Mid-December marks the time for one of Argentina’s biggest racing weekends. Featuring four Group 1 races including the nation’s most important all-aged race, the Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini-Internacional, it invariably draws the nation’s best turf runners to Hipódromo de San Isidro near Buenos Aires. It also draws some good foreign raiders, and this year the Pellegrini fell to Brazil’s top older male, Obataye. The last-out winner of the Grande Prêmio Gran Premio Latinoamericano (BRZ-G1) at Gávea over top challengers from South America’s other racing nations, Obataye cemented his standing as the top turf horse on the continent by leaving his opposition for dead with a sharp burst of speed at mid-stretch and coming home by a measured length and a half. The runner-up, Argentine hopeful The Gladiator’s Hat, was coming in off a win in the Gran Premio Dardo Rocha-Internacional (ARG-G1) and made a powerful stretch move of his own but could not match the winner, who now owns a “Win and You’re In” slot for the 2026 Breeders’ Cup Turf (USA-G1).
Whether Obataye will make the trip or not is open to question: he will be a Southern Hemisphere 6-year-old by then, and between the wear and tear of further racing and the temptation to retire him to stud for the 2026 Southern Hemisphere breeding season, it is long odds that he will ever make it to the Breeders’ Cup even if owner Haras Rio Iguassu is willing to consider the Turf as a goal. (For what it is worth, he also had a “Win and You’re In” spot in 2024 after winning the Grande Prêmio Brasil, BRZ-G1, and did not come.) If he does come, however, he will be coming full circle to the land of his ancestors, for he descends from North American-bred horses in both his tail-male and tail-female lines. Sired by Courtier, a Juddmonte Farms-bred son of Pioneerof the Nile who currently leads the Brazilian sire standings for the 2025/26 season, Obataye is a fifth-generation descendant of The Garden Club, a mare carrying the rich heritage of one of Ogden Phipps’s best families.
Foaled in 1966, The Garden Club was sired by the imported French champion Herbager (then standing at Claiborne Farm, where the Phipps family has long boarded its mares) out of 1962 Adirondack Stakes winner Fashion Verdict. A half sister to two stakes winners and to 1965 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes runner-up Dapper Dan. Fashion Verdict is a granddaughter of Phipps foundation mare Striking, a stakes winner in her own right and a full sister to 1945 American Horse of the Year Busher. The female line traces back to La Troienne, the queen of 20th-century American matriarchs.
Despite her regal heritage, The Garden Club was only a moderate race mare, winning three of her 15 starts, and was culled from the Phipps breeding program. Eventually, she ended up in the hands of William S. Farish, for whom she produced 1981 Delaware Oaks (USA-G2) winner Up the Flagpole (by Hoist the Flag), multiple Grade 3 winner Nostalgia (by Silent Screen), and stakes winner Blushing Cathy (by Blushing Groom). Up the Flagpole, in turn, produced seven stakes winners, including Grade/Group 1 winners and important broodmares Prospectors Delite, Flagbird, and Runup the Colors, and is the granddam of 2003 American Horse of the Year Mineshaft.
The last of The Garden Club’s 12 foals was the 1986 Mr. Prospector filly Hidden Garden, who won three of her nine starts but did not earn black type. As a broodmare for Farish, she produced multiple Grade 3 winner Jazz Club (by Dixieland Band) and stakes-placed Garden Spot (by Danzig), both bred in partnership with Joseph Jamail. For the same partners, Hidden Garden produced Hidden Storm, a 1997 Storm Cat filly that never raced.
Hidden Storm produced six foals, none of which were particularly distinguished as racers, and neither of her daughters remained on American shores. Queen of France (by Danehill), who was stakes-placed in Ireland as a 4-year-old, remained in Ireland for her breeding career, producing three winners from six foals. Parisian Commune, an Unbridled’s Song filly who never raced, was sent to Brazil and ended up at Haras São José do Bom Retiro, where she produced 2017 Grande Prêmio Gervasio Seabra (BRZ-G2) winner Gargalo’s Hill’s to the cover of Roderic O’Connor. She is also the dam of unraced Surfi’n Usa (by the multiple Group 2-winning Sadler’s Wells horse Crimson Tide), who produced Obataye as her fourth foal.
Surfi’n Usa has since produced the unraced 4-year-old filly Paris Toujours (by the Uncle Mo horse Rally Cry), the unraced juvenile filly Rocket Talks (by Garbo Talks, a Group 1-winning son of two-time Brazilian champion sire Put It Back), and the yearling filly Surfi’n Bird (by Garbo Talks), so she will have a decent chance of extending this Brazilian branch of The Garden Club’s family further. As for Obataye, it is hard to gauge how he might stack up for a North American venture. Generally speaking, the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings have typically rated the best South American runner of a given year 10 pounds or more below the top North American and European runners, but we do have the examples of Siphon (BRZ), Riboletta (BRZ), Redattore (BRZ), Bal a Bali (BRZ), and Ivar (BRZ), among others, to show that Brazilian horses can compete successfully at the Grade 1 level in the United States given time to acclimate to Northern Hemisphere conditions. Whether Obataye will be given the chance to prove that he belongs in that group is a question for the future; for now, he appears to be the undisputed champion of his continent, and that is no small distinction to add to the record of his superb family.
