Scat Daddy was a great sire, gone way too soon. Once considered a one-dimensional patriarch of sprinters on grass, his last few crops have featured a Triple Crown winner, Justify, able to get a distance on dirt, clearly. Not to mention many others, on turf, dirt and synthetic surfaces, at any distance, most recently the winner of the El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate, Anothertwistafate, running off by seven lengths on the Tapeta surface, and his grandson, Onthewaytonevrland, winning the Rushaway S. on Turfway Park’s big day, by 3 ½ lengths, also on the synthetic, AWT surface.

Europe’s leading freshman sire in 2018 and father of Onthewaytonevrland, No Nay Never, a son of Scat Daddy, broke his maiden on dirt at Keeneland, then went on to win the Prix Morny-G1 on turf, along with other group wins, making him a winner on dirt, turf and synthetic. Scat Daddy’s son, Flameaway, was also a winner yesterday, 3/9, of the Challenger S. at Tampa, on dirt. If one measure of a stallion’s greatness is his ability to get progeny who can win on any surface at the highest levels, then Scat Daddy deserves his laurels.

A great sire is a great sire, regardless of surface, and Scat Daddy proves this with his runners, historically successful on turf, more recently successful on dirt, and lately on synthetic surfaces. With his best sons, such as No Nay Never, becoming sires in their own right with offspring winning on synthetic surfaces, the argument for the safer, more forgiving synthetic surfaces such as Tapeta, invented by trainer Michael Dickinson, must be made via an examination of Scat Daddy and his legacy.

During the short-lived synthetic surface revolution of the early 2000s, most major tracks made the switch to synthetic surfaces over dirt, but did so in a rapid and slipshod manner, quickly returning to dirt after this attempt, at least in part because trainers were resistant to change, though statistics showed the synthetic surfaces to cause far fewer catastrophic breakdowns and injuries. The tracks that kept their synthetic surfaces were Golden Gate Fields, Woodbine and Turfway Park, where sons and grandsons of Scat Daddy have recently flourished.

Rather than destroying the so-called dirt-biased American breeding industry, a switch to quality synthetic surfaces should reinforce the greatness of such sires as Scat Daddy, and give their progeny longer, healthier careers. Scat Daddy and his sons at stud prove the myth of the dirt-bias in American breeding, and indicate that the future of racing might instead be opened up, making many current dirt and turf sires competitive in ways we can only imagine.

-- Roberta Smoodin