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Tapit’s son Flashback, who began his stud career in 2015 at Lexington’s Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms, complete with guarantees to breeders selling weanlings and yearlings from owner Gary and Mary West, and a full first book, has been moved for the 2019 season to Diamond B Farm in Pennsylvania, and will stand there for $3500, compared to his beginning fee of $7500 in Kentucky. The gray stallion, out of the Mr. Greeley mare Rhumb Line, making him a full brother to multiple G1 winner Zazu, won the Robert B. Lewis S.-G2, and finished second to Goldencents in the Santa Anita Derby-G1, along with other stake placings. He completed his racing career with just over $400,000 in earnings.

Flashback’s first crop to race last year, however, failed to set the world on fire. He was number 12 on the leading freshman sires list, with only 33 runners and 11 winners from that first crop (three repeat winners), and no graded stakes horses, his biggest winner being non-graded winner Boujie Girl. His first crop earned only $554,389.

The Pennsylvania-bred program is a rich one, and Flashback may flourish there, with his fashionable pedigree and three good-sized Kentucky crops supporting him. He himself wasn’t precocious at two, so it would be no surprise if his first three-year-olds make him a popular, well-supported stud in Pennsylvania.

— Roberta Smoodin

An alien, landing on Earth on Saturday, February 16, 2019, to play the ponies, would’ve come to believe that only three stallions on the planet are worth breeding to (as Scat Daddy, the sire of Anothertwistafate, the El Camino Real Derby winner, is deceased), and this alien may be right.

Tapit, standing this year for $225,000 at Gainesway Farm, sired Silver Dust, the winner of the Mineshaft H.-G3 at the Fairgrounds, paying owner Tom Durant back for some of the $510,000 he gave for the colt at the 2016 Ocala Breeders’ Sale of two-year-olds. Then Synchrony took the Fairgrounds H.-G3, another win for a son of Tapit. Both of these winners have anomalous pedigrees for winning Tapit offspring, offering inbreeding to both Northern Dancer and Native Dancer, but without any inbreeding to In Reality and his relatives which we usually see in successful Tapit progeny.

Kingly, second in the El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate Fields, offers a much more recognizable pedigree for top Tapits, featuring inbreeding to Northern Dancer through Nijinsky II and Storm Cat, and, more importantly, offering the full siblings Moon Glitter and Relaunch, with their In Reality strength. Tapit is simply an unstoppable force in the thoroughbred world.

A newer face in the galaxy of top sires is Blame, who also had two major stakes winners on the day, including Blamed, the winner at Gulfstream Park of the Royal Delta S.-G3. This filly’s pedigree features a Giant’s Causeway first dam, and an Unbridled second dam, drawing upon Blame’s strengths with Danzig and Alydar reaching out to the Northern Dancer and Mr. Prospector described above.

Then, not more than a couple of hours later, Marley’s Freedom won the Santa Monica S.-G2 at Santa Anita in a thrilling, not-to-be-denied stretch run. Much like Blamed, Marley’s Freedom’s pedigree offers a similar pattern, underscoring the pedigree power of Blame with Miswaki (Mr. Prospector) and Chief’s Crown (Danzig) drawing upon Blame’s strengths, much like what was demonstrated in Blamed’s pedigree. Blame stands this year for $30,000 at Claiborne Farm, and seems like a terrific bargain given the way his offspring win and win and win.

Finally, a highly valued War Front colt, War of Will, survived the fourteen post position and came on to win the Risen Star S.-G2, the first serious Kentucky Derby prep of the season, going away. Owner Gary Barber said, before the race, “put him in the twenty hole and he’d still win.” Looks like this was very accurate fortune telling. The colt’s ability on dirt is the surprise. Out of a Sadler’s Wells dam and a Riverman second dam, his pedigree screams European and turf. He is also tail female Best in Show, his fifth dam, through her daughter Minnie Hauk, by Sir Ivor, one of the best families in the stud book, developed by Juddmonte Farm. Tried on grass without much success earlier in his career, War of Will switched to dirt and can’t stop winning. Seriously, you just never know—sometimes genes can be confounding. War Front, whose offspring at yearling sales frequently engender bidding wars ending in seven figure sales, stands for $250,000 at Claiborne Farm, and would seem to have a very serious Derby contender in this lovely colt, trained by Mark Casse.

With the running of the Risen Star S.-G2, War of Will gets fifty points toward his post in the Kentucky Derby. It is officially time to get Derby Fever, and War of Will has to be on everyone’s early favorite list. The rest of the list remains amorphous, full of colts that fuel our hopes and dreams, but are not yet stamped as serious contenders.

— Roberta Smoodin

With all the great racing on Saturday, February 2, 2019, you’d expect a variety of pedigrees to begin appearing on the Kentucky Derby Trail. You’d be wrong. Harvey Wallbanger, who won the Holy Bull S.-G2 for trainer Kenny McPeek, and Tax, who won the Withers S.-G3, off a brilliant claim by trainer Danny Gargan, have so many similarities in their pedigrees that it would appear they may have been separated at birth, like the triplets movie CNN won’t stop advertising.

