NEWS
Road to the Triple Crown: Brethren leads another wave for WinStar
Posted: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 5:45 PM
BRETHREN
Reed Palmer Photography/Churchill Downs
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by Jeff Lowe
Brethren and Cal Nation, the top three-year-old prospects advancing the baton for WinStar Farm after a giant 2010 season, could only be more closely related if they were twins.
Both homebreds by Distorted Humor and out of full sisters, Brethren and Cal Nation are the latest wave from a dynamic female family that last year accounted for a victory in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) from Brethren’s half brother Super Saver and a strong freshman sire season from Cal Nation’s half brother Bluegrass Cat.
Brethren has his first stakes assignment on Saturday in the Sam F. Davis Stakes (G3) at Tampa Bay Downs, also the launching point for Super Saver’s season last year when he finished a close third in the Tampa Bay Derby (G3).
Cal Nation is just a few days removed from his career debut, but he left a striking first impression, powering to a 7 3/4-length romp in a seven-furlong maiden special weight race at Gulfstream Park on February 5.
To say the colts hail from an active family would be an understatement, which falls in line with the approach WinStar President Elliott Walden and trainer Todd Pletcher will take with Cal Nation. He will not be rushed to get to the Kentucky Derby.
“We’ve made the mistake before, actually with another Distorted Humor colt, Understatement, who turned out to be a very nice horse,” said Walden, referring to a February 2008 debut winner who notched his first two stakes wins as a five-year-old in 2010. “We just kind of rushed him in the spring, and we don’t want to make the same mistake. We want to get to the Kentucky Derby, but we don’t want to do it at the expense of a horse that is as talented as Cal Nation. We’re not going to just say, ‘We’ve got to run him a mile and an eighth next time in the Fountain of Youth [Stakes (G2)],’ to get him on the trail.
“Maybe he’ll be a horse for the Preakness [Stakes (G1)] or the Haskell [Invitational Stakes (G1)] and Travers [Stakes (G1)], we’ll just give him some time and see what happens.”
Brethren earned his first stakes appearance by winning a six-furlong maiden race at Belmont Park and a one-mile allowance race at Churchill Downs in his only starts as a two-year-old.
WinStar and Pletcher are following a familiar and productive route: they won the Sam F. Davis together with eventual Grade 1 winners Bluegrass Cat in 2006 and Any Given Saturday in 2007 and again last year with recent Donn Handicap (G1) third-place finisher Rule.
“I hope it continues,” Walden said. “We don’t always have to win there, it’s a matter of progressing down the road, but the Sam Davis has been good to us. [Brethren] has been training well. He breezed five-eighths Sunday and Patti Barry, Todd’s number one exercise rider, told me that’s the best he’s gone.”
The mares behind it all are Supercharger (dam of Super Saver and Brethren) and She’s a Winner (Bluegrass Cat and Cal Nation), and their prolific dam, Get Lucky, by Mr. Prospector. She’s a Winner and Supercharger are members of the WinStar broodmare band, and the connections do not end there. The A.P. Indy mares are full siblings to Girolamo, the 2010 Vosburgh Stakes (G1) winner; Grade 2 winner Daydreaming; and graded stakes winner and sire Accelerator.
“It’s the hottest family in the stud book,” Walden said.
Family ties also extend to the human side. Walden’s brother, Ben, has been a co-owner of Get Lucky since 2002, right around the time the mare’s production got rolling.
Ben Walden and a partner, Philip Steinberg, bought Get Lucky for $300,000 while carrying the eventual stakes winner Harborage, by Monarchos, at the 2002 Keeneland November breeding stock sale.
Since then, Get Lucky and her daughters have collectively accounted for eight stakes winners, and a winning four-year-old Storm Cat colt out of Get Lucky brought the top price at the 2008 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale of selected yearlings at $2-million.
“It’s a significant pedigree to begin with [Get Lucky is a full sister to 1989 champion two-year-old male Rhythm, from one of the Phipps family’s prominent lines], so it’s not like it’s exploding from nowhere—it’s exploding from the inherent depth of the pedigree to begin with,” said Ben Walden, the owner of Pauls Mill in Versailles, Kentucky. “But since we bought the mare, it’s just been unbelievable. We’ll see how these two colts do, but I don’t know how she wouldn’t be Broodmare of the Year already.”
The Sam F. Davis will be drawn on Thursday. Fields were entered on Wednesday for Saturday’s two other Triple Crown preps—the $250,000 Robert B. Lewis Stakes (G2) at Santa Anita Park and $200,000 El Camino Real Derby (G3) at Golden Gate Fields.
Purses for both races have been raised this year, a reflection of the importance of graded stakes earnings in the race to the Kentucky Derby and also part of a strategy by the parent company that owns Santa Anita and Golden Gate to add some allure to their Triple Crown prep races and to the Preakness Stakes (G1) at sister track Pimlico Race Course.
That initiative spurred the creation of the Preakness 5.5 bonus offer which includes the Robert B. Lewis and El Camino Real Derby and culminates with the second leg of the Triple Crown.
Tapizar will take his next step on the Derby trail in the Robert B. Lewis after thrusting his name into the classics picture with an easy win in the Sham Stakes (G3) on January 15 at Santa Anita for trainer Steve Asmussen.
CashCall Futurity (G1) winner Comma to the Top is entered in the Robert B. Lewis but is scheduled to head north instead to Golden Gate Fields for Saturday’s El Camino Real Derby (G3).
At Golden Gate, Comma to the Top will be back where his five-race win streak began. He won two sprint allowance races there by a combined margin of ten lengths in October, before jetting to the top of the Southern California two-year-old division with three stakes victories at Hollywood Park, including the CashCall Futurity (G1).
Asmussen will have a presence at Golden Gate, as well, with Silver Medallion, who won the Eddie Logan Stakes at Santa Anita. Positive Response is the key local hope, off back-to-back wins in the Gold Rush Stakes and California Derby.
Triple Crown short lists can be put to use in WinStar’s Derby fantasy contest, offering a sweet grand prize that includes airfare, hotel accommodations, and box seat tickets to the Kentucky Oaks (G1) and Kentucky Derby. The entry deadline is Saturday.
Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer
