Scat Daddy

Flying Dutchmen Breeding & Racing's Banana Frost (Authentic) capped a promising worktab with a half-mile drill in :47 4/5 from the gate on May 31 and was sent off as the 7-4 second favorite to open her account at first asking Wedensday at Churchill Downs for a barn that is in 'flying' form. Off like a shot from the inside stall, the homebred quickly opened up on her rivals, covering the first couple of furlongs in :22.41. Making the running in the two path, Banana Frost was clear into the...

Pop quiz: what do 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify and Atomic Blonde, dam of last week's GI Preakness Stakes winner Napoleon Solo (Liam's Map), have in common? Both are by Scat Daddy, both were bred by the Gunther family, and both were raised at Glennwood Farm near Versailles, Kentucky. Justify and Atomic Blonde also have something else in common with a number of other Glennwood-bred and -raised Grade I winners such as Vino Rosso, Tamarkuz, First Samurai, and Stevie Wonderboy. "We do tend to raise some good chestnuts on this...

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...

He was still somewhat Gray Abarrio when first coming on the scene, but has by now been around long enough to develop the dazzling coat appropriate to his naming. So long, in fact, that there has even been time for White Abarrio (Race Day) to brighten up his pedigree, as well. Its fundamentals remain familiar: his freakish status in the resume of his own sire, who was exported to South Korea around the time White Abarrio was sold for $7,500 as a yearling; and, conversely, the early marker he laid...

'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' and Europe's Champion First-Season Sire of 2024 Sergei Prokofiev (Scat Daddy--Orchard Beach, by Tapit) will return home to Ontario to stand at stud at Ballycroy Bloodstock, David Anderson of Anderson Farm announced Tuesday. The news was first reported by Canadian Thoroughbred. Originally bred in Ontario by Anderson, the 9-year-old son of Scat Daddy was a $1,100,000 Keeneland September grad in 2017 to Coolmore's M.V. Magnier and he carried the blue and orange silks to victory at second asking to earn his 'Rising Star' status...

Those American prospectors sufficiently resourceful--in every sense of that word--to mine some genetic gold at the European breeding stock sales generally fall into two camps. For some, an expanding and ever more lucrative grass (and synthetic) schedule in North America will offset the commercial distrust of turf bloodlines in their homeland. But others may also recognize that Thoroughbreds are more versatile than we typically allow them to be, hoping to emulate the impact on dirt of bloodlines imported from Europe by outstanding breeders of the last century. Both agendas have...

Did you hear the one about the wrestler who opted for three foals and a submission? Understandably, Jeff Kerber feels a little conflicted about the "submission." In his youth, as Iowa's first high school wrestler unbeaten through four years of varsity competition, everything came down to what he could do with his bare hands. In lately discovering a flair for a second walk of sporting life, however, Kerber had to make a pragmatic concession to the economic odds against him. His entire Kentucky program comprised four mares, and one of...

One of the first horses on track in the penultimate breeze show ahead of next week's Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, a colt by Nyquist (hip 634) wasted no time setting a new high-water mark of :9 3/5, the fastest time of the sale thus far. Consigned by Ciaran Dunne's Wavertree Stables, the colt is a homebred for Cypress Creek Equine out of Paquita Coqueta (Chi) (Scat Daddy), a Chilean champion female sprinter purchased by Cypress Creek for $170,000 at Keeneland November in 2021 in foal...

First and foremost, let's salute Journalism (Curlin) and his connections for confirming that only feebleness in horsemen, not horses, menaces the Triple Crown schedule. In last weekend replicating his Churchill challenge to crop leader Sovereignty (Into Mischief), moreover actually moving up his numbers, the only horse to contest all three legs demonstrated precisely the prowess that breeders have long sought from this series. That deserves to be remembered once Journalism goes to stud. Obviously, the GI Belmont Stakes is not asking quite so exacting a question just now. By the...

John Gunther's Glennwood Farm bred and raised Triple Crown champion Justify, as well as Grade I stakes winners First Samurai, Mo Town, Stay Thirsty, Tamarkuz, and Vino Rosso. The farm's recent graduates also include Grade I stakes winner Leslie's Rose and Grade I stakes performer Grand Mo The First. The pair represented the operation in the 2024 Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby, respectively.    Tanya Gunther discussed Glennwood's 2025 mating plans, as well as hopes for new stallion Stage Raider, a half-brother to Justify, who begins his stud career this...

Whether you consider it just a random squeaking of the hamster wheel, or evidence of some latent order awaiting our discovery, these Thoroughbreds certainly know how to make us stop and think about the strange operation of life. Last Friday it was announced that Miss Macy Sue (Trippi) had died at 22. The very next day, her son Liam's Map produced a Derby contender in GIII Holy Bull Stakes winner Burnham Square. The 20 starting points banked there, moreover, matched those earned two weeks previously in the GIII Lecomte Stakes...

Stakes sire Seahenge will stand at Haras de Tierce in 2025, Jour de Galop reported on Tuesday. The son of Scat Daddy will command a fee of €3,500. Previously located at Haras de la Haie Neuve, Seahenge will join Taj Mahal (Ire) and Nerium (Ire) at the stud. The 9-year-old is the sire of listed winners Chic Colombine (Fr) and Winter Pudding (Fr). Currently standing on Southern Hemisphere time in Argentina, Seahenge has several South American Classic winners among his progeny, as well as several winners in the National Hunt...