Posts Tagged ‘tapit’

By Ray Paulick
In the sale ring, on the racetrack and in the breeding shed, A.P. Indy has been a star. The son of Seattle Slew topped the 1990 Keeneland July yearling sale when he sold for $2.9 million. He was the champion 3-year-old and Horse of the Year in 1992, his victories including the Belmont Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Classic. He’s been leading sire in North America on two occasions—2003 and 2006—and he has sired the winners of 10 or more Graded/Group stakes races in eight of the 14 years he’s had runners on the track.

Furthermore, A.P. Indy has developed into a leading sire of sires, with eight sons ranking in the top 100 on bloodhorse.com’s leading sires by North American earnings for 2009. One of those sons, Pulpit, has two of his own sons on the list, Tapit and Sky Mesa. So, including A.P. Indy, his sons and his grandsons, 11 of the top 100 positions by North American earnings trace to this horse sired by a Triple Crown winner, produced from a broodmare of the year, Weekend Surprise, who is a daughter of another Triple Crown winner, Secretariat.

A.P. Indy is also the leader by number of American Graded Stakes winners of 2009, with nine sons and daughters winning 14 AGS races. His sons Pulpit and Malibu Moon rank second with seven AGS winners each. A.P. Indy has achieved this great success at stud without the benefit of super-sized foal crops. Only one of his 14 crops exceeded 100 foals, and the average size of each of his foal crops of racing age is 71. The average number of foals in each of Pulpit’s nine crops is 62, and the average for Malibu Moon’s seven crops is 79.

Perhaps less is more.

Three of A.P. Indy’s nine American Graded Stakes winners of 2009 won Grade 1 races: Flashing (Test and Gazelle), Music Note (Ballerina and Beldame) and Telling (Sword Dancer Invitational). Malibu Moon has two Grade 1-winning daughters, Funny Moon (Coaching Club American Oaks) and Devil May Care (Frizette); Pulpit sired Grade 1 winners Pyro (Forego) and Mi Sueno (Del Mar Debutante). Two other sons of A.P. Indy sired Grade 1 winners of 2009, Jump Start (Rail Trip, Hollywood Gold Cup) and Stephen Got Even (I Want Revenge, Wood Memorial).

One of his most exciting sons to enter stud is Bernardini, whose first crop turns two years old in 2010. A.P. Indy has already solidified his position as one of the most influential and important sires of the modern era, but his final chapter is yet to be written.

Nearly three hours later, at 8:30 p.m. Eastern, TVG will be showing the 53rd running of the Del Mar Oaks, a 1 1/8-miles on the grass.

For those who can’t get wait for the weekend to get their dose of televised racing, there’s Friday afternoon’s Grade 2 Lake Placid at Saratoga, also for 3-year-old fillies. It was scheduled to go off at 4:56 Eastern time on TVG and HRTV, but NYRA officials have moved up post time because of inclement weather and that race could go off around 4:25 p.m. No word yet on whether or not it is off the turf.

With Rachel Alexandra skipping the Alabama for upcoming races unknown, favoritism is likely to fall on Careless Jewel, a Tapit filly trained byJosie Carroll coming off three consecutive daylight victories. Her last two wins—an allowance race on Polytrack at Woodbine and the Grade 2 Delaware Oaks on dirt at Delaware Park—were nearly identical. Under Robert Landry, Careless Jewel went to the front at the start in both 1 1/16-mile contests, opened up by five lengths at the eighth pole, then cruised to the wire to win by 7 1/4 lengths.

This will be her biggest test, in terms of competition and distance. Funny Moon, Don’t Forget Gil and Wynning Ride, the 1-2-3 finishers in a hotly contested Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks at 1 1/4 miles at Belmont Park last time out July 25, figure to provide Careless Jewel with her stiffest opposition. Casanova Moon, fourth in the CCA Oaks, and Canadian stakes veteran Milwaukee Appeal also could be in the thick of it in the spa’s biggest race for 3-year-old fillies going a route of ground.

The Del Mar Oaks has attracted 10 fillies, including Well Monied, the daughter of Maria’s Mon who closed well to be second to Gozzip Girl in the Grade 1 American Oaks at Hollywood Park last month. That defeat ended a three-race winning streak for the Howard Zucker-trained miss, who will be ridden by red-hot Joel Rosario.

