Amidst the pomp and pageantry and bitten fingernails of Derby/Oaks weekend, with Justify shining in the slop and Monomoy Girl fighting like a tigress down the stretch, one stallion quietly racked up wins: Ghostzapper. The sire of both Proctor’s Ledge, the winner of the Grade 2 Churchill Distaff Mile and Holy Helena, the winner of the Sheepshead Bay S.-G2 at Belmont, Ghostzapper completed his superfecta when American Gal, out of the Ghostzapper mare American Story, won the Humana Distaff S.-G1 at Churchill, not to mention the hero of the day, as splendid a horse as you will ever see, Justify, being out of a Ghostzapper mare.
Quite the Saturday for the 18-year-old stallion who quietly and perennially gets racehorses. Now he has jumped to number 12 on the leading sires list, and 14 on the broodmare sires list. Seemingly unremarkable, until you notice that the other leaders all have more producing mares than he has: he has 50, while such greats as Giant’s Causeway, leading the list, and A.P. Indy, have over 280. Ghostzapper has the fewest broodmares, by far, of any horse in the top 50.
Ghostzapper has stood his entire career at Adena Springs in Paris, Kentucky, the longtime favorite of the stallion manager who adores his playful charge. An elegant, lightly boned horse with an intelligent head and eye, plain except for a small white star on his forehead, one would never guess what a cut throat killer this horse was on the track. A multiple grade one winner (the Breeders’ Cup Classic in new track record time, the Metropolitan H., the Vosburgh S., and the Woodward S.) and earner of nearly $3.5 million, what was mindboggling was that he almost always won by multiple lengths, in super-fast times, and was known for his ability to do the near-impossible: run the last quarter faster than he ran the first. He was a jaw-droppingly good racehorse, and made rivals look like broken hearted nags. Horse of the Year and Champion Older Male titles were a foregone conclusion. I loved to watch him run, because he was the kind of racehorse who made your heart beat faster with his utter brilliance.
His pedigree boasts classic distance on top, speed on the bottom, and is free of inbreeding in the first four generations, making it possible to breed him to almost anything – more Northern Dancer, Mr. Prospector, and In Reality make it possible to mine American bloodstock for mates with ease. His sire, Awesome Again, was also the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and his mother, the Relaunch mare Baby Zip, was also the dam of the great and recently deceased sire City Zip, an undervalued stallion who threw speed to spare. Awesome Again is by Deputy Minister, out of the Blushing Groom mare Primal Force, who is a daughter of the Mr. Prospector mare, Primal Prospect.
I love Relaunch mares, with their combination of In Reality and The Axe II, bringing Mahmoud and La Troienne to the table to meet flat out speed. Add the Tri Jet mare Thirty Zip as his second dam, and you’ve got speed on speed, and even more outcross. In a world that is attempting (in my opinion, a scary option) to inbreed to Storm Cat and A.P. Indy, Ghostzapper’s pedigree makes him attractive to a wide variety of mares. Bring on the Northern Dancer, the Mr. Prospector, and the Fappiano – Ghostzapper loves them all.
Proctor’s Ledge is bred on the same pattern as grade one winner Contested, whose dam was by Arch, and second dam was by Seeking the Gold. Both of these pedigrees strengthen the Northern Dancer and Mr. Prospector in Ghostzapper’s pedigree by echoing it. In Proctor’s Ledge, Danzig is featured in Arch’s pedigree, and Proctor’s Ledge’s second dam is by Mr. Prospector himself. Her third dam, Drumtop, is by Round Table, adding the cachet of Princequillo to the mix. But the class of the pedigree is epitomized by Proctor’s Ledge’s sixth dam, the great Rough Shod II, making Proctor’s Ledge tail female Rough Shod. This puts her in the company of other greats who were tail female Rough Shod: Nureyev, Bound, Sadler’s Wells, Tate Gallery, and Topsider, whose dam, Drumtop, is Proctor’s Ledge’s third dam. This family, like so many great ones, has almost disappeared, so a race filly with Rough Shod in such a highly visible position makes Proctor’s Ledge very valuable both as a racehorse and as a broodmare prospect.
