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.
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.
RSS Feed