{"id":12675,"date":"2020-01-04T19:51:58","date_gmt":"2020-01-05T01:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/?p=12675"},"modified":"2021-09-17T11:09:14","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T11:09:14","slug":"constitution-independence-hall-ring-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/constitution-independence-hall-ring-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Constitution & Independence Hall Ring In The New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Any betting person would have selected American Pharoah to be the leading freshman sire of 2019, and, with progeny earnings of $2,703,916 and 27 winners, he was. But the second leading freshman sire was more than a bit of a surprise: Constitution, with as many winners as American Pharoah from a smaller foal crop, and $2,168,422 in earnings. To kick off the new year, Constitution\u2019s unbeaten son, Independence Hall, won the Jerome S. at Aqueduct with ease, placing himself firmly on the Triple Crown trail (besting an American Pharoah colt who dead heated for second).<\/p>\r\n

Though he started only eight times, Constitution earned over a million dollars and won both the Florida Derby-G1 and the Donn H.-G1. When he went to stud at Winstar Farm in 2016, in Kentucky, he commanded the stud fee of $25,000, modest compared to American Pharoah. The usual, intense inbreeding exists in his pedigree, as he is by Tapit, out of the Distorted Humor mare Baffled. He is, therefore, 4 x 5 Seattle Slew, 4 x 5 x 4 Mr. Prospector (with one of those crosses being through Fappiano), and 5 x 5 x 5 Northern Dancer, through his sons Nijinsky II, Danzig, and Storm Bird, though the latter isn\u2019t through his best son, Storm Cat, but rather through the lesser known stallion Ocean Crest. Through Seattle Slew, Mr. Leader, and Cox\u2019s Ridge, we see multiple doses of Turn-to, and we also see an assortment of crosses to La Troienne, through two doses of Buckpasser and two doses of The Axe II. All of the Northern Dancer and the two doses of The Axe II also builds up an impressive presence of Mahmoud.<\/p>\r\n

The Constitutions hit the ground running, with Tiz the Law winning the Champagne S.-G1, Grade 3 winners Amalfi Sunrise, By Your Side, and Independence Hall, and G1 placed and much touted Gouvernour Morris, all with surprisingly different dams\u2019 sides. The key to Independence Hall\u2019s pedigree, however, is that his second dam, Desert Stormette, is by Storm Cat, strongly echoing the Storm Bird on the top side, while also adding a dose of Secretariat, through Storm Cat\u2019s dam, Terlingua, which complements the Secretariat in A.P. Indy\u2019s pedigree, through his dam, Weekend Surprise.<\/p>\r\n

Add more Mr. Prospector, Buckpasser, and Seattle Slew through his broodmare sire Cape Town, not to mention the My Babu through Damascus (his third broodmare sire) reaching out to the same classic sire in A.P. Indy, and we begin to see one of those pedigrees in which the same ingredients are juggled, top and bottom, to maximum effect. It also doesn\u2019t hurt that Desert Stormette is a full sister to Breeders Cup Sprint-G1 winner Desert Stormer; though she wasn\u2019t the race horse her sister was, Desert Stormette was a winner with the same genetic cocktail as her speedy sister. It must be noted that this pedigree features multiple crosses to the two great Triple Crown winners of the \u201870s, Secretariat and Seattle Slew.<\/p>\r\n

It should come as no surprise that Constitution will stand, in 2020, for $40,000. With Independence Hall marking New Year\u2019s Day for his sire in the Jerome, Winstar clearly might have raised the stud fee higher and still over-filled Constitution\u2019s book. Though Constitution isn\u2019t that glamorous frosty gray that his sire, and other exciting young Tapit stallions such as Frosted and Mohayman, possess, the handsome bay horse may indeed be, as his farm advertises, \u201cthe son of Tapit we\u2019ve all been waiting for.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

— Roberta Smoodin<\/em><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"Any betting person would have selected American Pharoah to be the leading freshman sire of 2019, and, with progeny earnings of $2,703,916 and 27 winners, he was. But the second leading freshman sire was more than a bit of a surprise: Constitution, with as many winners as American Pharoah from a smaller foal crop, and $2,168,422 in earnings. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloodstock","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}