Of course, it should be noted that her Saturday success in the Churchill Downs Distaff Turf Mile was on the grass. The disappearance of this family could have to do with the weakening of turf breeding in this country, which for so long was dominated by Nureyev. What’s interesting about this pedigree is what is absent from it: any other strain of In Reality or his relatives, rarely seen in Ghostzapper’s offspring.
Like Proctor’s Ledge, Holy Helena is bred along proven lines for Ghostzapper. Out of a Holy Bull mare, her pedigree harkens to another of Ghostzapper’s great fillies, Judy the Beauty, a champion, millionaire, and multiple grade one winner. Holy Bull’s sire, Great Above, is almost a twin of In Reality in terms of blood, and Holy Bull himself, out of the Al Hattab mare Sharon Brown, duplicates The Axe II as found in Ghostzapper’s pedigree, through Relaunch; Relaunch and Holy Bull complement each other to perfection. It can be no coincidence that Holy Grace, Holy Helena’s dam, has a dam by Stately Don, a son of Nureyev. What are the odds that this is mere coincidence? Slim and none. Clearly Ghostzapper loves to be offered a bit of Rough Shod II in a pedigree. Holy Helena too has a great tail female relative – Missy Baba, by My Babu. Frank Stronach bred Holy Helena himself, so it’s no surprise that her third dam is Sooni, a Buckpasser mare. Stronach has long been a proponent of getting as much La Troienne into pedigrees as possible, along with In Reality and his relatives, and Holy Helena’s pedigree reflects the success of this philosophy.
Ghostzapper’s grade one winner as a broodmare sire, apart from Justify, was American Gal in the Humana Distaff on Saturday, and in her pedigree we see many of the same themes as we’ve seen in Holy Helena and Proctor’s Ledge. But most interesting is inbreeding to Relaunch, top and bottom, plus the appearance in Tapit, her sire Concord Point’s sire, of Relaunch’s full sister, Moon Glitter. This inclusion of brothers and sisters enhances the possibility that the resulting horse will get the big heart gene that makes a race horse. More doses of In Reality, top and bottom (American Gal’s tail female fourth dam is Really Fancy, by In Reality), and inbreeding to Northern Dancer through Dixieland Band, Nijinsky and Vice Regent through a daughter, reflect the pedigrees of the first two stakes winners examined. Breeder/owner Kaleem Shah was smart enough to borrow a page from the Stronach/Adena playbook in the construction of this pedigree, and it has paid off.
Then there’s Justify. In a previous column, I testified to the greatness of his pedigree, and my admiration for his breeder, John Gunther of Glennwood Farm. The strengths and sublimity of this pedigree are numerous, with Ghostzapper adding the panache of Relaunch, with his wealth of In Reality, La Troienne, and Mahmoud, and his numerous doses of the Spearmint mare Plucky Liege. Barring any catastrophic injury to Justify (other than the well-documented “scratches” afflicting his left hind), we can expect Ghostzapper, with his 50 producing dams, to vault up the broodmare sires list, at very least into the top ten, if not the top five.
Ghostzapper was a racehorse for the ages. It’s looking like his stud career and broodmare sire career are following suit. Given his production on all levels, his $85,000 stud fee seems reasonable, as he gets racehorses. Though he has not produced a running machine as bloodthirsty and heartbreaking as himself, he is by no means done yet. Nor are his daughters close to being done – That running machine may just be Justify.
— Roberta Smoodin
Thanks to Thoroughbred People contributor and bloodstock consultant Roberta Smoodin for this article. Roberta offers pedigree analysis for sales and breeding recommendation services for your broodmares – please contact Roberta at [email protected] for more information.