SATURDAY, MAY 29, 2021 FRIDAY'S BELMONT STAKES UPDATE MOURNING TWO $ John and Diane Fradkin's GI Preakness S. winner Rombauer EXCEPTIONS, LAMENTING (Twirling Candy) worked a half-mile in company Friday on the Belmont Park main track in preparation for the GI Belmont S. THE RULE Rombauer, trained by Michael McCarthy, was clocked in :50.01 (53/86) beneath John Velazquez over the fast main track. "I was very happy with the work," McCarthy said. "I just wanted him to go ahead and get familiar with Johnny. It seemed like he was well in hand at all times. Johnny asked him to gallop out a little bit going underneath the wire and the horse seemed to respond nicely. I'm very happy with what I saw today." Cont. p6 IN TDN EUROPE TODAY RECORD TRADE AT ARQANA BREEZE-UP Emma Berry reports from Doncaster and the Arqana Breeze- Up Sale, which recorded new records for turnover and median during a robust day of trade. Click or tap here to go Laoban | Sarah Andrew straight to TDN Europe. by Chris McGrath The shocking loss this week of the young gun Laoban, preceded just days earlier by that of the venerable Malibu Moon, could not fail to renew the kind of questions we should all keep asking themselves about how a stallion can make an enduring reputation. Both had started out in a regional program, having shown only marginal eligibility for a stud career on the racetrack, before quickly earning migration to Kentucky. If that was just about all they had in common, then their different roles on two of the biggest commercial rosters will have made the exit of both deeply grievous for their respective farms. Malibu Moon will be remembered as an important horse perhaps not so much for his genetic legacy, notable as it was, as for his founding contribution to the new Spendthrift. He arrived from Castleton Lyons in 2008 as one of just three stallions to relaunch a farm that has since presided over a revolution in commercial breeding. By that stage, he had already elevated his fee to $40,000, from an opening $3,000 under the estimable Pons family at Country Life Farm. Over the years that followed, Malibu Moon weighted down the roster as B. Wayne Hughes set about trying to float young stallions like Into Mischief. Cont. p3 PUBLISHER & CEO Sue Morris Finley @suefinley [email protected] SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Gary King @garykingTDN [email protected] EDITORIAL [email protected] Editor-in-Chief Jessica Martini @JessMartiniTDN Senior Contributing Editor Saturday, May 29, 2021 Alan Carasso @EquinealTDN Senior Editor Steve Sherack @SteveSherackTDN Racing Editor Brian DiDonato @BDiDonatoTDN Deputy Editor Christie DeBernardis @CDeBernardisTDN Associate Editors Christina Bossinakis @CBossTDN Joe Bianca @JBiancaTDN News and Features Editor In Memoriam: Ben Massam (1988-2019) ADVERTISING [email protected] Director of Advertising Alycia Borer Advertising Manager Lia Best Advertising Designer Amanda Crelin Advertising Project Manager Rachel McCaffrey Advertising Assistants Amie Newcomb Kristen Lomasson Photographer/Photo Editor Sarah K. Andrew @SarahKAndrew Eye on the prize. With the silks of last year's winner Tiz the Law in the infield gazebo, [email protected] 2021 GI Belmont Stakes hopeful Rombauer works at Belmont Park Friday morning. See Social Media Strategist page 6 for more. | Susie Raisher Justina Severni Associate Producer Katie Ritz TODAY’S GRADED STAKES ET Race Click for TV Director of Customer Service 9:55a Betway Pinnacle S.-G3, HAY -------------- TVG Vicki Forbes [email protected] 10:30a Betway John Of Gaunt S.-G3, HAY -------------- TVG 10:15a Scandinavian Open Championship-G3, KLA -------------- ------- Marketing Manager 4:22p Regret S.-GIII, CD TJCIS PPs FOX Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen 4:55p Matt Winn S.-GIII, CD TJCIS PPs FOX Director of IT & Accounting 5:12p Pennine Ridge S.-GII, BEL TJCIS PPs FOX Ray Villa 6:15p Daytona S.-GIII, SA TJCIS PPs TVG [email protected] 7:19p Charles Whittingham S.-GII, SA TJCIS PPs TVG [email protected] 7:52p Triple Bend S.-GII, SA TJCIS PPs TVG WORLDWIDE INFORMATION International Editor Kelsey Riley @kelseynrileyTDN [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 | www.TheTDN.com TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 3 OF 16 • THETDN.COM SATURDAY • MAY 29, 2021 McGrath cont. from p1 Malibu Moon | Spendthrift That horse was famously launched into the backdraft of the financial crisis, with incentives that other farms considered ruinous until they started introducing similar schemes themselves. We'll never know whether Into Mischief might have fallen between the cracks in a more conventional environment. As it was, Malibu Moon remained the elder statesman even as the younger paragon established the viability to an experiment meanwhile expanding giddily