McPeek flatters Rattle N Roll with comparisons to his grandsire Curlin

While rising to the top levels of the sport, trainer Ken McPeek developed a reputation for finding talented runners at bargain prices. One of those was a Smart Strike colt named Curlin whom he purchased for $57,000 at the 2005 Keeneland September yearling sale on behalf of original owner Midnight Cry Stable. With McPeek having taken a sabbatical from training, the colt went to his former assistant Helen Pitts and later moved to Steve Asmussen after a private purchase.

Curlin earned two Horse of the Year titles and more than $10.5 million.

Fifteen years after scouting out Curlin, McPeek went to $210,000 – again, a relative bargain for a high-end Thoroughbred racehorse – for a grandson of Curlin named Rattle N Roll at the 2020 Keeneland September yearling sale. From the first crop of Curlin’s son Connect, Rattle N Roll won the Grade 1, $500,000 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland for McPeek and Lucky Seven Stable on Saturday.

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McPeek says he sees mental and physical qualities in Rattle N Roll that remind him of his Hall of Fame grandsire.

“He’s very easy to be around,” McPeek said. “I went back [Saturday] afternoon to check on him pre-race, and you know how a horse has the look of eagles in him? He was just, like, intense. He was checking everything out, and he was interested. He is smart, for sure.

“It’s the Curlin in him, I think – that top line,” McPeek said. “He looks a lot like Curlin, in a sense. I wasn’t around Connect. But [Rattle N Roll] understands how to sit behind horses and finish, and he can do that.”

Connect stands at Lane’s End Farm, where Curlin spent the early years of his stallion career before Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm bought an interest in him. Connect won 6 of 8 starts and earned more than $1.3 million. Fittingly, his victorious stakes debut came in the Curlin Stakes. Later that fall, he added the Grade 2 Pennsylvania Derby and Grade 1 Cigar Mile, and the following spring won the Grade 3 Westchester Stakes.

Rattle N Roll’s victory moved Connect into second on this year’s freshman sire earnings list through Sunday, behind 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner. Connect’s 16 first-crop winners also include Grade 3 Pocahontas Stakes winner Hidden Connection and stakes-placed Kneesnhips and Queen Camilla.

Connect could continue to bolster Curlin’s reputation as a sire of sires. Curlin’s first son to stud in Kentucky was Palace Malice (Three Chimneys Farm), who is the sire of seven stakes winners, including 2019 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Structor in his first crop.

Curlin’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner and Eclipse Award champion Good Magic (Hill ‘n’ Dale) and graded stakes winner Irish War Cry (Northview Stallion Station) – both classic placed – each has his first yearlings this year. Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and Eclipse champion Vino Rosso (Spendthrift Farm) was among Curlin’s sons to enter stud in 2020, and Spendthrift will welcome another Grade 1-winning son of Curlin for next season in Known Agenda.