Andrew Caulfield, February 21, 2006–Taittinger Rose P EDIGREE INSIGHTS Harlan’s legacy amounted to only 98 named foals, yet two of them-- and Harlan’s Holiday-- BY ANDREW CAULFIELD developed into major performers, with each winning the Blue Grass S. during a distinguished career. Saturday, Gulfstream Park Menifee was bred by Arthur B. Hancock III at Stone SABIN H.-GIII, $100,000, GPX, 2-18, 3yo/up, f/m, Farm before being offered for sale as a yearling in 1 1/8m, 1:50 2/5, ft. 1997. The bidding stopped at a modest $35,000, even 1--@TAITTINGER ROSE, 115, m, 5, by Menifee though his dam Anne Campbell (who was to be named 1st Dam: La Rosa (GSW, $267,194), by Wild Again Broodmare of the Year for 1999) had already produced 2nd Dam: Twilight Ridge, by Cox's Ridge Desert Wine, a three-time Grade I winner who was 3rd Dam: Waving Sky, by *Quibu second in both the and Preakness S. O/B-Mike G Rutherford Sr (KY); T-W I Mott; J-E S Perhaps the stumbling block, in the eyes of potential Prado; $60,000. Lifetime Record: 23-6-7-5, $382,503. buyers, was Anne Campbell’s age: she was 23 when Click for the brisnet.com chart, the Video, sponsored Menifee was foaled. by Taylor Made. As Roses In May recently reminded us, 23-year-old Although the words “” and “unfashionable” mares can occasionally produce top-class performers don’t ordinarily appear together in the same sentence, and Menifee wasn’t hindered by his dam’s advancing breeders hardly put out the welcome mat when one of years. Racing for the partnership of Hancock and James Storm Cat’s Grade I-winning sons took up stallion H. Stone III, Menifee matched his half-brother Desert duties. Wine by filling the runner-up spot behind in That son--Harlan--spent four full seasons at Stone the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. He also put up an Farm before succumbing to a ruptured aorta at the start excellent effort when he narrowly defeated of his fifth season in 1999. Even though he was priced and Forestry under top weight in the Haskell at only $5,000, Harlan never attracted more than 48 Invitational, but he missed another chance of glory mares in a single season, with a low of 26 mares in his when stiffness ruled him out of the Breeders’ Cup second year. Classic, which fell to Cat Thief. So what was the problem? Harlan probably wasn’t It had been his owners’ intention to keep Menifee in helped by the fact that his victory over American training as a four-year-old, and there appeared to be Chance and Cherokee Run in the GI Vosburgh S. every possibility of further improvement. After all, he represented the only stakes success of his 28-race was a sizeable individual (16.2 hands) with a May career. Other possible negatives were his failure to race birthday, and both his sire and broodmare sire had at two and his lack of stakes performance before the improved with age. Sadly, some swelling in an ankle age of four (although slow progress to stakes level has early in 2000 persuaded his connections that it was hardly been held against the likes of Forest Wildcat and wiser to retire him to . Stormy Atlantic). Perhaps he also wasn’t helped by Hancock--clearly no admirer of the mega-book having a third dam bred in Chile. concept--announced that “we plan to breed him to 45 On the plus side, Harlan’s dam was a Canadian Grade mares, maybe two or three more if he can handle it.” II winner by the influential Halo. In addition to siring the Handle it he apparently could, as he covered 61 sensational Japanese stallion Sunday Silence and the mares in 2000, followed by 70 in 2001, 76 in 2002 champion sire Saint Ballado, Stone Farm’s son of Hail and 88 in 2003. But, with the start of his career to Reason also sired the dams of such high-profile coinciding with MRLS, Menifee had only 125 named stallions as Singspiel, Machiavellian and Rahy. Hail to foals in his first three crops. This type of total makes it Reason, of course, appears twice in the pedigree of the hard for any stallion to compete in today’s industry, dam of Storm Cat’s highest-priced son, Giant’s and Menifee’s 125 foals was the second-lowest total Causeway, but breeders weren’t to know that at the among the top 15 stallions on last year’s third-crop time Harlan was struggling. sires’ table.

www.coolmore.com Menifee has had enough foals, though, to show that he has definite potential. He was represented by his third graded-stakes winner when Taittinger Rose recorded a well-deserved victory in the GIII Sabin H. Menifee’s earlier graded winners were two other fillies, namely Letgomyecho (GII Forward Gal S.) and Burnish (GIII Miss Preakness S.). We should get a more precise idea of Menifee’s capabilities over the next two years, when his fourth crop races. With 74 live foals, this crop is comfortably larger than its predecessors and it is followed by a 63-strong fifth crop, foaled in 2005. Menifee’s original appeal as a stallion may have suffered from the failure of his half-brother Desert Wine, who sired only two graded winners from an output of 423 foals. Menifee is clearly faring better than Desert Wine, and so is another half-brother, Bold Badgett, who was retired to the Old English Rancho in California as an unraced four-year-old. Although Bold Badgett wasn’t widely used, he managed to make his mark by siring Disturbingthepeace, a multiple Grade II winner, and Leave Me Alone, winner of last year’s GI Test S. Another stallion from this family is Anne Campbell’s Irish-based grandson , whose first Group 1 win came on the same day that Menifee took the Haskell Invitational. Fasliyev made a spectacular start as a stallion, with five group winners in his first crop, but he has failed to maintain that momentum. The chances are that he will bounce back in 2007, when he will be represented by a batch of two-year-olds sired at i75,000. Menifee received a bit of help in siring a mare as good as Taittinger Rose. Her dam, La Rosa, is a Grade II-winning daughter of Twilight Ridge, who triumphed in the 1985 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, and she comes from a female line which served Fred Hooper well.

Storm Bird Storm Cat Terlingua Harlan Halo Country Romance Sweet Romance Menifee * Lalun Anne Campbell *Tatan Repercussion Tomina Nearctic Icecapade Shenanigans Wild Again *Khaled La Rosa Bushel-N-Peck Race Record: GSW, *Dama II $267,194 Best Turn Twilight Ridge Cox’s Ridge 6Fls, 4ws Race Record: Our Martha GISW, $743,083 Waving Sky *Quibu 13Fls, 1GSW 14Fls, 1GISW Fading Sky