Accelerate to cover Love the Chase in first season

Love the Chase, dam of two-time Horse of the Year California Chrome, will be among the highlights of Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Accelerate’s first book when he begins his stallion career in a few weeks’ time at Lane’s End Farm.

Accelerate is set to make his final start in Saturday’s $9 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park – less than 48 hours after the 2018 Eclipse Awards ceremony. He is a virtual certainty to be named champion older dirt male on the strength of a season including five Grade 1 victories. Among his fellow finalists for the award was one of his Pegasus challengers and another incoming Lane’s End stallion, City of Light. The Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner, City of Light was the only horse to best Accelerate in 2018, edging him in the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap.

Tom Ryan of SF Bloodstock, which owns Love the Chase, announced the mare’s mating plans on his Twitter account, calling Accelerate, “a great-looking colt that’s done it the hard way, has proven his mettle, and clearly has our full attention.”

Ryan also mentioned several other mares who would visit Accelerate in his debut season, including Maggie McGowan, the dam of Grade 1 winner Denman’s Call and a half-sister to multiple Grade 1 winner Evening Jewel. SF Bloodstock purchased Maggie McGowan for $775,000 last November. Also slated for Accelerate are Courtly Choice, the dam of multiple Grade 1 winner Wild Dude, and Gold N Shaft, dam of multiple Grade 3 winner My Boy Jack.

Love the Chase, by Not For Love, is the dam of three winners from four starters – led, of course, by California Chrome, whose nine graded stakes victories include the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Dubai World Cup. SF Bloodstock purchased Love the Chase for $1.95 million at the 2016 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall selected mixed sale, as owner Perry Martin sold her in order to raise the capital to purchase additional mares for California Chrome’s first book the following season. At the time, Love the Chase was in foal to Tapit. SF sold the resulting colt for $1.1 million to Coolmore at last year’s Keeneland September yearling sale.

Love the Chase delivered a Pioneerof the Nile colt in March 2018, who sold to Larry Best’s OXO Equine at Fasig-Tipton last November. At the same sale, Love the Chase went back through the auction ring, in foal to Uncle Mo on an April 24 cover, but failed to meet her reserve with a high bid of $1.3 million.