The stallion career of the late Scat Daddy arguably reached its pinnacle on Kentucky Derby Day, with Derby winner Justify highlighting his four sons entered in the race. His résumé was further bolstered last Friday when his daughters filled out two-thirds of the trifecta in the Grade 3 Edgewood Stakes at Churchill Downs.
Air France, dam of Grade 2 winners Smooth Air and Overdriven, was euthanized May 2 due to complications from foaling. She was 19.
According to a press release from Crestwood Farm, the mare’s newborn Bernardini colt is in good health and has been transferred to a nurse mare at the Lexington, Ky., farm, where Air France spent the majority of her broodmare career.
The Kentucky Oaks undercard at Churchill Downs featured two milestone graded stakes wins for under-the-radar sires in Country Day and Tizway.
Backyard Heaven’s win in the Grade 2 Alysheba Stakes was the first graded winner for his sire, Tizway, who now resides in South Korea.
Spendthrift Farm resident Into Mischief’s stock continued to rise over the Kentucky Derby weekend, with a slate of successful 3-year-old runners at Churchill Downs.
Ghostzapper, Horse of the Year in 2004, lost his chance to be represented as a sire in the Kentucky Derby several weeks ago when son Runaway Ghost was declared from the classic with an injury. But the Adena Springs stallion was still represented as the broodmare sire of unbeaten Derby favorite Justify – who delivered in a big way to key a stellar weekend for the stallion.
When juvenile racing heats up this summer and fall, all eyes will now be on two 2-year-olds who got big catalog updates from their siblings’ performances under the twin spires over the weekend. Egyptian Storm is a half-sister to Kentucky Derby winner Justify, while Cowboy Diplomacy is a full brother to Kentucky Oaks heroine Monomoy Girl.
When Scat Daddy retired to stud in 2008, he exemplified four of the five characteristics most commercial breeders look for first in a prospective stallion. He had been precocious enough to win a Grade 1 at 2, showed two-turn ability by winning a Grade 1 at 3, he came from an excellent female family, and he was an outstanding physical specimen - a big, powerful, correct horse with lots of muscle and polish. The one negative was that his sire, Johannesburg, was an unfashionable horse who was not in any way considered a likely sire of sires.
Scat Daddy was a talented and tough racehorse who debuted with brilliancy and continued on to become a Grade 1 winner at both 2, when he took the Champagne Stakes, and at 3, when he rolled in the Florida Derby. He typically dug in when facing a challenge in the stretch.
No group of racehorses goes under a stronger microscope than the field for the Kentucky Derby. But even under the heaviest scrutiny, many things remain unknown about the entries until they cross the finish line.
One of the biggest variables that can only be forecasted at this point is the ability to handle the Derby’s 1 1/4-mile distance. It’s a distance no horse in the field has faced, and one that many in the field will never see again in competition.
