Wining Effort and My Girls!

Violet's dam was a 1997 racehorse named Wining Effort who had a dosage index of 5 and career earnings of $10,672! Her own parents are Two's A Plenty and Right Effort by Rajab. Her dad earned $282,183 and Rajab earned $75,600, and his own dad, Jaipur earned over $618,000! So, Violet is well-connected to racehorses on her mama's side.

In fact, if you look at her pedigree, you'd be super impressed. Wining Effort has Dark Star, the only horse to beat the 1953 Kentucky Derby winner, Native Dancer. And she has One Count, the Belmont Stakes winning kid and grandkid of Count Fleet and Reigh Count. And she has War Admiral, and the double whammy Count Fleet, War Admiral kid cross to create Three Fingers!. And she's got a dash of Jaipur, the horse who beat Ridan in one of the most amazing match races ever. And Wining Effort has a splash of Stymie, lucky girl!

So, my sweet, dancing, flirty, girly, smart Violet is rich in dam history!

Breaking News! Broodmare sets World Record Auction Price

The Keeneland Breeding Stock Sale is underway, beginning November 5th and running through the 19th. On the very first day, sales are up by 30% over last year, with intense international interest. 194 horses sold on the first day, for an average of $526,186, and a median of $272,500. 28 horses sold for $1 million or more. The first day brought $109,064,000. Can you imagine what the total sale will bring?! And this sale comes on the heels of the Fasig-Tipton Sale which ended Sunday. It too ended up 30% over last year's sales.

But a world record was set for a 5 year-old mare, Playful Act, who was in a bidding war between Coolmore Stud and the ruler of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum's Darley Stud. She sold for $10.5 million!!! The mare was held by Hill 'N Dale Bloodstock and she had recently aborted a Kingmambo foal. I once went to Hill 'N Dale to see a live cover in their famous breeding shed! Tom Hall kindly took Carla and me to this big event!

Playful Act's parents are Sadlers Wells and Magnificient Style. Sadlers Wells' dad is Northern Dancer, the Kentucky Derby winner from 1964. And MS' dad is Silver Hawk. She has lots of Native Dancer in her pedigree, and she even has Shenanigans, Ruffian's mom. So, you know, she's a very good girl!

My girls are related to her lots of ways, but some of them are through Nearco, Bold Reason, Nasrullah, Turn-To, and Pocahontas. I hope that beautiful Playful Act becomes a big fat Blue Hen who produces nothing but her beatiful self as a living gift through the ages!!

Kentucky 2007: Reviewer's Grave

Here is the grave of the fabulous Reviewer by Bold Ruler. His final race record was 13: 9-3-1, a very strong career! He suffered three fractures in his right rear cannon bone, and came back twice to race, but was retired after the third fracture.

In his first year at stud, he sired the lovely strong bold Ruffian from the 1963 filly Shenanigans by Native Dancer.

And so now here is the sad tale of this family. Ruffian was an unbeaten filly who always ran ahead of the pack. She just trounced her competition! But she died in 1975, after fracturing her leg in a match against Foolish Pleasure. She thrashed coming out of anesthesia, making her situation worse, so she was euthanized. She is buried by the infield flagpole at Belmont Park. Her mother, Shenanigans, was elected Broodmare of the Year in that very sad year.

Two years later, in 1977, Ruffian's parents passed in similar circumstances. Reviewer injured himself and broke his leg in a pasture accident and then injured himself anew when he thrashed coming out of anesthesia. Shenanigans was euthanized on May 21, 1977 after she thrashed and broke two legs as she awoke from anesthesia for abdominal surgery.

Some say that Ruffian, though speedy, fierce, brave, and determined, was built like glass and genetically coded to thrash and hurt herself. Both Bold Ruler and Reviewer had fractures while racing. But I don't see it that way. Racing is hard work and hard on all thoroughbred bodies. And thoroughbreds are bred with lion hearts, champion hearts, determined fighting hearts. They are prone to thrash when downed. They are prone to fight for their footing. I think it's just a sad story.

Dark Star Upsets Native Dancer!!

Here are two interesting photos. One is of Native Dancer, a two-time Horse of the Year. The other is the cover of the 1954 Turf and Digest with a photo of Violet's relative, Dark Star, after he defeated The Grey Ghost in the Derby! Get this: Native Dancer 22 races, 21 wins. The only horse to ever beat him was Violet's Dark Star who beat him to win the Kentucky Derby!!! That's some chops! Dark Star was a 25-1 longshot! And Native Dancer won the Saratoga Special, Preakness, Wood Memorial, Belmont, Arlington Classic, Gotham, Withers, Travers, and Metropolitan, among a few. And so, yes, Violet's Dark Star denied that super champion a chance of being a Triple Crown winner! Native Dancer won two jewels in theTriple Crown, but came in second for the first and most important jewel! Dark Star is a great-great grandparent of Violet's, appearing on the sire side of her mom, Wining Effort. The video link shows this truly amazing race between these two champions!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rBBvKILL1IM

Violet's Discovery!!

