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Mares on Monday: Everland Lands a Kentucky Oaks Berth in Bourbonette Oaks

3/25/2024

In 2022, a former claimer who was once taken for a US$30,000 tag ended up winning the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve—Rich Strike, who upset the big race at the second-longest odds ever (80.80 to 1). This year, it looks as though another former US$30,000 claimer will be in the starting gate on Derby Weekend. Her name is Everland, and thanks to her victory in the Bourbonette Oaks (USA-L) on March 23, she has 50 qualifying points for the Longines Kentucky Oaks (USA-G1), enough to guarantee her a starting spot.

Now 7-3-0-1 lifetime, Everland has won three of her last four starts and seems to be moving up at the right time. She has also shown the ability to overcome adversity, always a plus in what is likely to be a large and contentious Kentucky Oaks field, and she certainly has the breeding to continue her improvement, especially over longer distances.

Everland is from the final crop of Arrogate, who is responsible for two previous Classic winners in 2022 Kentucky Oaks heroine Secret Oath and 2023 Belmont Stakes (USA-G1) winner Arcangelo. Now the sire of 20 stakes winners from his 325 named foals, the gray son of Unbridled’s Song became a case of “what might have been” as a stallion after lighting up the world with his racing heroics during six months in 2016-2017. The American champion 3-year-old male of 2016, he ran down two-time American Horse of the Year California Chrome in the closing strides of that year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic (USA-G1) and also scored breathtaking victories in the 2016 Travers Stakes (USA-G1), 2017 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes (USA-G1), and 2017 Dubai World Cup (UAE-G1). His death in June 2020 after just three seasons at stud is looking more and more like a great loss to the Thoroughbred.

On the distaff side, Everland is the first foal of the winning Tapit mare Ever Changing, whose other foals are the unraced 2022 Caravaggio colt Chagall and a 2023 filly by American Pharoah. Ever Changing, in turn, is out of 2008 European champion 2-year-old filly Rainbow View (by Dynaformer), who trained on to win the 2009 Matron Stakes (IRE-G1) as a 3-year-old. Rainbow View was also second in the 10-furlong Nassau Stakes (ENG-G1) and E. P. Taylor Stakes (Can-G1) at 3, so there seems to be little reason to think that Everland will not relish the 9 furlongs of the Kentucky Oaks or even longer distances as she continues growing into herself. Adding to the family’s luster, Rainbow View is out of 2000 Del Mar Oaks (USA-G1) winner No Matter What (by Nureyev out of multiple listed stakes winner Words of War, by Lord At War), also the dam of 2009 Northern Dancer Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes (CAN-G1) winner Just As Well (by A.P. Indy), 2014 Dixie Stakes (USA-G2) winner Utley (by Smart Strike), multiple Grade 3 winner Winter View (by Thunder Gulch), and 2019 Winter Derby (ENG-G3) winner Wissahickon (by Tapit).

The biggest question regarding Everland is whether she will make the transition from Turfway’s Tapeta racing surface to the dirt at Churchill Downs, a question that will probably make her a double-digits long shot in the Oaks. If she relishes the dirt as much as her sire did, though, she may be in a position to win the first graded race of her career on the biggest stage of the spring.

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Mares on Monday: The Lady Is Good in Brazil

3/18/2024

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On March 3, Martin Luther King became the third Brazilian Group 1 winner produced from the mare Romany Queen, taking the Grande Prêmio Francisco Eduardo e Linneo Eduardo de Paula Machado (the second leg of Rio de Janeiro’s Triple Crown series) at Gávea. A son of two-time Brazilian champion sire Put It Back, a male-line descendant of the great Man o’ War, the colt belongs to an equally prestigious line of descent in the female line, which traces to Lady Be Good, a foal of 1956 who is still having an impact on modern pedigrees.

