There were 24 black-type stakes events around North America last weekend and the progeny of white-hot Central Kentucky sire Medaglia d’Oro won three of them.
A stakes winner in 2013 and a graded stakes winner last season, Micromanage got the ball rolling for his sire during the Jan. 19 Martin Luther King Jr. holiday card at Aqueduct. He gutted out a three-quarter length victory in the $100,000 Jazil Stakes, named after Shadwell Farm’s late 2006 Belmont Stakes winner. Micromanage, a newly turned 5-year-old owned by Repole Stable and trained by Todd Pletcher, is out of a mare by Flying Paster.
Five days later it was Lochte, another son of Medaglia d’Oro, who got his picture taken after the Grade 3 Tampa Bay Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs. Out of a mare by Lemon Drop Kid, Lochte became one of his sire’s 11 Grade 1 winners with his upset score in last year’s Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap. The Tampa Bay Stakes is his third overall stakes victory and second at the graded level.
Medaglia d’Oro’s latest stakes winner is Exodus, who led the field home in last Saturday’s Allen’s Landing Stakes at Sam Houston Race Park. The Allen’s Landing was the stakes debut for the 3-year-old colt out of the Grade 1-winning Cure the Blues mares Stop Traffic. If the pedigree looks familiar it’s because Stop Traffic is already the dam of 2013 Whitney Invitational Handicap winner Cross Traffic to the cover of Unbridled’s Song.
Medaglia d’Oro is also the sire of two another January stakes winners, Notte d’Oro, winner of the Jan. 17 Marie G. Krantz Memorial Handicap at Fair Grounds and Mshawish, victor in the Grade 2 Ft. Lauderdale Stakes Jan. 10. Notte d’Oro is out of a mare by Gulch, the maternal grandsire of Mshawish, who is out of a daughter of Thunder Gulch. Medaglia d’Oro’s first Grade 1 winner, Passion for Gold, is out of a Thunder Gulch mare as well.
For those scoring at home, that’s five North American stakes winners already in 2015 for the Darley stallion (and six if you count Monday’s Australian Grade 3 winner.).
Gainesway‘s Tapit, North America’s leading sire in 2014, currently ranks second with a trio of early-year stakes winners. His 2014 Monmouth Oaks winner Cassatt, who is out of a daughter of Giant’s Causeway, earned her fourth career stakes trophy in Saturday’s $400,000 Sam Houston Ladies Classic Stakes. A week prior, Mufajaah got her first stakes victory in the $100,000 Pippin Stakes at Oaklawn Park. Both are out of granddaughters of Storm Cat and Tapit has now sired at least 10 stakes winners out of Storm Cat-line mares (eight graded, three Grade 1s).
Lane’s End‘s Candy Ride sired his first two stakes winners of 2015 last Saturday, both with similar pedigree elements. His 4-year-old daughter Sugar Shock shrugged off a seven-wide excursion to win the $100,000 American Beauty Stakes at Oaklawn. The race is one of the early season features in Hot Springs, Ark., where Sugar Shock won the 2014 edition of Grade 3 Fantasy Stakes en route to an eighth-place run in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks. She’s out of mare by Distorted Humor, a son of the Mr. Prospector stallion Forty Niner out a mare by Danzig. Sugar Shake is among Candy Ride’s two stakes winners from seven starters out of Distorted Humor daughters, with listed stakes winner Mr. Jawbreaker the other.
Candy Ride’s latest stakes winner, Dubai Sky, is out of a mare who is herself bred on the Mr. Prospector-Danzig cross. Her dam is by the late Juddmonte Farms Mr. Prospector stallion Chester House out of a daughter of Danzig. Dubai Sky took down the $100,000 Kitten’s Joy Stakes over the Gulfstream Park grass course for his third consecutive score. The full brother to Grade 1 winner Twirling Candy is his sire’s 43rd stakes winner from 526 starters, an 8.2 percent strike rate.
Barbados, a son of WinStar Farm‘s Speightstown, is the first multiple stakes winner of 2015. Winner of the Spectacular Bid Stakes on New Year’s Day, he doubled down with an odds-on tally in Saturday’s Grade 3 Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream. The 3-year-old is Speightstown’s 63rd stakes winner and 25th at the graded level. He’s also the 12th stakes winner out of a mare by Street Cry.
-originally published on http://www.thisishorseracing.com
Matt O'Neil Consulting 