Giant Surprise was a scintillating winner in his racing debut at Saratoga on July 30, 2011, romping by 4 1/2 lengths and running six furlongs in 1:10.23. He never made it back to the winner’s circle. Pulled up while galloping out and vanned off the track, he was diagnosed with a non-displaced condylar fracture to his left foreleg and was subsequently retired.
As the calendar turns, the story remains the same. The durable Freud continues to thoroughly dominate his niche of the stallion market in New York, leading the state’s turf sire rankings for the eighth consecutive year.
Freud, who is based at Sequel Stallions in Hudson, N.Y., sired 32 winners on turf from 108 starters for earnings of $2,401,555. His totals far outpaced the runner-up, the late Disco Rico, who had 10 winners and progeny earnings of $858,062.
The 2015 New York general sire rankings could signal a changing of the guard in the Empire State – or, at the very least, serious competition at the top in the stallion ranks moving forward. Newcomer Big Brown, who stood his first New York season in 2015, is the state’s leading returning or incoming sire by total progeny earnings, edging out state stalwarts Freud and Posse, both prior leading general sires, by a fairly narrow margin.
Grade 1 winner Mshawish will enter stud at Taylor Made Stallions in Nicholasville, Ky., for the 2017 breeding season.
Mshawish, a 6-year-old son of Medaglia d’Oro, will continue to race through the 2016 season seeking to add to his eight wins in 23 career starts and earnings of $2,221,351 for Al Shaqab Racing and trainer Todd Pletcher. He is scheduled to compete in the Group 1 Dubai World Cup on March 26.
Mor Spirit
Eskendereya – Im a Dixie Girl, by Dixie Union
($650,000 purchase by Bernard Schiappa and M. Petersen at 2015 Fasig-Tipton Florida sale of 2-year-olds in training)
Mor Spirit will attempt to stretch his winning streak to three graded stakes in California on Saturday in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita. A Grade 1-winning juvenile who has won three times at a mile or longer, the Pennsylvania-bred ridgling has already outrun most of his immediate family in terms of class and distance.
A catalog of 85 juveniles will be on offer during a 2-year-olds in training sale April 4 at Lone Star Park near Dallas. The track is putting on the auction in conjunction with the Texas Thoroughbred Association. The breeze show is scheduled for 11 a.m. on April 2.
Following the 2-year-old portion of the auction, horses of racing age will be sold.
“We have a lot of solid pedigrees this year, top to bottom,” sales director Tim Boyce said in release from the TTA. “What we may lack in overall numbers we have gotten back in quality.”
Grade 2 winner Bern Identity has been retired from racing and will begin his stallion career at PJK Team Jamaica in Jamaica.
The 6-year-old son of Bernstein retired with 6 wins in 13 starts over three seasons of racing for earnings of $877,200. He ran his entire career for owners George and Lori Hall and trainer Kelly Breen, last racing in November 2014 when finishing second in the Fabulous Strike Handicap at Penn National. He last breezed Feb. 10, 2015, at the Palm Meadows Training Center.
Nearly a decade after the death of prominent California owner, breeder, and racing-industry philanthropist Trudy McCaffery, her legacy lives on – both on the track and off.
The undefeated California-bred Smokey Image hails from a female family cultivated by McCaffery, who died at age 62 in 2007 following a battle with cancer. The colt will take his first shot against open company Saturday in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita – the same race that his grandsire, Free House, McCaffery’s favorite runner, won nearly two decades ago.
Just Talkin, a full sister to multiple stakes winner Lady Shipman, won her debut Sunday in a 7 1/2-furlong maiden special weight race on the Gulfstream Park turf, closing with a rush in the field of 10 3-year-old fillies.
The Midshipman filly became the third winner from as many starters out of the winning Mutakddim mare Sumthingtotalkabt. She is trained by Chad Brown for Michael Dubb, Bethlehem Stables, and Gary Aisquith, who privately purchased her last year from breeder Randall Lowe.
Seven-figure purchase Aldrin finally broke through with the first win of his career in a maiden special weight race Friday on the Tampa Bay Downs turf, making the pace and then holding off a rallying Extreme Justice to win in his seventh start.
Aldrin, by Malibu Moon, topped the 2014 Keeneland April sale of 2-year-olds in training at $1 million, selling to the partnership of Gainesway, Mt. Brilliant Farm, and Robert LaPenta. The ridgling is a half-brother to Grade 1 winner and two-time leading sire Tapit and is bred on the same A.P. Indy-line cross.
