In the final of the November Open House blogs (don’t worry, if you don’t see a farm in the November blogs then they’ll likely be in the January ones!) I visit Darley and Shadwell to see some past and present stars.
From a new retiree like champion Essential Quality to the pensioned champion Swain living his best life in a Shadwell pasture, I talk about a few different generations of top racehorses – and the crosses that work with them – this week.
Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
A newer pensioner at Shadwell’s Kentucky farm is 2008 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Albertus Maximus. The stallion’s final foal was born in 2021 and today he lives his life just a pasture away from Swain and current Shadwell sire Mohaymen.
From 119 runners, Albertus Maximus sired three stakes winners and five stakes performers with the stallion seeing 63.9% of his runners win at least one race and 83.33% of them make it to the racetrack. Albertus Maximus’s first foals as a broodmare sire were born in 2018 with the stallion’s daughters producing four winners from five to run. While Albertus Maximus has only had a handful of foals the last five years, his family is still well represented. He is the older brother of Grade 1 winner and successful sire Daredevil (who featured in the first blog in this series).
One of the younger stallions on the Darley roster is Medaglia d’Oro’s homebred son Enticed. A Grade 2 winner at two, who was also second in a Grade 1, Enticed won three of his seven starts and finished on the board in two others. He has a strong female family on him as one of two stakes performers from two to race out of the three-time Grade 1 winner It’s Tricky with his next three dams all producing stakes winners and two of those dams also winning stakes races themselves.
The stallion’s first yearlings go through the ring this year with Enticed having 104 foals from his first crop and breeding 86 mares last year. He stands for $5,000 in 2022.
The 2020 Champion 2-Year-Old, who is also up for 2021 Champion 3-Year-Old honors, Essential Quality is new to Darley in 2022. The Tapit son was one of two classic winners and champions for his family in the last few years with his dam the half-sister to the granddam of Japanese Triple Crown winner Contrail. Essential Quality himself won eight of 10 starts, including four Grade 1s – led last year by the G1 Belmont Stakes. His only losses came in the G1 Kentucky Derby (when fourth) and the G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic in his final start (when third).
Essential Quality’s $75,000 stud fee is the highest for a freshman sire this year with Hill ‘n’ Dale’s Charlatan coming in second highest at $50,000.
My favorite horse from the epic 3-year-old crop of 2007 was Hard Spun so I make it a priority to see him every Open House season. Standing his 15th season at stud, Hard Spun has made a large impact on the racetrack. A Grade 1 winner who also placed in multiple Triple Crown races, Hard Spun has seen 45 of his runners win graded stakes and 174 earn stakes placings. Among those are champion Questing and 14 other Grade 1 winners with son Silver State entering stud at Claiborne Farm this year and Aloha West winning the G1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint in 2021.
Gone West has proven to be a golden cross with Hard Spun, especially in recent years. Gone West granddaughters have 78 runners by the stallion with 48 of them finding the winner’s circle. But an even more impressive number is that three of those runners have won Grade 1 races – including Breeders’ Cup winners Aloha West and Spun To Run.
In all, Hard Spun has six graded stakes winners, 10 stakes winners, and 13 stakes performers out of Gone West granddaughters. Of the 16 runners by Hard Spun out of Gone West daughters, 12 have won with Group 2 winner Red Duke and stakes winner Spinoff leading the way. Spinoff is also a grandson of broodmare Zoftig, who produced both Grade 1 winner Zo Impressive and winner Hard to Impress by Hard Spun.
The Fappiano branch of the Mr. Prospector line has also been fruitful for Hard Spun. Fappiano granddaughters have produced three stakes winners and five stakes performers overall from 25 runners by the stallion with that group led by Grade 1 winners Smooth Roller and Hard Aces.
Hard Spun stands for $35,000 this year, the same fee he stood for in 2021. The sire of 119 2-year-olds, Hard Spun has 97 yearlings and bred 154 mares in 2021.
Another pensioner at Shadwell Farm is Kayrawan. A 30-year-old son of Mr. Prospector, the Shadwell homebred was the winner of six of 15 starts with two other victories led by the G2 Tom Fool Handicap. Kayrawan retired to stud in 1997 and had 55 winners from his 92 foals. Among those were four stakes performers led by stakes winner Dubai Sheikh. Kayrawan’s final two foals were born in 2012 with one winner from one to race from that small crop.
Did you know one of the world’s best stallions was nearly gelded? That was the story Darley’s representative told us about Medaglia d’Oro during the November Open House after hearing it from his breeders only a few weeks before. According to the story, they made it a general rule to geld every colt they had but decided to keep him intact.
As a racehorse, Medaglia d’Oro won eight of 17 starts with seven other seconds. The now-23-year-old won or placed in eight Grade 1 races with three of those including trips to the winner’s circle. But Medaglia has outdone that race record in the breeding shed. He is the sire of 85 graded stakes winners, 162 stakes winners and 268 stakes performers worldwide. That group is led by Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra among his seven champions. A longtime top sire, Medaglia d’Oro’s more recent top-level horses include Golden Sixty, Cambier Parc, and Flit.
