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As a grandson of Mr. Prospector, Distorted Humor (TrueNicks, SRO) has been given plenty of opportunity with Northern Dancer-line mares, even though he himself is out of a mare by Northern Dancer son Danzig. Some versions have proved better than others, but overall, the broad Distorted Humor/Northern Dancer cross gets a TrueNicks rating of C+ and it has produced 10 stakes winners, six of them graded.

What is particularly interesting, however, is the pedigrees of two of Distorted Humor's three grade I winners bred on the cross with Northern Dancer-line mares. One is Bit of Whimsy, and the other is Hystericalady, winner of the Fleur de Lis Handicap (gr. II) at the weekend.

Since Bit of Whimsy is out of U.S.-bred Kristi B., a daughter of El Prado (TrueNicks, SRO), and Hystericalady is out of the Chilean-bred Sacramentada, it might be thought that there would be little similarity between the pedigrees of these two grade I winners. However, a closer look reveals that El Prado is by Sadler's Wells (by Northern Dancer out of a mare by Bold Reason) and that Hystericalady's broodmare sire, Northair, is also by Northern Dancer out of a mare by Bold Reason, so Sadler's Wells and Northair are three-quarters related. Since these two are in the male line of the dams of two of the three grade I winners bred on the Distorted Humor/Northern Dancer cross, one might think that there is something significant in their shared background.

This becomes obvious when we look at the pedigree of Distorted Humor's dam, Danzig's Beauty: she is by a son of Northern Dancer, out of a mare by Mr. Leader. By Hail to Reason and out a mare by Djeddah, Mr. Leader is a three-quarters relative to Bold Reason, all of which means that Danzig's Beauty, Sadler's Wells and Northair are bred on very similar lines.

Filed under: Sire Lines, Recent Winners