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Mares on Monday: Blitey Takes Flight in Malibu Stakes

12/27/2021

For every colt that makes a stunning debut and goes on to bigger things, there are a dozen that make similarly stunning debuts and do not. Even among those that step up with a similarly impressive allowance win in their next outing, many will not live up to their early promise. Flightline will not be among that number. After flashing brilliance in winning his first two starts by a combined 26 lengths, the son of Tapit stepped up to Grade 1 company in the RUNHAPPY Malibu Stakes with such high regard that Flavien Prat chose to ride him instead of two-time Grade 1 winner Dr. Schivel. Prat was not mistaken, and neither were any of the bettors who made Flightline a 2-5 favorite. At the wire, Flightline was on cruise control and all alone, 11½ lengths ahead of his nearest pursuer.

At this point, Flightline's potential appears nearly limitless, not least because of his pedigree. He is a descendant of Ogden Phipp's matriarch Blitey, whose family was actually represented by two graded stakes winners on December 26 thanks to Queen Goddess's win in the American Oaks (downgraded to USA-G2 after coming off the turf).

Flightline's branch of the family descends from Blitey's daughter Fantastic Find (by Mr. Prospector). One of Blitey's three Grade 1 winners, Fantastic Find scored her top-level laurels in the 1990 Hempstead Handicap and placed in three more Grade 1 races during her career. Adding to her accomplishments, Fantastic Find produced the good steeplechaser Tax Dodge (by Dynaformer); Freedom of Speech (by Danzig), dam of 2005 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes (USA-G2) winner T. D. Vance (by Rahy); Indy Pick (by A.P. Indy), dam of multiple Grade 3 winner Optimizer (by English Channel); Grand Gala (by Dixieland Band), second dam of Argentine Group 3 winner Doña True; and, best of all, Finder's Fee (by Storm Cat), winner of the 1999 Matron Stakes (USA-G1) and 2000 Acorn Stakes (USA-G1).

Finder's Fee produced only six foals, and none of them lived up to the standards previously set by the family. The best of the six was listed-placed Receipt (by Dynaformer), who started getting things back on track with her daughter Feathered. Sired by Indian Charlie, Feathered won the 2015 Edgewood Stakes (USA-G3) and placed in three Grade 1 events at 2 and 3. Flightline is her second foal and second winner, and Feathered has since produced the unraced Pioneerof the Nile 2-year-old Voron (now exported to Russia), the Tapit yearling Olivier, and the 2021 Curlin colt Eagles Flight. She was bred to Into Mischief for 2022.

With three Belmont Stakes (USA-G1) winners to his credit, Tapit is already well proven as a horse that can get staying runners in the North American scheme of things, and with stamina influence Dynaformer sandwiched between matings to the speedier Indian Charlie and Storm Cat along Flightline's dam line, the colt indeed appears to be one of those horses who could be anything. Having already established himself as a gifted sprinter, if Flightline can stay sound and has the stamina to go with his brilliance, he may send the family of Blitey soaring to still greater heights.

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A Christmas Meditation

12/24/2021

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Over two thousand years ago, a baby boy was born to a poor peasant girl under clouded circumstances. In a tiny town overrun by travelers forced to come there so that a Roman census might be conducted, there was no room to spare for his little family, whether in a lodging-place for travelers or in the guest room of relatives. His first bed was a feeding trough for animals; his first clothes, torn strips of coarse cloth. There is no record of friends and relatives coming to celebrate his birth, as was customary among his people for a firstborn son; the only celebrants were rough shepherds, as poor as his parents, who came to see him and told of a vision of angels announcing the birth of this child as "a Savior, Christ the Lord."

His life was one of paradoxes. Prophets had foretold his coming and its circumstances; both his mother and his adoptive father had been given messages by angels regarding his birth. When he was taken to the great Temple of his people to be presented and to have the purification rituals of their faith carried out, a holy man and a holy woman both gave testimony that this child was the Redeemer and Savior long promised to his people. Yet he grew up as a poor child in a poor town, far from the centers of power. People knew him as the son of the village carpenter, the one that was born after a hasty marriage between his parents---a circumstance that was thrown back in his face as a taunt years later. Later he was the carpenter himself, and after that, a wandering rabbi with a band of rag-tag disciples. In the end, he gasped out his life on a Roman cross---a mode of death that his people regarded as evidence of being cursed by God. He was betrayed by one of his own followers, condemned by the religious elite of his own people, and executed on a trumped-up charge for the sake of political expediency.

