Kentucky Derby pedigree profile: Shooters Shoot

Shooters Shoot

Competitive Edge – Repeat, by Bernardini

Bred in Kentucky by Nancy C. Shuford ($90,000 Keeneland November weanling purchase by Winchell Thoroughbreds; $70,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase by Gary Mottola; $300,000 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. spring 2-year-old purchase by Exline-Border Racing)

It’s easy to be overlooked when your stablemate is a Triple Crown winner. But Competitive Edge, who entered stud alongside American Pharoah at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky, made himself impossible to ignore on last year’s competitive freshman sire list. The young stallion, who won the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes as a juvenile and the Grade 3 Pat Day Mile the following spring, finished sixth to American Pharoah on the earnings list. He also was fifth by individual winners, and tied for second by black-type stakes winners, with his four trailing only Constitution.

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Competitive Edge’s top runners last season were the New York-bred filly My Italian Rabbi, who won the Stillwater Stakes and Lady Finger Stakes and was twice stakes-placed against her fellow statebreds; My Italian Rabbi’s stakes-winning New York-bred rival Fierce Lady; Majestic Gold, a stakes winner at Camarero; and Sassy Seneca, a stakes winner at Canterbury.

Shooters Shoot, a winner of 2 of 6 starts, gets a chance to join that group Saturday while making his stakes debut in the Santa Anita Derby.

My Italian Rabbi, Majestic Gold, and Sassy Seneca are all the result of crossing Competitive Edge over A.P. Indy-line broodmare sires, a pattern Shooters Shoot also is bred on. Bernardini, by A.P. Indy, has been steadily emerging as a broodmare sire, with his top runners in that regard including Kentucky Oaks winner Serengeti Empress and Grade 1 winners Catholic Boy, Dunbar Road, Hunter O’Riley, Maxfield, and Mo Town.

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This pedigree pattern also is represented by one of Shooters Shoot’s expected foes in the Santa Anita Derby – El Camino Real Derby winner Azul Coast. That colt is by Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver, the sire of Competitive Edge, and his broodmare sire is the A.P. Indy grandson Sky Mesa.

Shooters Shoot’s dam, Repeat, is out of Grade 2 Forward Gal winner Letgomyecho, making her a half-sister to Grade 3 winner J Boys Echo and three other stakes-placed runners. J Boys Echo, who won the 2017 Gotham Stakes and finished third in the Withers, is by another son of A.P. Indy, Mineshaft.