Breeding Digest

All those so avid to see how Flightline will fare in his second career should surely be gratified if he can prove as effective as the last champion to enter stud with anything approaching his freakish reputation. Two new stakes winners last Saturday, one on either coast, took Justify past 50 from four crops. (His fifth, at this point, having barely entered the fray.) One, GIII Summertime Oaks winner Mizumi, became his 24th graded stakes scorer in the Northern Hemisphere; among which 10 have scored at the highest level, including...

After a weekend that flashed one talent after another, like a many-sided jewel rotating in the sun, it's hard to single out a dominant facet. But having previously explored the backgrounds of Golden Tempo (Curlin) and Nysos (Nyquist), let's start with the breakout performance of Englishman (Maxfield), author of a 115 Beyer in the GI Woody Stephens Stakes. And actually this horse shares an important glint of brilliance with the other pair. Because Golden Tempo, the second consecutive Derby/Belmont winner out of a daughter of Bernardini, shares his damsire not...

She was claimed for $5,000 out of a race in which she bled badly. Yet here we are, 75 years later, celebrating Iltis (War Relic) as founder of a dynasty freshly decorated, coast to coast, on consecutive weekends. The moment of alchemy for Iltis was the transfer early in her breeding career to Ocala Stud, where a remarkable stallion, Rough'n Tumble, and the still more remarkable O'Farrell family were together putting Florida in the Thoroughbred map. A first date between Iltis and Rough'n Tumble produced My Dear Girl, as leading...

Having last week celebrated a first GI Kentucky Derby winner carrying the venerable black-and-cherry silks of the Phipps family, today we remind ourselves that the man who postponed that moment for 37 years has since built an iconic legacy of his own. In thwarting Easy Goer with Sunday Silence, in 1989, Arthur B. Hancock III secured parallel boons for the modern breed. One, of course, required the agency of those far-sighted Japanese breeders who made Sunday Silence one of its most vital influences. But the other is Hancock's own farm,...

Every dogmatist will have his day. Overall, however, our sport is too variable and unpredictable to sustain inflexible rules. As an old school type, admittedly, it's hard to resist treating Golden Tempo (Curlin)-culmination of a multi-generational breed-to-race project-as a reproof to those who breed horses to stand on a dais, rather than in the winner's circle. After all, the Phipps program is no longer as extensive as when it acquired his sixth dam, champion Lady Pitt (Sword Dancer), in 1969. So a GI Kentucky Derby winner in its centenary year...

We know that the majority of stallions, in this day and age, get their biggest and best books precisely when we know least about their competence. But the other side of the same coin is that very few breeders stick around should a stallion fail to seize that first, fleeting opportunity. Just as well, then, that a historically underachieving group of rookies has got its act together with its maturing first crop, to the extent that four have managed to get a son into the GI Kentucky Derby gate. Collectively,...

Well, he's not going to give it up without a fight. Yes, of course the whole narrative is random: he can hardly sit the boys down, tell them to get out there and remind everyone who's boss. But however unwittingly, Into Mischief has certainly obliged us with a dramatic and immediate response to the first serious test of his monopoly since claiming a first general sires' title in 2019. It has been clear for a while that the eventual succession was likely to concern Not This Time and Gun Runner,...

I daresay that plenty of people who invest in bloodstock also like to play "emerging" markets. Both, after all, are notoriously volatile environments, where assets seem to spend at least as much time "submerging." As such we must applaud Klaravich Stables for the naming of the GII Louisiana Derby winner. Strictly they have taken an opportunity overlooked in Wild Empress, the dam of Emerging Market (Candy Ride {Arg}): she was by Empire Maker out of a Seeking the Gold mare named Trappings. And, being at one remove, I guess their...

Rome was not built in a day. So at a time when Derby dreams can only be maintained by one horse dashing those of several others, let's celebrate a revival that should give hope to any now finding themselves obliged to retreat and regroup. This time last year Built (Hard Spun) was slithering down the sophomore pyramid. He had started out thrashing a smart horse in the Gun Runner Stakes, but each of the three subsequent Fair Grounds trials went worse. He did make Churchill on the first Saturday in...

By now, no doubt, it must be among my most wearily familiar complaints. Only last week, in fact, I was again lamenting the days when old-school trainers would start Classic campaigns round one turn, gaining sharpness and conditioning without entering a stress zone. Nowadays those benefits are forfeited by the twin imperatives of hiding horses in their stalls, even as they need GI Kentucky Derby points. Those points being unavailable in sprints, the defining test of the American Thoroughbred has duly been shorn of raw speed. Other traditionalists presumably shared...

Horses obviously derive no comfort from the legacy they might leave. A stallion's reproductive ardor is presumably driven sooner by the means than the ends! In our own case, on the other hand, foreknowledge of mortality allows us to think about legacy. Racehorse trainers, for instance, can impart horsemanship to the next generation; or disclose, in horses, a genetic prowess that may have remained undisturbed in less skilled hands. Everyone intimate with her quirks is unanimous that Zenyatta (Street Cry {Ire}) could easily have slipped through the cracks in a...

I've never understood this business of Dry January--the one month when those of us who take a glass of cheer are most grateful for a little respite from the dark and cold. Okay, maybe not a problem in California, but those of you battling all that snow and ice will surely see the merit of Dry February instead. It's shorter, for a start; and ends with the days lengthening and spring tangibly in the air. It's perfectly natural, however, for stallions to have a dry January. Certainly nobody will be...