His people were looking for a king. He came as a peasant.

His people wanted a savior from their servitude to Rome. He came as a savior from their sins.

His people longed for a military hero who would drive out their enemies and restore the glories of the kingdom days of David and Solomon. He came with the message of a kingdom in which all peoples would be welcome, but on God's terms, not theirs---a kingdom in which the last would be first and in which their assumptions about God's favor would be turned upside down.

His people wished for bread in a hungry world, and were ready to force him to kingship to get it; he refused a crown bought by miracles, and instead gave himself as the bread of life.

His people desired a comfortable sort of goodness; he shattered those desires by presenting a cross, and a way of life and faith that costs nothing to enter, yet demands everything.

Two thousand years have changed little---and everything. We still want food, but not the living bread that can feed a hungry soul. We want to be given good things, but we will not acknowledge our own emptiness and our helplessness to fill it. We want goodness, but not holiness or self-sacrifice. We want love, but not the Lord of love---not when we know instinctively that his love is not indulgence of our whims and desires, but a consuming fire that lawfully demands everything we are and have. We want peace, but not the rule of the Prince of peace. And so, we go on as we have for millennia: trying to be our own gods, our own love, our own joy, and our own peacemakers, and recycling the same dreary headlines of violence and greed and the lust for power.

Yet something changed at that birth at Bethlehem. Where we have tried to reach up and failed, God reached down. What could not be seized, he gave and gives through the child who was born at Bethlehem---the child who was born to die so that you and I might live as never before. Those who follow him have never been perfect; some have deeply shamed the name they proclaim; and even at their best, they have spread the news they proclaim with human faults and flaws attached to God's words of life and love. Nonetheless, it remains good news, and indeed the only hope we truly have; the news that the baby born to die became the Man who conquered death for us, whose blood washed away the stain of our sins, and who lives today as both God and man, King of kings and Lord of lords, so what whosoever will may be forgiven and made new.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Merry Christmas.

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Mares on Monday: A Sweet and Enchanted Eve

12/20/2021

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What a difference a year has made. Before being turned out for a year, Center Aisle had won only a maiden race from five tries, though she was Grade 2-placed. Since coming back, the 4-year-old daughter of Into Mischief has won three straight including the six-furlong Sugar Swirl Stakes (USA-G3) on December 18 at Gulfstream Park.

Center Aisle hails from the family of Enchanted Eve, a mare that overcame a relatively modest pedigree and a history of being mated to equally modest sires to do good work in the paddocks. Sired by Lovely Night---a stakes winner both on the flat and over jumps---out of the Quatre Bras II mare Poupon, Enchanted Eve was better than an empty stall on the track, running second in the 1952 Alabama Stakes and Ladies' Handicap, but she outbred herself by a wide margin with her second foal. This was Tempted, a daughter of the stakes-placed Hyperion horse Half Crown. Improving every year as she matured, Tempted was a stakes winner at 2, one of the best in her division at 3, and American champion handicap female as a 4-year-old in 1959.

Enchanted Eve bred a total of 12 named foals besides Tempted, and the other one to gain note on the track was Smart. Sired by 1955 Travers Stakes winner Thinking Cap (a high-class racehorse at his best but a poor sire), Smart won two editions of the Massachusetts Handicap and three other good stakes races and was the last major American racehorse descended from the male line of 1896 Kentucky Derby winner Ben Brush.

Tempted did fairly well as a broodmare, producing multiple stakes winner Lead Me On (by Native Dancer) and becoming the second dam of six stakes winners including Italian Group 2 winner Nacacyte and Grade 3 winners Adorable Micol, Bishop's Choice, and Tell Me All. Nonetheless, she was overshadowed by her half sister Witching Hour (by Thinking Cap), dam of Futurity Stakes winner Salem (by Cyane), 1982 Alabama Stakes (USA-G1) winner Broom Dance (by Dance Spell), multiple Grade 2 winner Pumpkin Moonshine (by Cyane), and Grade 3 winner Tingle Stone (by Cyane). Witching Hour is also the second dam of five stakes winners including Grade 3 winners End Sweep and Rousing Past. Another good producing daughter of Enchanted Eve is the Cyane mare Sigh Sigh, dam of Italian Group 2 winner Ice Cool and stakes winner Biricchina (both by Icecapade) and second dam of three stakes winners including multiple Grade 3 winner Soho Sunday.

