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Ari's Mona (USA)

1947 – c. 1959

Kings Blue (USA) x Arianna (USA), by Whiskaway (USA)

Family 12-b*

One of the more undistinguished winners of the Kentucky Oaks, Ari's Mona was hardy but not particularly classy. Her broodmare career was only a modest improvement, although in fairness to her, she was hampered as a producer both by a short production career and by being put to indifferent sires for all but her first (and most successful) mating.


Race record

65 starts, 10 wins, 10 seconds, 6 thirds, US$56,390


1949:
  • 2nd Hialeah Juvenile Stakes (USA, 3FD, Hialeah)

1950:
  • Won Kentucky Oaks (USA, 8.5FD, Churchill Downs; new track record 1:43-2/5)
  • 2nd Jasmine Stakes (USA, 6FD, Hialeah)


As an individual

A black, Ari's Mona was a speedy mare who preferred running on or near the lead and just lasted to win the Oaks after being allowed to set her own pace throughout.


As a producer

Ari's Mona produced four foals, all of which started and won. The best of them was the 1955 gelding Little Fitz (by Crafty Admiral), winner of the 1960 Michigan Mile and One-Sixteenth Handicap and five other stakes races.



Connections

Ari's Mona was bred, owned and trained by John. C. Hauer, who bred or co-bred (with his wife) all four of the mare's foals. William Boland was her jockey for her Kentucky Oaks score.



Pedigree notes

Ari's Mona is outcrossed through five generations. A daughter of the useful Midwestern sprinter Kings Blue (by Blue Larkspur), she was the only foal of any significance produced from Arianna, one of only two winners from six foals produced by Applaud. Applaud, whose sire Cherokee (by Sweep) was a juvenile stakes winner, was in turn produced from Applause (by Royal Flush III), another generally undistinguished mare but a half sister to 1917 Spinaway Stakes winner Olive Wood (by The Manager).

*The tail-female line to which Ari's Mona belongs traditionally has been traced to a mare foaled in the early to mid-1760s by Jack of Diamonds out of Diana, a 1754 mare by the Cullen Arabian who is considered to be the foundation mare of Bruce Lowe family 12-b. However, modern research into mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is passed only through the direct female line, indicates that an error occurred in the recorded female line somewhere between Diana and an unnamed daughter of imported Tranby who was foaled in 1835. 
Adding to the confusion, a second line of descent erroneously attributed to Diana also traces to a daughter of Jack of Diamonds who cannot be either identical to or a full sister of the mare who is the ancestor of Ari's Mona because the two’s known descendants have different mtDNA haplotypes.


Books and media

Ari's Mona is profiled in Chapter 8 of Avalyn Hunter's American Classic Pedigrees 1914-2002 (2003, Eclipse Press).



Last updated: October 27, 2024
© 2014-2025 by Avalyn Hunter. All rights reserved. Contributors' materials remain the property of the copyright owners and are used by permission. For information regarding use or licensure of photographs, please contact the copyright holder.

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