Sired by Better Self (a good son of Bimelech who had the misfortune to come along in Citation’s year) out of Past Eight, an Eight Thirty half sister to 1939 Suburban Handicap winner Snark (by Boojum) and 1933 Coaching Club American Oaks winner Edelweiss (by Chicle), Lady Be Good was bred by Gladys Mills Phipps’s Wheatley Stable. She was a good juvenile, winning two stakes races and placing in three more during a busy 12-start campaign but made only one start at three before ending her racing career.

Lady Be Good proved a treasure as a broodmare, producing four stakes winners among her 13 foals as well as stakes-placed Bold Example (by Bold Lad), who proved an important broodmare as did her stakes-winning half sisters Discipline (by Princequillo) and In Hot Pursuit (by Bold Ruler). Several more of Lady Be Good’s lesser racing daughters also became stakes producers, among them Impish.

A daughter of Majestic Prince, Impish won her only start, but the combination of Majestic Prince’s heavy body with Lady Be Good’s crooked legs did her no favors as regards a longer racing career and probably did not help her as a broodmare. Only seven of her 14 foals ever started, though all seven of the ones that did start became winners. The best of them was multiple Grade 2 winner Lay Down (by Spectacular Bid), and Impish also produced listed stakes winner Karly’s Harley (by Harlan).

I Pass, Impish’s 1978 daughter by Buckpasser, also combined potential with fragility, winning two of three starts and running second in the other. Bred to Mr. Prospector, she produced the heavy-topped but wickedly fast Mining, who numbered the 1988 Vosburgh Stakes (USA-G1) among six consecutive victories before ending both his unbeaten streak and his racing career in the 1988 Breeders’ Cup Sprint (USA-G1). Mining was only modestly successful as a sire but did number 1999 Grande Prêmio Organização Sulamericana de Fomento ao Puro-Sangue de Corrida-OSAF (BRZ-G1) winner Fast Mile and 1994 Ballerina Handicap (USA-G1) winner Roamin Rachel among his 29 stakes winners from 625 named foals.

Defer, Mining’s 1983 half sister by Damascus, never made it to the races but produced the minor stakes winner Defer West (by Gone West), dam of 2005 Honorable Miss Handicap (USA-G2) winner Forest Music (by Unbridled’s Song) and 2000 Sapling Stakes (USA-G3) winner Shooter (by Dehere). In addition, Defer produced three other daughters with stakes winners to their credit. The best of the trio was Defer West’s full sister Cabaret Queen, dam of 2001 Grande Prêmio Salgado Filho (BRZ-G2) winner Jimmy Hollyday (by Phone Trick), 2007 Grande Prêmio Presidente Emilio Garrastazu Medici (BRZ-G2) winner Onward Royal (by Royal Academy), and Group 3-placed Queen Cabaret (by Wild Event), in turn the dam of Premio Ensayo (ARG-G2) winner Quechua (by Pure Prize), a three-time champion in Singapore, and 2021 Grande Prêmio Roger Guedon (BRZ-G3) winner Queller (by Roman Ruler).

Romany Queen, the last of Cabaret Queen’s daughters, is by the legendary Brazilian-based sire Ghadeer (by Lyphard), who led the Brazilian general sire list six times and the Brazilian broodmare sire list 14 times. A member of the great stallion’s penultimate crop (foals of 2004), she failed to win in nine starts but has more than atoned for her sins as a racer by her performance as a broodmare for her breeder-owner, Haras Santa Maria de Araras. Aside from Martin Luther King, she is the dam of 2015 Grande Prêmio Bento Goncalves (BRZ-G1) winner Diesmal and of Martin Luther King’s full brother English Major, the Brazilian champion 2-year-old male of 2015/16.

Generally speaking, Lady Be Good’s family has been inclined toward speed and precocity but has produced horses that could carry speed over a distance when bred to more stamina-oriented mates. Given its success in North America and Europe, the establishment of a successful South American branch was only a matter of time, for wherever the genes of Lady Be Good have gone, the lady has been very good indeed.

