By Chris McGrath
Polite but perfunctory. That was pretty much the tone in which people tended to praise Kitten's Joy while he was with us, and I guess it should be no different now that he's gone. Even so, it strikes me that his loss has been inadequately lamented. Not just in his own right, as an avowed turf stallion who freakishly contrived two general sires' championships in North America; but also, virtually unremarked, as a final straw in what has over the past nine months become an outright catastrophe for the enlightened minority persevering with grass breeding in Kentucky.
Last November, the sustained challenge of English Channel to the primacy in this sphere of Kitten's Joy was unraveled by a sudden illness at 19. In March, Crestwood lost Get Stormy out of the blue at 16. And now we must bid farewell to the elder statesman himself, at 21.
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Given the grim commercial odds to be overcome by anyone attempting to launch a turf sire in Kentucky, this trio's departure represents a colossal test of the way many Americans talk a good game about populating an expanding turf program. Because when it comes to walking the walk, they have tended to head straight to the exit the moment a yearling with chlorophyll in its pedigree is led into a sale ring.
One breeder's existential challenge, admittedly, can be another's game-changing opportunity. There are some promising young stallions around with the potential to fill these intimidating vacancies. Karakontie (Jpn) has been getting black-type action at an auspicious percentage, and should kick on again once over a numerical bump in the road with his current sophomores. In fact, he has just had three stakes winners in three days, one becoming his first millionaire. Oscar Performance, meanwhile, has been launched with real panache by a farm making a welcome return to the stallion game, and is already making a mark with his early runners.Even as it was, however, we're already well accustomed to the American turf program being farmed by European imports, whether as horses in training or, increasingly, from the elite yearling sales. Both the Grade I prizes contested on grass over the past two weekends were harvested by Chad Brown with one of each model, Adhamo (Ire) (Intello {Ger}) being acquired as a French Group winner last fall and In Italian (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) as a Book I yearling at Tattersalls.
But this kind of lopsided trade stores up trouble on both sides of the water. While a lucrative export market offers a crucial avenue to viability for European horsemen contesting inadequate prizemoney, it may ultimately contain the seeds of its own demise through the ongoing dilution of standards. And while purse money is plainly superior in the U.S., it surely can't supplant commercial breeding as the driver to sustainable investment. It's great that these imports can earn big on the racetrack, but they won't ever offer that home run in the breeding shed unless or until the Bluegrass changes its commercial perspective on turf blood.
Because right now you wouldn't give even a new Nasrullah (Ire) much of a prayer. We obviously wouldn't have had Bold Ruler or Nashua, and everything they have since entailed, if Kentucky breeders in the 1950s had been as insular in their outlook as their successors today.
The same farm that imported Nasrullah had, of course, already demonstrated the transferability of European turf blood through the likes of Blenheim (GB) and Princequillo (Ire). But if they could now bring even Frankel (GB) over the water, I wonder how low his fee would have to go before commercial breeders thought he would represent a feasible play.
I have regularly cited the same program's Flintshire (GB) as an especially flagrant example of the way things are today. Supplanted as Juddmonte's highest earner only by a member of the same family in Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}), he was nonetheless reduced to a final Kentucky book of eight mares before finally returning to Europe in despair. If Kitten's Joy and English Channel couldn't earn the indulgence of the market, with its inflexible prejudices on physique, then what chance did Flintshire ever have—even at a farm as far-sighted as Hill n' Dale?
It was John Sikura, of course, who gave Kitten's Joy a fresh Kentucky platform when his owners had become so incensed by commercial indifference that they very nearly put pen to paper to stand him in Europe instead. In the parallel world where that deal was done, however, it would have been instructive to see what kind of reception Kitten's Joy would have had over there. Even after finding a European champion in Book I of the 2016 September Sale for $160,000—and the tragedy of Roaring Lion only raises the stakes for Oscar Performance and others, in terms of their sire's legacy—David Redvers was still able to return to the same auction two years later and buy a G1 2,000 Guineas winner for barely half that price. European investors, it seemed, had learned little more respect for the horse than the local market.
Little wonder, then, if they remain still more unimaginative when it comes to the kind of dirt blood that has, historically, stimulated cyclical regeneration in the European gene pool. For another constant complaint of mine is that this has to be a two-way street, and this mutual schism will ultimately prove equally damaging to the Europeans.
As things stand, we must simply hope that the plucky few who remain more interested in fast horses than fast bucks—and, on any sustainable model, that must also mean horses competent to run hard and long—can respond to the crisis with exactly the kind of flair that already sets them apart. Those who did keep the faith with Kitten's Joy, English Channel and Get Stormy must now stick to their guns, and seek out their replacements.
They know where to look, after all. The farm that grieved Get Stormy, for instance, perseveres stubbornly with the same brand: teak-tough runners and/or aristocratic pedigrees. Nor must we neglect the potential contribution of stallions that might, in this perverse environment, have their commercial credibility damaged if unduly promoted as equally effective influences on turf, such as American Pharoah, Not This Time, Twirling Candy or Blame.
But on the weekend when Zandon attempts to renew the fleeting impression he made on the home turn in the Derby, in a compelling race for the GII Jim Dandy S., it would be remiss not to finish with a nod to the farm that may have marked its 50th anniversary with the emergence of a new Indian Charlie or Harlan's Holiday in his sire Upstart.
Because Airdrie's fidelity to the kind of genetic resources most urgently required by the modern Thoroughbred gives breeders of sufficient vision a chance to roll the dice on a son of Kitten's Joy receiving precious little oxygen even in this suffocated division. Divisidero won graded stakes across five consecutive seasons, accumulating 13 triple-digit Beyers, and was denied his third Grade I in the Breeders' Cup Mile by barely half a length. Critically, moreover, the four mares in his dam's third generation are (drum roll, please): Miesque, Lassie Dear, Height Of Fashion (Fr) and a daughter of Cosmah. Not too many Thoroughbreds could better that, anywhere in the world.
True, his studmate Preservationist comes extremely close, with Natalma, Weekend Surprise and Too Chic. Down the shedrow, meanwhile, Cairo Prince is proving quite a flexible influence, in terms of surface, while Airdrie is also showcasing a son of War Front—the one patriarch of our time to have maintained elite stature at the sales despite an aptitude for turf.
Obviously War Front now has a luminous new dirt prospect starting out elsewhere, in Omaha Beach, but attractive channels for his versatility include not just Summer Front at Airdrie, but War of Will alongside his sire at Claiborne—who, promisingly, were pushed to their absolute limit in his debut book.
War Front's own traffic is naturally being managed more conservatively than ever, as he enters the evening of his career. He has long been beyond the reach of most breeders anyway, but remember that he only owes his credibility in Europe to opportunity (thanks largely to John Magnier). And that's the one thing—opportunity—breeders need to be brave enough to give some of these young turf stallions now.
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