Champion Gio Ponti's first foal arrives in Canada

Three-time Eclipse Award winner Gio Ponti was represented by his first foal on Jan. 11, a colt born at Huntington Stud Farm in Kleinburg, Ontario, Canada.

The chestnut colt is out of the stakes-placed Kissin Kris mare Kissin Party, a half-sister to stakes winner Barrier Reef and stakes-placed Arctic Party.

"[I am] delighted with the foal, who has good size and bone with great quality," owner Dan Mooney said.

Gio Ponti, an 8-year-old Tale of the Cat horse, won 12 of 29 career starts, earning $6,169,800 and taking home hardware as champion turf male in 2009 and 2010 and champion older male in 2009.

His 11 stakes victories included seven Grade 1 events. He won the Frank E. Kilroe Mile Handicap, Manhattan Handicap, Man o' War Stakes, and Arlington Million Stakes during his first championship campaign in 2009. He added another edition of the Man o' War in 2010, and won consecutive editions of the Shadwell Turf Mile Stakes in 2010 and 2011.

Gio Ponti also placed in eight Grade 1 events, including a runner-up finish to Zenyatta in the 2009 Breeders' Cup Classic, and a second to Goldikova in the 2010 Breeders' Cup Mile. He was second in two other editions of the Arlington Million.

Out of the Alydar mare Chipeta Springs, Gio Ponti entered stud at Castleton Lyons in Lexington, Ky., for a fee of $20,000 in 2012. He will stand for the same fee this year.