Idiomatic traces to Juddmonte's beginning
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Idiomatic only burst onto the scene this year, as the Juddmonte Farm homebred won her stakes debut in March. She now brings a streak of four straight graded stakes wins, including Grade 1 triumphs in the Personal Ensign and Spinster, into Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita.
But by contrast, Idiomatic’s rise to the top was decades in the development, as she is from one of the foundation families for the international Juddmonte operation that was founded in 1980 by the late Prince Khalid bin Abdullah.
“It’s tremendous,” said Garrett O’Rourke, manager for Juddmonte’s U.S. operations. “In an era where everyone thinks conformation and the beauty is everything, families like that really illustrate to us that pedigree matters an awful lot.”
Idiomatic, by Curlin, is out of Grade 1-placed Lockdown, a full sister to Eclipse Award champion Close Hatches. Juddmonte’s association with the family began when Khalid Abdullah purchased their great-granddam, Monroe.
The daughter of Sir Ivor was bred by Darrell and Lindy Brown of Stonereath Stud in Kentucky, who sold the filly at the 1978 Keeneland July yearling sale for $300,000 to Robert Sangster. Monroe went on to win the Group 3 Ballyrogan Stakes at five furlongs in Ireland as a 3-year-old and was Group 1-placed. She was acquired by Khalid Abdullah in a private transaction with Sangster to be one of his foundation mares.
Monroe was out of all-world broodmare Best in Show, with standouts produced by various branches of that blue hen’s family, too numerous to list here. To name just a few, she is the ancestress of champions including familiar names Aldebaran, Almond Eye, El Gran Senor, Malinowski, Peeping Fawn, and Rags to Riches.
O’Rourke named some other standouts while discussing the family’s versatility.
“One of the things I’ve always marveled about with that family is they run on dirt, they run on turf,” O’Rourke said. “Monroe was a five-furlong sprinter, and at the same time, within a generation, there was a horse called Chief Contender that was a two-time stayer in England. You had Blush With Pride winning Kentucky dirt classics, and at the same time, El Gran Senor was winning the 2000 Guineas.
“It’s just one of those absolutely amazing families, and they can come in all shapes and sizes, but they’re all good, they all have engines.”
O’Rourke’s affection for the family started when he spent several years managing Sangster’s Creekview Farm in Kentucky before deepening his association with Monroe and her descendants at Juddmonte.
“That’s one of my all-time favorite families,” O’Rourke said. “I saw some of that family before I came to Juddmonte, through [Monroe’s half-sister Sex Appeal], and El Gran Senor, and all that. Quite a few different people have branches of that family.”
For Juddmonte, its particular branch of this family has flourished. Monroe produced European champion Xaar, graded/group stakes winners Diese and Masterclass, and stakes winner Ile de Jinsky; with several of her daughters and granddaughters becoming stakes producers. She is responsible for Grade/Group 1 winners Cityscape, Prosperous Voyage, and Senure, and multiple group winner and prominent sire Bated Breath, to name a few.
Looking strictly at the branch of the family responsible for Idiomatic, Monroe’s stakes-placed daughter Silver Star is the dam of stakes winner Barsanti, and the second dam of Irish 2000 Guineas winner Siskin. Her 11 winners also included the Storm Cat mare Rising Tornado, whose daughter Close Hatches, by First Defence, won five Grade 1 races and was second to the great Beholder in the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Distaff. Close Hatches, the 2014 Eclipse Award champion older female, has already produced multiple graded stakes winner and multimillionaire Tacitus for Juddmonte.
Rising Tornado then produced Lockdown, who as a 3-year-old in 2017 won the Busanda Stakes, was second in the Grade 2 Gazelle and Grade 2 Mother Goose, and twice third in Grade 1 races, the Kentucky Oaks and the Cotillion.
Lockdown died in 2022, after producing just three foals. All were fillies, however, ensuring Juddmonte will be able to continue to develop her part of the family. Behind Idiomatic, her first foal, the mare delivered Abditory, an unraced 3-year-old Medaglia d’Oro filly. Her yearling Into Mischief filly is named Chasten.
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