Q&A: American Pharoah's First Yearlings
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TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2018 Q&A: AMERICAN PHAROAH’S MADAKET STABLES BUYS INTO MIDNIGHT BISOU FIRST YEARLINGS Madaket Stables of Sol Kumin has purchased a minority interest in Grade I winner Midnight Bisou (Midnight Lute), it was announced Monday. The GI Santa Anita Oaks winner will race under the ownership of Bloom Racing Stable, Madaket Stables and Allen Racing LLC when she runs in the GII Mother Goose S. for trainer Steve Asmussen Saturday. Never off the board in six career starts, Midnight Bisou captured the Jan. 7 GII Santa Ynez S. and Mar. 3 GIII Santa Ysabel S. en route to her win in the Apr. 7 Santa Anita Oaks for trainer Bill Spawr. She shipped east to finish third behind Monomoy Girl (Tapizar) in the GI Kentucky Oaks May 4. Plans call for the filly to remain on the East Coast with Asmussen and Click above to watch a video interview with Coolmore’s Adrian target a start in the GI Alabama S. at Saratoga in August. Wallace discussing American Pharoah’s first yearlings. Cont. p6 (click here) by Lucas Marquardt It was no surprise to see the name of the 2015 Triple Crown IN TDN EUROPE TODAY and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner American Pharoah on top of the TDN list of the 2017 sires of leading weanlings. The only sire PEDIGREE INSIGHTS: CRYSTAL OCEAN to sell a million-dollar weanling last year, he sent two such Andrew Caulfield examines the pedigree of Royal Ascot winner Crystal Ocean (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}). Click or tap offerings through the ring. How has his progeny developed into here to go straight to TDN Europe. weanlings? Lucas Marquardt went out to visit Coolmore’s American nominations manager, Adrian Wallace, to talk about the upcoming sales season. LM: The reception of American Pharoah’s weanlings last year; we expected a lot of money, you expected them to sell well, but you know, to easily top $400,000 on average and to have two seven-figure yearlings: was that at all a surprise to you or, having seen those weanlings, is that something that was expected? AW: There's always a certain amount of trepidation when you come to any sales market, whether it'd be your first foals by a certain sire or the first yearlings. But given what he achieved himself, given his look, given the quality and the amount of mares he covered, I think we were all reasonably confident that they were going to be a highly sought after in the marketplace. He covered some of the best mares, he covered the strongest book of mares we've ever had here. You looked down through the list and every single time you look at it, you're like, `Oh, wow.’ He covered 48 Group 1 winners or producers. Cont. p1 All Purpose. All Places. All Power. G1 winners on every surface G1 winners from 6 furlongs to 1 1/4 miles G1 winners all over the world Emerging sire of sires SPEEDof a SPRINTER CLASS of a MILER HEART of a CHAMPION Gone West - Silken Cat, by Storm Cat 859-873-1717 www.winstarfarm.com PUBLISHER & CEO Sue Morris Finley @suefinley [email protected] V.P., INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS Gary King @garykingTDN [email protected] EDITORIAL [email protected] Editor-in-Chief Jessica Martini @JessMartiniTDN Managing Editor Alan Carasso @EquinealTDN Tuesday, June 26, 2018 Senior Editor Steve Sherack @SteveSherackTDN Racing Editor Brian DiDonato @BDiDonatoTDN News and Features Editor Ben Massam @BMassamTDN Associate Editors Christie DeBernardis @CDeBernardisTDN Joe Bianca @JBiancaTDN ADVERTISING [email protected] Director of Advertising Alycia Borer Advertising Manager Lia Best Advertising Designer Amanda Crelin Advertising Assistants Alexa Reisfield Rachel McCaffrey Amie Morosco Photo Editor/Dir. of Distribution Sarah K. Andrew @SarahKAndrew Splish splash. Sally Eck hoses a colt by Fed Biz, out of Proficient (Elusive Quality), on [email protected] Sunday after winning the Sired by Out of State Stallions class at the 84th Maryland Social Media Strategist Horse Breeders Association Yearling Show at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Justina Severni Timonium. Owned and bred by Robert Manfuso and shown by A.J. Hesketh-Tutton, the Director of Customer Service colt was also named Champion Yearling by this year’s judge, Rick Violette. See story on Vicki Forbes page 7. | Lydia Williams [email protected] Marketing Manager Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen SANTA ANITA HANDLE UP, HITS $1B 6 Director of Information Technology Capped off by a massive closing day Pick 6 pool