The Lake Placid S.-G3T at Saratoga (August 17) was a hard-fought thriller ending in a lengthy stewards’ consultation which eventually declared a dead heat between Varenka and Regal Glory. Neither mare deserved to lose.

What was surprising was that the most superficial glance at the two mares’ pedigrees revealed stunning similarities, making them almost seem like sisters from another mother. Both mares boast Blushing Groom on their sire’s side, both in the fourth position, Blushing Groom being Regal Glory’s great-great grandsire in her sire line, and in Varenka, through Awesome Again’s dam, Primal Force, a daughter of Blushing Groom. Varenka has yet another dose of Blushing Groom in her dams’ side through Rahy (making the inbreeding to Blushing Groom on the desired zigzag), and if you pursue her dams’ side far enough, you find that her fourth dam is a great-granddaughter of Red God, Blushing Groom’s sire. That Blushing Groom should impart turf ability to these mares is no surprise.

The similarities don’t end there. Both mares’ pedigrees also feature Halo, in the fourth position in Regal Glory’s dams’ side, and in the fifth position in Varenka’s. Both also feature Northern Dancer, through Northern Sea and Lyphard in Regal Glory, while Varenka’s pedigree includes Northern Dancer’s son Night Shift on the dams’ side. This close coupling of Northern Dancer and Halo is 5 x 5 in Varenka, and 4 x 5 x 6 in Regal Glory. This is significant because Northern Dancer and Halo share a grandmother: the great Almahmoud, through her daughters Natalma and Cosmah. This gives us the hint that, upon closer examination, becomes a trend: that both pedigrees are particularly rich in Mahmoud, the sire of Almahmoud. Varenka gets another big dose of Mahmoud through The Axe II via Ghostzapper’s dams’ side, while both mares get the big heart gene from a daughter of Mahmoud, Ghazni, via Drone. Regal Glory also provides another way back to The Tetrarch, prominent in Mahmoud’s dams’ side, through Acatenango, her sire Animal Kingdom’s broodmare sire.

Now for the Hail to Reason connection. Varenka has prominently placed in her pedigree another of the most fruitful sons of Hail to Reason, along with Halo, Roberto, whose son Dynaformer is her broodmare sire. Regal Glory gets that same dose of Hail to Reason on her sire’s side, in the seventh position, where Roberto appears. Inbreeding to Hail to Reason and his sire, Turn-to, has proven fruitful, but it would appear that Halo and Roberto in particular result in race horses.

Blushing Groom is from the Nasrullah sire line, which is very closely related to Turn-to, the sire of Hail to Reason, through Nearco, Blenheim and Mumtaz Mahal. Inbreeding to other close relations creates stakes winners, and both mares have these other close relations of both Nasrullah and Hail to Reason in their pedigrees: Varenka through Djebel, twice, and Regal Glory through Klarion, a grandson of Djebel. The great mare Lavendula is the key to all of these closely related sires whose combination works so well. My Babu, Ambiorix, Klarion, Turn-to, Nasrullah and Mahmoud all represent a tossed salad of similar forebears (Djebel and his father Tourbillon, Phalaris, Chaucer, Gay Crusader and Gainsborough, both sired by Bayardo, and Mumtaz Mahal, Mahmoud’s grandmother). These two pedigrees gain their success through knowledge of ancient history of the thoroughbred, which is so unusual these days of inbreeding to Mr. Prospector, Storm Cat, and Seattle Slew, as if thoroughbreds didn’t exist before the 1970s.

I could write a book about these two pedigrees. Suffice it to say, the riches don’t end there. Both mares pedigrees’ include Sir Gaylord, Tom Fool, a wealth of Man o’War, and multiple doses of the important Spearmint mare Plucky Liege through her wonderful sons Sir Gallahad, Admiral Drake and Bull Dog. Cameos by Somethingroyal, the dam of Sir Ivor (and of course Secretariat) and La Troienne, via The Axe in Varenka, and Buckpasser, tripled, in the dams’ side of Regal Glory, ensure that the great mares of the twentieth century are also represented. In pedigrees, learning the lessons of history isn’t a caveat; it is instead a delight. And it can create a thrilling race ending in a dead heat for these two, Varenka and Regal Glory, who are very nearly twins separated at birth.

-- Roberta Smoodin