Andrew Caulfield, January 21-She’s A Tiger She=s a Tiger=s dam Shandra Smiles must also take a PEDIGREE INSIGHTS sizeable share of the credit, as she also produced a son, B Y A N D R E W C A U L F I E L D Smiling Tiger, who was good enough to win three Grade Is and to finish third in two editions of the GI DEL MAR DEBUTANTE S.-GI, $300,750, DMR, 8-31, Breeders= Cup Sprint. The mare=s owner, Dr Rodney Orr, 2yo, f, 7f (AWT), 1:22 3/5, ft. must be mightily thankful that Shandra Smiles RNA=d at 1--s@SHE'S A TIGER, 122, f, 2, by Tale of the Cat $150,000 when she went through the Keeneland sales 1st Dam: Shandra Smiles, by Cahill Road ring in November 2010, while carrying She=s a Tiger. 2nd Dam: Beyond the Storm, by Great Above Like She=s a Tiger, Smiling Tiger was sired by a son 3rd Dam: Brenda's Storm, by Medieval Man of Storm Cat, but this son--Hold That Tiger--wasn=t one ($150,000 yrl '12 KEESEP). O-Mark DeDomenico of his most renowned stallion sons. Smiling Tiger and LLC, Allen J Aldrich, Lisa Hernandez & Stuart the 2013 Grade II scorer Withgreatpleasure are among Downey; B-Dr Rodney Orr (KY); T-Jeff Bonde; J-Gary only a handful of graded winners sired by this winner of L Stevens. $180,000. Lifetime Record: 4-3-1-0, the G1 Grand Criterium. $315,650. *3/4 to Smiling Tiger (Hold That Tiger), Unsurprisingly, Shandra Smiles= connections are MGISW, $1,480,704. Werk Nick Rating: A. Click for sticking with this winning formula. Her 2013 filly is by the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Tale of the Cat=s son Gio Ponti and she was bred to Giant=s Causeway, another son of Storm Cat, in 2013. She also has a non-winning 5-year-old daughter Pure Smiles by another Storm Cat stallion in Pure Prize. Purchased by Mersad Metanovic Bloodstock • [email protected] She=s a Tiger isn=t the first Eclipse Award winner by Tale of the Cat, as Gio Ponti took the 2009 and 2010 awards for top turf male. His second to Zenyatta in the 2009 GI Breeders= Cup Classic on all-weather was also Click for the brisnet.com chart, the brisnet.com PPs or enough to earn this tough horse the Eclipse Award for the free brisnet.com catalogue-style pedigree. VIDEO. older male. The loss of any race in the stewards= room is hard to It is going to be interesting to see how important Tale take. But losing a race of the importance (and value) of of the Cat proves to be in extending the influence of the GI Breeders= Cup Juvenile Fillies must be the Storm Cat male line. His high-class son Lion Heart heart-breaking, all the more so when the demoted left such talented performers as Dangerous Midge (GI winner--the front-running She=s a Tiger--had shown Breeders= Cup Turf), Line of David (GI Arkansas Derby) such determination to repel Ria Antonia. and Kantharos before being sold to Turkey. In addition Judging by the voting for the Eclipse Award for top to Gio Ponti, Tale of the Cat is represented in Kentucky juvenile filly, the vast majority didn=t agree with the by the very well-related Wood Memorial and Cigar Mile stewards= decision and She=s a Tiger monopolized 212 winner Tale of Ekati, whose first 2-year-olds race this of the votes, with third-placed Ria Antonia receiving year. only 10. This seems to confirm that the first across the Then there=s his speedy dual Grade II winner Forty line in the Juvenile Fillies has every chance of adding Tales, who starts his new career this year at Sequel the relevant Eclipse Award. She=s a Tiger is the 14th Stallions New York, and the undefeated 2011 consecutive filly to do so since Chilukki spoilt the 2-year-old Overdriven, who covered 110 mares in his sequence in 1999. Chilukki had appeared to be beaten first season in Florida last year. fair and square by Cash Run on that occasion, but Cash Run was gaining her first