of over $6 million, Ray Villa Santa Anita’s winter/spring meet closed Sunday with more than [email protected] $1 billion in all-sources handle for the 102-day stand. Bookkeeper Terry May [email protected] WORLDWIDE INFORMATION BREEDERS’ CUP ADDS THREE QUALIFIERS 6 International Editor Three races this fall will now serve as “Win and You’re In” Kelsey Riley @kelseynrileyTDN qualifying events for the first Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint. [email protected] European Editor Emma Berry [email protected] Associate International Editor Heather Anderson @HLAndersonTDN Newmarket Bureau, Cafe Racing Sean Cronin & Tom Frary [email protected] 60 Broad Street, Suite 100 Red Bank, NJ 07701 732-747-8060 | 732-747-8955 (fax) www.TheTDN.com TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 3 OF 7 • THETDN.COM TUESDAY • JUNE 26, 2018 Q&A: American Pharoah’s First Yearlings cont. from p1 LM: What kind of progression have you seen from them I mean it's mind-boggling. And among the others, there were physically from their weanling years to the yearling years? And no slouches either. They were the sisters of Grade I winners, the what kind of buzz are you hearing from breeders about his daughters of Grade I winners, Group 2, Group 3 winners. So the yearlings? strength and depth in his book is something that certainly at this AW: The buzz is good. We've been farm we've never seen before. touring the farms, and we've seen And you know, given the a lot of them. We've seen a lot of reception he had, given what he them from foal days to now as achieved as a 2-year-old and then yearlings starting their prep. We've obviously went on and won the got a lot of them here ourselves, so Grand Slam as a 3-year-old, I think we're in constant contact with the breeders who bred to him. He's a our expectations were very high good-size horse himself. He's 16.2. coming into the November sales at He's very correct. Very good both Fasig-Tipton and Keeneland. mover. He's as good-moving a dirt And then again with this, this year's horse as you're going to find, and January sale, at Keeneland, that he's passing that on. They're they were going to sell very well. generally very good size. They've And you know, you saw that with American Pharoah | Coolmore photo got plenty of scope and strength to the Untouched Talent filly selling them. They're generally very correct. Good movers, fairly for a million dollars, and then Caravaggio's brother selling for a uncomplicated horses. As Tom VanMeter said, after Pharoah million dollars in January. They're highly credentialed horses and won the Triple Crown, "If you want a big brown horse that can they were received by the marketplace the way they should run fast, you’re looking to American Pharoah," and I think that's have been. what we're seeing in his first crop. TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 7 • THETDN.COM TUESDAY • JUNE 26, 2018 LM: You talked a little bit about his size. He's a big-framed horse. He's just a perfect Classic-look horse, but he's got some speed influences in his pedigree being out of a Yankee Gentleman mare. What kind of mares were breeders sending to him? You've bred quite a few, so I'm assuming you've seen some variety. AW: It really was a cross-section of mares. We bred 35 mares to him in his first crop, including Maybe, who's the dam of our own Saxon Warrior, who won the 2000 Guineas in England this year. He then bred the likes of the dam of Songbird, Ivanavinalot. He bred the dam of Acapulco, who was a champion sprinter. He bred the dam of Caravaggio, a champion 2-year-old. So he got a whole cross section of mares, turf mares who were classic producers and also top 2-year-old producers. Adrian Wallace LM: He has been shuttling to Australia, so the expectation that maybe he'll get some grass runners, particularly maybe firm ground runners. But like you've mentioned, he's a terrific mover, something that the Europeans typically gravitate to. So is the expectation that his yearlings from this first crop will be popular with European buyers? AW: You would imagine. Obviously, he never ran on the turf himself. Bob Baffert always said he was a horse, that, had he run him on the turf, he had no doubt in his mind that he would have been a superior turf runner as well. To me, he doesn't necessarily look like your typical dirt horse. He's a very free, easy-moving horse. On the mares he's been getting, there's certainly quite a lot of turf influences in them. It remains to be seen how he does with his first foals down in Australia, but you'd imagine that he should be successful on dirt and on turf as well.