Multiple Grade 1 winner McKinzie will stand at Gainesway in Lexington, Ky., upon his eventual retirement from racing, the farm announced Monday evening. The 5-year-old son of Street Sense is targeting the Grade 1 Runhappy Metropolitan Handicap – a race with a stallion-making reputation – on July 4 at Belmont Park as he continues his campaign.
While Gamine has a long way to go before being mentioned in the same breath as Ruffian and other greats, she does share a blood link with that champion as she is inbred to her speedy half-brother Icecapade.
The 2019 freshman sire class in North America, with Triple Crown winner American Pharoah leading a bevy of champions and major winners, was lauded as a historically strong class even before its first runners hit the track. The group lived up to its billing last year, with 12 graded/group stakes winners, led by a pair of Breeders' Cup winners. Turning the corner into 2020, the class has continued to shine in major events.
Man o' War, considered by many to be the greatest racehorse of all time, won the Belmont Stakes a century ago this spring, then went on to sire three winners of America's oldest classic event. Fittingly, the broodmare sire of this year's Belmont Stakes winner is Tiznow, Man o' War's most prominent direct male-line descendant remaining at stud.
In 2003, Sackatoga Stable and trainer Barclay Tagg made an unlikely run at the Triple Crown with Funny Cide, a New York-bred gelding from the first crop of his sire, Distorted Humor. Seventeen years later, Sackatoga and Tagg completed their personal Triple Crown with 2020 Belmont Stakes winner Tiz the Law, also a New York-bred and also from the first crop of his sire, Constitution. Distorted Humor, now 27, fittingly played a part in the story as well.
Nearly three decades after his own Belmont Stakes victory, A.P. Indy is responsible, via his direct male line, for the sire or broodmare sire of six of the 10 expected starters in this year's renewal.
Belmont Stakes favorite Tiz the Law was bred in New York by Randy Gullatt and Steve Davison's Twin Creeks Farm. The colt could provide a boost in the value of that operation's two half-siblings to him, both by a young New York stallion, with a victory.
Constitution, Quality Road, and Super Saver, who have contenders for this Saturday's Belmont Stakes, are just three of the many successful stallions whose racetrack careers were under the tutelage of Todd Pletcher.
Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Texas Red recorded his first winner as a sire when My Girl Red won her debut by 4 1/4 lengths on Sunday at Santa Anita.
Three-time Grade 1 winner Exaggerator recorded the first winner of his stud career Thursday as his daughter Xtrema won her debut at Golden Gate for some of the same connections that campaigned her sire.
