Cause for Excitement at Airdrie
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THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2018 CAUSE FOR EXCITEMENT 152 INITIAL ENTRIES FOR FASIG JULY HORA SALE AT AIRDRIE Fasig-Tipton’s July Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale has garnered an initial 152 entries and is expected to attract significantly more up until sale time Monday, July 9. The auction, which has grown in popularity and stature in recent years, will begin at 4:00 p.m. in Lexington and will be followed the next morning at 10:00 a.m. by the July Selected Yearling Sale. “This is our largest H.O.R.A. catalogue to date, with 43% more entries catalogued at this initial release date compared to last year,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning. “We encourage all prospective buyers to stay tuned for more entries in the lead up to the sale, as there are several more in the pipeline.” Cont. p6 (Click here) IN TDN EUROPE TODAY EUROPEAN IMPORTS: FINDING THE RIGHT Creative Cause | EquiSport photos HORSE In the second installment of a two-part series, we ask American-based trainers and agents what specific by Chris McGrath qualities they look for in a European import. It was a daunting group of young sires to be measured against. Click or tap here to go straight to TDN Europe. Last year, two of them won Triple Crown races at the first attempt, through Always Dreaming (Bodemeister) and Cloud Computing (Maclean's Music). From his second crop, another has since come up with a GI Kentucky Oaks winner in Monomoy Girl (Tapizar), while Paradise Woods and company have already hoisted Union Rags (Dixie Union) up from $35,000 to $60,000. And that's without even mentioning the intake's champion freshman, Dialed In (Mineshaft), who has rightly quadrupled his own, very modest starting fee. Halfway through their third season, however, all these fast starters find themselves panting in the wake of a stallion who is leading the way by prize money, black-type winners and graded stakes winners. Against those operating from meaningful book sizes, moreover, he is also first by winners-to-starters. His name is Creative Cause (Giant's Causeway) and he has now sealed his emergence with a first Grade I winner in Pavel--whose breakout success in the Stephen Foster H. earlier this month provides an encouraging template, in terms of building on initial foundations, for his sire's stock overall. Cont. p3 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 Thursday, June 28, 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 [email protected] Social Media Strategist Justina Severni Frankel recorded his 100th individual flat winner on Wednesday. He's currently third Director of Customer Service on the 2018 TDN European General Sire List (by European earnings). Vicki Forbes [email protected] Click here for more. | Asunción Piñeyrúa Marketing Manager Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen WELFARE & SAFETY SUMMIT HELD AT KEENELAND 6 Director of Information Technology Ray Villa T.D. Thornton reports on Wednesday’s Welfare and Safety of [email protected] the Racehorse Summit held at Keeneland. Bookkeeper Terry May [email protected] FILLIES FIGURE PROMINENTLY IN QUEEN’S PLATE Members of the finer sex are always dangerous in Woodbine’s WORLDWIDE INFORMATION Queen’s Plate, and two talented fillies will take on 14 males International Editor Kelsey Riley @kelseynrileyTDN in Sunday’s Canadian Classic. See that complete field [email protected] and all others following headline news. 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 11 • THETDN.COM THURSDAY • JUNE 28, 2018 Creative Cause cont. from p1 Not that Creative Cause has exactly been a slow burn. Seven black-type winners last year put the Airdrie stallion alongside Dialed In, Maclean's Music and Union Rags atop the second-season sires, while as a rookie in 2016 he had managed a strike-rate of one-in-three with his first juveniles. (Starting with his very first runner, at Los Alamitos in April over just 4 1/2 furlongs). Creative Cause was himself a Grade I winner at two who disappeared after making his 10th start in the GI Preakness S. But if his progeny can match his own precocity and dash with a propensity to keep thriving, then he seems bound to keep elbowing his way forward in the contest to become the premier Kentucky heir to Giant's Causeway, who died in April. "We knew, coming in, that it was going to be very difficult in such an exceptional crop of first-year sires," recalled Airdrie's Bret Jones. "But what we're seeing right now with Creative Cause is what we've been lucky enough to see in the past with our other big stallions. And that's to find, every Saturday, that you've another couple of Creative Causes running in stakes. It's been snowballing that way for the last year or so now. "What's very encouraging is that his horses stay at a high level. Pavel seems like he's been around a long time already, running against the best around. But not only do they stay together, and have that soundness-they also seem to get better. Pavel is now a "On the Pimlico backside the atmosphere is more laidback Grade I winner. And that's very much the way Giant's Causeway [than Churchill]," said Jones. "Yes, there are still cameras and all earned his reputation." the rest of it, but there's a bit more time. And I'll never forget These are exciting times at a farm where owners Brereton and seeing him come out of the barn one morning and just stand Elizabeth Jones have assembled a highly regarded young team there like a statue. He had so much class; that special kind of to supervise a corresponding roster of sires, not least sales look. And that was the moment we decided we wanted to phenomenon Cairo Prince (Pioneerof The Nile). pursue him full-bore. Creative Cause was enlisted in 2012 after his smouldering "We really put some pressure on ourselves, because we felt presence on the Triple Crown trail had been finally doused with we were bringing home the best stud prospect we have ever third place in the Preakness. had here. We've always been a bit of a niche operation: stallions A $135,000 Keeneland September yearling pinhook, the in the $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 range. And when you bring roan-grey had missed his intended sale at two and was instead one in, at that level, sometimes you have to forgive something acquired privately by trainer Mike Harrington on behalf of ski here or forgive something there. But with this horse, we saw no resort developer Heinz Steinmann. deficiencies. He had that pedigree, he had that brilliance, and he That year he won a Hollywood Park maiden by daylight, the had that conformation. All we had to do was not screw it up!" Airdrie duly committed to supporting Creative Cause with the GII Best Pal S. (beating I'll Have Another {Flower Alley}) and the best mares on the farm. Jones is full of praise for the Steinmann GI Norfolk S., before going down by barely a length when third family, with whom the farm is enjoying "as good a partnership in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile. At three, he beat Bodemeister as you could ask for." With everyone putting a shoulder to the (Empire Maker) in the GII San Felipe S., before finishing off with wheel, Creative Cause opened with books of 118, 122 and 103; three consecutive defeats by old rival I'll Have Another: by a and then covered 125 mares in 2016 after his first yearlings, nose in the GI Santa Anita Derby; by three lengths when fifth in conceived at $15,000, raised an average of $67,405. the Kentucky Derby, his only career start off the board; and by While he dipped to 96 mares last year, his direction of travel nine lengths in the Preakness. now can be judged from a fee hike to $20,000 this spring. And If now "the bloom was a little bit off the rose," as Jones put it, he duly covered his biggest book to date, at 145 mares. Cont. p4 at least that brought a deal within reach for Airdrie. TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 11 • THETDN.COM THURSDAY • JUNE 28, 2018 Creative Cause cont. "His sales have always been solid," Jones reflects. "But there were a few we felt didn't bring quite what they should. We'd always been told that a little bit of a shorter walk was a Giant's Causeway trait, but no matter how nice and balanced the body and movement, we couldn't convince everybody of that. Pavel, for instance, didn't have that sexy overstep a lot of buyers like to see. So it's been very fulfilling that a lot of the horses we thought a little undervalued have now gone out there and got it done in the afternoon." However much Giant's Causeway can be seen in Creative Cause, let's not leave the bottom half of his family tree out of the equation.