stakes victory, whereas Chilukki had blazed her way to six consecutive wins, SHE’S A TIGER, f, 2011 including a pair of Grade Is, and had set or equalled a couple of track records. Storm Bird Northern Dancer South Ocean Perhaps She s a Tiger also owed her Eclipse Award to Storm Cat = Secretariat her greater consistency. The daughter of Tale of the Terlingua Crimson Saint Cat had been defeated in only two of her six starts, Tale of the Cat Raise a Native those defeats being by the narrow margins of half a Mr. Prospector Gold Digger length and a head. Yarn Narrate Honest Pleasures From a pedigree viewpoint, she is an appropriate State winner of the award. Her grandsire Storm Cat was Fappiano Mr. Prospector responsible for Sweet Catomine and Storm Flag Flying, Killaloe winners, respectively, in 2004 and 2002, and he also Cahill Road Shandra Smiles Gana Facil *Le Fabuleux sired the dam of Folklore (2005). She=s a Tiger=s 37-6-6-6 Charedi broodmare sire Cahill Road was a brother to Unbridled, 8Fls, 1Ch, Minnesota Mac the stallion responsible for the 2003 winner Halfbridled. 2SW Beyond the Storm Great Above 47-10-5-7 Ta Wee 8Fls, 1SW Brenda’s Storm Medieval Man 13Fls Ruler’s Storm Caulfield cont. Tale of the Cat=s daughter Layreebelle also got into the act over the weekend, when her Bernardini filly Spellbound won the GII La Canada S. It is worth remembering that the best previous winner out of a Tale of the Cat mare, the GI Acorn S. and GI CCA Oaks winner It=s Tricky, was also sired by a son of A.P. Indy in Mineshaft. Tale of the Cat is now a relative veteran at the age of 20 and I note he covered Aonly@ 69 mares last year, after a comparatively quiet time with his 2012 runners (the best of whom were the Canadian Grade III winner Stars to Shine and the Japanese Group 2 winner A Shin Top). I=m sure he will be much more in demand this year, following a good 2013, which saw him finish as high as 13th on the general sires= list and second among the juvenile sires. In addition to She=s a Tiger, he was ably represented at graded level by such as Forty Tales (two Grade IIs and a Grade III), A Shin Top (Group 2 and Group 3 successes in Japan), Stopchargingmaria (GII Demoiselle S. and GIII Tempted S.) and Tale of a Champion (GII Charles Whittingham Memorial). As She=s a Tiger=s broodmare sire Cahill Road was a brother to Unbridled, it is worth mentioning that Tale of the Cat has a pleasing record with daughters of Unbridled=s Song, with this partnership producing the Grade II winners Alpha Kitten and A Shin Top. He also sired the Grade II winner Spellbinder from another Fappiano line mare. Cahill Road raised hopes that he might follow in the illustrious footsteps of his year-older brother Unbridled early in his 3-year-old campaign, when he quickly built a record of four wins from six starts. That sixth start saw him win the GI Wood Memorial by three lengths, but he unfortunately came out of the race with a pulled suspensory in his left-fore ankle and this signalled the end of his career. The 17-hands son of Fappiano retired to stand alongside his brother at Gainesway Farm, but he struggled to make his mark, to the extent that he ended up in Washington state. Coincidentally, it was at Emerald Downs in Washington that She=s a Tiger=s dam, the Kentucky-bred Shandra Smiles, gained her only stakes victory, over 6 1/2 furlongs. Bearing in mind the speed that She=s a Tiger showed in the Juvenile Fillies, a mile and a sixteenth could well prove her limit--especially when her three-parts brother Smiling Tiger gained two of his Grade I victories over six furlongs and the other over seven. But then there will still be plenty of opportunities for a high-class filly of her type in America--especially as she has shown she acts on dirt and synthetic..