Two New Jersey-breds won major stakes Saturday in their neighboring state of New York, with Green Gratto winning the Grade 1 Carter Handicap and Irish War Cry punching his ticket to the Kentucky Derby in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial.
Green Gratto, a multiple graded stakes winner who scored his first Grade 1 win in the Carter, is by Here’s Zealous, who most recently was advertised publicly as standing in New York. Irish War Cry is by Kentucky sire Curlin.
Spendthrift Farm has acquired the stud rights to prominent Kentucky Derby candidate Gormley and will stand the son of its flagship sire, Malibu Moon, upon his eventual retirement.
Gormley won the Santa Anita Derby last Saturday, validating the form he showed in winning the Grade 3 Sham Stakes earlier this season and rebounding from a fourth-place finish in the San Felipe last out. The Santa Anita Derby was the second Grade 1 victory for the colt, who races for Jerry and Ann Moss; he took the FrontRunner Stakes as a juvenile.
Irap’s tenacious victory in the Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes put an ideal bookend to the broodmare career of Canadian champion Silken Cat, whose first foal was the champion sprinter and premier sire Speightstown.
Those two horses, and all the ones in between, were bred by Marie Jones and her late husband, Aaron Jones, who purchased the mare privately from Sam-Son Farm between her juvenile and sophomore seasons. Silken Cat died in March 2016 at age 23, having resided at Taylor Made Farm in Nicholasville, Ky., for the past two decades. Irap was the last of her 11 foals.
More than any other horse of his generation, Union Rags embodied the traditional markers for success at stud. A Grade 1 winner at 2 who missed winning a championship by only a head and a classic winner at 3, he possessed the high-class pedigree and outstanding physique breeders look for when he retired to Lane’s End at a $35,000 initial fee in 2013.
Grade 1 winner Awesome Gem arrived at Old Friends Equine Retirement in Georgetown, Ky. on Friday.
The 14-year-old Awesome Again gelding has been living as a pensioner on the farm of Leigh Gray in Bradbury, Calif. following a short stint as a stable pony for trainer Craig Dollase, who conditioned the horse throughout his seven-year racing career. He raced for West Point Thoroughbreds and retired in September 2012.
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New York
New incentives fuel optimism for New York-breds, new stallions
Keith Crupper purchased the stakes-placed Louisiana-bred Halo Humor for $130,000 at the 2008 Keeneland January sale of horses of all ages – a pricey investment for the Whispering Oaks Farm operation he owns and operates with brother Allen in Paris, Ky. The Thoroughbred business can be fickle, and for a while, it looked like the mare was playing a good joke on the Cruppers. From her first five foals, she produced just one winner.
“We kept thinking there was a good horse in her,” Keith Crupper said. “We just needed to find it.”
Who’s laughing now?
Iliad
Ghostzapper-Little Swoon, by You and I
($285,000 purchase by Bob Baffert, agent, at 2016 OBS March sale of 2-year-olds in training)
A quarter of the way into 2017, Ghostzapper is having a career year, sitting near the top of the North American sire list. Ghostzapper has two prominent sons on the Kentucky Derby trail, with Iliad running in Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby and McCraken putting his unbeaten record on the line in the Blue Grass Stakes.
Frost Giant was New York’s leading freshman sire of 2012, establishing a state record in progeny earnings for that category. He has continued to show prowess with the juvenile set, finishing as New York’s leading 2-year-old sire of 2016.
Frost Giant, who stands at Keane Stud, sired 17 juvenile winners in 2016 for earnings of $727,319. That was enough to edge out Sequel Stallions freshman Mission Impazible, with eight winners and $653,108 earned.