The similarities aren’t only surprising and striking. They represent dominant strains in contemporary pedigrees that produce young horses who can get a route of ground with ease, and give strength to the theory that the contemporary thoroughbred isn’t too inbred and fragile, but rather that these strengths contribute to horses who can get a classic distance with ease.

Both powerful Blue Hen mares and important twentieth and twenty-first century sires contribute to the ability of Harvey Wallbanger and Tax. Of course, with studs these days producing over a hundred offspring a year, it makes sense that certain stallions should contribute classic distance ability. But thoroughbred mares are lucky to have ten offspring in their lifetimes, so when certain mares appear, repetitively, in two pedigrees of horses on the Derby Trail, close enough to the actual competitor to appear in the first six generations, one must take notice.

The first of these mares is Wild Applause (1981), whose great grandmother was one of the twentieth centuries most important mare, mentioned endlessly in these columns, La Troienne. That Wild Applause appears in the third generation for both Tax and Harvey Wallbanger is what’s amazing. Tax, by the recently deceased Arch, is tail female Wild Applause; she is his great grandmother, the dam of Yell, by A.P. Indy, who, with Giant’s Causeway, produced Tax’s dam Toll. Wild Applause is also Harvey Wallbanger’s great grandmother, though in his pedigree she appears on the sires’ side, as she was the dam, with Mr. Prospector as the sire, of Congrats’ dam Praise. Congrats’ sire is the same A.P. Indy, making Yell in Tax’s pedigree and Congrats in Harvey Wallbanger’s pedigree very closely related, not quite siblings, but kissing cousins. Add in all the extra doses of La Troienne that appear through A.P. Indy, Glorious Song (in Giant’s Causeway’s pedigree), and Special Account in Harvey Wallbanger’s, and the similarities cannot be considered mere chance, but indicate, with certainty, the powerful influence La Troienne continues to have on contemporary race horses.

The other Blue Hen mare’s influence is another whom I continually reference, Secretariat’s dam, the great Princequillo mare Somethingroyal. Her appearance in both pedigrees is through A.P. Indy, of course, through her granddaughter Weekend Surprise. However, in Tax’s pedigree, she appears again, through Storm Cat’s dam, the Secretariat mare Terlingua. Tax’s pedigree becomes even stronger because of his great grandmother, Sharp Queen, on his sire’s side, as she is the dam of Kris S., and she too is by Princequillo, reeling in the two appearances of Somethingroyal on his dams’ side. Princequillo was leading broodmare sire for years in his heyday, and there is no such thing as too many Princequillo mares in any pedigree.

In each pedigree, another of the great Blue Hens of the twentieth century make cameo appearances. In Tax, the Never Bend mare Courtly Dee appears on his sires’ side in the fourth position, through her champion daughter Althea, by Alydar. From the 1968 foal crop, she brings another dose of La Troienne, through her son Bimelech, and she herself is by a daughter of War Admiral, Tulle. As the great granddam of Arch, the strength of her tail female line may have been responsible for Arch’s importance. She similarly appeared in the interesting, though less influential, sire Twining.

Harvey Wallbanger’s pedigree features another of the all time great broodmares, the Double Jay mare Continue, the grandmother of Forty Niner. Born in 1958, she brings an otherwise long-dead branch of thoroughbred breeding to the table, the sire Ben Brush, whose last male descendant was the productive and much-missed Broad Brush, who stood at Gainesway Farm in the 1990s. Continue’s pedigree features inbreeding to Ben Brush, 5 x 5 on her sire’s side, inbreeding that is otherwise unheard of. She was out of the Nasrullah mare Courtesy, offering, of course, the breed-altering Mahmoud’s female family, but also giving Continue inbreeding, three times, to Canterbury Pilgrim, twice through her influential son Chaucer, and once through her son Swynford. Clearly, Canterbury Pilgrim passed on the large heart gene that is also found in Somethingroyal, and getting this gene through two of her most important sons means that this mare of 1893 continues to influence the thoroughbred breed. It must also be noted that Broad Brush’s best runners were created by providing multiple doses of Turn-to on their dams’ sides, which Harvey Wallbanger’s pedigree provides, three times, as well as in-breeding to the influential mare Pocahontas, whose dam was the Princequillo mare, How.

Considering the male lineage of both Tax and Harvey Wallbanger, one sees multiple appearances by three of the twentieth century’s most important male lines: Northern Dancer, Turn-to, and Bold Ruler, all very close-up and visible. To begin, Danzig, a son of Northern Dancer, appears in the third position in Tax’s pedigree, as the sire of Arch’s dam, Aurora, and in the fourth position of Harvey Wallbanger’s pedigree, as the sire of Distorted Humors dam, Danzig’s Beauty. Both young runners have Northern Dancer himself in the fourth position, as the sire of the aforementioned Wild Applause. And both have yet another appearance by Northern Dancer, Tax through his son Storm Bird, and Harvey Wallbanger through his son Vice Regent. To see Northern Dancer himself visible on five generation pedigrees, three times each, twice from the same sources, Danzig and Wild Applause, is impressively unusual, and insures the passage, once more, of the large heart gene through his dam Natalma.

