Kentucky 2007: Claiborne's Seeking the Gold!

Here are some photos of Seeking the Gold, the grand old stallion of Claiborne Farms. His 2007 stud fee was $125,000! He earned $2,307,000 on the track and in 15 starts had 8 wins and 6 places! His dad and mom were Mr. Prospector and Con Game by Buckpasser. One of his children is Jazil whose mom is Better than Honour, the same mom as Rags to Riches who also won the Belmont!

Anyway, Seeking the Gold has had 17 foal crops and 899 foals. Fifteen of his crops are of racing age, and 839 of his children are of racing age. He currently has 63 2 year-olds, 49 yearlings, and 11 weanlings. His yearlings and weanlings sell in the hundreds of thousands of dollars! The tour guide told us a story that because Seeking the Gold has been around the block, he tends to take a long time in the breeding shed. He will often take up to 45 minutes to get "in the mood" as compared to a few fierce seconds. He can cause quite a little traffic jam of mares waiting to be bred. When Barbie and I went home, Tom verified this story, telling about how he had to wait one day outside in the cold with a mare while Seeking the Gold took his sweet old time! Hey, you can't rush making priceless gems!! You take your time, stud!

My girls are related to him in numerous ways, including Case Ace, Nasrullah, Count Fleet, War Admiral, Traffic Court, Sir Gallahad, Blue Larkspur, and Teddy. You can read more about this beautiful elder statesman at the following links, including seeing footage of him in some of his races!
http://www.claibornefarm.com/stallions/seeking-the-gold.shtml
or
http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/stallion-directory/stallion.aspx?stallion_no=1043178
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeking_The_Gold
or
http://www.equineline.com/extendedcontent/tt_content.cfm?StallionRef=1043178&rtype=stats
or
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4RSGq-JfMgc
or
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BlGlhukSBTk
or
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wj47oeisobQ
or
http://youtube.com/watch?v=35pA7AI2Rhk
or
http://youtube.com/watch?v=e8Ki-sx3kTo

Violet, Hailee, Rags to Riches, 3 peas in a pod!

Here's a picture of Rags to Riches right after her historical win with her beautiful blanket of white carnations. Doesn't she look happy! Anyway, Rags, Violet, and Hailee share relatives. Rags to Riches' dad is A.P. Indy (who won the Belmont) and her mom is Better than Honour (who produced last year's Belmont Stakes winner, Jazil). So, apparently, Better than Honour deserves a special mother's day card, since she keeps producing Belmont-winning babies! You go, girl!! Rags to Riches also has the very special Secretariat and Seattle Slew in her tree. And what I think is very cool is that she has Busher, War Admiral's rockin' sockin' daughter. Now, here are some of the relatives my girls share with Rags: Blushing Groom, Bimelech, Nasrullah, Traffic Court, War Admiral, Baby League, Bubbling Over, and Equipoise, among many others. In fact, Violet can be proud that they share the same great-grandpa (Rags has Blushing Groom on the bottom, Violet has him on top). And Hailee can be super proud that they share Bubbling Over and Baby League! I am so proud to own a filly thoroughbred, and in the first year that Violet is part of my family, her close filly relative wins the Belmont in historical style. It's good to be part of the equine power girls!!!

Traffic Court, Ace Card, and Violet!

Violet is related to at least two Kentucky Broodmares of the Year. The Kentucky Broodmare of the Year award is an elected honor chosen by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. Traffic Court (1954 Broodmare of Year) is the daughter of Discovery and Ace Card (1952 Broodmare of Year), is the daughter of Case Ace. In the case of Traffic Court, her dad, Discovery, had the most amazing race record, but he became even more famous, if possible, as a broodmare sire. He produced Geisha dam of Native Dancer, Miss Disco, dam of Bold Ruler, Good Thing, dam of Bed 'O Roses, and Violet's own Traffic Court, dam of Violet's Hasty Road Co-Champion 2-year-old Colt of 1953 and Preakness Stakes winner, dam of Traffic Judge, a major stakes winner, and dam of Intentionally, a major sprinter. Discovery's owner, Alfred G. Vanderbilt, used to joke about his breeding strategy for race winners, "just breed any sire to a Discovery mare." Violet's Ace Card is bred to Count Fleet to produce One Count who was bred to War Admiral's Wee Nip. I've mentioned that before, but it's so cool that it bears repeating! Anyway, not only does she have these two fine Kentucky Broodmare of the Year mares in her heritage, she's related to many of the Broodmares of the Year through her sire connections, including Princequillo, Bubbling Over, Blue Larkspur, Blenheim, One Count, Count Fleet, War Admiral, Dark Star, and Blushing Groom! She also has some connections through the dam line, but I'm just pointing out the boys for now! Here's a photo of Traffic Court's daddy, Discovery! You can read more about the Kentucky Broodmares of the Year at the following links:

http://www.tbheritage.com/HistoricDams/AmBroodmareofYear.html

or

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

Street Sense wins 133rd Kentucky Derby!

