Mitole Suggests Another One That Got Away

If you left Churchill Downs on Saturday convinced by the brilliance of one of his sons that a stallion had been prematurely exported, then you wouldn't necessarily have been thinking of New Year's Day's disappearance to Brazil. Because if you set aside the excruciating misfortune of Maximum Security in the Derby itself, the undercard featured a no less vivid rebuke to those breeders who had given up on Eskendereya (Giant's Causeway), whose son Mitole maintained his giddy rise for William and Corinne Heiligbrodt with sixth straight win, and first Grade I, in the Churchill Downs S.

Connections of Eskendereya suffered their own Derby heartache when he had to be withdrawn with injury days before the 2010 race, having won the GII Fountain of Youth S. and GI Wood Memorial by an aggregate 18 1/4 lengths.

The Zayat family appeared cursed in the Derby when this disappointment was sandwiched by runner-up finishes in 2009, 2011 and 2012. The first of those, however, was the work of Pioneerof the Nile, who would amply redress all these frustrations with his son American Pharoah.

Such are the unreadable twists of this game. Similarly, the horse promoted to favouritism in Eskendereya's absence, Lookin At Lucky (Smart Strike), had a rough trip in the race; and then, when retired to stud, included a Derby runner-up of his own among an exasperating series of Grade I near-misses. But his luck has turned big time, with the blossoming of Accelerate last year and now Country House's stunning windfall.

Alas, it appears to be too late for American breeders to profit from any such turnaround for his contemporary Eskendereya. Unable to race again following his Derby scratch, he started out at Taylor Made in 2011 at $30,000–with Stonestreet having meantime acquired a controlling interest–but his fee made the customary descent to $17,500 within a couple of years and he had only a second crop on the track when sold to Japan in 2015.

His first runners, the previous year, had made a painfully quiet start, causing his book to halve to 70 from 139. The latter, no less typically, had actually been his biggest yet after his debut yearlings were warmly received at the sales, ranked fifth by average. Hindsight discloses that intake as a strong one: besides Lookin At Lucky, Eskendereya was competing with Quality Road, Munnings, Blame, Super Saver, Midshipman and Kantharos, among others. As we'll remind ourselves in a minute, Eskendereya has a deep Classic pedigree and nobody could sensibly have expected a cavalcade of juvenile winners. But while his sophomores the following year readily outperformed those of Quality Road, for instance, he would not be given the chance to match that rival's spectacular progress since.

In 2016, his first year standing in Japan, Eskendereya's 16 black-type performers fell between 17 for Lookin At Lucky and Kantharos, and 15 for Quality Road, Munnings and Midshipman. His first flagbearer was Mor Spirit. A $650,000 juvenile, Mor Spirit actually contrived a Grade I success at two in the Los Alamitos Futurity, but finished midfield when stretching for the Derby. At four, much as we are seeing with Mitole right now, he got on a real roll back over a mile and crowned his career by blitzing the GI Metropolitan H. field by six lengths, good for a 117 Beyer. He is now completing his first spring at Spendthrift.

In taking the baton from Mor Spirit, Mitole has confirmed that Eskendereya can deal out a very pure version of the brilliance he showed in his own truncated career. Perhaps that's no surprise in a half-brother to Balmont (Stranvinsky), one of the fastest of his generation in Europe; and Eskendereya does represent a speed-oriented top line. But his own sire Giant's Causeway was hardly typical of the Storm Cat brand, with his two-turn quality, toughness and versatility. And the first thing you think, looking at Eskendereya's own family, is sheer class rather than sheer speed.

His first four dams are by Seattle Slew, Alydar, Northern Dancer and Ribot; and the bottom line soon becomes every bit as resonant.

Eskendereya's third dam, Stellar Odyssey, was a Northern Dancer half-sister to a Kentucky Derby winner in Cannonade. Their dam Queen Sucree, the first seven-figure broodmare at auction when carrying a brother to Cannonade in 1976, was a Ribot half-sister to the great Halo and Hall of Fame filly Tosmah. And their Broodmare of the Year dam Cosmah was a half-sister to Natalma, the pair out of the epoch-making Almahmoud.