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Mares on Monday: Sweet Azteca Keeps the Music Playing for Cee's Song

3/11/2024

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Sweet Azteca was one of the least-experienced and least-credentialed runners in the field for the B. Wayne Hughes Beholder Mile Stakes (USA-G1) on March 9 at Santa Anita. She had made only three prior starts, and in her only previous stakes effort was third in the Las Flores Handicap (USA-G3) on New Year’s Day. The Las Flores was only Sweet Azteca’s second lifetime start, though, and the fillies that outfinished her—Chismosa and Hot Peppers—were both multiple stakes winners who had acquitted themselves well in graded company. Showing that the experience had been beneficial, the Sharp Azteca filly bounced back with a 12-length romp in an optional claimer on February 2. That was eye-catching enough to make her the second choice behind 2023 Clement L. Hirsch Stakes (USA-G1) winner Adare Manor—whose resume includes four other graded stakes wins—in the Beholder Mile, and Sweet Azteca proved she was ready for the big time with a front-running win by three-quarters of a length over that rival. The time for the mile on a fast track was 1:36.40, good enough for a 109 Equibase figure.

Owner-breeder Pamela Ziebarth is intimately familiar with Sweet Azteca’s family and what it is capable of delivering. With her mother, the late Cecelia Straub-Rubens, she has helped develop a branch of Bruce Lowe Family 26 from the mare Cee’s Song, whose history is worth further review in light of recent developments that include the emergence of Tarifa as a contender for the Longines Kentucky Oaks (USA-G1) (see “Tarifa on Well-Trodden Path to Lilies,” February 19, 2024).

Bred by Cotswold Farms 1981, Cee’s Song was sired by the Seattle Slew horse Seattle Song, who won the Prix de la Forêt against all-aged competition as a juvenile in France and won the Washington, D.C., International (USA-G1) as a 3-year-old in the United States. He was a useful sire, getting 20 stakes winners from 346 named foals, but left his primary mark on pedigrees through Cee’s Song.

The female line of Cee’s Song traces back to Sulenan (by 1960 Travers Stakes winner Tompion), whose dam Blue Canary (by the Bimelech horse Buy and Sell) is a half sister to 1961 co-champion 2-year-old male Crimson Satan (by Spy Song). Sulenan’s first foal was multiple stakes winner Swinging Lizzie (by The Axe II), who produced Grade 1 winners Swing Till Dawn (by Grey Dawn II) and Lively One (by Halo) and is the ancestress of Brazilian Group 1 winner American Gipsy.

Sulenan produced no more stakes winners but is also the dam of the winner Sleep Lonely (by Olympia's good son Pia Star) who has been responsible for the most prominent modern branch of this family. The dam of Canadian Grade 2 winner Quantra (by Quadrangle) and multiple Canadian stakes winner Mr. Kapacity (by 1972 Canadian champion 3-year-old male Nice Dancer), she also produced Lonely Dancer, a winning full sister to Mr. Kapacity and the dam of Cee's Song.

Cee’s Song, thus, had a good but not top-of-the-line pedigree and was not a particularly outstanding physical specimen when she went through the 1987 Keeneland September yearling sale. (Her catalog page would later be improved by her stakes-winning half sister Leery Baba, by Well Decorated, and her stakes-winning half brother Ceetoit, by Cee’s Tizzy.). Still, she was attractive enough to sell for US$50,000 to Straub-Rubens, who must have found her purchase a frustrating sort. It took Cee’s Song two years and 10 tries to break her maiden, with the breakthrough coming in a maiden claimer at Hollywood on April 26, 1990. Luckily for Straub-Rubens, she retained ownership of Cee’s Song, who ran in allowance company thereafter. Either Cee’s Song had a knack for finding races with just one rival too good for her or, more likely, was one of those headache horses that has some ability but will not leave the safety of the herd, for in her remaining eight starts, the filly was second six times and third once without winning again. She retired to her owner’s broodmare band having won once and placed 11 times from 18 starts for earnings of US$82,225.