in both quantity (to two dozen stallions) and quality (over the past couple of years Hughes has corralled a conspicuous series of upgrades). Laoban, in contrast, was last fall drafted onto another industrial roster that had lately found itself in need of rejuvenation. The brutal loss two years ago of Pioneerof The Nile, at just 13, left all WinStar's top sires in the same veteran bracket as Malibu Moon: Distorted Humor was then 26, Tiznow and More Than Ready 22, and Speightstown 21. Tiznow has since been pensioned, and Distorted Humor is being managed with due restraint; but Speightstown has bucked one of the most witless prejudices around by actually earning a fee increase in the pandemic economy. I look forward to him emulating Danzig, who conceived War Front and Hard Spun, respectively, when aged 24 and 26, and so rebuking those who TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 16 • THETDN.COM SATURDAY • MAY 29, 2021 Orb | Horsephotos discern some inherent deterioration in the corrosive work of fashion plus competition from cheaper sons. Be that as it may, happily WinStar have meanwhile seen Constitution step up to the plate, with plenty of promising new recruits in his slipstream. What was interesting about Laoban, much like Daredevil after his repatriation from Turkey to Lane's End, is that he had effectively been rebranded. At precisely the stage where most young sires are creaking under the weight of new, unproven competition, Laoban had demonstrated that the rewards for a fast start are just about as impulsive and disproportionate as the punishment for a slow one. Think about sires like--well, how about Orb, the most accomplished son of Malibu Moon? When Orb, like Laoban, was about to launch his third crop of juveniles two years ago, he was already confined to just 28 mares. Last year, incredibly, he received seven. Unsurprisingly, he has since been given a fresh start in Uruguay--leaving behind O Besos, who made up more ground than any rival when fifth in that processional GI Kentucky Derby. One of few others to close in the race was Laoban's son Keepmeinmind, whose Grade I placing the day after Simply Ravishing won the GI Darley Alcibiades S. last fall was sufficient to start an overnight auction to bring their sire to Kentucky. Was that 24-hour breakout more significant than, say, Orb producing GI Spinaway winner Sippican Harbor? Yes, Laboan was working from New York mares, and has come up with handful of other stakes operators; whereas Orb failed to build on his opportunities at no less a farm than Claiborne. But if Laoban was indeed about to become an important stallion, then it would have remained pretty challenging to explain why. A fairly ordinary page was only somewhat improved by his own contribution. Yes, he was a conduit for a very expensive sire whose other sons in this intake, Nyquist and Outwork, suggest Want to list your job? Standard listing: $350 Multi listing: $300 each • One printed ad on this page (date of your choice) • Two or more printed ads on this page (dates of your choice) • 30 day listing on our careers page:thetdn.com/careers • 30 day listing on our careers page:thetdn.com/careers • Job promoted through our social media channels • Job promoted through our social media channels Contact the TDN Ad Staff: [email protected] >63.8K >52.9K >32.6K for details or to post a job TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 5 OF 16 • THETDN.COM SATURDAY • MAY 29, 2021 something that can be recycled. But now that all bets are off, I stallions under most pressure. It's not commitment to first and must confess that a fee of $25,000 for Laoban, in a market second books that stud accountants need, but to third and where Malibu Moon himself (126 stakes winners, 51 graded fourth, or fourth and fifth. stakes winners, 17 Grade I winners) was down to $35,000, We mentioned Daredevil. Well, he covered 376 mares across seemed strong. his first three seasons at WinStar. Yet he plummeted from 140 Built into that fee, it seemed, was the expectation of renewed mares to 21 as his first runners were approaching the track. market momentum accompanying a Arebirth@ in the Bluegrass. Hence his sale to Turkey. It=s almost as though a stallion like this gets to be a freshman As I've often said, it's neither the farms nor the breeders who twice over. are principally to blame for commercial obsession with I feel terribly sorry for the WinStar team, to lose Laoban so unproven sires, but those directing consumer investment. soon. A young stallion is one of the ultimate symbols of virility in Breeders are just anticipating the market. Orb, Daredevil and all Nature, and an abrupt death like his--or that of Pioneerof the Laoban are all extreme examples of what happens when young Nile--is all the more shocking as a result.