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The \u201cbig news\u201d of the past racing weekend, Saturday, April 11, in particular, was that a 46-1 shot, Mr. Big News, won the Oaklawn S. and secured a guaranteed place in the Arkansas Derby and in the Preakness S., whenever that may be held. Trained by Bret Calhoun and ridden by Gabriel Saez, Mr. Big News has brought his sire, the late, great Giant\u2019s Causeway, very near the magic number of having sired 200 stakes winners.<\/p>\r\n
Though Giant\u2019s Causeway died in April, 2018, unable to complete his final breeding season at Coolmore\u2019s Ashford Stud in the Bluegrass, his genetic force is still felt in the thoroughbred industry: 2019 Horse of the Year Bricks and Mortar is proof of this, as is Mr. Big News. And this is before a further inspection of Giant\u2019s Causeway\u2019s sons\u2019 and daughters\u2019 achievements on April 11 leads one to count him as one of the most influential sires of the 20th<\/sup> and 21st<\/sup> centuries.<\/p>\r\n I am prejudiced, because the first time I laid eyes on the stallion, I fell in love. He was a beautiful, compact, perfectly conformed chestnut, both elegant and masculine, with that look of eagles. He dared you not to love him. A very successful trainer friend called him, \u201cperfection. You can\u2019t ask any more of a horse than that.\u201d I visited him every year thereafter at Ashford\u2019s annual open house for breeders, and his daunting beauty never diminished. I was lucky enough to breed clients\u2019 mares to him twice, getting two outstanding foals. He will always be one of my all-time favorites.<\/p>\r\n Mr. Big News demonstrates Giant\u2019s Causeway\u2019s ability to sire stakes winners with anomalous crosses, as he is out of the Galileo mare Unappeased. Through Giant\u2019s Causeway\u2019s entire stud career, only seven Galileo mares have been bred to him, though multi-millionaire Eishin Apollon was out of a Sadler\u2019s Wells mare. However, we must look to Galileo\u2019s dam, Urban Sea, by Miswaki, to cement the possibilities in this mating, as Giant\u2019s Causeway loved mares with Miswaki in their pedigrees: Canadian Champion Irish Mission, millionaire My Typhoon, and others were the results of such matings.<\/p>\r\n He also appreciated inbreeding to Northern Dancer, apparent in approximately half of his graded stakes winning runners. We mustn\u2019t disregard the double breeding of both Northern Dancer and Halo, offering four doses, therefore, of Almahmoud through her daughters Natalma and Cosmah.<\/p>\r\n The real key to this pedigree, however, is the bringing together, top and bottom, of the full sisters Glorious Song, through her stellar son Rahy, and Angelic Song, the dam of Unappeased (hence the coveted zigzag), both by Halo and out of the Blue Hen Ballade (1972), offering massive doses of Mahmoud and his family, La Troienne, and Swaps (for whom Giant\u2019s Causeway clearly has an affinity\u2014his full sister will make a cameo later). Ballade was the dam of Devil\u2019s Bag by Halo, a full brother to the sisters offered here, Saint Ballado, and Imperial Falcon.<\/p>\r\n The fact that this regally-bred colt only fetched $95,000 as a yearling perhaps points to the weakness of the Fasig Tipton October Yearling Sale at which he was offered, rather than to his quality, because he appears to be a big, strong serious runner. Why would a January 29 foal be offered in this sale in the first place? I can only imagine that he was small as a yearling, or that health issues kept him out of the more prestigious, earlier sales.<\/p>\r\n Given his pedigree, one of the commentators on TVG suggested that Bret Calhoun should transfer this colt to the turf as soon as possible. After the race, this commentator said, \u201cshows what I know.\u201d Devil\u2019s Bag, from this family, was a killer on dirt. This colt\u2019s Galileo dam may add stamina, and perhaps, eventually turf ability, but for now, Mr. Big News looks like a real Triple Crown contender and a bargain for Calhoun and Allied Racing Stable.<\/p>\r\n In that same hour that Mr. Big News cemented his place on the Triple Crown Trail, in the twelfth at Gulfstream, a $75,000 optional claimer, another Giant\u2019s Causeway offspring, the four-year-old filly Princess Causeway, won in perhaps the most stunning race of the day. Dead last all the way around, she closed into very fast fractions down the stretch to dominate with a thrilling turn of foot. She has five wins from eleven starts, and has earned over $314,000 for Winchester Place Thoroughbreds and trainer Ian Wilkes, and seems certain to be a candidate for a stakes race in the near future. Unlike the anomalous nick demonstrated by Mr. Big News, Princess Causeway is a much more typically pedigreed offspring of Giant\u2019s Causeway, being out of the A.P. Indy mare A.P. Investment, who was out of the Gone West mare Clear in the West.