Candy Ride sons off to strong start at stud

Converge won the Grade 3 Palm Beach Stakes on Saturday at Gulfstream Park, giving sire Sidney’s Candy his first stakes winner and completing a unique trifecta for grandsire Candy Ride. The latter is represented by three young sons at stud, all track-record-setting Grade 1 winners who have sired stakes-winning 3-year-olds from their first crops. They are Twirling Candy, standing alongside Candy Ride at Lane’s End; Sidney’s Candy, standing at WinStar Farm; and Misremembered, at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms.

Twirling Candy was a graded stakes winner on dirt, turf, and synthetic, with his biggest victory coming in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes. He finished second on last year’s freshman sire list and is represented by two stakes winners in 2016, with Iron Rob winning the Baffle Stakes at Santa Anita and Twirling Cinnamon winning the Space City Stakes at Sam Houston.

Converge is the most accomplished runner from the first crop of Santa Anita Derby winner Sidney’s Candy, also a graded winner on dirt, turf, and synthetic.

The millionaire Misremembered won the Santa Anita Handicap and three other stakes. He was represented by his first U.S. stakes winner earlier this year, as Nightly News took the Turf Paradise Derby.