New stallion Calimonco booked to recent Keeneland purchases

Benoit & Associates

Stakes winner Calimonco, standing his first season at stud in 2013, will be booked to ten fillies and mares purchased recently at the Keeneland January sale.

First-year stallion Calimonco will be bred to ten fillies and mares purchased by Donald Cohn and Martin Wygod at the recently concluded Keeneland January horses of all ages sale, according to officials at Cohn’s Ballena Vista Farm in Ramona, California. Calimonco, a 7-year-old Storm Cat horse, will stand the 2013 season at Ballena Vista Farm for a fee of $1,500 when the foal stands and nurses.

The new acquisitions arrived at the farm on Jan. 14. They include Good Heavens, an 11-year-old Holy Bull mare in foal to Harlan’s Holiday from the family of Grade 1 winner and 1985 California champion 3-year-old colt Slew the Dragon. Cohn and Wygod also purchased eight winning fillies—four earning six figures—by Exchange Rate, Monarchos, Quiet American, Rahy, Tapit (two), War Front, and Wildcat Heir. All were retired in 2012 and will be bred to Calimonco in 2013.

Racing for breeders Martin and Pam Wygod, Calimonco accumulated a solid record in five seasons on the track, posting his first stakes win in the Wickerr Stakes at Del Mar in July 2011. Ballena Vista bought an ownership interest in the horse shortly afterward and he scored his second stakes win in the inaugural running of the Sidd Finch Stakes at Santa Anita on April Fool’s Day 2012. Calimonco retired last fall with a career record of five wins, nine seconds, and seven thirds in 35 starts and $391,486 in earnings. He is the leading money-winning son of Storm Cat to enter stud in California.

Out of Kentucky’s 2009 Broodmare of the Year Sweet Life, by Kris S., Calimonco is a full brother to Sweet Catomine, a three-time Grade 1 winner and champion 2-year-old filly in 2004, and to 2009 Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic winner Life Is Sweet.