Andrew Caulfield’s Closer Look at Bayern
Sunday, Monmouth Park
WILLIAM HILL HASKELL INVITATIONAL S.-GI, $1,030,000, MTH, 7-27, 3yo, 1 1/8m, 1:47 4/5, ft.
1–sBAYERN, 118, c, 3, by Offlee Wild
1st Dam: Alittlebitearly, by Thunder Gulch
2nd Dam: Aquilegia, by Alydar
3rd Dam: Courtly Dee, by Never Bend
($320,000 2yo ‘13 FTMMAY). O-Kaleem Shah Inc;
B-Helen Alexander (KY); T-Bob Baffert; J-Martin
Garcia. $600,000. Lifetime Record: 7-4-1-1,
$1,077,680. Werk Nick Rating: A.
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.
Ask a breeder to draw up a wish list of attributes in a potential broodmare and the list would surely be headed by the ability to produce high-class winner after high-class winner. A well-nigh perfect breeding record would also be very welcome, reducing the headaches which so often plague mare owners. And, while we are at it, why not ask for a mare whose influence will be felt for generation after generation?
For a mare to fulfil such an avaricious wish list, you might think that she would need to combine a fine pedigree with a high quality racing record.
Well, the mare I have in mind–Courtly Dee–met only one of those criteria. As a daughter of 1962’s champion American 2-year-old Never Bend, Courtly Dee shared the same sire as Mill Reef, a brilliant racehorse and stallion, and the excellent Riverman, sire of 125 black-type winners. Never Bend also sired some notable broodmares, such as Anne Campbell, a stakes-winning filly who produced the Grade I winners Desert Wine and Menifee.
None, though, could hold a candle to Courtly Dee, a mare whose racing record was less than special. Although undeniably tough–tough enough to pack 33 starts into two years on the track–Courtly Dee managed to win only four of those 33 starts and earned less than $20,000. At one time she was claimed for only $15,000.
There was a ray of hope, though, in the fact that Courtly Dee’s dam Tulle was a 3/4-sister to Iron Maiden, a mare who found fame as the dam of the Kentucky Derby winner Iron Liege and second dam of Horse of the Year Swaps.
Needless to say, Courtly Dee proved to be in a totally different class as a broodmare than she had been on the track, to the extent that she was named 1983’s Broodmare of the Year. She also proved exceptionally fecund, producing 18 foals in the space of 19 years, and she could be forgiven that one barren year, as she didn’t foal her 1987 Alydar filly until May 12. Courtly Dee’s final foal, Amizette, was born when the mare was 24. No fewer than 15 of her 17 runners were winners but, more importantly, Courtly Dee proved herself one of the most successful mares since the introduction of the group/graded system just over 40 years ago. Her final tally stood at seven winners at Graded level, comprising the Grade I winners Ali Oop, Althea and Ketoh, the Grade II winners Aishah, Aquilegia and Twining and the Grade III winner Native Courier (who ranked among the leading turf performers of 1979). Three of them were by Alydar, two by Exclusive Native and one each by Al Hattab and Forty Niner. For good measure two of her other foals, Princess Oola and Press Card, finished second at graded level. In the midst of all this dazzling career, Courtly Dee drew a bid of $900,000 from Helen Groves and Helen Alexander e as a 12-year-old in 1980.
If there is a slight flaw in Courtly Dee’s record, it is that none of her sons became an important stallion. Her dual Grade II winner Twining sired a handful of Grade II and Grade III winners during his years at Wimbledon Farm, but he joined his sire Forty Niner in Japan as an 8-year-old. Fortunately, that slight omission has been more than compensated for by Courtly Dee’s unraced Sir Ivor filly Foreign Courier, who became the dam of the Group 1-winning sprinter Green Desert.
