On September 12, Kerry’s Kiss earned a “Win and You’re In” berth for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint (USA-G1) with a gate-to-wire score in the Princess Rooney Stakes (USA-G3) at Gulfstream Park. Now riding a four-race win streak, the 4-year-old daughter of 2019 American champion older male Vino Rosso has won at up to a mile and one-sixteenth but appears to have found a home in the sprint ranks, capturing her third straight stakes event and first graded race around one turn.
In tail-female, Kerry’s Kiss traces back to Susan’s Girl, a name not heard much nowadays but more than worthy of remembrance. A throwback to earlier racing traditions even when she was competing in the 1970s, the tough mare ran 63 times over five seasons and was out of the money only nine times, earning three championships along the way—and she might well have earned a fourth had injury not intervened. Only her inability to conquer top male rivals kept her from being considered among the very greatest of the great.
Foaled in Florida on March 23, 1969, Susan’s Girl was bred by Fred Hooper Jr., who had inherited both the filly (then in utero) and the filly’s dam, Quaze, on the death of his mother, Laura Hooper. The strapping bay had a pedigree typical for the program of Fred Hooper Sr., who cared little for equine fashion and bred a stream of stakes winners tracing back to his foundation sire, the speedy Olympia, while incorporating old American strains and experimenting with South American imports as outcrosses. The runner-up in the 1960 Kentucky Oaks, Quaze was by Quibu—a major winner in Argentina and Uruguay but an unknown in the United States—out of the Olympia mare Heavenly Sun and had produced four winners (including stakes winner Steel Pike, by Nadir) from four foals prior to being put to 1964 Belmont Stakes winner Quadrangle to produce Susan’s Girl. Later on, Quaze would produce 1974 Alabama Stakes (USA-G2) and Kentucky Oaks (USA-G2) winner Quaze Quilt to a cover by Specialmante, a son of Argentine champion Nigromante and the high-class California stakes winner Special Touch.
Fred Hooper Sr. bought then-unraced Susan’s Girl from his son for US$25,000 plus half her juvenile earnings, and both parties came out nicely from the transaction. Fred Hooper Jr. pocketed another US$75,242 from Susan’s Girl’s winnings as a 2-year-old, and his father got the best mare he would ever campaign. As Susan’s Girl ended up earning a grand total of US$1,251,668 during her racing career—making her the first female Thoroughbred to earn over US$1 million while racing solely in North America—Hooper Senior also made quite a good financial profit on the deal.
Susan’s Girl was one of those horses who did not need to take her track with her—or her trainer, or her jockey. She won coast to coast under all track conditions and on both turf and dirt. She won stakes races for seven different trainers and 10 different jockeys. She won from 6 to 10 furlongs, and excepting one season, she never made fewer than 13 starts per year. The exception was at 5, when she made six starts in a season interrupted by a fractured sesamoid, and she came back to make 17 starts at 6, earning her third Eclipse Award to go with the ones she had received at 3 and 4 as the best of her division. She won eight Grade 1 races, which would be very good even without considering that the graded race system wasn’t in place during her first two years of competition. Small wonder she was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1976.
Susan’s Girl had still more to give when she became a broodmare, producing two stakes winners by her multiple Grade 2-winning stablemate Tri Jet (by 1957 Futurity Stakes winner Jester, a son of Tom Fool, out of the Olympia mare Haze). One, Paramount Jet, won a listed stakes and placed in three graded events. The other, Copelan (named for Hooper’s good friend, Dr. Robert Copelan, who performed the career-saving surgery on Susan’s Girl’s fracture), was considered the second-best juvenile male of 1982 after winning three Grade 1 races. After training on to win the Fountain of Youth Stakes (USA-G2) and to place in two Grade 1 races at 3, Copelan took up his sire’s mantle at stud, turning out a high percentage of bread-and-butter winners leavened by a solid number of stakes winners. After earning US$594,278 on the track, he racked up over US$22.4 million in progeny earnings from the 327 starters out of his 382 named foals, suggesting that he was doing a good job of passing on his dam’s hardiness up until his death at the regrettably early age of 14.
Copelan was Susan’s Girl’s primary legacy to her breed, but her daughter Joyous Susan (by If This Be So, a stakes-winning son of Secretariat) did produce multiple stakes winner Outstander (by the Danzig horse Outflanker). Joyous Susan's daughter Dream Ride (by Grade 1 winner Honor Glide, by Honor Grades) produced multiple Grade 2 winner St. Joe Bay (by Grade 2 winner Saint Anddan, a sprinting son of Seattle Slew), and Dream Ride’s daughter Abuntia (by multiple Grade 3 winner Olmodavor, by A.P. Indy) produced Kerry’s Kiss as her fourth foal.
