Breeding Digest: The Enduring Merit Uniting Mufasa And His Trainer

Class: an elusive concept, in horses as in people. That's because it refers to something inherent, something beyond external trappings. In this business, most of us will have observed how someone can be wealthy and still have no class; and also, more pleasingly, how material poverty need not diminish those human qualities that elevate a person from the mean (in every sense of that word).

To whatever extent it may be heritable, then, one core indicator of class is perhaps durability itself. For that is the very opposite of the superficial ways by which shallow people fake a deeper distinction.

And that's an analogy that can be extended to our horses. Just as the old timers used to disparage “the fast set” who squandered their privileges in self-indulgence, so we must deplore breeding for speed without the means to carry it.

In the commercial era, when a horse bred to run has bafflingly become somehow different from the horse bred to sell, we should prize more than ever the robustness that has always been a trademark of the South American Thoroughbred.

That differential may have been eroded in the shuttling era. But a weekend headlined by two 5-year-old imports, Subsanador (Arg) (Fortify) and Mufasa (Chi) (Practical Joke), reiterates the connection between constitution and class.

Now Mufasa is certainly a fast horse, even if his Vosburgh success felt demeaned by the relegation of this storied prize to Grade III status. (A mystifying development, given that the restoration of a seventh furlong and increased purse money had just yielded wins for Cody's Wish and Elite Power.)

But the point is that Mufasa is only here because of the resilience of South American blood–on two legs, as well as four.

That's because he's trained by Ignacio Correas IV, who has spent one-third of his life rebuilding a career in the U.S. after lawlessness in his homeland threatened the success he had enjoyed until the turn of the century. He took all kind of dead-end jobs, after emigrating, but he won through in the end. Importing the likes of Blue Prize (Arg) (Pure Prize) and more recently Didia (Arg) (Orpen) has been a great help. But if you want proof that the Correas clan know all about lasting the course, you need only look at the pedigree of his latest star.

Mufasa was sired by Practical Joke (whose fine year continued when Ways and Means won the GII Gallant Bloom Stakes next day) during his early days shuttling to Chile, much as we owe his own dam to the young Scat Daddy. And she was actually out of a Florida-bred mare. But the latter, as a daughter of the exported Argentinian champion 2-year-old filly Mi Quimera (Arg), opens a seamless Argentinian line extending 11 generations to one of the local breed's foundation mares, Tears (GB).

Tears was a daughter of Blair Athol, a cornerstone of the modern breed as it was emerging in Victorian Britain. (Himself winner of the 1864 Derby and St Leger, Blair Athol was by the 1852 St Leger winner Stockwell out of the great Blink Bonny, who won both the Derby and Oaks in 1857.)

Tears was imported in 1882, alongside a stallion named Zanoni, and their 1885 foal Mendiga was acquired by the founder of Haras las Ortigas. This was a gentleman named… Ignacio Correas!

The great-grandfather of Mufasa's trainer developed a family through five generations from Mendiga to a mare named Malquerida, who was then acquired by another great farm in Haras Ojo de Agua. Malquerida was out of a mare by Diamond Jubilee, the Triple Crown winner famously sold in 1906 by King Edward VII to Haras les Ortigas, where he became a four-time champion sire. And Malquerida is the fifth dam of Mi Quimera, the mare who came to the U.S. in 1981–where she was graded stakes-placed on turf, and eventually delivered the granddam of Mufasa.

It must be extremely fulfilling for Mufasa's trainer to resume supervision of a bloodline curated by his own family between mares respectively foaled in 1885 and 1933. In the process, he is showing how mutual regeneration between the Americas, South and North, extends from the breed itself to the skills of its stewards.

Though Mufasa's page has been fairly dormant for a couple of generations, there is prolific black-type production underneath Mi Quimera, mostly resulting from the family's repatriation to Argentina. The most conspicuous contributor has been My Swinger, Mi Quimera's 1989 foal (by another Vosburgh winner, Groovy), who won at a modest level in the U.S. before becoming a Group winner in Argentina. She began her breeding career down there, too, before eventually returning to the U.S. As in his first career, however, she proved more productive in the Pampas: her six foals by Southern Halo included two local Group 1 winners.

Southern Halo, of course, did so well when exported to stand in Argentina that he ended up reverse-shuttling to his native land. But his presence in the pedigree of GI Californian Crown winner Subsanador–he gives us the third dam, as a multiple Group winner much the best loitering near the top of this page–does not introduce any truly South American flavor. While Subsanador's first three dams were all bred in Argentina, each was by a migrant son of a top Kentucky stallion (Storm Cat/Deputy Minister/Halo). His sire Fortify, equally, blends very familiar lines: he's by Distorted Humor out of a daughter of A.P. Indy and Flagbird (Nureyev). Both Flagbird and Subsanador's dam, in fact, ultimately trace to La Troienne (Fr) through her granddaughter Striking (War Admiral).

