By Sid Fernando
Went the Day Well won the G3 Vinery Racing Spiral S. at Turfway Park Saturday and immediately became a Kentucky Derby contender with his first stakes win. Owned principally by Team Valor and trained by Graham Motion, Went the Day Well is using the same path of last year’s Spiral winner Animal Kingdom to the Derby.
On Sunday, the Chilean-bred mare Vamo a Galupiar won the G2 Santa Ana S. at Santa Anita on turf, and if you cannot guess the connection between the two stakes winners, it’s this: both are by Airdrie Stud’s Gone West sire Proud Citizen.
The sire of at least 21 SWs (18 unrestricted), 10 of them Graded, Proud Citizen entered stud in 2004 and is currently reaping the benefits of his first-crop champion filly Proud Spell, a multiple G1 winner who earned more than $2 million while winning such prestigious races as the Alabama and Kentucky Oaks. The current three-year-old crop, which includes Went the Day Well and the highly thought of Mark Valeski (G2-placed), was conceived in 2008 off the record of Proud Spell’s two-year-old season, but Proud Citizen’s two-year-olds of 2012 may be even better as they were conceived after Proud Spell’s championship season.
Vamo a Galupiar is a product of Proud Citizen’s shuttle crops, and like Proud Spell the filly is a champion (at two) and a Group 1 winner. Her Santa Ana score points out that she’s just as good here as she was in her native land and underscores the quality of the best of her sire’s offspring. Not bad for a sire who stands for only $10,000 in 2012.
For more (and photos) on Went the Day Well, see Frances J. Karon’s blog here.
WTC stats for Proud Citizen: 18 unrestricted SWs (we don’t count such as SW Good Citizen, a champion in Jamaica, for our quality tabulations); six two-year-old SWs; four synthetic surface SWs; two G1 winners (both fillies); and 8.1 average winning distance.