The euthanization of Smart Strike due to laminitis on March 25, 2015 brought to an end a magnificent stud career that included two North American sire championships, but his best days were already in the rear-view mirror. Smart Strike led the American sire list in 2007 and 2008 and ranked in the top five for each of the next four years, but, like many aging stallions, he had slid further and further down the list each succeeding season as many commercial breeders switched their best mares to the newest shiny object instead of sticking with the horse that had given them 10 champions and 18 Grade 1 winners. :: DRF BREEDING LIVE: Real-time coverage of breeding and sales As Smart Strike aged into his 20s, Lane’s End naturally also became more conservative with his book, and his production dropped from around 100 foals a year to 64 in 2015, when he covered 81 mares. His final crop of foals, conceived early in the 2015 season before he developed laminitis, numbers only four live foals. Only one prominent runner, Peruvian champion Cascanueces (out of Almudena, by Silver Planet) has emerged from the 64 foals of 2015, but Smart Strike’s last full crop, currently 4-year-olds, included Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt mile hero Battle of Midway (Rigoletto, by Concerto), Grade 2 Mother Goose winner Unchained Melody (Love Match, by Partner’s Hero), and Grade 3 Monmouth Oaks winner Teresa Z (With Flying Colors, by A.P. Indy), who added to her sire’s bulging resume with a victory in the Obeah Stakes at Delaware Park on Saturday. Bred in Kentucky by Besilu Stables, Teresa Z is the second foal to live out of Floral Park Stakes winner With Flying Colors, by A.P. Indy, a half-sister to champion and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner Storm Flag Flying, by Storm Cat.  Their dam, My Flag, by Easy Goer, was also a winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, as well as the Grade 1 CCA Oaks, Ashland Stakes, and Gazelle Handicap. My Flag was a half-sister to Grade 1 winners Miner’s Mark and Traditionally, both by Mr. Prospector, and their dam, the great racemare and broodmare Personal Ensign, by Private Account, capped her undefeated career with victory in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. That makes Personal Ensign, My Flag, and Storm Flag Flying, the only three-generation Breeders’ Cup-winning sequence in the history of the series. That is, without the slightest doubt, one of the very best pedigrees in the contemporary stud book, so it was obvious when she appeared in the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale catalog that Teresa Z would be expensive. A big, rather lanky, correct yearling with a magnificent shoulder but perhaps a bit light behind, she was purchased for $635,000 on the recommendation of J.J. Crupi by Vincent Viola’s St. Elias Stable (whom the author assists with pedigree evaluations and broodmare management). Sent to trainer Todd Pletcher, Teresa Z often outworked Viola’s two graded stakes-winning 2-year-old fillies of 2016, Sweet Loretta and Nonna Mela, but that morning brilliance did not immediately translate to afternoon victories, probably due more to mental immaturity than anything else. Transferred to trainer Anthony Margotta late in the year, she broke her maiden in relatively soft company at Tampa Bay Downs in December. She slowly progressed up the class ladder at 3, winning an allowance at Penn National, placing in the Light Hearted Stakes and then winning the Monmouth Oaks in her penultimate start. The Obeah was her third start this year, following a third in the Serena’s Song Stakes at Monmouth. With Flying Colors has produced only one live foal since Teresa Z, a yearling filly by Palace Malice. Teresa Z is one of 126 black-type winners from 1,596 foals sired by Smart Strike in a career that matches up well with the best American sires of the early 21st century. Among the son of Mr. Prospector’s best offspring, dual Horse of the Year Curlin is one of our best current sires, and grass champion English Channel is also a capable sire. Smart Strike has been climbing steadily up the broodmare sire list in recent years and stands 19th on the American list. His daughters have already produced 86 black-type winners, seven champions, including Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird, and eight Grade 1 winners, including Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf winner Shared Account. Teresa Z has developed into a magnificent specimen of the Thoroughbred, and with a Grade 3 win already on her resume and the Grade 2 Delaware Handicap her next objective, she is obviously worth several multiples of her purchase price when she retires to the St. Elias broodmare band.