Street Sense won this year's Kentucky Derby with Hard Spun, and Curlin, placing and showing. He broke 19th out of 20th and ran from behind for most of the race. His jockey, Calvin Borel, rode him tight on the rail until the final turn when four horses drifted off the rail and gave a window. Street Sense, covered in mud from the front runners, exploded through the opening, and swung fast and hard past the second and first horse. He just put tracks between him and the still strong, still fast-moving Hard Spun. He was a sight to behold and the master of the track that day! I am very happy for the Cajun jockey who won his first Derby on Street Sense. He was thrilled that he'd come that far from his Cajun bush track days! My girls are related to Street Sense in multiple ways, including the following: Nearctic, Nearco, Discovery, Whisk Broom, Teddy, Man 'O War, Sweep, Nasrullah, Count Fleet, Sir Gallahad, Blue Larkspur, Sun Princess, Hyperion, Princequillo, Wild Risk, Traffic Court, Bull Lea, War Glory, Eight Thirty, Gay Crusader, Case Ace, Rock Sand, and Hasty Road.

My picks for the Kentucky Oaks 2007!

As I've mentioned before, I first fell in love with thoroughbreds in 1973 when I was sitting in my living room with my family, reading a book, and someone nudged me and said, "Who do you think will win the Derby?" I looked up and Secretariat was striding out, looking like Secretariat. I was hooked. Now this is the first year that I share a descendant of Secretariat as part of my family! So, watching this year's Oaks is very exciting! Here are my choices:

1) Rags to Riches; 2) Cotton Blossom; 3) Dreaming of Anna. These are the three filies most closely related to Violet. They are related to her many different ways, but the big selling point is that they all share Blushing Groom! I like Dreaming of Anna because she has a NOLA trainer and a big earning record of $1,225,040 6:4-1-1. She is a 5-1 favorite, but has not run since February and has not won this year! Cotton Blossom has nice associations too with Traffic Court and some Dixie sorts of relatives. Cotton Blossom has a 7:3-2-1 record, $386,780, and has Barbaro's jockey who won the Eclipse Award. Her breeder likes thoroughbreds, but also Paints, Quarter Horses, and Arabs! And then Rags to Riches is the very favorite at 5-2 with a 4:3-0-0 record and $330,000. She's won everything she's been in this year! But I'm not thrilled with her because her trainer has two other horses in the race and the jockey had substance abuse problems in 2002. But, I'm still picking her for first because she looks the most like my beautiful Violet!!! Rags to Riches even has Violet's weird sexy splashy white blaze. She's the one for me!

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

My Girls are Ruffians!

What can be said about Ruffian? She was born in 1972, never defeated, never headed. Every time she raced in her 8 stakes races, she won and set a record. She won the Filly Triple Crown just breezing along. She perished in a match race against Foolish Pleasure. Her jockey, Jacinto Vasquez, had the choice to ride either horse in the match race and he chose the big black girl. She was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 1976. My girls are heavily directly related to this wonder of a girl. I am awed. I remember with vivid clarity the day Ruffian died. We were living in Canada, and mom and I were watching the news and heard the story. Violet and Hailee are related across every single branch of Ruffian's family tree. They share many relatives, including Nasrullah, Sweep, Domino, Traffic Court, Sir Gallahad, Plucky Liege, Teddy, Broomstick, Blue Larkspur, Black Toney, Discovery, Whisk Broom, Commando, Love Wisely, Hindoo, and Fair Play. What's strange is that Ruffian has Man o' War's daddy in her pedigree, but not the Grand Man himself! Anyway, Ruffian is a lovely macho girl and she was a real role model to girls like me in the 1970s. Be big, be bold, compete, have a big, giant heart. You can read more about this short-lived, lovely miraculous girl at the following links. The Youtube link is very sad -- someone went to a great deal of effort to write a lovely song to her:

http://www.racingmuseum.org/hall/horse.asp?ID=128

or

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

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96wka0rBHWM

or

http://www.championsgallery.com/Ruffian/Ruffian.html

or

http://thoroughbredchampions.com/biographies/ruffian1.htm

or

http://www.equinenet.org/heroes/ruffian.html

or

http://horseracing.about.com/library/pics/blruffian.htm