The champion Untapable delivered her first foal, a colt by Frankel, in England over the weekend, and will remain overseas for the immediate future to be bred back to Frankel.
The chestnut colt’s arrival was reported on Twitter by David Fiske, manager for Winchell Thoroughbreds, which campaigned Untapable as a homebred. The mare is the highest-earning female by perennial leading sire Tapit, whom the Winchells campaigned and maintain an interest in at Gainesway Farm.
As with any great race, winners of the Breeders’ Cup Classic have earned varying degrees of success at stud.
Just since 2000, Tiznow, Ghostzapper, Saint Liam (though short-lived), and Curlin can be counted as genuine successes, while Volponi, Pleasantly Perfect, Invasor, and Drosselmeyer cannot.
Principe Guilherme
Tapit–Aubby K, by Street Sense
Bred in Kentucky by Three Chimneys Farm ($600,000 purchase by Mill Valley Racing at 2015 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall selected mixed sale)
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Just Howard was named Maryland-bred horse of the year for 2017 at the inaugural Maryland Thoroughbred Industry Renaissance Awards dinner Monday night at the Sagamore Pendry Baltimore Hotel in Fell's Point on Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
Trained by Graham Motion and owned by the Skeedattle Associates of Robert White, Lou Rehak, and Bob Orndorff, Just Howard also was named champion Maryland-bred 3-year-old and turf horse. He went 4 for 10 last year, with victories in the Grade 3 Commonwealth Derby and restricted Find and Caveat stakes over the Laurel Park turf course.
Champion female sprinter Unique Bella earned a 109 Beyer Speed Figure for her authoritative score in the Grade 2 Santa Maria Stakes on Feb. 10, helping her sire Tapit further pad his early lead in multiple Beyer Sire Performance standings this season.
The race for leading freshman sire was a heated affair in 2017, and the competition has already begun in earnest as the same group angles for leading second-crop sire honors during the prep season for the Kentucky Derby and Oaks.
Foals by the class that entered stud in 2014 have already made a significant impact on the classic trails, winning four of the combined 15 points races for the Derby and Oaks thus far in 2018.
In an interesting twist, the stallion at the front of the youth charge is no longer in the country.
Among his many achievements in a long life adorned with honor and glory, the late Alfred G. Vanderbilt Jr. achieved Thoroughbred racing immortality by breeding and racing the great Native Dancer. Beaten only once in 22 starts, “the Gray Ghost,” as he was known to early television viewers, left an eternal mark on the breed through his son Raise a Native and daughter Natalma, dam of Northern Dancer.
The white stripe down the dark bay’s face and his four white feet are familiar as he steps out of the barn into the sunlight. But Grade 2 winner Overdriven isn’t heading to the racetrack – he’s walking to the arena at New Vocations’ historic Mereworth Farm facility in Lexington, Ky., for an afternoon ride.
After standing five seasons at stud, the son of Tale of the Cat has been pensioned and gelded and is in a retraining program at the Thoroughbred adoption facility, a rare approach with an active stallion.