Cee’s Song was not the only horse Straub-Rubens owned that was beginning its breeding career in 1991. Cee’s Tizzy was just then entering the stud after carrying Straub-Rubens’s colors. A talented but fragile son of Relaunch and the winning Lyphard mare Tizly (whose dam Tizna had been a top-class race mare in Chile and the United States), Cee’s Tizzy had won half his six starts and had run a respectable third behind Home At Last and Unbridled in the 1990 Super Derby (USA-G1) in spite of sustaining a carpal fracture during the race. Straub-Rubens felt he deserved a chance at stud and backed her opinion by mating him to Cee’s Song during all but one season in 1991-2000.

Straub-Rubens fell victim to heart disease and cancer on November 7, 2000, but she had seen her decision to “marry” Cee’s Song and Cee’s Tizzy pay tremendous dividends. The second foal from this “marriage” was Budroyale, a slow-developing horse who came on to be a Grade 2 winner at 5, 6, and 7 and ran second to Cat Thief in the 1999 Breeders’ Cup Classic (USA-G1). The 1¼ lengths that separated Budroyale from victory was the margin that kept Cee’s Song from producing Breeders’ Cup Classic winners in consecutive years, for in 2000, Budroyale’s full brother Tiznow claimed Eclipse Awards as American champion 3-year-old male and American Horse of the Year with a stirring victory over European Horse of the Year Giant’s Causeway in the Classic, just three days before Straub-Rubens’s death. One year later, Tiznow repeated his title in the Breeders’ Cup Classic with an even more dramatic win over a top European horse, downing Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (FR-G1) winner Sakhee in the final stride after being passed and apparently beaten. He added another Eclipse Award to his collection, this as the American champion older male of 2001, and went on to become a successful sire.

All told, Cee’s Song produced nine foals to matings with Cee’s Tizzy (who justified Straub-Rubens’s faith in him by leading the California sire list twice). Two more, Tizbud and Tizdubai, became stakes winners, the latter at Grade 2 level, and Tizdubai is the dam of Madinat Jumeirah, a champion in Bahrain, and the second dam of Tarifa, while Tizbud had some success as a sire in California. Three other full sisters have also gotten in on the family act: Tizso, dam of 2012 Haskell Invitational Stakes (USA-G1) winner Paynter (by Awesome Again), Grade 3 winner Tiz West (by Gone West), and listed stakes winner Tizakitty (by Distinctive Cat); Tizamazing, dam of 2013 Preakness Stakes (USA-G1) winner Oxbow and Grade 3-placed stakes winner Awesome Patriot (both by Awesome Again); and Tizsweet, whose stakes-winning granddaughter So Sweetitiz (Grand Slam x Sweetitiz, by El Prado) is the dam of Sweet Azteca. Since producing Sweet Azteca, So Sweetitiz has since become the dam of the winning Dialed In filly Sweet Gal of Mine, the unraced 2-year-old colt Mucho Dulce (by Mucho Macho Man), and the 2023 colt Under the Big Sky (by Tonalist).

Following Straub-Rubens’s death, Cee’s Song visited Cee’s Tizzy for the last time before going to the 2001 Keeneland November sale. Purchased by Dromoland Farm for US$2.6 million, the mare ended up in the custody of the Coolmore conglomerate, which promptly sent her to two-time leading American sire Storm Cat. The results perhaps gave force to the country proverb, “Dance with the gal what brung you,” for Cee’s Song’s matings to high-fashion sires after her sale—three to Storm Cat and one to his champion son Giant’s Causeway, himself eventually a three-time American champion sire—yielded four foals that managed to win four races from 35 starts between them, headed by stakes-placed C’mon Tiger. Cee’s Song produced a dead foal in 2008, was barren in 2009 and 2010, and died in 2011.

Patience and familiarity have paid off for Ziebarth, who bred or co-bred both Sweetitiz and So Sweetitiz as well as Sharp Azteca. Thanks to her perseverance, the veteran breeder can now enjoy the sweet sound of success as Sweet Azteca carries the legacy of Cecelia Straub-Rubens and Cee’s Song forward for another generation.

