Air Force Blue, Bobby's Kitten get first winners

A European champion standing in America and an American standout standing in Europe, both sons of internationally successful sires bred in Kentucky, recorded their respective first winners over the weekend.

:: DRF BREEDING LIVE: Real-time coverage of breeding and sales

Cartier Award European champion juvenile Air Force Blue, who is based at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky, was represented by his first winner when Beauty Queen won a maiden-claiming race Saturday at Gulfstream Park. One day later, Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Bobby’s Kitten notched his first winner as Sands Of Time won at Lingfield. Bobby’s Kitten stands at Lanwades Stud.

Air Force Blue won 4 of 9 career starts, all for Coolmore, including, as a juvenile, the Group 1 Vincent O’Brien National Stakes and Group 1 Phoenix Stakes in Ireland and the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes in England. Despite having never raced in North America, he was introduced at stud at Ashford in Kentucky for Coolmore. Air Force Blue is by Kentucky sire War Front, an internationally popular commercial stallion who is the sire of Grade 1/Group 1 winners in the United States and Europe on both dirt and turf. Last year, he notched his first American classic winner when War of Will prevailed in the Preakness Stakes.

Air Force Blue, bred in Kentucky by Stone Farm, is out of the stakes-placed Maria’s Mon mare Chatham, from the family of champions Flanders and Surfside.

Bobby’s Kitten was bred in Kentucky by Ken and Sarah Ramsey and is by the couple’s turf champion Kitten’s Joy, the perennial leading turf sire in North America and twice the leading general sire. Bobby’s Kitten won four stakes, highlighted by the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. He also finished third in the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. In his only start in Europe, he won the 2016 Cork Stakes in Ireland.

Bobby’s Kitten became the first son of Kitten’s Joy to stand in Europe when he retired to Lanwades in Newmarket, England, for the 2017 season. Since then, Kitten’s Joy’s stock across the pond has risen, as he was represented by Roaring Lion, the 2018 Cartier European Horse of the Year. Kitten’s Joy was just represented last Saturday by English 2000 Guineas winner Kameko.