Andrew Caulfield, December 30, 2003 –Southern Image Making the Most of Limited Opportunities.. P EDIGREE INSIGHTS Although ’s Image didn’t race as frequently in BY ANDREW CAULFIELD subsequent seasons he continued to do well, notably taking the Thanksgiving Day H. at four and then nosing MALIBU S.-GI, $250,000, SAX, 12-26, 3yo, 7f, out Wekiva Springs at level weights to land the GIII 1:22 3/5, ft. Broward H. at five. The Broward win proved to be the 1--s#@SOUTHERN IMAGE, 115, c, 3, by Halo's Image last of Halo’s Image’s lengthy career and came just 1st Dam: Pleasant Dixie, by over two years before he covered his first mares at the 2nd Dam: Pleasant Jolie, by 3rd Dam: Jolie Jolie, by Sir Ivor age of seven at a fee of only $3,500 at Bridlewood. ($300,000 2yo 2002 OBSMAR). O-Blahut Stables The fact that Halo’s Image’s fee for 2004 will be LLC, Kagele Bros Inc & Tepper; B-Arthur I Appleton twice his original price indicates that he has been (FL); T-Michael Machowsky; J-V Espinoza; $150,000. making the most of his somewhat limited opportunities. Lifetime Record: 4-3-0-1, $231,600. His second crop, numbering only 45 foals, is headed by Click for the free brisnet.com catalogue-style pedigree. Southern Image, an Appleton-bred who improved his record to three wins from four starts when he Back in the mid-nineties, Arthur Appleton had good accounted for a strong field for the GI Malibu S. cause to become an admirer of Halo’s sons. Appleton’s There could be more graded winners to come from homebred Jolie’s Halo retired to his Bridlewood Farm in Halo’s Image’s third crop, which has already been ably Florida and sired the Florida Derby winner Hal’s Hope, represented by Sir Oscar, who completed a clean who was then sold to Japan for a reported $5 million sweep of the Florida Stallion Series. Sir Oscar later after his fourth season in 1996. improved his record to six wins from as many starts Perhaps one of the considerations in deciding to sell with his victory in the Jack Price Juvenile S. in Jolie’s Halo was the fact that Appleton was November. On the same day as the Jack Price, another campaigning another good son of Halo, this time in of Halo’s Image’s two-year-old sons, Cooperation, had partnership with trainer Happy Alter. This colt, Halo’s the unenviable task of trying to match strides with Lion Image, didn’t possess ability of the magnitude which Heart in the GIII Hollywood Prevue S., but finished an honorable second. brought Jolie’s Halo three Grade I victories, but he was Cooperation had topped the OBS August Sale when pretty good nonetheless, as he demonstrated he changed hands for $200,000 as a yearling and throughout a demanding three-year-old season in 1994. Southern Image had also sold very well for a son of an From 10 starts that year, Halo’s Image was consistent inexpensive stallion, his price of $300,000 being the enough to reach the first three in nine stakes races. second-best at Ocala’s March Select Sale of What’s more, he was talented enough to win four of two-year-olds. them, including the Spectacular Bid Breeders’ Cup S. Southern Image’s purchaser, Michael Machowsky, over six furlongs and the Calder Derby and GIII Tropical said at the time: Park H. over a mile and an eighth. “He’s immature, but he is a very good walker, very

www.coolmore.com loose. He looks like a horse that wants to run a mile; he’s definitely a two-turn horse. We’ll give him a little time; we won’t rush into anything. I would like to shoot for Del Mar with him.” Presumably Southern Image proved to be more immature than even Machowsky expected, because the 2002 Del Mar meeting went by without him, and he made it to the races only at the very end of his juvenile season. Although he has continued to test Machowsky’s patience, Southern Image is now a Grade I winner over seven furlongs. Southern Image may be a son of an inexpensive stallion, but there is nothing at all cheap about the bottom half of his pedigree. His dam, the unraced Pleasant Dixie, represents the potent partnership that Dixieland Band has enjoyed with mares by Pleasant Colony and by Pleasant Colony’s sire . The 19 foals out of Pleasant Colony mares include the Grade II winner Bowman’s Band and the Grade I-placed Dixie Pearl, while His Majesty mares number the Grade II winners Devoted Brass and Mutaahab and the Grade III scorer Stark South among their four stakes winners by Dixieland Band. Pleasant Jolie, the second dam of Southern Image, was something of a late developer, gaining her stakes wins at around a mile at the ages of four and five and she was graded-placed at five and six. As you might guess from Pleasant Jolie’s name, she is a half sister to the previously mentioned Jolie’s Halo. This means that Southern Image’s pedigree includes both parents of Jolie’s Halo, a horse who stayed well enough to win the Gulfstream Park H. over a mile and a quarter. As the sires of Southern Image’s first two dams were respectively Graded winners at up to 1 1/8 miles and 1 1/4 miles, there is the intriguing prospect that Southern Image is going to be even more effective when he returns to two turns. There’s also a chance that Halo’s Image could develop into an unexpected flag-bearer for the Halo branch of the Hail to Reason male line--a branch whose future in America had appeared to depend largely on Saint Ballado’s stallion sons and on More Than Ready, a son of Southern Halo.