischief.

At least Live Oak had retained her 2014 daughter by Exchange Rate, who proceeded to renew her dam's value with a big Canadian success of her own in the GI Natalma Stakes.

An interval of a couple of years in her production record suggests that the new owners of Points of Grace may have endured one or two misfortunes, but Helen and Joseph Barbazon then managed to breed a stakes-placed filly by Treasure Beach (GB), which rare distinction appears to have warranted some more ambitious covers down the line.

Her next foal, an Arrogate filly foaled in 2019, ignited her sire's posthumous success as his first stakes winner (actually on turf, emulating her dam) at Gulfstream on the first day of 2020. That earned Points of Grace the first of two consecutive appointments with Tapit, respectively producing a colt and a filly. Both have ended up in the Glassman Racing Stable.

Donato Lanni signed a $250,000 docket for the colt at the 2021 September Sale. Named for Karl Glassman's late father, he has required plenty of patience but Arthur's Ride has finally put it all together round a second turn at the Spa this summer, winning no less a race than the GI Whitney on his stakes debut.

His sophomore sister, again co-bred by the Barbazons with the Tapit Syndicate, cost Glassman Racing twice as much ($525,000) when taking her turn through the September Sale. She broke her maiden at the seventh attempt at Horseshoe Indianapolis last month, but turns out to have been aptly named as Genetics. Even as it was, Points of Grace is a half-sister to Fatefully (Private Account), a dual Listed winner in England whose stakes performers/producers are headed by G1 Nassau S. winner Favourable Terms (GB) (Selkirk). And now Genetics has a second Grade I-winning sibling to boost her residual value.

Now 19, Points of Grace this spring dignified the debut book of Verifying, Midnight Bisou's half-brother by Justify, new to the roster at her owners' Pleasant Acres Farm.

Incentive Strengthens Blue Hen Credentials

As lately illustrated by the dams of Nakatomi (Firing Line) and Black Forza, respectively discarded for $2,000 and $11,000, the breeding stock market can yield some pretty anguished remorse. But sometimes everyone can be a winner. It would be hard, for instance, to complain of banking “only” $2.15 million for the dam of Highly Motivated (Into Mischief) at Fasig-Tipton last fall–especially as she appears to have been nearly culled a few years previously, and before that even broke her maiden under a tag.

Yet purchaser Alpha Delta Stable has meanwhile celebrated the elevation of Strong Incentive (Warrior's Reward) as already–at just 12–one of the most significant broodmares in the Bluegrass.

Ways and Means | Tod Marks

Within a month of her sale, Strong Incentive's son Surge Capacity (Flintshire {GB}) made a Grade I breakout in Matriarch Stakes. And now her next foal, Ways and Means (Practical Joke), already runner-up in the Spinaway Stakes last year, has achieved an elite success of her own in the Test Stakes.

The Kentucky Derby was the only Grade I race ever contested by Highly Motivated himself. But he ran champion Essential Quality to a neck in the GII Blue Grass Stakes, and may well be playing the Dansili (GB) role here. (That horse was probably the most talented foal out of Hasili (Ire) (Kahyasi {Ire}) despite never emulating the elite scores of four siblings.)

Regardless, her record with four named foals leaves the Alpha Delta team an enviable commercial dilemma over the Good Magic filly delivered by Strong Incentive a few weeks after her arrival.

I'm always intrigued by how many of the most expensive mares at breeding stock sales are by stallions that would never be remotely entertained by the big programs at the yearling sales. Strong Incentive's sire, nowadays standing at $3,500 in Pennsylvania, is a case in point.

But other daughters of Warrior's Reward have produced GI Champagne Stakes winner Blazing Sevens (Good Magic) and Super Chow (Lord Nelson). (Incidentally the latter, a triple graded stakes scorer this year, has a remarkable pedigree: his second dam is a full sister of his sire's granddam.) Though never favored by high-class mares, perhaps Warrior's Reward as a distaff influence is filtering some of the blood that nourished an ocean of black type under third dam Quilloquick (Graustark).

Of course, it's not just Strong Incentive whose value has increased since her sale. Highly Motivated is now looking a pretty outsized genetic package at just $7,500 and, as his neighbor Complexity is showing, he could not be in better hands to seize his opportunity.