Category Archives: Bloodstock

Saturday, August 17, in the space of little more than thirty minutes, a remarkable thing happened. Two Grade One races were run, the Del Mar Oaks, on turf, won by Cambier Parc with an explosive turn of foot, making her rivals look like nags down the stretch, and the Pacific Classic S., won easily by Higher Power. Why is this remarkable?

On Arlington Million day, Crestwood third crop stallion Get Stormy, who stands for a bargain $6500, had his first grade one winner when Got Stormy beat the boys in the Grade One Fourstardave H. on turf at Saratoga. While the racing world had eyes on Chicago, Got Stormy set a new course record of 1:32 flat, decimating the previous record by nearly a second, and putting her sire on the map.

When veteran trainer Jorge Navarro says he’s currently training the best horse he’s ever had, people should listen. Anyone who bet the farm on Shanghai Bobby’s son, Shancelot, in the Amsterdam S.-G2 July 28 at Saratoga is very happy.

The continuing influence of the glorious stallion El Prado surfaced over Haskell weekend, as two of his sons, Artie Schiller and Medaglia D’Oro, sired stakes winners, Bowie’s Hero in the Eddie Read S.-G2 at Del Mar and Golden Award in the Shuvee S.-G3 at Saratoga.

I’ve been waiting to write about Liam’s Map’s first winner, because I love the horse. When I visited Lane’s End to view him when he first went to stud, he knocked my eyes out. He is the most unusual of gray horses, with a silver coat that appears to be star-spangled.

The Stillwater S. on July 18 at Saratoga turned into a showcase for one freshman sire, and an exclamation point for another. Ashford’s freshman Competitive Edge emerged from the shadow of American Pharoah when his fillies, My Italian Rabbi and Fierce Lady, finished first and second in that race, dueling one another like real pros.

The Fasig-Tipton July Sale is the first indicator of another trend: which freshmen sires look the most promising to buyers. Though a buzz about the first crops of certain freshman sires begins when the babies hit the ground, the July Sale is the true, initial barometer of that buzz that can be quantified, and Darley at Jonabell and Winstar Farm were the big winners.

Though it hardly seems possible, Khalid Abdullah and his Juddmonte Farms have outdone themselves in terms of audacious breeding in the creation of super-mare Enable, who on July 6, 2019, won the Coral Eclipse S.-G1 with ease, and with her trainer, John Gosden, saying she was only 85% fit. She is en route to her third Prix de le Arc de Triomph S.-G1, which she has won two years in a row, beating the boys with astonishing ease.

The Group One Irish Derby at the Curragh on June 29 represented a hat trick not often seen. The first three finishers, Sovereign, Anthony Van Dyck and Norway, were all sons of the magnificent Galileo, Coolmore’s king. All trained by Aidan O’Brien. All owned by the triumvirate of Magnier/Smith/Tabor. The only differences in the three, apart from very minor differences in pedigree, is that O’Brien couldn’t clone a single jockey to ride all three, and so was dependent on various riders to claim the Irish Derby as his own, as he has done six times before.

On Irish Derby Day, another race may have stolen the show: the Railway S.-G2, a showcase for some of the best two-year-olds, featuring Monarch of Egypt, a much-touted son of American Pharoah, and the highly esteemed Fort Myers, a son of War Front, also Coolmore-owned, out of a Galileo mare, whose second dam is a full sister to the great Giant’s Causeway.