Caulfield on The Wow Signal

Sunday, Deauville, France 
DARLEY PRIX MORNY-G1, €350,000, DEA, 8-24, 2yo, c/f, 6fT, 1:11.93, vsf. 
1–THE WOW SIGNAL (IRE), 126, c, 2, by Starspangledbanner (Aus) 
     1st Dam: Muravka (Ire), by High Chaparral (Ire) 
     2nd Dam: Tabdea, by Topsider 
     3rd Dam: Madame Secretary, by Secretariat 
(€13,000 yrl ‘13 TATIRE; £50,000 2yo ‘14 
ASCAPR). O-Al Shaqab Racing; B-Mrs T Stack (IRE); 
T-John Quinn; J-Frankie Dettori; €199,990. Lifetime 
Record: GSW-Eng, 3 starts, 3 wins, €286,660. Werk 
Nick Rating: B+. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. 
Click for the Racing Post result or the free brisnet.com catalogue-style pedigree. Equidia VIDEO. 
By a strange coincidence, the weekend action in Britain featured three horses whose stallion careers had to be halted because they were proving sub-fertile. They experienced mixed fortunes on Saturday. Caspar Netscher, a four-time group winner who retired to Morristown Lattin Stud at the end of 2012, finished only seventh in a listed race at Newmarket, suffering his seventh consecutive defeat since his comeback. The same race also featured Reckless Abandon, one of the best juveniles of 2012 who retired to Kildangan Stud at the end of last year. This son of Exchange Rate made a very encouraging return in finishing a half-length third. He could well be winning again next time out, in the same way that the triple Group 1 winner Al Kazeem landed Saturday’s G3 Winter Hill S. on his second start back. 
The door hasn’t been closed on Al Kazeem’s stallion career, as his owner John Deer hopes eventually to stand the son of Dubawi at his Oak Grove Stud. After all, the 6-year-old reportedly got around 25 mares in foal. 
Owners of these in-foal mares must be hoping that the same sort of spectacular success awaits Al Kazeem as is being enjoyed by Starspangledbanner, another sub-fertile horse who was returned to training. This son of Choisir was off the track for nearly two years, which no doubt goes a long way towards explaining why his 2012 Timeform rating of 115 fell well short of his figure of 128 in 2010. That was the year that Starspangledbanner reproduced his excellent Australian form to take both the G1 Golden Jubilee and G1 July Cup. 
Starspangledbanner sired 33 foals in his first season. Inevitably horses with this type of problem find it harder to attract mares in their second season, if the stallion owner is prepared to persevere, and the Return of Mares states that he covered only 14 mares, for seven colts and four fillies. Two of these are in this week’s Doncaster Premier Sale, then there are three in Goffs’ Orby Sale and another in Book 1 of Tattersalls’ October Yearling Sale. 
In between these two seasons at Coolmore in Ireland, Starspangledbanner stood at A$44,000 in Australia, where he covered 116 mares. Unfortunately only 31 of them produced a live foal. However the Rosemont Stud in Victoria was prepared to give him a second chance after his racecourse comeback came to an end, no doubt because he was foaled and raised there. He covered 51 mares in 2013 at the reduced fee of A$16,500, and reportedly got 24 in foal. He will again be in action at Rosemont this year and he is to return to Coolmore for 2015. 
Starspangledbanner’s continued stallion career is demanding plenty of dedication and hard work from the Rosemont team, but at least they now know that they stand a good chance of being rewarded with a talented racehorse. 
Fourteen of Starspangledbanner’s Irish foals have raced and half of them have already won. More to the point, they include the colt The Wow Signal and the filly Anthem Alexander, who have proved themselves among Europe’s best juvenile sprinters of their respective sexes. As a winner of the G2 Queen Mary S., Anthem Alexander had to give three pounds to her rivals in last week’s G2 Lowther S. and in the circumstances was far from disgraced in finishing third behind her old rival Tiggy Wiggy. 
The Wow Signal, for his part, maintained his unbeaten record when he added the G1 Prix Morny to his success in the G2 Coventry S. In landing his first Group 1 success, he proved just too strong for the impressive Quality Road colt Hootenanny, who started favorite on the strength of his impressive listed victory at Royal Ascot. 
As Anthem Alexander is a half-sister to the very smart sprinter Dandy Man, the filly‘s future probably lies over sprint distances, but there are reasons for thinking that The Wow Signal has prospects of staying a mile. He was putting in his best work in the closing stages when he gained both his group successes and his pedigree also raises hopes that he could become a Classic colt. 
Although Starspangledbanner made his name as a sprinter in Europe, it mustn’t be forgotten that his Australian victories included an all-the-way success in the G1 Caulfield Guineas over a mile. 
Then there’s the fact that The Wow Signal’s dam, the unraced Muravka, is by High Chaparral, a top-class performer at up to a mile and a half. High Chaparral’s eldest daughters are only nine years old, so it is early days for him in the role of broodmare sire. However, another of his daughters is dam of Beach Belle, who didn’t have much luck in running when co-favorite for the G2 Debutante S. two days ago. 
One interesting aspect of Muravka’s pedigree is her 3×3 inbreeding to Northern Dancer. In producing a Group 1 winner, she is by no means the first mare with close Northern Dancer inbreeding to achieve much more as a producer than as a racehorse. Sadima, a maiden race winner with 2×3 inbreeding, produced the top performers Youmzain and Creachadoir, while Smala, a claiming winner inbred 2×3, produced the Grand Prix de Paris winner Chichicastenango. Another of the weekend’s high-class winners, the Japanese filly Harp Star, is out of an unraced mare inbred 3×3 to Northern Dancer. 
Tabdea, the second dam of The Wow Signal, was a listed winner over six furlongs at two and over a mile at three for Shadwell. The talent of this daughter of Topsider no doubt encouraged Shadwell to buy her dam Madame Secretary for $750,000 in 1989 and Shadwell immediately sent the daughter of Secretariat to a string of top-class stallions, including Lyphard, Danzig, Mr. Prospector and Diesis. The mare’s first mating with Mr. Prospector resulted in Ta Rib, winner of the 1996 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches. 
Tabdea’s best effort as a broodmare was Tolpuddle, who demonstrated that this family can produce good performers beyond a mile. Although Tolpuddle was by the speedy College Chapel, he was very useful at up to a mile and a quarter. Prevalence, another son of Tabdea sired by a sprinter, also stayed beyond a mile. 
This is the same female line as Gailo Chop, the French middle-distance gelding who was the subject of last week’s column. Gailo Chop’s fourth dam, Thoroly Blue, is the fifth dam of The Wow Signal. The Morny’s fourth dam, the T V Lark mare Ruby Tuesday, had a couple of talented sons in England. One, the Little Current colt Zero Watt, was a useful stayer who won at up to two and a half miles, whereas the other, the Shecky Greene colt Green Ruby won the six-furlong Stewards’ Cup.