Gina Romantica is broodmare Special Me's second Grade 1 winner

Special Me is aptly named, indeed. She has climbed into elite status among North America’s active broodmares, as Gina Romantica became her second Grade 1 winner, and fourth graded stakes winner overall, in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup on Saturday at Keeneland.

Maryland-bred Special Me, a 16-year-old daughter of Unbridled’s Song, was winless in three starts on the racetrack. She was a bargain $6,000 purchase by Carrie and Craig Brogden’s Machmer Hall Farm of Paris, Ky., out of the 2009 Keeneland January horses of all ages sale. The Brogdens have since bred and raised seven winners from eight starters out of the mare.

“It has been a whole progression of seeing and raising all of her foals,” Carrie Brogden has said. “She is a great mom and is easy to get in foal and raises nothing but runners. She is the little mare that could.”

Special Me’s first Grade 1 winner was the millionaire Gift Box. The son of Twirling Candy won the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap to highlight his three graded stakes victories in California. The mare also has produced Grade 1-placed Stonetastic, by Mizzen Mast, whose five stakes victories included the Grade 2 Prioress and Grade 2 Inside Information. Special Forces, by Candy Ride, is a multiple graded stakes winner in Canada, highlighted by the Grade 2 Autumn.

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With all that success, the young Gina Romantica, by leading sire Into Mischief, proceeded to sell for $1.025 million to BSW/Crow, on behalf of owner Peter Brant, at the 2020 Keeneland September yearling sale.

Gina Romantica won this year’s Riskaverse at Saratoga and was second in the Grade 3 Pebbles at Aqueduct before her breakthrough win at Keeneland.

Meanwhile, Special Me had an Into Mischief colt, a full brother to her latest Grade 1 winner, this past February in Kentucky. She was bred back to Twirling Candy for a 2023 foal who would be a full sibling to Gift Box.

Life Is Good’s fee is $100K

The lineup of new stallions in North America for 2023 is beginning to take shape as stud farms, in anticipation of the fall open houses they use show off their stallions to prospective breeders, begin to finalize which horses will retire and set their stud fees.

Multiple top-level winner Life Is Good is preparing to join the roster at WinStar Farm for 2023 and is the most expensive incoming stallion up to this point.

Still unknown are the plans for unbeaten and unchallenged Flightline, whose breeding rights belong to Lane’s End Farm. Flightline is the favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 5 at Keeneland, and whether he will continue to race or be retired to stud will be announced following that effort.

Meanwhile, a limited number of seasons are currently available for Life Is Good at $100,000, with that fee subject to change after the Breeders’ Cup. Life Is Good, by leading sire Into Mischief, has won eight graded stakes, including last year’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and this year’s Pegasus World Cup, Whitney, and Woodward.

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Following Life Is Good as currently the second-most expensive incoming stallion for 2023 is Eclipse Award champion sprinter Jackie’s Warrior, whose fee has been set at $50,000 by Spendthrift Farm, prior to his expected run in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. As Spendthrift revealed its roster and fees for 2023, the pending retirement of multiple Grade 1 winner Cyberknife also has been confirmed, with his fee to be set following the Breeders’ Cup. Jackie’s Warrior and Cyberknife are among a quartet of new stallions for the farm, which also will debut Belmont Stakes winner Mo Donegal at $20,000 and Grade 2 winner Greatest Honour at $7,500.

Spendthrift’s roster is led by three-time reigning leading sire Into Mischief, who is again leading the national earnings list. He will stand for an unchanged $250,000 in 2023, currently the most expensive stallion in North America.

Caravaggio to Japan

Caravaggio will continue his globe-trotting stud career and become the first son of the late classic sire and emerging sire of sires Scat Daddy to stand in Japan. He will stand at the Shizunai Stallion Station for 2023.

Caravaggio, a two-time Group 1 winner at the renowned Royal Ascot meeting, stood the first three years of his stud career at Coolmore’s Irish headquarters. Following a strong start for his first crop, and strong North American demand for Scat Daddy’s relatively rare line, he moved to Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky for 2021. He covered 178 mares for an advertised fee of $125,000, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred.

Caravaggio’s fee was raised to $35,000 for 2022; the statistics for his book are not yet available.

Caravaggio is the sire of multiple Group 1 winner and European highweight Tenebrism; group stakes winners Agartha and Viareggio; German 2000 Guineas winner Maljoom; and stakes winners Dizzy Bizu, Galleria Borghese, Her World, and Tiber Flow.

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