I’d like to start out with an update on my last blog on Medaglia d’Oro (see below), where I noted that all six of his SWs were fillies. Well, make it filly SW #7! On Saturday, April 11, Payton d’Oro (click here to view pedigree) won the $75,000 Instant Racing Stakes at Oaklawn to become her sire’s 7th SW!
In my last blog, I noted again that Musket Man had not gotten any respect from the “experts” after winning the G3 Tampa Bay Derby (click here to read by original blog on Musket Man and his sire, Yonaguska). Well, the Tampa Bay Derby is starting to look like a key race now! First, Musket Man wins it, and then he wins the G2 $500,000 Illinois Derby. Then, this past Saturday, the 5th place colt from the Tampa Bay Derby, General Quarters (Sky Mesa – Ecology, by Unbridled’s Song), wins the G1 $750,000 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland! The General’s form was pretty good because he’s the ONLY horse who’s defeated Musket Man!
How about this? Buyers let Musket Man “get away” for $15,000 at the 2007 Keeneland September yearling sale, and they let General Quarters fall through the cracks for $20,000 at the same sale (General Quarters was then claimed for $20,000 after winning his first start!). That’s $35,000 for the pair! These two once again prove that picking sales horses is a whole lot more than a beauty contest! Musket Man, for example, was only #45 of his sire’s 61 yearlings to sell in 2007, and at $15,000 he was less than half his sire’s $32,090 yearling average. The same is true for General Quarters, who was #37 of 55 yearlings for his sire in 2007, and at $20,000 he was less that 1/3rd of his sire’s yearling average of $63,423 that year!
Of the other “live” Kentucky Derby contenders, G2 Arkansas Derby winner Papa Clem is a homebred; as is G1 Santa Anita Derby winner Pioneer of the Nile and G1 Wood Memorial winner I Want Revenge (my next blog is about him!). At the “other” end of the scale, you have Dunkirk, a $3.7 million yearling, and Desert Party, a $2.1 million 2-year-old, and the two of them are controlled by the powerhouses of Coolmore Stud and Darley, respectively!
What this proves, folks, is that even in this day and age, it doesn’t always take deep pockets to get you to the Kentucky Derby!
Sky Mesa Coming on Strong!
General Quarters is a son of Sky Mesa (Pulpit – Caress, by Storm Cat), who’s really turned his career around. When Sky Mesa went to stud at Three Chimneys for $30,000 in 2004, he was an appealing stud prospect, both physically and as A G1 winner at 2 and 3. With his first runners at the track, though, he went cold, and by last year he was standing for $15,000 and it looked like no one wanted a Sky Mesa.
In fact, it was last summer when I was trying to sell the 2-year-old Sky Mesa colt Join in the Dance, and none of my clients wanted him, mostly because Sky Mesa was so cold! Since then, Join in the Dance and Sky Mesa have had a major change of fortunes. Join in the Dance was 2nd by a photo in the aforementioned Tampa Bay Derby, and he ran fifth in the G1 Blue Grass. Sky Mesa, who now is at $30,000 live foal, has since had G2 winner Storm Mesa, G3 winner Terrain, G2 winner Skylighter, G1 winner Sky Diva, G2 winner Beethoven, and new G1 winner General Quarters (Terrain and Join in the Dance were 4th and 5th respectively in the Blue Grass, too, which gives Sky Mesa four legitimate 2009 classic colts with Beethoven). Click here to view the pedigrees of Sky Mesa’s 8 unrestricted SWs from his first two crops. You will note that Sky Mesa is a stallion who follows his nicks. Six of his 8 SWs have a Werk Nick Rating of A++ and the other 2 are A+!
The complete turnaround for Three Chimney’s Sky Mesa is now noted in the Thoroughbred Times third-crop sire list, where he is now the leader by about $38,000 over Proud Citizen.