Pedigree Insights: Graded Action Changes Derby Points Table

by Andrew Caulfield
   Saturday’s Grade II action at Gulfstream Park and the Fair Grounds resulted in some major changes to the standings on the Road to the Kentucky Derby points listings. Thanks to his Risen Star victory, Intense Holiday now heads the list with a total of 53 points, his nearest rival being the Fountain of Youth hero Wildcat Red, with 50. 
At this comparatively early stage, these two are well clear of their nearest pursuer–the Risen Star runner-up Albano on 24–but it remains to be seen whether the table toppers are true GI Kentucky Derby contenders. After all, Intense Holiday has won only two of his seven starts and snatched victory by only a nose, whereas Wildcat Red had just a head to spare over General a Rod. 
Then the question of stamina has to be factored in. Let’s start with Wildcat Red, a colt whose only previous attempt at a distance longer than seven furlongs had resulted in the only defeat in his first five starts (he also lost one of his wins in the stewards’ room). The trip was a 1 1/16 miles in the Fountain of Youth, but Shug McGaughey, trainer of third-placed market leader Top Billing, summed it up nicely when he said “the track was playing to speed and those two horses were out there and didn’t stop.” 
Wildcat Red is certainly an admirable colt, and he needed to show plenty of courage to add the Fountain of Youth to his clear-cut win in the GIII Hutcheson S. That double hasn’t been achieved since Fly So Free did so prior to his Florida Derby success in 1991 and Wildcat Red now ranks alongside such distinguished recent Fountain of Youth winners as Orb, Union Rags, Eskendereya, Quality Road, Scat Daddy and First Samurai. 
I can’t help wondering, though, whether he has the stamina to keep on winning as the distances lengthen. His sire, the now Louisiana-based D’Wildcat, did win over a mile on turf as a four-year-old, but his dirt successes all came over shorter distances. His finest victories came at four in the GI Frank J. DeFrancis Memorial Dash over six furlongs and the GII Churchill Downs H. over seven. 
Forest Wildcat, the sire of D’Wildcat, was another speedster. In a career spent entirely over sprint distances, this son of Storm Cat gained his two graded victories over six furlongs as a 5-year-old. Forest Wildcat proved less one-dimensional as a stallion, siring the occasional graded winner over a 1 1/8 miles, such as Forest Secrets, D’Wildcat Speed and Euphony, and he was even responsible for a Grade II winner over 1 1/4 miles in Snow Dance. 
D’Wildcat has yet to prove himself capable of siring similar winners. His previous Hutcheson S. winner, D’Funnybone, was a prolific Grade II winner at around seven furlongs and his other graded winner, Wildcat Lily, also thrived as a sprinter. It isn’t impossible that D’Wildcat will one day come up with something with more stamina. Another of Forest Wildcat’s fast sons, the G1 Prix de l’Abbaye winner Var, has a 1 1/2-mile group winner to his credit in South Africa, but he owes most of his success to sprinters, as well as to the miler Variety Club (an eye-catching Group 2 winner on his recent Dubai debut). 
The bottom half of Wildcat Red’s pedigree provides some hope that he could be an exception to the speed rule, as his first two dams are daughters of Miner’s Mark and Flying Paster. The Miner’s Mark mare, Racene, gained her only black-type when third in the GIII Yerba Buena H. over 1 3/8 miles, so she presumably inherited some stamina from her sire, whose finest moment came when he defeated Colonial Affair to take the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup over a 1 1/4 miles. Flying Paster, for his part, was a triple Grade I winner over 1 1/8 miles. 
This suggests that Wildcat Red could well be a contender in the Florida Derby. But the Kentucky Derby? I rather doubt it. 
Moving on to Intense Holiday, his victory is another reminder that Harlan’s Holiday’s death last fall at the age of 14 was a sizeable loss to the Kentucky breeding industry. Intense Holiday follows Poker Player and Ami’s Holiday as the third graded winner from Harlan’s Holiday’s 2011 crop and his sire’s total of graded winners now stands at 19 from his first seven crops. 
You may recall that Harlan’s Holiday failed by a nose in his bid to land the 2002 Fountain of Youth, but this tough colt made amends by taking the GI Florida Derby and GI Blue Grass S. Those victories saw Harlan’s Holiday narrowly start favorite for the Kentucky Derby and his trainer Ken McPeek later regretted not instructing the colt’s rider to take more advantage of the colt’s natural speed. Although he was never to win over 1 1/4 miles, Harlan’s Holiday went on to be placed in the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup, G1 Dubai World Cup and GI Hollywood Gold Cup, so it isn’t surprising that he proved capable of siring a GI Kentucky Derby third and GI Belmont S. second in his first-crop son Denis of Cork. 
Judged purely on pedigree, Intense Holiday probably has a better chance of being effective over 1 1/4 miles than Wildcat Red. His four great grandsires include the Kentucky Derby winners Affirmed and Unbridled and the eight stallions in the next generation include Halo, Exclusive Native, Fappiano and Caro, who collectively had six Kentucky Derby winners to their credit. Also among the eight are Honest Pleasure, runner-up at Churchill Downs prior to winning the GI Travers S, and Bold Forbes, winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont.