Kentucky Derby pedigree profile: Three Technique

Three Technique

Mr Speaker – Nite in Rome, by Harlan’s Holiday

Bred in Kentucky by Omega Farm LLC and Bally Breeders ($50,000 Keeneland November weanling purchase by Spin to Win Stables; $180,000 Fasig-Tipton July yearling purchase by August Dawn Farm)

In an outstanding class of first-crop sires whose runners debuted last year, led by a Triple Crown winner, arguably none is better bred than Mr Speaker. A Grade 1 winner who blossomed as a 3-year-old, Mr Speaker is represented by a classics hopeful in Three Technique, who is expected to start in Saturday’s Grade 2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park.

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Mr Speaker, bred by the Phipps Stable, is by sire of sires Pulpit and out of the Grade 2-placed Unbridled mare Salute, whose dam was unbeaten champion and blue hen Personal Ensign. Salute is already the dam of Fire Away, winner of the Grade 3 Dixie Stakes in an off-the-turf renewal, and stakes-winning steeplechaser Snap Decision. Mr Speaker is bred on the same Pulpit-Unbridled cross responsible for perennial leading sire Tapit, the sire of three Belmont Stakes winners.

Mr Speaker scored his biggest victory in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby at 1 1/4 miles on turf in 2014, defeating the globe-trotting Adelaide by a neck. He also won the Grade 2 Commonwealth Cup on turf and the Grade 3 Lexington Stakes on synthetic, but his dirt breeding has begun shining through in his offspring, who are emerging 3-year-olds.

In addition to Three Technique, the runner-up in the Smarty Jones Stakes in January at Oaklawn, Mr Speaker is the sire of Speech, recently second in the Grade 3 Santa Ysabel Stakes to Donna Veloce, one of the West Coast’s leading Kentucky Oaks hopefuls.

Three Technique is out of the Harlan’s Holiday mare Nite in Rome, second in the Grade 3 Natalma Stakes at a mile on turf. She is the dam of Stan the Man, a stakes winner at 1 1/8 miles on dirt.

– Nicole Russo