Breeding the Old Fashioned Way!

By Jack Werk

As we get ready for the upcoming breeding season, I will periodically highlight some of best of the new young prospects entering stud in 2010. Today, the featured stallion is Taylor Made Stallions’ Old Fashioned.

Old Fashioned (2006 Gr. c by Unbridled’s Song – Collect Call, by Meadowlake). 6 starts, 4 wins, 2 seconds. Earned $583,280. Won G2 Remsen Stakes at 2; won G3 Southwest Stakes at 3, 2nd G2 Arkansas Derby, 2nd G2 Rebel Stakes. Sold for $800,000 as Keeneland September yearling. (Click here to view eNicks 5-cross pedigree and click here to view catalogue-style pedigree). Will stand for $12,500 live foal at Taylor Made Farm.

Fox Hill, which is owned by Rick Porter, has had an incredible run with the Unbridled’s Songs. Before Old Fashioned, Fox Hill raced Unbridled’s Song’s Rockport Harbor, who was undefeated in 4 starts at 2 and also won the G2 Remsen and was an early favorite for the Kentucky Derby. At 3, Rocky won the G2 Rebel, but injury cut short his classic aspirations. He did come back at 4 and won the G3 Essex Handicap, but he retired with a record of 5 wins from 8 starts and $324,800. Fox Hill also raced the tragic Unbridled’s Song filly Eight Belles, who did get to the Kentucky Derby and finished 2nd – before fatally breaking down. She won 5 of 10 starts, including the G2 Fantasy Stakes and the G3 Honeybee Stakes, and she earned $708,650. After Old Fashioned, Fox Hill has the 2-year-old Unbridled’s Song colt Winslow Homer, who has 2 wins from 3 starts and ought to be a top-class prospect based on his last win. Based on what I’ve seen, he could easily follow the classic path that Fox Hill’s other Unbridled’s Songs have traveled on!

It seems like a long time ago, but around this time last year Old Fashioned was following the same path of Rockport Harbor. Like Rocky, he won the G2 Remsen, but even more impressively – by 7¼ lengths at 9 furlongs!

So just like Rocky, he went into the winter as the Kentucky Derby favorite. At 3, he raced three times, all in stakes company, before injury knocked him out before the Kentucky Derby, just as it had with Rocky. What’s amazing, though, is that throughout the spring, even with two consecutive losses leading up to the Derby, he was still highly considered for the classic, because he just had that aura about him! He won the G3 Southwest Stakes at a mile by 3¼ lengths, and he was 2nd in the G2 Arkansas Derby ahead of subsequent Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird, and he also was 2nd in the G2 Rebel Stakes. Unfortunately, he had to be retired with 4 wins in 6 starts and nearly $583,280 in earnings. He left behind the very distinct feeling that we never really saw the best of him, and it was pretty obvious that his trainer, Larry Jones, who’d trained so many classics hopefuls and contenders in recent years, including Eight Belles and Hard Spun, had the highest regard for him.

Unbridled’s Song had one of the most sensational springs I’ve ever seen any stallion have this year, with an incredible number of classic contenders and really talented bunch of 3-year-olds that also included Belmont Stakes runner up Dunkirk. To date, he’s the sire of 73 unrestricted stakes winners, including 12 G1 winners. He’ll stand for $115,000 in 2010. Although Unbridled’s Song is still in his infancy as a sire of sires, he’s already shown some potential with Songandaprayer, who’s sired 12 unrestricted SWs from his first four crops to race while standing initially for just $10,000. Perhaps even more telling is his son Even the Score, who’s gotten 4 unrestricted SWs from his first crop including G1 winner Take the Points, while standing for $5,000.

Old Fashioned’s dam, Call Collect, is a G3 winner from a strong black-type female family that includes the excellent sire French Deputy. There are two things that are particularly intriguing about Old Fashioned’s pedigree. First, he is something of a rarity in No. American pedigrees – he is a 5-generation outcross (no inbreeding withing 5 generations). Second, his pedigree is totally void of Northern Dancer and has only one strain of Mr. Prospector through Fappiano (who’s proven to be the most successful strain for inbreeding to Mr. P!). This makes Old Fashioned an ideal stallion for much of the American broodmare population that already carries multiple strains of Northern Dancer and Mr. Prospector, and he’s an obvious candidate to nick with Storm Cat-line mares, which have done well with this line.

I expect Old Fashioned to cross well with the same types of mares as his sire. That’s very good news as some of the better crosses including mares by the aforementioned Storm Cat line, as well as by mares by Forty Niner, Mt. Livermore, Deputy Minister, Relaunch, Caro, Gone West, Danzig, and their sons.

Considering all of these factors, I believe Old Fashioned has the potential to become an important sire in the years to come, making his initial $12,500 stud fee an attractive proposition to breeders.