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Actually this post is as much about Prince John as it is about Halo, but “Prince John effect” doesn’t have quite the same ring. What turned our mind to the connection between the two, and more particularly it’s current effects, was the victory of Custom For Carlos in the Mr. Prospector Handicap (gr. III).
 
Custom For Carlos – who strikes us as having the potential to make his presence felt at a higher level this year – is by More Than Ready (TrueNicks,SRO) out of a mare by Meadowlake. This is actually an A TrueNick, although it’s the first stakes winner for More Than Ready out of a mare from the Prince John (great-grandsire of Meadowlake) line. Interestingly enough, More Than Ready has also had another stakes winner this year with the Prince John influence prominent, the Blue Norther Stakes victress, In the Slips (TrueNicks A+), who is out of a mare by Cozzene (dam by Prince John), and whose dam is inbred 3 x 4 to Prince John.
 
Another example is found in a nick that in a broad sense one wouldn’t have expected to work, that of Halo with mares descending from Blushing Groom. This is stakes winner More Than Promised, whose dam is by Blushing John, a son of Blushing Groom out of a Prince John mare. Rather intriguingly, this cross has also produced Triple Crown hopeful, Buddy’s Saint, who is by Saint Liam (by Saint Ballado, by Halo). That prompted us to have a look at the rest of More Than Ready’s stakes winners, and we actually found at least five have Prince John in their pedigree, including Australian grade I winner Carry On Cutie.
 
A quick look turned up at least 200 stakes winners witih Halo and Prince John in their pedigree. At least 27 of them are grade I winners, and more than 100 graded stakes winners. Without checking how many stakes winners the sires and dams of these horses have produced when given mates that don’t pair the two, it’s hard to tell how effective it is in upgrading a pedigree, but certainly in the More Than Ready case it’s helping him work where one might not have expected. There is a reason for the pair to be simpatico: Halo’s broodmare sire, Cosmic Bomb, is half-brother to the dam of Prince John. This is the famous Herodiade/Herodias family, so throw in Eight Thirty (in Meadowlake) and War Admiral (twice in Seattle Slew, the sire of the granddam of Custom For Carlos), who both have connections to this family, and the potential for something to happen is there.

Filed under: Sire Lines, Recent Winners, Emerging Nicks, Sires, Pedigree Elements