Almahmoud's two famous daughters, in fact, stand opposite each other as the grand-dams of Stellar Odyssey: Cosmah, as noted, producing her dam Queen Sucree; and Natalma producing her sire Northern Dancer. (Pleasingly, for those of us who–antiquarians as you may think us–like to delve that deep, another of the most important mares in the breed's history, Lord Derby's Selene, also recurs top and bottom in Stellar Odyssey's family tree.)

Cosmah herself, meanwhile, is duplicated in Eskendereya's own pedigree: her son Halo sired the dam of Rahy, whose daughter Mariah's Storm produced his sire Giant's Causeway. (Who obviously introduces another strain of Natalma, when you back through the Storm Cat branch of the Northern Dancer sire-line.)

Some priceless silverware in Eskendereya's genetic cabinet, then. True, both Stellar Odyssey and her daughter by Alydar, Altair, were unraced. But Altair, purchased by Sanford R. Robertson, produced a Grade II winner in Blazonry (Hennessy) as well as Aldebaran Light (Seattle Slew), who won three times at River Downs from just five career starts.

Aldebaran Light's first foal was Balmont, who owed his juvenile Group 1 success in England to a disqualification and could not win thereafter, but managed a couple of podiums in elite sprints. And six years later she delivered a Giant's Causeway colt, sold as a Keeneland September yearling to Zayat Stables for $250,000.

That was Eskendereya, of course, so named for the Egyptian city Alexandria in Arabic. Sent to Todd Pletcher, the big chestnut surfaced on turf at the end of the Saratoga meet, finishing second over fully 1 1/16 miles before winning a Belmont stakes, a late switch to the main track, by seven lengths. Disappointing in a synthetic GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita in 2009, he regrouped in a Gulfstream allowance in January before his breakout performance in the Fountain of Youth. Both there and in the Wood, he thrashed Jackson Bend (Hear No Evil), subsequently midfield in the Derby but beaten only a length when third to Lookin At Lucky in the Preakness and later a dual Grade I winner over seven furlongs.

It's interesting to note that Harlan and Southern Halo, who have become such important influences through Into Mischief and More Than Ready, respectively, are others who pair up both Almahmoud's great daughters Natalma and Cosmah. And it would be no surprise if, from a very finite opportunity in Kentucky, Eskendereya turned out to have left behind a couple of pretty potent heirs in Mor Spirit and now, potentially, Mitole.

The latter was sold for just $20,000 deep into the September Sale of 2016, but was pinhooked for $140,000 at OBS the following April. He was bred by the late Edward A. Cox Jr., whose dispersal sale at Keeneland last November was sadly followed by his death just a few weeks ago.

Cox's longstanding association with Claiborne was crowned as a partner in 1984 Kentucky Derby winner Swale, while he bred or co-bred such high achievers as Marquetry, Shaadi and Woodman. It was through his dispersal that WinStar picked up Mitole's dam Indian Miss (Indian Charlie), in foal to Into Mischief, for $240,000. That looks a really smart spot now, Mitole having disappeared after his second consecutive stakes score last May.

Indian Miss could not win in a light career but is a half-sister to GII Davona Dale S. winner Live Lively (Medaglia d'Oro) out of an unbeaten stakes winner at two, Glacken's Gal (Smoke Glacken). The latter is one of three black-type winners delivered by a stakes-placed Silver Deputy mare–and we love those, as we do any conduit for Deputy Minister in the bottom line.

Even so, it's no more than a steady, outcross kind of page. But then Mor Spirit, his dam's seventh foal, was her first stakes winner. So while Eskendereya still has just two other Grade I operators to his name, there's no denying that his background and performance entitle him to light an occasional fuse of explosive class.

Steve Asmussen is naturally now thinking of the Met Mile for Mitole. And if Eskendereya could sire two winners of that stallion-making race from his first three crops, then maybe someone will take another long look at his antecedents and–remembering that he is still only 12–try and find a number for Empire Maker's travel agent.