Those looking for a golden cross with Medaglia d’Oro need to look no farther than Forty Niner. That stallion’s granddaughters have produced 11 stakes winners and 15 stakes performers from 76 runners by Medaglia d’Oro with five of those being Grade 1 winners (including Songbird, Rachel Alexandra, and Golden Sixty) and nine overall being graded stakes winners. Forty Niner daughters have produced four winners from five runners, including the Grade 3 winning Super Espresso and stakes-placed Diamond d’Oro.
Medaglia d’Oro has 98 2-year-olds, 80 yearlings, and bred 111 mares last year. He stands at Darley for $100,000 this season.
A sneaky second-crop sire is Shadwell Farm’s Tapit son Mohaymen. The winner of two stakes each at two and three, Mohaymen retired to Shadwell in 2018 and had 46 starters in his first crop of juveniles last year. That group included 20 winners and four stakes performers, led by Grade 2 winner Elm Drive.
Mohaymen has crossed well with multiple different lines – his stakes performers are out of mares by Indian Charlie, Pure Prize, Tiznow, and Medaglia d’Oro. Both Medaglia d’Oro and Indian Charlie have two winners from two to race by the sire with Medaglia d’Oro’s sire El Prado seeing three winners from three runners overall as a grandsire to dams of Mohaymen runners.
In addition to Indian Charlie’s two winners, his son Uncle Mo also has one winner from one runner out of his daughter.
Mohaymen has 27 2-year-olds and 29 yearlings with the stallion breeding 40 mares in 2021. He stands for $7,500 as the lone stallion on the Shadwell roster this year.
The best racehorse by supersire Uncle Mo so far, Champion 2-Year-Old and G1 Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist has also proven to be the leader of that sire’s top class of stallion sons as well. From his first two crops, Nyquist has 23 stakes performers and two champions to his name. Just like his own sire did when Nyquist was named champion, Nyquist also had a Champion 2-Year-Old in his first crop with Vequist.
Uncle Mo has had success with A.P. Indy and Nyquist is following that trend. Both his champions (and Grade 1 winners) Vequist and Gretzky The Great are out of A.P. Indy granddaughters (one through Mineshaft, one through Bernardini) as are four other stakes performers for the Darley stallion. A.P. Indy himself is the damsire of Nyquist’s stakes winner Turnerloose and A.P. Indy grandsons are the damsire of Nyquist’s Grade 1-placed Nasreddine and three other winners from five runners on that specific cross (Sky Mesa and Tapit are the ones in that spot).
Standing for $55,000 this year, Nyquist has 117 2-year-olds, 106 yearlings, and bred 162 mares last year.
Nyquist stands next to another Champion 2-Year-Old and G1 Kentucky Derby winner at Darley in the 18-year-old Street Sense. Part of the best crop this century, Street Sense won six of 13 starts with six other top three finishes, led by three Grade 1 wins.
As a sire, Street Sense has 82 stakes winners and 138 stakes performers with 18 Northern Hemisphere juvenile stakes winners from his 11 crops of racing age. Of those 82 stakes winners, 36 have won at the graded level with 11 winning Grade 1s. That group includes Maxfield, who joins him on the Darley roster this year.
Storm Cat’s line has proven to be a successful cross with Street Sense – especially through Forest Wildcat. That Storm Cat son is the damsire of Street Sense’s Grade 1 winner Call Back, Grade 3 winner Cazadero and the winning Raamiz. In all, 62 of the 89 runners by Street Sense out of Storm Cat granddaughters have won at least one race, 15 have earned blacktype, nine have won a stakes, and four are graded stakes winners. Storm Cat himself is the broodmare sire of 22 winners for Street Sense with Grade 3 winner Castaway leading the group’s three stakes performers.
Street Sense is represented by 88 2-year-olds and 91 yearlings in 2022 with the stallion breeding 139 mares last season. Already the sire of graded stakes winner this year – Grade 3 winner Speaker’s Corner, who is out of a Bernardini mare just like Maxfield – Street Sense stands for $75,000 in 2022.
Today’s blog ends with British and Irish champion Swain, who proved to be one of the best of his generation as both a talented and versatile racehorse. Today the 30-year-old spends his retirement from stallion duties at Shadwell Farm.
A purple-blooded racehorse, whose first two dams take up seven pages of a catalog-paged pedigree with their production accomplishments, Swain was a champion in 1997 and 1998. Among his 10 career wins in 22 starts were four Group 1 victories with 10 other on-the-board finishes, including placings in many of the top races in the world, including both the G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic on dirt and the Breeders’ Cup Turf on the grass.
Swain’s pedigree and accomplishments unfortunately didn’t carry over to a ton of success in the breeding shed but he did sire 154 winners from 240 runners. Included in that group was his lone Grade 1 winner, Dimitrova, and 11 other stakes winners (five at the graded level). His daughters have also had success with their 420 runners, including dual Group 1 winner Jack Hobbs and 10 other stakes winners. He has spent the last 11 years in retirement at Shadwell after ending his stallion career at Ascot Stud in Canada.
Looking for assistance with your research or photography needs? I’m here to help! Contact Melissa@PyroisMedia.com for more information.