Scrambled sales calendar turned out to be a break for Fradkins, owner-breeders of Rombauer
The global coronavirus pandemic turned life, including the Thoroughbred racing and sales calendar, upside down in 2020. But the shuffling of the sales calendar actually played out in favor of the small breeding program of John and Diane Fradkin.
The Fradkins had planned to offer for sale their homebred Rombauer, but the auction he was intended for was postponed. As a result, they campaigned Rombauer, and on Saturday he won the Preakness Stakes.
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Rombauer, by Twirling Candy and out of the Fradkins’ unraced homebred Cashmere, was foaled at Machmer Hall in Paris, Ky., in April 2018. The bay colt made an impression when the couple visited him the following year.
“When we went out to visit him in Kentucky his yearling year, he just had a special look, look of eagles about him,” Diane Fradkin recalled. “He was attentive. He was showing off in the paddock. He just had that look. And I remember thinking that day, ‘Wow, this horse is something special.’ ”
Look of eagles and all, the young Rombauer was still intended for sale, as is the plan for young stock produced from the Fradkins’ handful of mares. The colt was sent to trainer and consignor Eddie Woods in Ocala, Fla., to prepare for the 2020 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s spring sale of 2-year-olds in training, which was scheduled for mid-April. But the pandemic took hold in the United States a month before the sale, and cancellations and postponements from around the racing and sales world began to pour in.
“Fate did play a role,” John Fradkin said. “We intend to sell all our horses. They’re all aimed for either yearling sale or 2-year-old sale. We have had better luck at 2-year-old sales. This horse was in Ocala with Eddie Woods, and he was being aimed for the April OBS 2-year-old sale. And Eddie told me that he didn’t have confidence that that sale was going to come off, and this was probably in March. So he suggested maybe just run this one and try and win early at the track and maybe sell him at the track.”
Indeed, the OBS spring sale was pushed back by two months to June. Rombauer won his debut July 25 on the Del Mar turf. Although Rombauer went winless in three more starts as a juvenile, he flashed ability by running second in the Grade 1 American Pharoah at Santa Anita.
In his first start of 2021, Rombauer won the El Camino Real Derby on Feb. 13 on Golden Gate’s Tapeta surface. After finishing third in the Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes in April at Keeneland, he skipped the Kentucky Derby and awaited the Preakness, for which he had earned a fees-paid berth with his Golden Gate victory.
With his Preakness score, Rombauer vastly elevated the profile of his dam, Cashmere, and thus the value of her future foals for the Fradkins. The Cowboy Cal mare is already the dam of four winners from as many starters, with Rombauer joined by stakes-placed Cono and Treasure Trove. The mare, who is now boarded at Woodstock Farm in Lexington, Ky. – as Machmer Hall has since privatized – is the dam of a juvenile Strong Mandate filly and a yearling Cairo Prince colt. She was bred to Khozan for 2021.
“The Fradkins have a small breeding operation,” said Michael McCarthy, who trains Rombauer. “They’re passionate about it. They make informed decisions, to say the least. They put a lot of time and effort into it.”