The Producers: Carrumba, Dam of Kentucky Derby Winner Golden Tempo

That must have been a good sandwich. It was certainly a memorable one.

Walker Hancock of Claiborne Farm distinctly remembers eating subs from Jersey Mike's one fall afternoon in 2021 with Daisy Phipps Pulito and Claiborne's farm manager Bradley Purcell in Claiborne's conference room. The three of them sat down over those sandwiches to hash out mating plans for the Phipps mares for 2022.

“It all goes back to some Jersey Mike's subs,” said Hancock with a laugh. “We did the matings for her mares for that following year that day. Obviously Carrumba was bred to Curlin in 2022 and produced Golden Tempo in 2023.”

Golden Tempo (Curlin–Carrumba, by Bernardini) kicked off his racing career last December with a 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' performance at Fair Grounds, added the GIII Lecomte Stakes in January, and brought a couple of educational thirds into the GI Kentucky Derby a week ago.

Back to those sandwiches and the mating puzzle in front of the team.

“Carrumba was a very good Phipps mare and we needed to breed her to one of the top stallions. The mare Clairiere was running at the track at the time and having a lot of success,” said Hancock. Clairiere, by Curlin, won multiple Grade I events, including back-to-back editions of the GI Ogden Phipps Stakes at Belmont Park.

“I went back and studied Clairiere's pedigree, her being out of a Bernardini mare just like Carrumba. We liked the cross and what we were seeing with Carrumba's foals. She had a Blame [a yearling at the time and since unraced] that was a really nice colt. We just thought Curlin would really compliment her well.”

Did he ever. Golden Tempo, a homebred in partnership with the Viola family's St. Elias Stable, went from last to first on the first Saturday in May, giving the Phipps family their second Kentucky Derby winner–following Orb in partnership in 2013–after generations in the sport and dozens of champions. The Phipps family has come tantalizingly close to Derby victory a number of other times, including a second with Hall of Famer Easy Goer in 1989, as well as winding up on the unfortunate end of the coin toss that determined ownership of Secretariat.

Carrumba | Sarah Andrew

While Golden Tempo is the second Derby winner for Phipps Stable and for St. Elias, who also co-owned 2017 Derby winner Always Dreaming, he is also one of a stunning number raised on Claiborne's storied soil.

“Eleven is our total,” said Hancock. “A magazine did a story last year about Calumet raising 10 Derby winners and we were tied with them, so I think we have the lead now. I can't imagine anyone else has that number. Many, many men and women over the years have contributed to that success.”

The Claiborne/Phipps partnership is one of the most enduring relationships in Thoroughbred racing. Hundreds of graded winners have been bred and raced by the Phipps family off of Claiborne's land. How many has Claiborne raised for the Phipps?

“We have a list of Grade I winners and I would have to imagine it's a huge number,” said Hancock.

He continued, “We couldn't have had the 11 Derby winners without an amazing group of clients for the last 100 years or so and the Hancock/Phipps relationship goes back well into those years. I'm so happy for Daisy, Ogden, and Mrs. Phipps that we can continue that success for them. It's been an unbelievable relationship and it's victories like this that make it even more special.”

Claiborne currently has 11 mares for the Phipps family, with Golden Tempo the sixth generation of his family to be foaled at the sprawling Paris, Kentucky farm.

“I believe my grandfather helped Mr. Phipps, Daisy's grandfather, privately purchase Lady Pitt in the late '60s,” said Hancock. “It goes back to Blitey, but this is the sixth generation.”

Lady Pitt, a Sword Dancer mare bred by John Greathouse and one of the best fillies of her time, was purchased privately by Ogden Phipps in 1969. Her best daughter was undoubtedly Blitey (Riva Ridge), who can only be described as a foundation mare as the list of her exceptional descendants would take longer to read than it took Golden Tempo to run in the Derby. Golden Tempo is just the latest feather in her cap, with another of her most recent headliners being Horse of the Year Flightline.

Carrumba trains at Saratoga in 2016 | Sarah Andrew

“I can remember the whole family since I was a little kid, that whole family going back to Blitey, although not Lady Pitt herself, obviously,” said Handock. “She predates me.”

And now, nearly 60 years after that inspired purchase, Lady Pitt's female line through Blitey gives Claiborne and the Phipps family another Kentucky Derby winner.

Winner of the 2016 GIII Top Flight Invitational Handicap and placed in seven more graded races, including the 2016 GI Ogden Phipps Stakes–won by the aforementioned Clairiere's dam, Cavorting–Carrumba came home to Claiborne in advance of the 2018 season to be a broodmare. Golden Tempo is her third living foal and first to the races.

“She always produces a strong, good-looking horse,” said Hancock. “I would say the yearling filly she has [by Liam's Map] is a little more feminine than her normal models and I think Liam's Map made her a little more refined.

“Carrumba is a pretty, big, strong, gray mare and Golden Tempo is obviously a big, strong horse, so he kind of got the best attributes from both Curlin and his mother.”

The current yearling filly was bred solely by Phipps Stable, while Golden Tempo and Carrumba's 2-year-old Nyquist colt were bred in partnership with St. Elias. Hancock said the St. Elias partnership is relatively new, with Golden Tempo's year being the first year the partnership was in place.

“I think Daisy was looking at ways to bring in partners and made a deal where if one of the Phipps mares had a colt, then they would partner with the Viola family on the colt. Daisy keeps all the fillies 100% Phipps,” said Hancock.

“That's how the deal has been structured for the last few years with all of the Phipps mares here on the farm. It was Golden Tempo and two other colts they did for that first year in 2023 and it's been that way for the last three years, but I don't know what it would be going forward. I certainly don't think they'll break up a good thing.”

Carrumba was barren to Good Magic for this spring, but is currently in foal to Gun Runner for 2027.

Carrumba at Claiborne | Sarah Andrew

“Putting a price tag on a Gun Runner colt out of this mare might be a little difficult,” said Hancock with a good-natured laugh. “I don't know how Daisy is going to do the funding mechanism in the future.”

Hancock has distinct memories of Golden Tempo.

“He was a great foal, a really good-looking foal. I remember as he grew throughout his yearling year, he got really awkward looking and he looked like two men in a horse suit. The back end never matched the front end and the front end never matched the back end. He was just a big, growthy colt.

“He had all the pieces there, but I remember he had this big head and these big ears and he was just like an awkward teenager,” remembered Hancock. “But we never disliked him. He always had the right frame. Toward the end of his time at Claiborne when we shipped him out to Barry Eisaman's, he started putting it all together. You could tell he was coming back to his form as a foal.

“That's one thing my dad has always said, when they start out good, even if there might be awkward times, they're usually going to come back to how they first looked. He was one of those that stood true to that.”

Golden Tempo joins a select list–going back to the 1930s and Triple Crown winners Gallant Fox and Omaha–of Kentucky Derby winners foaled and raised on Claiborne land. A young Golden Tempo frolicked in the exact same paddocks that a staggering number of previous Phipps family champions and Hall of Famers did. Hancock mused on how intertwined Claiborne's success has been with the Phipps family.

“The Hancock/Phipps relationship means so much to all of us here at Claiborne,” said Hancock. “They've been such a great part of our success. People–like their family–are the reason Claiborne has been so successful. It's really been a great relationship over years. Their success is our success and vice versa, so we're just happy to add another huge, monumental achievement to the long line of successes that's we've had together.”