Violet is related to a gentleman whose nicknames included "The Iron Horse" and "The Big Train." Discovery earned $195,287 during his track life, with a 63-27-10-10 record. Among his starts, he won The Brooklyn Handicap and Whitney Stakes three times (1934, 1935, 1936), with the latter he won twice by 10 lengths! He won the Detroit Challenge Cup by 30 lengths, and also won the Arlington Handicap. When he was running, he carried an average of 31 lbs. He was voted U.S. Champion Handicap horse twice! And he won the 1935 Horse of the Year! That latter achievement was amazing because he was named Horse of the Year in the same year as Omaha won the Triple Crown. It was the first and only time in history that a Triple Crown winner wasn't named Horse of the Year. Not surprisingly, Blood Horse voted him #37 of the Top 100 race horses of the 20th Century. He was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 1969. Turf Historian, John Hervey, said of Discovery, " There is no other horse in the entire range of Turf history, American or foreign, that ever attempted to do anything so tremendous or came anywhere near Discovery in doing it so successfully." He has a race named after him, "The Discover" which was originally run at Belmont Park and is now at Aqueduct. This grandson of Fairplay, born in Lexington, had a 21 year stallion career and is so very famous for producing amazing daughters. Among his kids are Bail Bond, Conniver, Dark Discovery, Geisha (dam of Native Dancer), Miss Disco (dam of Bold Ruler), My Recipe, and Traffic Court (dam of Hasty Road). Violet shares in this rich pedigree through Traffic Court who bore Hasty Road (winner of the Preakness Stakes). Hasty Road's child Third Martini was bred to War Admiral and Count Fleet's grandchild, Three Fingers, to make Three Martinis, great-grandpa on her damsire side! You can read more about Discovery at the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_(horse)

or

http://www.racingmuseum.org/hall/horse.asp?ID=59

or

http://www.spiletta.com/UTHOF/discovery.html

Violet's Dark Star!!

Dark Star is the great-great grandpa on Violet's dam's sire's side. I think that's just so very cool. Dark Star was born in 1950 and won the 1953 Kentucky Derby. He was the only horse who ever beat Native Dancer. Native Dancer won 21 of 22 starts, and Dark Star shut him down on his Triple Crown bid. Native Dancer went on to win the Preakness and Belmont, so it was only Violet's Dark Star that impeded Native Dancer's bid to be part of Triple Crown history! Dark Star's record is 13 starts, 6 firsts, 2 seconds, and 2 thirds. He came up fifth in the Preakness, but was discovered to have a leg injury. What's sort of sad is that he was sold at the Keeneland Sales in 1953, the year he won the Kentucky Derby. It goes to show you how vulnerable thoroughbreds are -- this gorgeaus, big black Kentucky Derby winning horse wasn't wanted by his owners and was sold for $6,500 at Keeneland. Go figure. His lifetime track earnings were $131,337.

You can read about his Derby win at the following link:
http://www.kentuckyderby.com/2006/derby_history/derby_charts/years/1953.html

Count Fleet -- Triple Crown Winner and Violet's Direct Relation!

Violet is a direct relation of Reigh Count, Count Fleet, and Fleet's baby, One Count. You have no idea how cool that is. Reigh Count is a Kentucky Derby Winner. Count Fleet was the 1943 Triple Crown Winner, 1943 Horse of the Year, inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, and voted #5 of the Top 100 Race Horses of the 20th century by Blood Horse magazine. He earned $250,300, which is $2.6 million in 2002 dollars. He was so good at age 2 that the Jockey Club assigned him a handicap of 132 points, the largest ever imposed by that organization. He had 26 starts, 16 wins, 4 seconds, and 1 third. He was born March 24, 1940 and passed at the distinguished age of 33 on December 3, 1973. His owner, Hertz of the Hertz rental car company had a stable employee named Sam Ramsen who said of Count Fleet, "When that leggy brown colt wants to run, he can just about fly." And his jockey, Johnny Longden, once said about entering the Belmont, "Going into the race, I thought he'd have to fall down to get beat, and even then I thought he could get up and win. He was that good." But Longden admitted that the fast, high energy colt wasn't easy, he also said, "If he didn't have racing room, he'd go to the outside or just climb over horses. If you were in close quarters with him, you were in trouble."

His son, One Count, also Violet's direct relation, shared 1952 Horse of the Year honors with the famous 2-year-old star, Native Dancer. Among the races he won, One Count won the Belmont Stakes, Travers Stakes, and the Jockey Club Gold Cup! No wonder when Violet puts her nose down and does a buckaroo crow hop and takes off, she just looks like high speed royalty! You can read more about Count Fleet and One Count on my friendly links at Thoroughbred Blood Lines! Violet has at least 4 lines from Count Fleet, and each is impressive. In two lines she's bred through One Count, in another she's bred through Count Fleet and a a Bull Lea filly, and the last is where Count Fleet and War Admiral are the sires of One Count and Wee Nip who produced Three Fingers! Awesome how much Count Fleet she has!

Read more about Count Fleet:
http://www.spiletta.com/UTHOF/countfleet.html
Video footage of Count Fleet's Triple Crown wins!
http://www.racingmuseum.org/hall/horse.asp?ID=51