Enchanted Eve's last foal was the Restless Native filly Instant Sin, whose only stakes winner is the multiple Grade 1-placed Grade 3 winner Misgivings (by Cyane) but who has founded a major branch of Enchanted Eve's family nonetheless. Her first foal, the stakes-placed Cyane mare Menage a Trois, is the second dam of multiple Grade 1 winner Lazy Slusan, Peruvian Group 2 winner Fazel, and Ecuadorian champion Azulako. Misgivings was Instant Sin's second foal and is the dam of English Group 3 winner At Risk (by Mr. Prospector), and Instant Sin's third foal is Lush Pad (by Cyane), second dam of 1996 Malibu Stakes (USA-G1) winner King of the Heap. Instant Sin is also the dam of Canoodling (by Cyane), dam of listed stakes winner Keiai Sakura (by Petionville).

The best of Instant Sin's broodmare daughters. Nimble Folly (by Cyane), produced four stakes winners: 1984 Arlington-Washington Lassie Stakes (USA-G1) winner Contredance (by Danzig), multiple Grade 2 winner Skimble (by Lyphard), Grade 3 winner Shotiche (by Northern Dancer), and listed stakes winner Old Alliance (by Danzig). Center Aisle is out of Skimble's Empire Maker daughter Specification, and other descendants of Nimble Folly include two-time Argentine champion Pryka, 1999 One Thousand Guineas (ENG-G1) winner Wince, two-time Pacific Classic (USA-G1) winner Skimble, 2013 Gamely Stakes (USA-G1) winner Marketing Mix, English Group 2 winner Eltish, and Grade/Group 3 winners Forest Gazelle, Half Glance, Menta Fresca, and Tranquil Tiger.

Nimble Folly and her descendants benefited by assignations with some of the best stallions around, an advantage not enjoyed by Enchanted Eve. Her gift and that of her daughters was the ability to breed up from the opportunities they were given, a rare magic indeed in the breeding world and one that led to a sweet outcome at Gulfstream.

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Weekend Trivia Challenge for 12/17/2021

12/17/2021

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Mr. Ed may have been the only talking horse around and the only one with his own television show, but at least one real-life Kentucky Derby candidate was so popular that he was given his own radio show in the weeks leading up to the great race. Who was he?

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Mares on Monday: Circling Back to a Great Lady

12/13/2021

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On December 12, Circle of Life staked her claim to the championship of the 2-year-old filly division in Japan by winning the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies (JPN-G1). The daughter of 2014 Japan Cup (JPN-G1) winner Epiphaneia uncorked a strong, steady closing run in the final 100 yards to win by a half length that was more decisive than the margin suggests.

While Circle of Life is the first Group 1 winner for her family in Japan, she is not its first good representative there or elsewhere in the world. She is a fourth-generation descendant of Great Lady M., best known as the dam of the great Lady's Secret but with far more to commend her to attention than that.

Sired by the speedy if erratic Icecapade---a good stallion who was bred on the same Nearctic/Native Dancer cross as Northern Dancer---Great Lady M. came from a branch of Bruce Lowe Family 22-d that traces back to the 1919 English matron Black Ray. While she is the ancestress of such standouts as Khaled, Mill Reef, and Blushing Groom, among others, Black Ray's family has never been one of those clans that seems to produce good horses by the cluster. Instead, it has had an unpredictable quality, with branches that have seemed dormant for two or three generations suddenly springing back to life with an exceptional runner, then subsiding until the next brilliant burst of vigor.

