Yonaguska (Cherokee Run – Marital Spook, by Silver Ghost) is one of the great values at stud this year. He stands for only $4,000 live foal at Elite Thoroughbreds in Folsom, LA, but is already having a career year, with an Oaks and Derby contender in his 3-year-old crop.
Readers of this blog know that I’m a huge fan of Cherokee Run, so I’m especially pleased to see how well Yonaguska is doing, but his recent successes have been truly impressive – more so given the stud fee.
Yonaguska’s Derby contender is Musket Man (click here to view pedigree), who won the Grade 3 $300,000 Tampa Bay Derby recently against some good competition, including Hello Broadway (click here to view pedigree) – a Werk Thoroughbred Consultants recommended mating!
The media has rated the Tampa Bay Derby poorly, but I happen to know that this race is much better than it looks on paper. In fact, I tuned in to watch the Tampa Bay Derby for several reasons, and none had anything to do with Musket Man! One horse at Tampa that I had an obvious rooting interest in was Hello Broadway, who is owned and was bred by my friend Elizabeth Vallando, who also raced his half-brother Nobiz Like Shobiz (another mating we recommended). Elizabeth and trainer Barclay Tagg have been very high on this colt as a possible Derby contender, and why not? The colt was 2nd last year in the G3 Nashua, and 2nd this year in the G2 Hutcheson! And another horse I tuned in to watch was the Sky Mesa colt Join in the Dance (click here to view pedigree), who I offered to several of my clients last year as a racing prospect and who I absolutely loved. Unfortunately, I was the Lone Ranger in this regard!
Well, as I was watching the race, I realized that Hello Broadway wasn’t going to fire, but Join in the Dance was running a corker and looked like he was going to win it all at 35-1! Then Musket Man came on and nipped him a neck at the wire!
When I examined Musket Man’s race record – 4 for 5 after the Tampa Bay Derby – and read the race coverage, it dawned on me that he was very highly regarded by his connections and the local racetrack fraternity. He lost his only race in the G3 Sam F. Davis at Tampa one start back, and that had apparently been a shock to his connections. So the Tampa Bay Derby win put the form all back together again.
Yonaguska’s Oaks horse is the Japanese-based filly Earth Living (click here to view pedigree). Last year at 2 she won a maiden and ran 2nd in a Japanese stakes to the colt Suni, who was considered the best dirt 2-year-old in Japan.
Earth Living then made her 3rd lifetime start in the UAE 1000 Guineas in Dubai and ran 2nd to the very good filly So Shiny. The start after that she ran 2nd again in the UAE Oaks in Dubai! This is, well, world-class form!
Both Musket Man and Earth Living come from off the pace, and both get 9 furlongs, but their sire was pretty much a sprinter who struggled to stay a mile against top competition.
Yonaguska, if you remember, sold for $1,950,000 at the Fasig-Tipton February 2-year-olds-training sale in 2000. He was an instant success at the track that year, too, accounting for the G1 Hopeful S. (dead heat with City Zip, defeating Macho Uno!). He was also 3rd in the G1 Champagne and placed in a bunch of other Graded races, too. At 3 Yonaguska won the G2 Hutcheson (defeating City Zip) over 7F, as well as the 6F G2 Fall Highweight and G3 Sport Page. He retired to Vinery in Kentucky with 6 wins from 18 starts and earnings of $536,355, and to date he has sired 8 SWs from only 3 crops.
This is a very respectable record for any young stallion these days, and when you throw in the quality of Musket Man and Earth Living versus the stud fee, that’s a lotta bang for the buck!