Saturday Morning Odds and Ends - Nov 5

- A crowd of 2,617 got to see a couple of real blue-blooded two year olds get their maiden victories at the Big A on Friday. Ashado’s baby full brother Sunriver took the seventh for Pletcher, stretching out to a mile and an eighth after running second in his sprint debut. He got the same kind of perfect trip that Ashado often seemed to benefit from, sitting on the rail while stalking a sluggish though contested pace, and just got up under a stiff drive with John Velasquez after looking hopelessly beaten at the sixteenth pole.

The 4th race, a turf affair, was taken by After Market with a rousing late rally up the rail for Cornelio Velasquez and Bill Mott in his first start. Very impressive indeed, they zipped home the last sixteenth in six seconds flat. After Market is by Storm Cat out of multiple Grade 1 winner Tranquility Lake, and that makes him a full brother to the yearling that sold for $9.7 million to Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum at the Keeneland September sale. While Marty Wygod was the seller of that one, this one he kept for himself. He paid a fat $20 even to win; another one that I would have been standing there thinking he was dead on the board.

- A lot of blue blood will also be featured in two sales coming up in Kentucky. Fasig-Tipton has a select mixed sale starting on Sunday, and there’s the big Keeneland November breeding stock sale which gets underway Monday.

The Fasig-Tipton sale features Wild Fit (pdf files), the impressive runner-up in the BC Juvenile Fillies, as well as Contrive, the dam of the winner Folklore. Contrive (Storm Cat) is in foal to Pleasantly Perfect, standing at Lane’s End for $40,000. The 2003 Classic winner serviced 100 mares in this, his first year of stallion duty.

Also slated for the sale is Cloud Break (Dr. Carter), the dam of Lost in the Fog, and I’m sure that LITF’s disappointing Sprint didn’t add to her value. She’s in foal to Speightstown, who won the Sprint in 2004, so that one should be flying right out of the womb. Speightstown did a brisk business in 2005 at WinStar in his first year of service, getting down and dirty with 131 mares. He’s by the accomplished sire of sires Gone West out of a Storm Cat mare, and has inbreeding to Secretariat and Tom Fool, so I’m sure he presents some intriguing possibilities for his $40,000 fee.

The entire list for the Fasig-Tipton sale is here, and it includes Angara, Smokey Glacken, and Riskaverse.

The Keeneland sale, which includes Ashado but not Megahertz, who has been withdrawn, includes Heat Lightning, the dam of Juvenile winner Stevie Wonderboy. She’s in foal to Birdstone, the Belmont/Travers winner to stands for $10,000 and bred 102 mares in his first year. Also slated to be sold is Lady Shirl and Sweet as Honey, who are in foal to full siblings to Shakespeare and Borrego respectively. Those two may very well have been Numbers 1 and 1A, in the order of your preference, of the two single biggest disappointments of Breeders’ Cup day, wouldn’t you say?

On the other hand, one of the more redeeming BC performances was that of Flower Alley, and his dam Princess Olivia will go through the ring carrying a foal by Monashee Mountain. That stallion is a half brother to Mineshaft who had a modest race record in Ireland but who stands in Kentucky for $10,000. His first crop is three this year, and he’s quite popular, shuttling to Australia and servicing, this according to a table in the print edition of Bloodhorse, 194 mares in 2005!

The foal being carried by Princess Olivia is bred along very similar lines as her son Flower Alley. Flower Alley is by a son of Mr. Prospector out of a Danzig mare; while this foal is by a son of Danzig out of a daughter of Mr. Prospector. And I hope that being armed with this vital knowledge comes in handy for you at some point today.