Whether Obataye will make the trip or not is open to question: he will be a Southern Hemisphere 6-year-old by then, and between the wear and tear of further racing and the temptation to retire him to stud for the 2026 Southern Hemisphere breeding season, it is long odds that he will ever make it to the Breeders’ Cup even if owner Haras Rio Iguassu is willing to consider the Turf as a goal. (For what it is worth, he also had a “Win and You’re In” spot in 2024 after winning the Grande Prêmio Brasil, BRZ-G1, and did not come.) If he does come, however, he will be coming full circle to the land of his ancestors, for he descends from North American-bred horses in both his tail-male and tail-female lines. Sired by Courtier, a Juddmonte Farms-bred son of Pioneerof the Nile who currently leads the Brazilian sire standings for the 2025/26 season, Obataye is a fifth-generation descendant of The Garden Club, a mare carrying the rich heritage of one of Ogden Phipps’s best families.
Foaled in 1966, The Garden Club was sired by the imported French champion Herbager (then standing at Claiborne Farm, where the Phipps family has long boarded its mares) out of 1962 Adirondack Stakes winner Fashion Verdict. A half sister to two stakes winners and to 1965 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes runner-up Dapper Dan. Fashion Verdict is a granddaughter of Phipps foundation mare Striking, a stakes winner in her own right and a full sister to 1945 American Horse of the Year Busher. The female line traces back to La Troienne, the queen of 20th-century American matriarchs.
Despite her regal heritage, The Garden Club was only a moderate race mare, winning three of her 15 starts, and was culled from the Phipps breeding program. Eventually, she ended up in the hands of William S. Farish, for whom she produced 1981 Delaware Oaks (USA-G2) winner Up the Flagpole (by Hoist the Flag), multiple Grade 3 winner Nostalgia (by Silent Screen), and stakes winner Blushing Cathy (by Blushing Groom). Up the Flagpole, in turn, produced seven stakes winners, including Grade/Group 1 winners and important broodmares Prospectors Delite, Flagbird, and Runup the Colors, and is the granddam of 2003 American Horse of the Year Mineshaft.
The last of The Garden Club’s 12 foals was the 1986 Mr. Prospector filly Hidden Garden, who won three of her nine starts but did not earn black type. As a broodmare for Farish, she produced multiple Grade 3 winner Jazz Club (by Dixieland Band) and stakes-placed Garden Spot (by Danzig), both bred in partnership with Joseph Jamail. For the same partners, Hidden Garden produced Hidden Storm, a 1997 Storm Cat filly that never raced.
Hidden Storm produced six foals, none of which were particularly distinguished as racers, and neither of her daughters remained on American shores. Queen of France (by Danehill), who was stakes-placed in Ireland as a 4-year-old, remained in Ireland for her breeding career, producing three winners from six foals. Parisian Commune, an Unbridled’s Song filly who never raced, was sent to Brazil and ended up at Haras São José do Bom Retiro, where she produced 2017 Grande Prêmio Gervasio Seabra (BRZ-G2) winner Gargalo’s Hill’s to the cover of Roderic O’Connor. She is also the dam of unraced Surfi’n Usa (by the multiple Group 2-winning Sadler’s Wells horse Crimson Tide), who produced Obataye as her fourth foal.
Surfi’n Usa has since produced the unraced 4-year-old filly Paris Toujours (by the Uncle Mo horse Rally Cry), the unraced juvenile filly Rocket Talks (by Garbo Talks, a Group 1-winning son of two-time Brazilian champion sire Put It Back), and the yearling filly Surfi’n Bird (by Garbo Talks), so she will have a decent chance of extending this Brazilian branch of The Garden Club’s family further. As for Obataye, it is hard to gauge how he might stack up for a North American venture. Generally speaking, the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings have typically rated the best South American runner of a given year 10 pounds or more below the top North American and European runners, but we do have the examples of Siphon (BRZ), Riboletta (BRZ), Redattore (BRZ), Bal a Bali (BRZ), and Ivar (BRZ), among others, to show that Brazilian horses can compete successfully at the Grade 1 level in the United States given time to acclimate to Northern Hemisphere conditions. Whether Obataye will be given the chance to prove that he belongs in that group is a question for the future; for now, he appears to be the undisputed champion of his continent, and that is no small distinction to add to the record of his superb family.
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