Lightly raced English-bred Hermione’s Magic, a daughter of Systematic, could be a factor for trainer Kathy Walsh. She won her U.S. debut, only her third career start, in impression fashion, finishing with a rush to beat entry-level allowance horses on the Del Mar turf Aug. 5.

Also, don’t forget that Friday night marks the second-season debut of the popular Animal Planet series, which airs at 10 p.m. Eastern and repeats at midnight and 5 a.m. the following morning. Click here  for more information on the series.

 

By Ray Paulick
How good is Rachel Alexandra? There are several ways to marvel at her extraordinary ability. To the naked eye, she is an impressive combination of grace and power that is seldom seem, her long, smooth strides simply too much for her overmatched competitors to keep up with.

To followers of speed figures, she is a monster. Her Beyer Speed Figure from Sunday’s Haskell Invitational was 116, a huge number. I would think her Ragozin and Thorograph numbers will also reflect superiority over her contemporaries.

What she has done in racking up seven consecutive victories in 2009 by Aug. 2 is equally amazing. In some ways, this daughter of Medaglia d’Oro is a throwback to yesteryear, when horses weren’t treated with kid gloves. In compiling this formidable record, Rachel Alexandra has won six American Graded Stakes—twice as many as any other horse in the country so far this year—and four of the graded races were Grade 1 events (Kentucky Oaks, Preakness, Mother Goose, and Haskell Invitational). Two of them, as any racing fan knows, were outside of her division against colts.

Let’s put those numbers in perspective. There will be something like 50,000 races run this year in the U.S., about 2,600 of them stakes races, or about 5% of all races. Of the 2,600 stakes, only about 500 are graded (1%), and of those 500, there are just 115 Grade 1. So, one-fifth of 1% of all U.S. races have Grade 1 status.

Taken a bit farther, for those 50,000 races there are about 410,000 horses in the starting gate. No more than 115 of those 410,000 starters will be able to claim a Grade 1 victory, or about three horses from every 10,000 starters (three-hundredths of 1%).

What are the odds of one of those horses winning four Grade 1 races in the first eight months of the year? Astronomical!

So, Rachel Alexandra is not quite a one in a million superstar Thoroughbred, but she’s pretty darned close.

THESE NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES  merely serve to illustrate how difficult it is for a Thoroughbred to become a graded stakes winner. The chances of breeding, buying, selling or training one can be equally challenging.

Of course, there is strength in numbers to improve your chances of being associated with a graded stakes winner, whether you are a sire, owner, breeder, trainer, consignor or sales company. But big numbers do not guarantee success.

We’ll look this week at the leading sires of 2009 American Graded Stakes winners so far this year. Three stallions—A.P. Indy, Giant’s Causeway and Unbridled’s Song—each have sired five AGS winners. But Giant’s Causeway has by far had the most starters—265 at this writing—so his percentage of AGS winners to year starters is just 1.9%. A.P. Indy with 126 starters, has sired 4.0% AGS winners, and Unbridled’s Song with 162 starters, has sired 3.1% AGS winners. (Note: the number of starters is worldwide.)

A.P. Indy stood for $250,000 this year. A success rate of 4.0% AGS winners means 1 in 25 runners wins an AGS, so it has taken on average $6,250,000 in stud fees (25 X $250,000) to produce each graded stakes winner among his runners. (Not all foals get to the races, so the number to produce an AGS would be even higher considering all foals.)

Giant’s Causeway and Unbridled’s Song stood for $125,000 each, and their average stud fee price per graded stakes winner using that same formula is $6,579,000 for Giant’s Causeway and $4,032,000 for Unbridled’s Song.

It’s the next group of three sires, Mizzen Mast, Candy Ride and Tapit, with four AGS winners each, where the value is greater.  Mizzen Mast has had 126 starters and has a AGS winner percentage of 3.2%; Candy Ride has had 80 starters for a 5.0% AGS strike rate; Tapit has had 84 starters for 4.8%.

Candy Ride, who was recently moved from Hill ‘n’ Dale to Lane’s End, offered the greatest value when considering his $12,500 stud fee. His average stud fee cost per AGS winner was only $250,000. Of course, there is little question that Candy Ride’s fee will be going up in 2010, though no announcement has yet been made.

Of the other two sires with four AGS winners, Mizzen Mast with a $17,500 fee produced each 2009 AGS winner at an average stud fee cost of $547,000; Tapit, with a fee of $35,000 produced each 2009 AGS winner at an average stud fee cost of $729,000—still a bargain compared with the higher-priced stallions.