Like stallions, even the best broodmares tend to produce their best foals in their first five or six years at stud. Natalma famously produced Northern Dancer as her first foal at age 4 after being bred late as a 3-year-old. Conversely, Somethingroyal was an old lady of 18 when she produced Secretariat as her 13th foal, but then she had already thrown top stakes winners Sir Gaylord, First Family, and Syrian Sea as her third, sixth, and ninth foals. Santa Rosa Partners’ (Gerry Dilger and Mike Ryan) Above Perfection may not be Somethingroyal, but her production record also has tilted toward later in life. Her fourth foal, Hot Dixie Chick, by Dixie Union, captured the Grade 1 Spinaway, and Above Perfection hit the jackpot with her ninth foal, Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming, by Bodemeister. Her 11th foal is last Saturday’s Grade 2 Demoiselle winner, Positive Spirit, by Pioneerof the Nile. Perhaps the most thoroughly proven truism in Thoroughbred breeding is that the best racemares, on average, make the best broodmares, and Above Perfection had every right on that measure to produce two Grade 1 winners and a possible third in the making. Bred in California by the Johnston family’s Old English Rancho, she was one of the fastest fillies of her generation, and, in fact, gave the filly that thoroughly earned that title as fastest one of her toughest races. In the 2001 Grade 1 Prioress Stakes, Above Perfection broke in tandem with future Racing Hall of Famer Xtra Heat, and the pair dueled head and head through six furlongs in 21.92, 44.63, and 1:08.26 with Xtra Heat prevailing by a head. :: DRF BREEDING LIVE: Real-time coverage of breeding and sales That in itself would have qualified Above Perfection for any breeders’ broodmare band. She also made a habit of running sub 45-second half-miles and won seven of her 10 starts from 2 through 5, including the Grade 3 Las Flores and three other stakes. Dilger and Ryan purchased her for $450,000 out of the Classic Star Stable dispersal at the 2006 Fasig-Tipton November sale, with Above Perfection carrying Hot Dixie Chick. Aside from her race record and conformation, her outcross pedigree with no inbreeding in her first five generations and only one cross of Northern Dancer made her a blank canvas for our current cohort of stallions, who almost always carry crosses of both Northern Dancer and Mr. Prospector and are inbred to both with increasing frequency. In addition she comes from a female line resident in California out of the Kentucky mainstream since the 1960s. Dixie Union, sire of Hot Dixie Chick, carries Northern Dancer in the second and Mr. Prospector in the third generation of his pedigree. Bodemeister, sire of Always Dreaming, is inbred 4x4 to Northern Dancer and is a fourth-generation male line descendant of Mr. Prospector. Pioneerof the Nile, sire of Positive Spirit, is by the same sire as Bodemeister - Empire Maker, whose dam is by Northern Dancer’s son El Gran Senor - but the bottom half of his pedigree is free of Northern Dancer and Mr. Prospector, which will make Positive Spirit another attractive broodmare prospect when the time comes. Gerry Dilger’s Dromoland farm sold Hot Dixie Chick for $340,000 to W.K. Warren at the 2008 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling sale, and sold Always Dreaming to Steve Young, agent for Brooklyn Boyz and MEB Stable, for $350,000 at the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale. Suffice to say, Above Perfection has been a profitable investment with over $2.5 million in receipts for the five yearlings and one weanling the partnership has sold from her. Above Perfection has not produced a live foal since Positive Spirit, but is safely in foal to Curlin for 2019. Positive Spirit was scoring her second victory in four starts in the Demoiselle. Positive Spirit is the 23rd black-type winner sired by Pioneerof the Nile, who, like his WinStar Farm barnmate Tiznow is developing a reputation as a “big-horse sire.” His second crop, of course, included Triple Crown winner and Horse of the Year American Pharoah (out of Littleprincessemma, by Yankee Gentleman), and his fourth crop was led by champion 2-year-old male Classic Empire (Sambuca Classica, by Cat Thief). He has also sired Grade 1 winner Midnight Storm (My Tina, by Bertrando). Positive Spirit comes from Pioneerof the Nile’s first crop conceived after American Pharoah’s championship juvenile season, and it is likely that his 5.2% ratio of black-type winners to foals age 3 and up will improve with the benefit of the better mares American Pharoah’s and Classic Empire’s championship seasons attracted. He is unlikely, however, to be bred to many mares more productive than Above Perfection.