<\/p>\r\n Another generation back is the Allan Paulson-bred Danka, by Strawberry Road out of the Blushing Groom mare Paloma Blanca, offering the powerful cross of Nijinsky II and Blushing Groom, and calling out to the Blushing Groom, on the zig zag, through Rahy on the top side. Sires from the Storm Cat line love the addition of Nijinsky II to any pedigree, as Nijinsky II is a close genetic relative of Storm Bird, and the two complement each other beautifully.<\/p>\r\n While considering Princess Causeway, having a look at the pedigree of Grade One winner Imagining is essential. The Phipps-bred was by Giant\u2019s Causeway, out of the A.P. Indy mare and G2 winner Daydreaming, with a second dam by Northern Dancer, with tons of La Troienne, as only the Phipps stable could do, in the dams\u2019 side. What Calumet Farm did in breeding Princess Causeway is, though, just as strong. Giant\u2019s Causeway\u2019s best progeny are littered with inbreeding to Secretariat and his dam Somethingroyal, and this pedigree offers Secretariat 4 x 4 x 5, and Somethingroyal 5 x 5 x 6, through three of the most influential Blue Hen Secretariat mares in the stud book: Terlingua, Weekend Surprise, and Secrettame.<\/p>\r\n The appearance of Chieftain (1961) via the dam of Mariah\u2019s Storm, Immense, in Giant\u2019s Causeway\u2019s pedigree only heightens the effect, as Chieftain was by Bold Ruler, like Secretariat, out of the Blue Hen Pocahontas, whose dam, How, was by Princequillo, just like Somethingroyal. As in Mr. Big News, there is a build-up of Hail to Reason, always a good thing, through various sources this time, such as Halo, Roberto, Seattle Slew\u2019s granddam, Reason to Earn, and Hail to Reason\u2019s close genetic relative, My Babu, through A.P. Indy. We must also mention a bit of Graustark, for stamina, in her tail female line.<\/p>\r\n But there\u2019s more Giant\u2019s Causeway news. The winner of the Oaklawn Mile, an hour earlier than the Oaklawn S., was the seven-year-old Tom\u2019s D\u2019Etat, a millionaire whose career has been wisely guided by Al Stall Jr., through 17 starts, with ten wins, two seconds, and one third. How does this son of Smart Strike fit into my paean to Giant\u2019s Causeway? Because his dam, Julia Tuttle, is by Giant\u2019s Causeway, whose career as a sire of sires is more than equaled by his career as a broodmare sire: he is currently the leading broodmare sire worldwide, and is the broodmare sire of G1 star Mucho Gusto.<\/p>\r\n In Tom\u2019s D\u2019Etat we see a collection of Turn-to\/Hail to Reason blood just as we did in Mr. Big News and Princess Causeway, as Smart Strike\u2019s Blue Hen Dam, Classy \u2018n Smart, was a granddaughter of Turn-to. This twins with the Hail to Reason\/Turn-to in Giant\u2019s Causeway through Halo and Roberto, and as in Princess Causeway, we see another dose of Blushing Groom in Julia Tuttle\u2019s dams\u2019 side.<\/p>\r\n Further examination of Classy \u2018n Smart\u2019s pedigree, however, reveals that her granddam, Classy Quillo, was by Outing Class, whose dam was Track Medal. Remember the powerful dose of Swaps, in the sixth position, in Mr. Big News, tail female? In the sixth position in Tom\u2019s D\u2019Etat\u2019s pedigree, in his dams\u2019 side, is Track Medal, the full sister to Swaps. And Classy \u2018n\u2019 Smart\u2019s third dam is Quillopoly, yet another powerful Princequillo mare, like Somethingroyal and How. As usual, ancient history rears its head, and Giant\u2019s Causeway\u2019s affinity for Swaps\/Track Medal and Princequillo mares cannot be denied.<\/p>\r\n The death of Giant\u2019s Causeway in 2018 was painful, as he was clearly one of the greats. In Europe, his son Shamardal is a leading sire (with extra Halo in his dams\u2019 side), so his legacy lives on. But I sincerely hope this is not the last paean to the handsome chestnut I will write. On April 11, in one hour\u2019s time, Giant\u2019s Causeway ruled the world once again.<\/p>\r\n — Roberta Smoodin<\/em><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Giants-Causeway-e1587531038976-150x150.jpg\")
The \u201cbig news\u201d of the past racing weekend, Saturday, April 11, in particular, was that a 46-1 shot, Mr. Big News, won the Oaklawn S. and secured a guaranteed place in the Arkansas Derby and in the Preakness S., whenever that may be held. <\/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-12715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloodstock","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12715","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=12715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}