In other words, Subsanador is circling back into the environment that produced his blood. Of course, it may be that even the way his first three dams were raised, in Argentina, itself contributes to his substance. Be that as it may, however, Musafa draws on a deeper South American well–whether in his own blood, or that of his trainer.

Most Wanted | Dustin Orona Photography

WESTS AND CANDY RIDE SHARE DOUBLE

Perhaps the most important recent example of a horse that straddled the hemispheres by combining the best is Candy Ride (Arg). His sire Ride the Rails was bought as a yearling at Keeneland and, in the influential mare Alablue (Blue Larkspur), actually shared a third dam with his own sire Cryptoclearance. His damsire, moreover, is Blushing Groom's son Candy Stripes, who was Classic-placed in France. But his second and third dams both concentrate Argentinian blood, and who can say how far this may now be percolating to particular effect through Candy Ride's phenomenal son Gun Runner?

Regardless, it was another notable weekend for the veteran Lane's End sire. At 25, he may be entering the evening of his career, but his legacy continues to grow. On Saturday his 4-year-old son Hit Show reached a new peak in the GII Lukas Classic, while the next day Most Wanted sustained his rise through the sophomore ranks in the GIII Oklahoma Derby.

Both these colts graduated from the same program, bred as they were by Gary and Mary West. Hit Show, however, had been sold to Wathnan Racing (also proprietors of Subsanador) since his previous start, a graded stakes success at Mountaineer that suggested him to be one of those that just need a little maturity to regroup from the Triple Crown (ran fifth in the Derby last year).

The Wests also bred his dam, GII Black-Eyed Susan winner Actress (Tapit), from Milwaukee Appeal (Milwaukee Brew), a champion Canadian 3-year-old filly later beaten just half a length in the GI Spinster Stakes. Acquired privately by the Wests on her retirement, Milwaukee Appeal only produced five named foals, but the investment has now presumably paid off–not least with Actress having already produced three daughters to exploit the success of her son.

The dam of Most Wanted, meanwhile, is one of the gems of the Wests' broodmare band. Beach Walk (Distorted Humor) was acquired by their longstanding advisor Ben Glass as a $435,000 yearling at the 2014 September Sale–a price that reflected two elite podiums for her dam Bonnie Blue Flag (Mineshaft), a half-sister to dual Grade I scorer Diamondrella (GB) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}). While she could not break her maiden in five attempts, she has already produced four-time Grade I scorer Life Is Good (Into Mischief). That dasher made himself worth rather more than the $525,000 he brought as a yearling, but his full brother has been retained and is breezing with promise at Churchill.

The late English Channel | Sarah Andrew

A CHANNEL BRIDGE NOT YET BEYOND REACH

While plenty of Americans will be spending serious dough on European yearlings over the coming days, they have tended to prove less enthused when a turf horse is standing on their own doorstep–no matter how accomplished. With his stock's propensity to dourness, in fact, I suspect Frankel (GB) himself might struggle to achieve commercial traction in the Bluegrass.

It's been wonderful, then, to see Oscar Performance seize his opportunity, not just stepping up as the outstanding American heir to his late sire Kitten's Joy but even nailing the sales. From his latest crop of yearlings, he has this year sold 18 of 21 offered at an average tipping $150,000, off a $12,500 conception fee. That yield will doubtless be eroded with a few blue-collar auctions still to come, but Roscar will have done trade no harm as his latest black-type scorer, in the $400,000 Breeders' Stakes at Woodbine (capping off a remarkable 1-2-3 for Chiefswood Stables).

The one sadness is that no equivalent breakout has been achieved by a son of English Channel, who died, nine months before Kitten's Joy, in November 2021. But perhaps that vacancy might yet be filled by Far Bridge, who last weekend thwarted that wonderful racemare, War Like Goddess, in her bid to surpass their mutual sire with a third consecutive GI Joe Hirsch Turf Classic.

The market never really forgave English Channel for staying this trip so well. But Far Bridge last year registered the first of his three Grade I wins over 10 furlongs, while if you rewind you'll find he beat no less a horse than Carl Spackler (Ire) (Lope De Vega {Ire}) over an extended mile on debut.

In terms of producing runners, of course, English Channel ended up absolutely on a par with Kitten's Joy, who routinely stood at multiples of his $25,000 fee. Aptly, Far Bridge is out of a mare by his old rival. Homebred by Calumet, Fitpitcher (Kitten's Joy) unfortunately managed only two other foals, but she was out of an A.P. Indy half-sister to the mother of the admirable Long Range Toddy (Take Charge Indy), while the next dam Pleasant Temper was a dual graded stakes winner by Storm Cat.

A little farther back, moreover, this line tapers to Shama (Bold Ruler) and her dam Lea Lark (Bull Lea), names that tie together some very illustrious pedigrees. Shama has been particularly significant in South America, duly appearing in the ancestry of two horses mentioned above, as third dam of Southern Halo and sixth of Blue Prize (Arg). Other daughters of Lea Lark have been no less influential, at every point of the compass.

Given how well sown this branch of that dynasty has been, perhaps a posthumous legacy for English Channel is not yet a bridge too far.