Awesome Again

It's easier to identify the phenomenon of a broodmare sire than to account for it. But we certainly have a modern marvel of the genre in Bernardini, whose posthumous consolidation of what had been an exceptionally precocious emergence in this sphere reached a fresh peak as the Saratoga summer drew to a close. On Saturday, one of his daughters produced Immersive (Nyquist) to win the GI Spinaway Stakes; and on Monday another Bernardini mare gave us Chancer McPatrick (McKinzie) to achieve a reciprocal status among the crop's colts in the...

Among the winners at the last Breeders' Cup, what was it that separated White Abarrio (Race Day), Goodnight Olive (Ghostzapper) and Nobals (Noble Mission {GB}) from the rest? Answer: they were the only ones that had changed hands at an American yearling auction, respectively for $7,500, $170,000 and $3,500. Even that lavish investor in the yearling market, Mike Repole, won the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile with a homebred. Except for a couple of European turf juveniles, the rest of the show was a parade of champions raised by "end users":...

Classic Sir Winston (Awesome Again--La Gran Bailadora, by Afleet Alex) has been retired from racing and will stand stud next year at Pope McLean's Crestwood Farm. The Tracy Farmer homebred is out of the Grade-III winning and Grade-I placed mare La Gran Bailadora. "Sir Winston showed us incredible talent right from the start and we think his progeny will do the same," said Farmer. "We will be supporting him both with mares in the breeding shed as well as in the sales ring down the road." A stakes winner and...

Shadwell Stable's Daaher (Awesome Again--Irish Cherry, by Irish Open) has been pensioned to Old Friends, the Thoroughbred Retirement farm in Georgetown, Kentucky. Retired from racing in 2008 following an ankle injury, the Canadian-bred was best known for his upset win over the heavily favored Midnight Lute in the 2007 GI Cigar Mile at Aqueduct. In his two seasons on the track, Daaher collected earnings of $455,163 under trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, and won both the Cigar Mile and the GII Jerome H. He retired with four wins and two thirds from...

A total of 26 stakes--15 of them graded--will be offered during Santa Anita's 18-day Autumn Meet which opens Sept. 30. The stakes line-up will include five Breeders' Cup "Win & You're In" stakes over the first two weekends, Oct. 1 and 2 and Oct. 8 and 9. These include three Grade I events: the $300,000 Awesome Again S. Oct. 1; and the $300,000 American Pharoah S. and $300,000 Rodeo Drive S., both Oct. 8. The Awesome Again highlights an Oct. 1 card that also includes the $200,000 GII Eddie D...

Seven-year-old Count Again (Awesome Again) sliced through horses and blew past heavily favored Smooth Like Strait (Midnight Lute) in the lane to annex Monday's GI Shoemaker Mile S. at Santa Anita. Picking up an automatic spot in the starting gate for the GI Breeders' Cup Mile later this year, Count Again's victory was the fourth on the card for East Coast invader Irad Ortiz, Jr.--with a runner-up finish in the only other race run to that point--and was won in notably similar fashion to Ortiz's score in the GI Hollywood...

Making just his 15th start at the age of seven, Agave Racing Stable and Sam-Son Farm's Count Again (Awesome Again) uncorked his usual late run to come out on top of a tight finish in Santa Anita's GI Frank E. Kilroe Mile S. A close third in last year's Kilroe and most recently a winner of the GIII Thunder Road S. here Feb. 5, the Ontario-bred gelding sat in a joint second last around the first turn while scraping paint. He continued to draft from a nice spot as GISW...

As springboard--or tripwire--before the ultimate Breeders' Cup showdown at Del Mar this November, Santa Anita's opening weekend sure ticks a lot of boxes. "Really happy with the job my staff did putting all these races together," said Santa Anita racing secretary, Chris Merz, on Thursday morning. "Stakes coordinator James Kasparoff did an outstanding job." In all, there are seven Breeders' Cup "Win and You're In" races. The three on Friday--the GI American Pharoah S., GII Chandelier S., and the Speakeasy S.--are geared around the sport's young blood. The Saturday and...

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency WELL-BRED DUO DEBUT AT THE SPA 6th-SAR, $100K, Msw, 2yo, f, 5 1/2fT, 3:55p.m. Stronach homebred SUPER STING (Awesome Again) is one of two well-bred fillies making her career bow in this event. She is out of champion Perfect Sting (Red Ransom), who is also the dam of GSW Smart Sting (Smart Strike), GSP Perfect Bullet (El Prado {Ire}) and SP Sweet Sting (Awesome Again). Live Oak went to $300,000 at the OBS March Sale to acquire Our Souper Love (Union Rags) after she breezed...

What do Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow), Mystic Guide (Ghostzapper), and Knicks Go (Paynter) have in common? For one, they've cumulatively won three of the four most lucrative dirt races contested in North America so far this year. Hot Rod Charlie won the $1 million Gll Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds last weekend; Mystic Guide was first in the $600,000 Glll Razorback H. at Oaklawn Feb. 27; and Knicks Go took the $3 million Gl Pegasus World Cup Invitational S. at Gulfstream Park Jan. 23. The other big-money race was the...

This Saturday, Calumet Farm looks to pull off a bit of an upset in the GII Risen Star with their homebred Santa Cruiser (Dialed In), who broke his maiden last November and ran fourth in his most recent start in the GIII Lecomte S.    Santa Cruiser may go off as one of the longer shots on the board, but if he were to win, it wouldn't be the farm's first upset in the same race. Three years ago, Calumet's homebred Bravazo (Awesome Again-Tiz O'Gold, by Cee's Tizzy) won the...

So this dismal year slinks under our resentful glare towards the back gate, like an uninvited guest who has wrecked a party by outrageous behavior. Soon, perhaps, there will be a cheerful ringing of the doorbell and we can welcome one to revive spirits around the world. In the meantime, somehow, the Thoroughbred is managing to hold together the strands linking all our yesterdays and whatever tomorrow may bring. I've often remarked, during recent months, that horsemen will be well served by the patient perspectives they require even at the...