While Great Lady M.'s tail-female line had been producing a fairly sprinkling of minor stakes winners since the importation of Black Ray's great-granddaughter Trustworthy II to the United States three generations earlier, Great Lady M. was about as good as anything it had produced up to that point. The winner of seven sprint stakes races from ages 3 to 5, she was tough, speedy, and sound, with 14 wins from 58 starts. She did not win any graded races, but in fairness, relatively few graded sprint stakes were available at the time she was racing, and few of those that did exist were restricted to fillies and mares.

By the time Great Lady M. retired to the paddocks, breeders were beginning to recognize that the great Secretariat was not throwing the speedy types typical of his sire Bold Ruler and actually benefited from being mated to the same sorts of quicker mares that had done well with his maternal grandsire, Princequillo. Great Lady M. fit the bill well for this new image of the type of mare wanted for Secretariat, and she went to his court for her first mating in 1981. Lady's Secret was the result. Tough, small, and quick like her dam, but with Secretariat's powerful hindquarters and greater stamina than Great Lady M. had possessed. she was crowned the 1986 American Horse of the Year after a 4-year-old campaign in which she started 15 times---all in graded stakes races---and won 10 of them, including eight Grade 1 races. Bred to a succession of the best stallions in the United States, Lady's Secret was a disappointment in the paddocks but has since received a measure of redemption as the second dam of Japanese Group 2 winner Sound Barrier and the third dam of Japanese Group 2 winner Sound Chiara and Japanese Group 3 winner My Style.

Great Lady M. could hardly be expected to revisit the heights she had reached with Lady's Secret during the rest of her breeding career, and she never did. Nonetheless, she bred a surprisingly large number of daughters worthy of some note, and in the submerge/re-emerge pattern that has characterized her family for generations, she has come up with several top-level descendants in just the last few years.

Great Lady M.'s only other stakes winner was Missy Slew (by Seattle Slew), whose win came at 4 in the 1989 Philadelphia Handicap (a non-graded, non-listed black-type race) and who went on to produce the restricted stakes winner Vox (by Rahy). There is little more to be said for Missy Slew and her descendants, but the same cannot be said for Great Lady Sharon, Great Lady M.'s 1986 filly by Alydar. Great Lady Sharon won only one of her 14 starts, but she is the dam of stakes winner Baldy's Dream (by Green Dancer) and the second dam of multiple French Group 3 winner Slew the Red. Even better, she is the third dam of 2018 American champion female sprinter Shamrock Rose, winner of that year's Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint (USA-G1).

Following the birth of Great Lady Sharon, Great Lady M. visited Danzig and in due course produced another filly, Great Christine, who won one of nine starts before producing multiple Japanese listed stakes winner Believe (by Sunday Silence), in turn the dam of Japanese Group 2 winner Gendarme (by Kitten's Joy). Great Lady M.'s next important daughter is the 1989 Mr. Prospector mare Mary's Spirit, who won her only start. Like Lady's Secret, she did not distinguish herself in the paddocks but was later redeemed by her daughters, who made her the second dam of multiple Grade 2 winner Leah's Secret and Canadian Grade 3 winner Bear Tough Guy. Mary's Spirit is also the third dam of Grade 3 winner Nicodemus.

Bred to Mr. Prospector's fine son Fappiano in 1989, Great Lady M. produced One Great Lady. Yet another minor winner, she could not produce a stakes winner or stakes producer among her foals, but she is now the third dam of 2019 Gran Premio General San Martin (ARG-G1) winner Glorious Moment. Finally, Great Lady M. produced the 1994 Storm Cat filly Star My Life, the third dam of Circle of Life and also the second dam of Japanese Group 3 winner Trend Hunter.

While it has not yet been fifty years since Great Lady M. was foaled, much less since she died, her case does seem to support the contention that the importance of a given stallion or mare cannot truly be assessed until long after its breeding career is in the books. Great Lady M. is one mare who has stood the test of time rather better than most, and it can be hoped that her descendants will continue in that same vein as the circles of life continue.

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Weekly Trivia Challenge for 12/10/2021

12/10/2021

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This champion racehorse and sire was so volatile in disposition that he reportedly went through ten stud grooms in ten months before someone could be found to handle the stallion on a permanent basis. Name him, and name the man who finally won and kept the job as his caretaker.