Then we must examine the presence of Turn-to in both pedigrees, presenting itself so similarly to the doses of Northern Dancer, through both male and female progenitors. In Tax’s pedigree, we see Roberto, grandson of Turn-to, twice, and Mr. Leader, also a grandson, once, though it is the presence of the mare Glorious Song, a granddaughter of Turn-To through his son Halo, who pulls these doses together by allowing that large heart gene to make its appearance directly. It should be noted that both young race horses also get a dose of Turn-to through Seattle Slew’s great-grandsire, Hail to Reason.

Seattle Slew also offers these pedigrees their ways back to Bold Ruler himself, but what’s significant is that both pedigrees also offer an underscoring of this line through other male relatives, in Tax, through Giant’s Causeways third dam, the Chieftain mare Imsodear, and in Harvey Wallbanger, through Spectacular Bid. The only knock one could make on Tax’s pedigree is the total absence of Mr. Prospector, which Harvey Wallbanger presents both top and bottom, but the argument could be made that the presence, in Tax, of Mr. P’s close genetic relative, Alydar, makes up for that, and presents yet another similarity. Tax’s pedigree more than makes up for this slight deficiency by the presence of Northern Dancer’s dam, Natalma, on the page twice in five generation pedigrees, and, just off the page, the presence of her half-sister, Cosmah, through Halo, bringing in-breeding to the great Almahmoud, another of the twentieth century’s most important mares, to Tax’s background.

The riches in today’s pedigrees couldn’t be underscored more than by this examination of two race horses who won two graded stakes races on the Kentucky Derby Trail within a couple of hours of each other. These similarities are more than a random occurrence. They represent, instead, a formula, much as water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, for the creation of a Derby field, utilizing the most important horses of the last hundred years. This is a jigsaw puzzle with numerous possible solutions, creating slightly differing outcomes in the placement of pieces, though each completed puzzle represents a beautiful whole and a winners’ circle photo.

— Roberta Smoodin

2019 is still a very young year, but the leading sires of three-year-olds, thus far, is worth examining. The usual suspects have changed, at least enough to remark upon. After a couple of stellar weekends in which his youngsters won nearly everything, stakes and maiden special weights, Violence leads the pack. Though his stud fee, at Hill ‘n’ Dale in Lexington, has rightly been upped to $40,000, it’s still unusual for a stallion with such a relatively low stud fee to be number one.

Violence, however, doesn’t present the best bargain on the early top ten list. Tapit, at number three, logs in with his $225,000 stud fee, with Curlin at number seven ($175,000), Into Mischief at number eight ($150,000), and Quality Road at nine ($150,000). The rest of the top ten, however, represents a bit of a surprise.

Young Cairo Prince, standing at Airdrie, is number three, at a stud fee of $25,000. At $40,000, at Darley, Hard Spun is a surprise, but has been coming on for most of 2018, and seems to be continuing his winning ways.

Here’s where the real shocks begin. Congrats, a stalwart stud who gets good winners yearly, is number five, at a lowered stud fee of only $12,500. Immediately following him, however, is Paynter, at the same fee as Congrats. Paynter started hitting in 2018 after a rather disappointing beginning. After standing at Winstar for $20,000 last year, his fee was wisely lowered, and his page in the Bloodhorse’s Stallion Register for 2018 is devoid of stakes winners, though his first crop raced in 2017. Then his graded stakes winner Knicks Go, and the speedy Needs Supervision, and others, began to hit the boards, and this young stallion, from the stellar family of Tiznow, started to come on.

Now leading Curlin, Into Mischief, and Quality Road on the leading sires of three-year-olds, all with six-digit stud fees, Paynter seems an incredible buy, and if his book isn’t filled already in this first full week of February, with breeding season about to begin, I’d be surprised. Bred similarly to Awesome Again’s most successful son, Ghostzapper, Paynter seems poised for great success.

The true surprise on this top ten list, however, is Kentucky Derby-G1 and Preakness S.-G1 winner I’ll Have Another, newly relocated from Japan to California, and standing for only $6,000, with three-year-old earnings this year of only about $130,000 less than leader Violence. He is the only non-Kentucky located stud on the top ten list, and has the most starters at 48.

I’ll Have Another is in a class by himself in the California stud ranks, with his dual Triple Crown wins (not to mention his win in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby). The list of horses he defeated in his Grade 1 wins includes such young stud stand-outs as Bodemeister, Creative Cause, and Union Rags. A suspect pedigree, being by Flower Alley, may have led to his hasty exportation to stand at stud, but I’ll Have Another is back, with a vengeance. Ballena Vista Farm is to be congratulated for their acquisition of him.

— Roberta Smoodin