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Mares on Monday: Fiona's Magic Makes It a Family Affair in Davona Dale

3/4/2024

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Every year, both the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (USA-G1) and the Longines Kentucky Oaks (USA-G1) come up with one or more possible Cinderella stories as the potential fields for the spring Classics shape up. This year, one of the candidates for a glass slipper in the Oaks is Fiona’s Magic, who sprang a gate-to-wire upset in the Davona Dale Stakes Presented by FanDuel TV (USA-G2) at Gulfstream Park. The Stonehedge Farm South homebred showed herself to be thoroughly game as she responded well when hooked by Into Champagne and was edging away again at the finish to score by a half-length.

In fairness, the race came up substantially weaker than expected thanks to the scratch of last year’s champion 2-year-old filly, Just F Y I. Nonetheless, it was a good win at the right time of year for Fiona’s Magic, a last-out second to the speedy R Harper Rose in the Forward Gal Stakes (USA-G3). The filly now has 60 points toward a starting spot in the Kentucky Oaks, probably enough to get her into the starting gate regardless of any further developments.

Fiona’s Magic is the first stakes winner for Florida second-crop sire St. Patrick’s Day, a full brother to 2015 American Triple Crown winner American Pharoah who stands at Journeyman Stud near Ocala. St. Patrick’s Day did most of his racing in Ireland, where he was Group 3-placed, but on his brother’s record might have done better racing on dirt in the United States. Stonehedge owner Marilyn Campbell owns a 25 percent interest in the stallion, making the victory of Fiona’s Magic doubly sweet for her.

On the distaff side, Fiona’s Magic is the fourth foal of Mollie’s Magic, who had previously produced FTBOA Florida Sire Dr. Fager Stakes (USA-R) winner Cajun’s Magic to the cover of Stonehedge stallion Cajun Breeze. The dam of four winners from as many foals to race, Mollie’s Magic has since produced the unraced 2-year-old colt Blazing Hot (by four-time Florida champion sire Khozan, another stallion in which Campbell owns an interest) and a yearling colt by Cajun Breeze. Barren for 2024, she is returning to St. Patrick’s Day this spring.

Sired by Factum, a winning Storm Cat half brother to War Front who also stood at Stonehedge, Mollie’s Magic was bred in Florida by the late Gil Campbell (who co-founded Stonehedge Farm South with his wife, Marilyn). The mare never raced but is a half sister to stakes winners Two T’s at Two B (by Untuttable), Scandalous Act (by Act of Duty), and Boo Boo Kitty (by Poseidon’s Warrior), all listed as bred by Gil Campbell or Stonehedge.

Mollie’s Magic and her siblings were produced from Seductive Lady, a US$33,000 yearling purchase from the 2002 Ocala Breeders’ Sales August sale. A half sister to restricted stakes winners I’m Impressed (by Proud Birdie) and Motion to Appeal (by Bellamy Road), the daughter of multiple Grade 1 winner and Canadian champion sprinter Langfuhr had enough ability to win a first-level allowance at Philadelphia Park as a 3-year-old after taking a maiden special weight at Colonial Downs earlier in the year but in her first start at 4 was last in a US$50,000 claimer at Aqueduct, beaten nearly 30 lengths, and was promptly retired.

This family has turned out some useful runners from fairly modest opportunities, but Fiona’s Magic’s score in the Davona Dale was the biggest win for a horse from this tail-female line since Copano (a daughter of Seductive Lady’s great-granddam, Saratoga Flirt) won the Black Helen Handicap (USA-G2) and the Orchid Handicap (USA-G3) as a 5-year-old in 1977. The next step for the filly is to try a two-turn race, most likely in Gulfstream Park’s Gulfstream Park Oaks (USA-G2) at 8.5 furlongs on March 30. Her performance there will probably determine whether Fiona’s Magic can continue eying Cinderella’s footwear or if midnight arrives early.

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Mares on Monday: Everland Lands a Kentucky Oaks Berth in Bourbonette Oaks

Mares on Monday: The Lady Is Good in Brazil

Mares on Monday: Sweet Azteca Keeps the Music Playing for Cee's Song

Mares on Monday: Fiona's Magic Makes It a Family Affair in Davona Dale

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