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Mares on Monday: Gay Hostess Hatches a New Star

12/6/2021

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On December 4, Nest survived both a wide trip and a claim of foul to take the victory in the Demoiselle Stakes (USA-G2). While her final time for the 9 furlongs was an unimpressive 1:55.07---nearly a second and a half slower than the time posted by Mo Donegal in the Remsen Stakes (USA-G2) one race earlier on the same card---it was still a highly promising juvenile outing for a filly bred for stamina top and bottom and backed by a Classic-producing family.

Sired by Curlin, who is well established as a sire of two-turn runners that need some time for development, Nest is a full sister to 2021 Santa Anita Handicap (USA-G1) winner Idol and is a direct female-line descendant of Gay Hostess. A beautifully bred mare who was unable to race after injuring both knees in a fall while in training, Gay Hostess lived up to her pedigree in the paddocks. Her foals include three stakes winners: 1969 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Majestic Prince (by Raise a Native), a member of the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame; Crowned Prince, a full brother to Majestic Prince who was the English champion 2-year-old male of 1971; and multiple stakes winner Lovely Gypsy (by Armageddon). Majestic Prince brought further credit to his dam as a sire, his 33 stakes winners from 362 foals including 1979 Belmont Stakes (USA-G1) winner Coastal and multiple Grade 1 winner Majestic Light, a good sire in his own right.

As a dam of dams, Gay Hostess had her first great success with Betty Loraine, a stakes-placed daughter of Prince John. Betty Loraine produced only one stakes winner, but he was Caracolero, who reigned as the French champion 3-year-old male of 1974 after winning that year's Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby, FR-G1). Betty Loraine also produced unraced Betty's Secret (by Secretariat), whose first foal was Secreto, winner of an epic duel with El Gran Senor in the 1984 Ever Ready Derby Stakes (ENG-G1). In further removes, Betty Lorraine's branch of the family is responsible for Roi Estate, a five-time champion in Austria and Slovakia; Close Conflict, winner of the 1994 Gran Premio d'Italia (ITY-G1); Smooth Roller, winner of the 2015 Awesome Again Stakes (USA-G1); and Sioux Nation, winner of the 2017 Phoenix Stakes (IRE-G1).

Both Rollabout (My Babu x Gay Hostess) and Caronatta (Raise a Native x Gay Hostess) became stakes producers, but it is Gay Hostess's last foal, Meadow Blue, who is responsible for the other major branch of the family. A full sister to Majestic Prince, Meadow Blue never made it to the track, and her one stakes winner as a producer is Group 3-placed French stakes winner Nureyev's Best (by Nureyev). Nureyev's Best in turn produced 2005 Milady Breeders' Cup Handicap (USA-G2) winner Andujar (by Quiet American), but it was Nureyev's Best's Believe It half sister Really Blue who came through with another Classic winner in Real Quiet, winner of the 1998 Kentucky Derby (USA-G1) and Preakness Stakes (USA-G1) and beaten a nose in the Belmont Stakes (USA-G1). Meadow Blue is also the dam of Mining My Business (by Mining), dam of 2001 Fair Grounds Oaks (USA-G2) winner Real Cozzy (by Cozzene).

Andujar, in the meantime, did not produce any runners as exalted as Real Quiet, but she did not do badly as a broodmare either, producing Grade 3-placed stakes winner Abstraction (by Pulpit) and stakes winner Marion Ravenswood (by A.P. Indy). As the dam of Nest and Idol as well as stakes-placed Dr. Jack (by Pioneerof the Nile), Marion Ravenswood has already proven herself among the best broodmares produced by this family in recent years, and there may be more to come, as the rising 14-year-old has a yearling colt by Violence (named Lost Ark) and was bred to both Curlin and Quality Road for 2022 after going barren in 2021.

In the meantime, Nest now has 10 points toward a starting berth in next year's Kentucky Oaks (USA-G1). Bred on the same cross as this year's star filly Malathaat, there is every reason to believe that she will improve at 3 to become a Classic contender in her own right, adding further prestige to a family that has already given racing fans much cause for gaiety.

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Weekly Trivia Challenge for 12/3/2021

12/3/2021

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Who was the first racehorse to earn a Beyer Speed Figure of 130 or more, and what was the race in which he accomplished this feat?

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