With a free ride to the Breeders’ Cup in the bag, one can hardly blame the connections of Kerry’s Kiss for taking a serious look at shooting for the moon. On speed figures, the filly still needs to step up further to compete with the best speedsters in her division, but if she can channel some of Susan’s Girl’s talent on the biggest day of her career, the moon might not be out of reach.
In tail-female, Kerry’s Kiss traces back to Susan’s Girl, a name not heard much nowadays but more than worthy of remembrance. A throwback to earlier racing traditions even when she was competing in the 1970s, the tough mare ran 63 times over five seasons and was out of the money only nine times, earning three championships along the way—and she might well have earned a fourth had injury not intervened. Only her inability to conquer top male rivals kept her from being considered among the very greatest of the great.
Foaled in Florida on March 23, 1969, Susan’s Girl was bred by Fred Hooper Jr., who had inherited both the filly (then in utero) and the filly’s dam, Quaze, on the death of his mother, Laura Hooper. The strapping bay had a pedigree typical for the program of Fred Hooper Sr., who cared little for equine fashion and bred a stream of stakes winners tracing back to his foundation sire, the speedy Olympia, while incorporating old American strains and experimenting with South American imports as outcrosses. The runner-up in the 1960 Kentucky Oaks, Quaze was by Quibu—a major winner in Argentina and Uruguay but an unknown in the United States—out of the Olympia mare Heavenly Sun and had produced four winners (including stakes winner Steel Pike, by Nadir) from four foals prior to being put to 1964 Belmont Stakes winner Quadrangle to produce Susan’s Girl. Later on, Quaze would produce 1974 Alabama Stakes (USA-G2) and Kentucky Oaks (USA-G2) winner Quaze Quilt to a cover by Specialmante, a son of Argentine champion Nigromante and the high-class California stakes winner Special Touch.
Fred Hooper Sr. bought then-unraced Susan’s Girl from his son for US$25,000 plus half her juvenile earnings, and both parties came out nicely from the transaction. Fred Hooper Jr. pocketed another US$75,242 from Susan’s Girl’s winnings as a 2-year-old, and his father got the best mare he would ever campaign. As Susan’s Girl ended up earning a grand total of US$1,251,668 during her racing career—making her the first female Thoroughbred to earn over US$1 million while racing solely in North America—Hooper Senior also made quite a good financial profit on the deal.
Susan’s Girl was one of those horses who did not need to take her track with her—or her trainer, or her jockey. She won coast to coast under all track conditions and on both turf and dirt. She won stakes races for seven different trainers and 10 different jockeys. She won from 6 to 10 furlongs, and excepting one season, she never made fewer than 13 starts per year. The exception was at 5, when she made six starts in a season interrupted by a fractured sesamoid, and she came back to make 17 starts at 6, earning her third Eclipse Award to go with the ones she had received at 3 and 4 as the best of her division. She won eight Grade 1 races, which would be very good even without considering that the graded race system wasn’t in place during her first two years of competition. Small wonder she was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1976.
Susan’s Girl had still more to give when she became a broodmare, producing two stakes winners by her multiple Grade 2-winning stablemate Tri Jet (by 1957 Futurity Stakes winner Jester, a son of Tom Fool, out of the Olympia mare Haze). One, Paramount Jet, won a listed stakes and placed in three graded events. The other, Copelan (named for Hooper’s good friend, Dr. Robert Copelan, who performed the career-saving surgery on Susan’s Girl’s fracture), was considered the second-best juvenile male of 1982 after winning three Grade 1 races. After training on to win the Fountain of Youth Stakes (USA-G2) and to place in two Grade 1 races at 3, Copelan took up his sire’s mantle at stud, turning out a high percentage of bread-and-butter winners leavened by a solid number of stakes winners. After earning US$594,278 on the track, he racked up over US$22.4 million in progeny earnings from the 327 starters out of his 382 named foals, suggesting that he was doing a good job of passing on his dam’s hardiness up until his death at the regrettably early age of 14.
Copelan was Susan’s Girl’s primary legacy to her breed, but her daughter Joyous Susan (by If This Be So, a stakes-winning son of Secretariat) did produce multiple stakes winner Outstander (by the Danzig horse Outflanker). Joyous Susan's daughter Dream Ride (by Grade 1 winner Honor Glide, by Honor Grades) produced multiple Grade 2 winner St. Joe Bay (by Grade 2 winner Saint Anddan, a sprinting son of Seattle Slew), and Dream Ride’s daughter Abuntia (by multiple Grade 3 winner Olmodavor, by A.P. Indy) produced Kerry’s Kiss as her fourth foal.
With a free ride to the Breeders’ Cup in the bag, one can hardly blame the connections of Kerry’s Kiss for taking a serious look at shooting for the moon. On speed figures, the filly still needs to step up further to compete with the best speedsters in her division, but if she can channel some of Susan’s Girl’s talent on the biggest day of her career, the moon might not be out of reach.
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