Breeding Digest: A Classic Formula of Daddy and Daughter

Everybody knows Glennwood to be a paragon of its type yet somehow few farms seem able to treat it as a model. For one thing, John Gunther and his daughter Tanya have shown that ultimately there is nothing more commercial than putting winners under your mare, a rather inconvenient lesson for those who favor the just-add-water solution of remorselessly using one rookie sire after another. More fundamentally, however, it's pardonably difficult for anyone to emulate the sheer skill with which the Gunthers cultivate their families.

When Scat Daddy disastrously dropped dead at just 11, in December 2015, he was in the middle of a breakout that had just seen his fee for the following spring hoisted from $35,000 to $100,000. That year his stock put him in the top 10 in the general sires' list for the first time, with 21 black-type winners including five juveniles in graded stakes. But the Gunthers, ever ahead of the curve, had made sure that he left us something to remember him by.

Already that spring, a Scat Daddy colt had been delivered by their Ghostzapper mare, Stage Magic; while his final book had included another of the farm's younger mares, Volver (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}). Stage Magic's son of course became Triple Crown winner Justify; Volver meanwhile delivered a filly retained and sent into training under the name Atomic Blonde.

Stage Magic, dam of Justify, pictured at Glennwood in 2019 | Sarah Andrew

Volver had been purchased, with a maiden cover by Badge of Silver, for just $22,000 at the 2011 Keeneland November Sale. She had finished tailed off on her solitary American start after a career in France, featuring a couple of minor wins in the provinces, but the Gunthers recognised that her catalogue page barely suggested her family's true stature.

Yes, it showed her dam by A.P. Indy to have also been a minor winner in France, and that she had additionally produced a stakes-placed filly by Cacique (Ire). (This latter has since become dam of Gallic Chieftain (Fr) (Tamayuz {GB}), a Group 2 winner in Australia.) The catalogue also recorded that Volver's granddam Navratilovna (Nureyev) had not only been a highly accomplished runner–winner of the G2 Prix d'Astarte over a mile at Deauville–but was also half-sister to Maximova (Fr), a Group 1 winner at two and placed in two Classics. But there was only space to describe Maximova as a “black-type producer.”

Well, that said a mouthful. Maximova's foals include two Group 1 scorers, Septieme Ciel (Seattle Slew) in the Prix de la Foret and Macoumba (Mr. Prospector) in the Prix Marcel Boussac. And when Macoumba's first son, by A.P. Indy, derailed after winning his maiden, he was given a chance as a $3,000 cover by Country Life Farm in Maryland. His name, of course, was Malibu Moon.

Atomic Blonde | Sarah Andrew

Admittedly Volver proved a rather tepid producer and even the Gunthers seem to have lost faith: her most recent foals were bred by other interests, in Britain, to little effect. As things stand her only runner of any competence has been Atomic Blonde herself.

Campaigned on turf, she ran second on debut, won a maiden and an allowance before placing on her stakes debut and winning the 7.5f South Beach Stakes at Gulfstream. Something evidently went amiss when favorite for her graded stakes debut, as she then disappeared for six months and never quite retrieved the thread in three remaining starts.

On retirement Atomic Blonde was enlisted for the debut book of the Gunthers' homebred son of Frankel (GB), Without Parole (GB), who has quickly outpunched his fee in England (Group 1 winner from his second crop). But their son has cut little ice in a couple of maiden claimers, and Atomic Blonde's second foal, by Liam's Map, was meanwhile largely overlooked in one of the must-see consignments at the 2024 September Sale.

One of few to hang around for Hip 1081, late in the session, was Chad Summers. The trainer was able to get him for just $40,000, and last Saturday he saddled him to win a Classic.

Napoleon Solo duly carved his name eight lines below that of Justify on the GI Preakness roll of honor. Perhaps it is too much to hope that people will stand up to the trainers, and refuse to dilute the challenge of a Triple Crown so recently within the competence of a horse bred and raised the Glennwood way. But the premature loss of Scat Daddy is certainly being redressed not only by Justify, among others extending the male line, but also by his daughters.

Napoleon Solo is the second Classic winner inside 12 months, following Lambourn (Ire) (Australia {GB}) last summer in the G1 Derby itself, to draw on the reserves that helped Justify make all the running in the Belmont. Obviously Lambourn packed plenty of stamina from his sire, too. And Liam's Map is evidently a conduit for the Classic brand of Unbridled's Song–also grandsire of the 2024 Preakness winner, Seize the Grey (Arrogate)–as well as for the speed Napoleon Solo showed in melting the stopwatch in the GI Champagne Stakes last year.

Map Covers All Angles in Square

By an unmissable coincidence it was also on Saturday that the other outstanding product of Liam's Map and a Scat Daddy mare, Burnham Square, consolidated his transformation into a turf router when duly outclassing his rivals for the GIII Louisville Stakes.

Liam's Map | Sarah Andrew

Liam's Map is somewhat matching his celebrated half-brother Not This Time as a source of conspicuous versatility–condensed in Burnham Square himself, as previously a Grade I winner on dirt.

It would be easy to credit this trait in Not This Time to his sire Giant's Causeway, but the intervention of Unbridled's Song doesn't seem to have suppressed a similar flexibility in Liam's Map. In principle Unbridled's Song was most interesting as a match for Miss Macy Sue (Trippi) as a means of doubling down on Aspidistra (Better Self): that diamond lurks 3 x 4 and 4 x 4 respectively behind the sire of one, and dam of the other. Yes, there's some chlorophyll behind Unbridled's Song (he and his sire were both out of mares by French Classic winners) but it does seem as though at least some of this versatility may somehow be latent within all that Florida speed behind Miss Macy Sue.

Purely on the paper blend of Liam's Map and Scat Daddy, it would certainly be feasible for Napoleon Solo to try to emulate War of Will (War Front) as a Preakness winner who also proved capable of winning an elite prize on turf. An unlikely agenda, perhaps, in this day and age. In contrast, trying grass was a bet to nothing for the team behind Burnham Square, as a gelding. In this instance, admittedly, there was a ton of encouragement in the maternal family, with first, second and fourth dams all graded stakes winners on grass. As we've previously explored, Burnham Square represents a fourth generation of the exemplary Witham program, tracing to Frank Penn's purchase of third dam Listen Well (Secretariat) at the 1992 Keeneland November Sale.

As for Liam's Map, palpably in his prime at 15, his seven Grade I winners included one apiece in 2025 from each of his last three crops onto the track. He delivers at $50,000 whatever your program: whether you might retain a horse for the track, as was the case with Burnham Square, or need a rock-solid sale sire.

And while Burnham Square obviously can't expand his legacy, Liam's Map has one of the most exciting young guns around in Beau Liam.

Preservationist | Sarah Andrew

Preserving His Memory

Hopefully Beau Liam is now getting all the love from Airdrie clients that they withheld from Preservationist. I think I ended up not just founder and chairman but the one and only member of the Preservationist Preservation Society, and was suitably aggrieved first by his departure for Korea and then his tragic loss to colic. He left just eight live foals from his final Kentucky crop, but we certainly got a sample of what might have been at Laurel last week, with two sons making a successful debut in graded stakes company.

On the Preakness undercard Bring the Smoke, a $37,000 yearling, won the GIII Maryland Sprint on only his fourth start; while the previous day Peach Tie, wisely retained when she stalled at $19,000 as a yearling, took her tally to six-for-eight in the GIII Miss Preakness Stakes. Throw in Grade I winner Antiquarian's resumption in the GIII Westchester Stakes and Preservationist has assembled as many graded stakes winners in two weeks as Curlin and Uncle Mo have so far managed in 2026.