Caulfield on Take Charge Brandi

STARLET S.-GI, $350,500, LRC, 12-13, 2yo, f, 
1 1/16m, 1:42, ft. 
1–TAKE CHARGE BRANDI, 120, f, 2, by Giant’s Causeway 
     1st Dam: Charming, by Seeking the Gold 
     2nd Dam: Take Charge Lady, by Dehere 
     3rd Dam: Felicita, by Rubiano 
($435,000 yrl ’13 KEESEP). O-Willis D Horton; 
B-Charming Syndicate (KY); T-D Wayne Lukas; 
J-Victor Espinoza. $210,000. Lifetime Record: 
8-4-1-0, $1,620,126. Werk Nick Rating: A+++ 
*Triple Plus*. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Click for the brisnet.com chart, the brisnet.com PPs or the free brisnet.com catalogue-style pedigree. VIDEO. 

As last week was quiet on the racing front, now seems an ideal chance to catch up on one of the Eclipse Award winners who had previously slipped through the Caulfield net. As American Pharoah will surely be adding to his pair of Grade I wins in the coming months, perhaps I should focus on Take Charge Brandi, the runaway winner of the 2-year-old filly award. 

This daughter of the ultra-tough Giant’s Causeway earned her award with a late-season campaign which erased all memories of the four straight defeats which had followed her winning debut. She posted courageous victories in the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, GIII Delta Downs Princess S. and the GI Starlet S., and this sequence, together with her illustrious bloodlines, suggest that she will continue to be hard to beat, at least for the next few months. 

That said, the list of the past winners of the Eclipse Award for 2-year-old filly doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in any winner’s ability to stay ahead of the game at three. Of the previous 30 holders of the title, only four succeeded in taking the Eclipse Award for 3-year-old filly. These four were Open Mind, Go For Wand, Silverbulletday and Beholder, with Beholder being the only holder of both titles since 1998. Altogether only 11 of the 30 enjoyed Grade I success at the age of three, with the Santa Anita Oaks being the richest hunting ground for them, supplying five victories. 

But as I said earlier, Take Charge Brandi has the bloodlines to remain highly effective. Although Giant’s Causeway was unbeaten as a juvenile, his Timeform rating rose from 119 at two to a thoroughly-merited 132 as a sophomore, when he raced 10 times between April to November. 

Since then this champion sire has notched up 25 winners at Grade I level, 20 at Grade II and 32 at Grade III in the Northern Hemisphere. Of these 25 Grade I winners, Take Charge Brandi ranks alongside Carpe Diem, Creative Cause, First Samurai, Intense Focus and Shamardal as one of six Grade I juvenile winners, but this isn’t simply a story of a son of Storm Cat being a powerful influence for precocity. Of the other 19, seven gained their first Grade I success as 3-year-olds, five as 4-year-olds, five as 5-year-olds and two as 6-year-olds. In other words, good Giant’s Causeways come along at virtually every age. 

Take Charge Brandi is the fourth Grade I winner to emerge from Giant’s Causeway’s extensive partnership with daughters of Seeking the Gold. All four are fillies, the others being Carriage Trail, Internallyflawless and Swift Temper, but this partnership also produced Cowboy Cal, a colt who twice went close to winning at the top level, and Noble Causeway, the GI Florida Derby runner-up who sired the smart Samraat. 

No wonder this route has become easily the most popular option where Giant’s Causeway is concerned. However, his record with these daughters of Seeking the Gold acts as a reminder that breeders need to think before they heedlessly follow nicks. When this cross had 38 representatives of racing age it boasted four black-type winners (11%). Now that the total of racing age progeny stands at over 100, the percentage has been watered down to 7% (admittedly still not to be sniffed at). Remember that no nick–no matter how statistically tempting it may be–is likely to work unless the mare’s conformation is compatible with the stallion’s. 

It is worth mentioning that the three previous Grade I winners from the Giant’s Causeway-Seeking The Gold cross all stayed at least a mile and an eighth. Internallyflawless scored over that distance in the GI Del Mar Oaks on turf, while Carriage Trail took the GI Spinster S. on all-weather. Swift Temper’s Grade I success came over 1 1/16 miles, but she had earlier landed the GII Delaware H. over a mile and a quarter. Of course this degree of stamina is to be expected, as Giant’s Causeway and Seeking the Gold both numbered a second in the GI Breeders’ Cup Classic among their achievements. 

Of course Take Charge Brandi’s free-running style may affect her stamina potential, but her bloodlines give her a chance of staying a mile and a quarter, if required. Her famous second dam, Take Charge Lady, gained two of her three Grade I victories in the Spinster S. over a mile and an eighth and she has already produced a major winner at up to a mile and a quarter, in the form of the Eclipse Award-winning Will Take Charge. This tough son of Unbridled’s Song will surely be much in demand in his first season at Three Chimneys Farm–his Florida Derby-winning half-brother Take Charge Indy covered 145 mares last year in his first year at WinStar. 

Between them, Take Charge Indy and Will Take Charge helped Take Charge Lady take the title of Broodmare of the Year for 2013 and the emergence of Take Charge Brandi suggests that Take Charge Lady’s legacy is going to be truly considerable. 

Not that she is finished yet. Besides being the dam of two potentially high-class stallions, Take Charge Lady has four daughters. Take Charge Brandi is out of the eldest of them–the $3.2-million Charming. Seven-figure prices are nothing unusual for this family and Charming’s 2013 War Front filly Take Charge Tressa made $1.25 million at Saratoga. The mare also has a late-foaled 2014 War Front colt. 

Next comes her Storm Cat filly Elarose, who made $800,000 as a yearling. Although she failed to win in nine attempts, Elarose’s bloodlines have earned her consecutive visits to Tapit, sire of her 2014 colt called Hippocampus. Then there’s I’ll Take Charge, a so-far-unraced 3-year-old daughter of Indian Charlie who cost Whisper Hill Farm $2.2 million as a yearling. 

Next in line is Take Charge Lady’s 2012 War Front filly, Conquering, so there are several more chapters still to be added to this story, which started when Take Charge Lady was sold for $175,000 as a yearling. She must count as one of the greatest bargains of all time, as she earned nearly $2.5 million on the track before selling for $4.2 million while carrying Take Charge Brandi’s dam.