This son of Danzig has steadily developed into one of Europe’s most important sires of sires, thanks largely to Cape Cross, Invincible Spirit and Oasis Dream. It is worth pointing out that the latest Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings, from Jan. 1 to July 6, show Invincible Spirit’s son Kingman in joint-second place. Cape Cross, of course, sired the brilliant Sea The Stars, who is now as short as 5-2 to sire this year’s winner of the Arc, following the unbeaten exploits of Taghrooda and Sea The Moon. Sea The Moon ranks co-fifth on the Longine rankings and Taghrooda has surely now also earned a place among the leaders. Cape Cross’s name also crops up in connection with the co-ninth-ranked Australia, as he sired this dual Derby winner’s remarkable dam Ouija Board.
Take a look at the previous year’s list and you’ll find that three of the top mares all have Courtly Dee in their first four or five generations. In addition to the equal-top-ranked Black Caviar (dam by a son of Green Desert), they were Moonlight Cloud (by Invincible Spirit) and the Japan Cup winner Gentildonna (dam by Green Desert’s 3/4-brother Bertolini).
I don’t want to overstate Courtly Dee’s influence, as her appearance in the pedigrees of these star performers is either in the fourth generation, which includes 15 other names, or the fifth, which includes another 31. Even so, it must surely be a considerable achievement for one mare’s name to appear in the pedigrees of so many top performers.
Recent weeks have also acted as a reminder that Foreign Courier is by no means the only daughter of Courtly Dee exerting a lasting influence. The Arlington Oaks 10 days ago provided a third Grade III success for Aurelia’s Belle, a grand-daughter of Courtly Dee’s Grade II winner Aishah. Then two days ago, Aishah’s Grade II-winning sister Aquilegia figured as the second dam of Bayern, the progressive Offlee Wild colt who dominated the Haskell Invitational.
Courtly Dee was well placed to establish a flourishing female line, with 11 fillies among her 18 foals. A truly remarkable total of nine of the 11 have produced a graded or group winner. Such is the scale of their achievements that the brisnet.com catalog-style pedigree linked to the TDN’s Haskell result had to be considerably condensed.
? To give a little more detail, the nine daughters–in order of age–are:
? Princess Oola (dam of the Aus-Group 1 winner Azzaam)
? Foreign Courier (dam of the Grade I winner Green Desert)
? Embellished (dam of Grade II winner Seattle Dawn)
? Althea (dam of the Grade III winner Destiny Dance and the Jpn-G1 winner Yamanin Paradise, plus the talented fillies Aurora and Alyssum)
? Maidee (dam of Grade III winner Defacto)
? Namaqua (dam of Grade III winner Namaqualand)
? Aishah (dam of the Grade I winner Aldiza and Grade II winner Atelier)
? Aquilegia (dam of Group 3 winner Bertolini, as well as Bayern’s dam Alittlebitearly)
? And finally Amizette (dam of G2 Royal Whip S. winner King of Rome and Grade III winner Super Espresso)
One measure of the impact made by Courtly Dee is the fact that her 11 daughters were sired by nine different stallions, the only recurring name being that of Alydar, sire of Althea, Aishah and Aquilegia. So here she can surely be given much of the credit for this impressively long list of graded winners.
Now it is the turn of Courtly Dee’s granddaughters. Bayern’s dam is the third of them to produce a Grade I winner. Her predecessors were Aurora, dam of that successful stallion Arch and the Spinster S. winner Acoma, and Destiny Dance, dam of the Frizette S. winner Balletto. A fourth grand-daughter, Ambrosine (by Mr. Prospector out of Courtly Dee’s non-winning Damascus filly Barada), produced No Reason, winner in 2002 of the Japanese 2000 Guineas, which carried local Group 1 status. Barada also appears as the fourth dam of One And Only, this year’s winner of the
G1 Japanese Derby. There are also Group 2 and
Group 3 winners in Australia out of a daughter of Vireo, Courtly Dee’s minor winner by True Knight. That means that there are group or graded winners descending from every single one of Courtly Dee’s daughters. Now that’s what I call a blue hen!