Caulfield on Upstart
Saturday, Gulfstream Park
LAMBHOLM SOUTH HOLY BULL S.-GII, $400,000, GPX, 1-24, 3yo,
1 1/16m, 1:43 3/5, ft.
1–@UPSTART, 116, r, 3, by Flatter
1st Dam: Party Silks, by Touch Gold
2nd Dam: Intend to Win, by Housebuster
3rd Dam: Intently, by Drone
($130,000 yrl ’13 FTNAUG). O-Ralph M Evans; B-Mrs Gerald A
Nielsen (NY); T-Richard A Violette Jr; J-Jose L Ortiz. $238,080.
Lifetime Record: MGISP, 5-3-1-1, $701,880. 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.
Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place, or so it’s said, but it occasionally does in the world of Thoroughbred breeding. Over the years there have been plenty of examples of full-brothers enjoying Grade I success as stallions, sometimes with two, three or even four brothers involved.
A by-no-means-comprehensive list in recent decades features the likes of Kris and Diesis; El Gran Senor, Try My Best, Compliance and Northern Guest; Sadler’s Wells, Tate Gallery and Fairy King; Galileo and Black Sam Bellamy; Dansili and Cacique; Kingmambo and Miesque’s Son; Giant’s Causeway, Freud and Tumblebrutus; Zafonic and Zamindar; Gone West and Lion Cavern; and Danehill and Eagle Eyed.
The above list illustrates how some of these stallions owed their place at stud almost entirely to the exploits of their older brothers, rather than their own achievements. Fairy King, for example, managed only one start, but that didn’t stop him siring winners of such famed international events as the Derby, Arc, Japan Cup, Eclipse S., Juddmonte International, Grand Criterium and Prix Ganay, as well as the 2,000 Guineas equivalents in Ireland and France. Then there’s Freud, whose record of one win from 12 starts compared poorly to that of his year-older brother Giant’s Causeway. But that hasn’t stopped him becoming an asset to the New York program, where he has sired Franny Freud and Giant Ryan.
This year we have the intriguing prospect of seeing some excellent performers by another pair of brothers, even though neither of the two managed to win at Grade I level. The younger brother, the GII San Pasqual H. winner Congrats, looks set for a fine year with a very large crop of 3-year-olds. This crop, which earned Congrats fourth place among 2014’s sires of 2-year-olds, is the first sired by Congrats after his freshman sires’ championship in 2010, which earned him promotion from Florida to Kentucky.
Bearing in mind that Congrats himself didn’t record his first stakes success until he was four and his first graded victory until he was five, there is surely good reason to expect his 2012 crop to build on its fine start, which it owed to the likes of Top Decile, Jacaranda, Temper Mint Patty, Pangburn and Tulira’s Star. Congrats also has a sizeable number of 2015 2-year-olds to add to his armory.
Congrats’ brother, of course, is Flatter, who has his largest crops of 2- and 3-year-olds on the track in 2015, with each crop numbering around 100 live foals. The 3-year-old crop has already made its mark via Upstart, the ridgeling who gained a well-deserved first graded success in the GII Holy Bull S. three days ago. I say well deserved because Upstart had ended his juvenile season with two fine efforts at Grade I level.
The 3-year-olds were conceived in 2011, after Flatter had enjoyed graded stakes success in 2010 with Apart, Mad Flatter and Tar Heel Mom. This trio had been sired when Flatter’s fee was a very modest $5,000. Even so, Claiborne asked only $7,500 for Flatter’s services in 2011, but then another of his $5,000 foals, Flat Out, showed what he was capable of during 2011, notably taking the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup. As a result, Flatter’s current juveniles are off a fee of $15,000 and he will shortly start his third consecutive season at a fee of $20,000. The chances are, then, that Flatter’s profile will continue to rise as his higher-priced crops reach the track. Another indication of the industry’s growing respect for Flatter is the $2,350,000 paid for his smart daughter Taris last November.
Flatter’s progress means that Claiborne is still reaping rewards from the $1,025,000 which Seth Hancock invested in Flatter’s second dam, Wild Applause, at the Rokeby dispersal in 1992. That price was enough to place Wild Applause third among the year’s highest-priced broodmares, with top place occupied by her $1.1-million half-sister Glowing Honor. You probably won’t need me to remind you that this female line traces to La Troienne, via such accomplished producers as Big Hurry, Searching and Glowing Tribute.
Claiborne received an instant dividend in the form of the Forty Niner colt which Wild Applause was carrying at the time. Named Roar, he enjoyed Grade II and Grade III success as a 3-year-old and he later became the broodmare sire of Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra. Wild Applause later boosted her total of graded stakes winners to four when her A.P. Indy filly Yell landed the GII Davona Dale S. and GIII Raven Run S. in 2003.
Wild Applause’s Mr. Prospector filly Praise had also visited A.P. Indy, to produce Flatter in 1999 and Congrats in 2000.
As I reviewed Flatter’s racing career less than a year ago in my notes on Kobe’s Back, I won’t repeat myself here. Suffice to say that injury restricted Flatter to only six starts. Although he was good enough to win four of them, he was retired without a stakes victory to his name (and before Congrats had produced his best efforts), so his appeal rested largely with his illustrious bloodlines. It was surely in his favour that he represented the same cross as Claiborne’s Pulpit, who had shown considerable promise with his first few crops. The cross had also produced 2003’s Horse of the Year Mineshaft and Malibu Moon, who had highlighted his potential by siring Perfect Moon in his first crop.
Several of Flatter’s best progeny, including Flat Out and Tar Heel Mom, have flourished well after the age of three, which suggests that Upstart will continue to progress. There’s also reason to think that he has every chance of being suited by longer distances than 1 1/16 miles, as his grandsires are the GI Belmont S. winners A.P. Indy and Touch Gold. The best winner so far out of a Touch Gold mare is Emollient, twice a Grade I winner over a mile and a quarter.
It is also encouraging that Upstart’s third dam, the stakes-winning sprinter Intently, was a daughter of Drone, a stallion also responsible for the dams of the GI Kentucky Derby winners Grindstone and Charismatic (as well as the dams of the European superstar Dancing Brave and that remarkable filly Princess Rooney).
That said, Upstart’s pedigree is a blend of stamina and speed, with his four great-grandsires including a couple of top sprinters in Mr. Prospector and Housebuster (sire of Upstart’s second dam, the sprinter Intend To Win). His pedigree is therefore probably not that of a mile-and-a-half contender, but Upstart is unlikely to experience any stamina problems on the road to Churchill Downs.