Kentucky Derby pedigree profiles: Royal Son

Royal Son
Tiznow – Mama Nadine, by A.P. Indy
(Bred in Kentucky by WinStar Farm)

Royal Son broke through with an upset win in last month’s John Battaglia Memorial Stakes on Turfway Park’s synthetic surface, the local prep for the Grade 3 Spiral Stakes this Saturday. The Tiznow colt will get a class test in the days and weeks ahead but does bring a classic-type pedigree to his upcoming challenges.

Royal Son, a homebred for WinStar Farm, comes from a classy female family with distance aptitude. The colt is out of the A.P. Indy mare Mama Nadine, the winner of the Little Silver Stakes at Monmouth Park going one mile and 70 yards. Her only other starter, Awesome Mama, is a winner at seven furlongs.

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Versatile second dam Countess Diana was brilliant and precocious enough to set a track record for 4 1/2 furlongs in her career debut; however, she was able to carry her speed to become a multiple graded stakes winner around two turns, including a win in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies to secure a divisional Eclipse Award. Countess Diana is the dam of five winners from six starters, with three of those – including Mama Nadine and full sibling Counselled – winning at a mile or longer.

Countess Diana is one of four stakes winners out of stakes winner T. V. Countess, a productive mare who is also responsible for a handful of stakes-placed winners and stakes producers. T. V. Countess is a half-sister to the dam of multiple Grade 1 winner Exogenous, and it is the family of Super Ninety Nine, a graded stakes winner on the Triple Crown trail two years ago.

The extended female family also includes Barbarika, the second dam of champion and leading North American-based money winner Curlin.

The majority of the female family’s success has come on dirt, but WinStar Farm sire Tiznow – a two-time winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic – is represented by some high-end runners with versatility. Well Armed and Colonel John were Grade/Group 1 winners on both dirt and synthetic surfaces, while Canadian champion Bear Now was a graded stakes winner on both surfaces. Royal Son is looking to follow in those footsteps. The colt has already shown an affinity for Turfway’s all-weather surface with his win in the Battaglia. He has yet to cross the wire first in a dirt race – he won his maiden via disqualification – but was a solid second in three of his four outings on the surface.