Breeders' Cup: Two sets of half-siblings will compete
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – It’s rare, but not unprecedented, for half or full siblings to contest races at the same Breeders’ Cup. This year, however, it’s an exceptionally unique circumstance, as two sets of half-siblings will share the weekend.
Lost Ark (Juvenile) and American Rockette (Juvenile Fillies) will be in action on the Nov. 4 card. One day later, their respective older half-siblings will take the track in Nest (Distaff) and Frank’s Rockette (Filly and Mare Sprint).
Multiple Grade 1 winner Nest, by Curlin, is considered a leading contender for divisional Eclipse Award honors. She is the second Grade 1 winner produced by the stakes-winning A.P. Indy mare Marion Ravenwood, who was already the dam of Santa Anita Handicap winner Idol.
Marion Ravenwood added another stakes winner to her credit when her juvenile son Lost Ark, by Violence, captured the Sapling Stakes. Nest and Lost Ark were bred by Ashview Farm and Colts Neck Stable, and were sold to their current connections as yearlings. They are both trained by Todd Pletcher.
Multiple graded stakes-winning millionaire Frank’s Rockette, by Into Mischief, and maiden winner American Rockette, by American Pharoah, race as homebreds for Frank Fletcher and are trained by Bill Mott. They are out of Grade 3 winner Rocket Twentyone, an Indian Charlie mare who Fletcher purchased as a 2-year-old. She herself started in the Breeders’ Cup, finishing 13th in the 2011 Juvenile Fillies.
Rocket Twentyone and Marion Ravenwood will become the 27th and 28th broodmares to have multiple starters in the same edition of the Breeders’ Cup, which began in 1984 and was expanded to its current two days beginning in 2007.
The current group includes mares who have produced five pairs of half- or full siblings to run against one another in the same race: Honor the Hero and Prenup (seventh and 13th, 1994 Sprint), Good Journey and Aldebaran (third and 11th, 2002 Mile), Slew’s Tiznow and Slew’s Tizzy (10th and 11th, 2008 Dirt Mile), Leinster and Stormy Liberal (seventh and eighth, 2019 Turf Sprint), and Sistercharlie and My Sister Nat (sixth and ninth, 2020 Filly and Mare Turf).
Half-siblings have never won races on the same Breeders’ Cup weekend, although one legendary family has come close. Grecian Banner’s great daughter Personal Ensign won the 1988 Distaff to cap an undefeated career. Later that day, Personal Ensign’s full brother Personal Flag was sixth in the Classic.
Personal Ensign went on to a decorated career as a broodmare. In 1995, her daughter My Flag – who herself would go on to produce a Breeders’ Cup winner seven years later – won the Juvenile Fillies. On the same card, Personal Ensign’s son Our Emblem was sixth in the Sprint.
Indian Charlie can add on
The late Indian Charlie left a legacy as a sire of sires thanks to his multiple classic-producing son Uncle Mo, but he also left a sizable legacy as a broodmare sire, which could continue to grow this weekend. Unbeaten and unchallenged Breeders’ Cup Classic favorite Flightline is out of an Indian Charlie mare, as are Grade 1 winner and Classic contender Hot Rod Charlie, millionaire Filly and Mare Sprint candidate Frank’s Rockette, and Juvenile Fillies hopeful American Rockette.
Flightline, by Tapit, is out of the stakes-winning Indian Charlie mare Feathered. Bill Farish, a principal in co-owner Woodford Racing and in Flightline’s future home Lane’s End, said he can see the influence of the broodmare sire in Flightline.
“Indian Charlie no doubt has given him a little more speed,” Farish said.
Feathered resides at Summer Wind Farm, which bred and co-owns Flightline.
Hot Rod Charlie is out of the Indian Charlie mare Indian Miss, who is also the dam of 2019 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner and Eclipse Award champion Mitole. She was honored as Kentucky’s Broodmare of the Year in the spring.
“Indian Miss is one of the most remarkable mares that I have ever had the pleasure to work with,” Katie Taylor of Taylor Made Farm, which boards Indian Miss for owner Larry Best, said. “Not because of an imposing stature, flawless conformation, or royal race record. Indian Miss is remarkable because she is the embodiment of the ideal broodmare. She is quiet and kind, devoted to her foals, and a consistent producer. . . . She outproduces herself time and again.”
According to Equineline statistics, Indian Charlie, who died in 2011 at Airdrie Stud, is the broodmare sire of 106 career stakes winners through Oct. 30. Those also include Grade/Group 1 winners Dayoutoftheoffice and Switzerland and Canadian Horse of the Year Biofuel.
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