Oscar Performance, Aloha West, and Casa Creed give Mill Ridge plenty of stars

Three years ago, multiple Grade 1 winner Oscar Performance, standing at Mill Ridge Farm in Kentucky, was represented by his first yearlings at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected sale, looking to make his mark in a tough class of first-crop sires that also included Triple Crown winner Justify and champion Good Magic.

Meanwhile, Casa Creed and Aloha West were down the block at Saratoga Race Course. Casa Creed was preparing for his second of four starts in the Grade 1 Fourstardave, a race he would win in 2022 and 2023. Aloha West was an allowance winner and marching toward his upset in that fall’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint.

Three years later, Oscar Performance is a rising young sire for Mill Ridge, with a dozen stakes winners to his credit through Aug. 3. His now-stablemate Aloha West’s first foals began arriving this year for Mill Ridge – and they’ll have to somehow run a Fourstardave without Casa Creed this weekend in Saratoga, as he is joining those two in the stallion complex.

“It’s just truly a gift, and [we] feel so fortunate,” Mill Ridge general manager Price Bell Jr. said of the exciting young roster. “Truly, feel just a very small part. It’s our shareholders who believe, breeders who believe . . . . We’re one piece of the whole puzzle, but we’re so thankful to be able to have the opportunity to build a puzzle together. It’s been a real blessing.”

Oscar Performance, by leading sire Kitten’s Joy, was foaled and raised at Mill Ridge for longtime clients John and Jerry Amerman, who raced him as a homebred. He won seven graded stakes races, highlighted by a quartet of Grade 1 victories – the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, 2017 Belmont Derby and Secretariat Stakes, and 2018 Woodbine Mile. His other graded stakes scores included a virtuoso performance in the Grade 3 Poker Stakes in June 2018 at Belmont Park when he sizzled a mile on turf in a course-record 1:31.23, tying the North American record for a mile on grass.

Oscar Performance retired to stud at his birthplace for the 2019 season. His first two yearlings to come to Saratoga from that resulting crop were a filly out of Lovely Island, sold to Madaket Stables for $80,000, and a filly out of Wild Silk, sold to Bo Bromagen, as agent, for $180,000. Lovely Island’s filly, G Laurie, was third in the Grade 1 Natalma the following year.

Wild Silk’s filly, Red Carpet Ready, was a stakes winner at 2 before winning the Grade 2 Eight Belles at 3 and the Grade 3 Hurricane Bertie earlier this year. All of her stakes wins have come on dirt, with she and Grade 3 dirt winner Tumbarumba showing that Oscar Performance can sire some versatility, differentiating him from Kitten’s Joy, who had virtually all of his success on turf.

“It kind of opened people’s eyes that maybe he’s not Kitten’s Joy, maybe he’s more Medaglia d’Oro, that all-around horse,” Bell said, referencing another successful stallion from the same El Prado sireline.

Red Carpet Ready, who also was third in the Grade 1 Madison this spring on dirt, did recently make a strong turf debut, finishing second by a neck in the Kentucky Downs Preview Mint Ladies Turf Sprint Stakes last Saturday at Ellis Park. She narrowly missed giving Oscar Performance a stakes double on the card, as Cameo Performance won the Kentucky Downs Preview Nashville Derby. Overall, Oscar Performance is the sire of eight stakes winners this year. Along with Red Carpet Ready and Tumbarumba, those are led by Trikari, winner of the Grade 1 Belmont Derby and Grade 2 American Turf and set to seek a third graded stakes score this coming weekend, and Endlessly, winner of the Grade 3 Jeff Ruby and El Camino Real Derby.

Oscar Performance is tied with Justify atop the third-crop sire list by Northern Hemisphere graded/group stakes winners this year, with four each. By earnings, Oscar Performance is fifth, behind Justify, Good Magic, Mendelssohn, and City of Light.

The success has led to strong support for Oscar Performance. He covered 63 mares in 2022, the year his first crop began racing, to result in his current yearling crop, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred. The number shot up to 160 mares for 2023.

Millionaire Aloha West, by Hard Spun, retired to Mill Ridge for 2023 after winning the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Sprint and 2022 Kelly’s Landing, and placing in two other graded stakes. He covered 83 mares in his first season, and according to Bell, the reaction was enthusiastic.

“In his second year, because his foals are so well liked and well thought of, we had 75 percent of the mares bred his first year in his second year,” Bell said, “which we’re really proud of, which was a total compliment to the quality of foals on the ground.”

Casa Creed, by Jimmy Creed, made 36 starts – 28 of those in graded stakes – in a hickory career that began as a winning juvenile of 2018. His eight stakes wins were highlighted by his scores in the 2022 and 2023 Fourstardave, and another Grade 1 double in the 2021 and 2022 editions of the Jaipur.

“He had precocity, soundness, brilliance,” Bell said. “That’s the stool we’re going to try to stand on and hope that he can continue to contribute to the breed going forward.”