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Perhaps the most interesting pedigree of the July 4 weekend stakes winners is that of Her Smile, the 3-year-old filly who took the Prioress Stakes (gr. I, video below). She’s a daughter of Include (TrueNicks,SRO), who had the grade I-winning fillies Panty Raid and Cash Included in his first crop, but hadn’t had a graded stakes winners since. However, Her Smile is from his fifth crop – his most numerous, and sired after his promising beginning – and that crop has now produced six individual stakes winners, and eight other stakes-placed horses, including the Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) runner-up St. John’s River (a full sister to Panty Raid), subsequently the winner of last weekend's Delaware Oaks (gr. II).

Her Smile is out of the Capote mare Hepburn. The second dam, Favored Lady, is a stakes-winning and graded stakes-placed daughter of Fappiano out of the Shecky Green stakes winner Applause. The family goes back to the Belle Histoire branch of the La Troienne family via the Bold Ruler mare Diary, a sister to King’s Story (stakes winner and dam of champion older horse Autobiography), and herself fourth dam of French Oaks (gr. I) winner Bright Sky.

Include comes from a male line – the only surviving branch of Domino, coming down through Commando and Colin – that has been built on female inbreeding and linebreeding. Include’s great-great-grandsire Alsab (champion at 2and 3), was inbred 4x4 to Pastorella, the dam of Colin, and through the three-parts-brothers and sisters Colin and Verdure. Armageddon, the son of Colin who continued the line, had Colin and Verdure 4x4x4. Ack Ack, grandson of Armageddon and grandsire of Include, had three crosses of the great mare Plucky Liege, through her sons Sir Gallahad III and Admiral Drake. Broad Brush (sire of Include) not only had the sire Turn-to 3x3, but also the CCA Oaks-winning sister Cherokee Rose and How 3x5. Include not only has Turn-to 4x4x4, but also has a double of Broad Brush’s third dam, the Kentucky Oaks victress Hidden Talent, through her stakes-winning daughters Turn to Talent and Too Bald (whose son, Baldski, is sire of Include’s second dam).

Her Smile’s pedigree continues the theme, as her broodmare sire, Capote, is a half brother to Baldski, giving a 5x4 cross of Too Bald and a 5x6x4 cross of her dam, Hidden Talent. Given that Include has sired grade I winner Cash Included out of a mare by a son of Dixieland Band, one has to wonder how Include might fare with mares by Dixie Union, a son of Dixieland Band out of a mare by Capote. Perhaps it could be the cross that will extend the Domino line for one more generation.

Second in the Prioress Stakes (gr. I) was Pomeroys Pistol, and her sire Pomeroy (TrueNicks,SRO) had a weekend graded winner in Flashpoint. Like Pomeroys Pistol from the first 3-year-old crop sired by Pomeroy, Flashpoint was regrouping after the Florida Derby (gr. I) and Preakness Stakes (gr. I) and sprinted home seven lengths clear in the Jersey Shore Stakes (gr. II, video below). Flashpoint, who would now be at the top of the tree among 3-year-old sprinters, is inbred 4x3 to Mr. Prospector, and his fourth dam is a sister to Mr. Prospector’s sire, Raise a Native.

Northern Afleet (TrueNicks,SRO) continues to show himself to be one of the best value-for-money racehorse sires in the country. At the weekend, he was represented by Teaks North (TrueNicks A++) – who defeated the well-credentialed European invaders Chinchon and Stacelita – for the United Nations Handiap (gr. I) over 11 furlongs, and also Amazombie, a 2011 grade I winner who took third in the Triple Bend Handicap (gr. I). Amazombie’s broodmare sire is In Excess, and the reverse cross of Indian Charlie (TrueNicks,SRO) over a Northern Afleet mare produced Adios Charlie who was second in the Dwyer Stakes (gr. II). That race was captured by Dominus – another good winner bred by the late Edward P. Evans. A son of Smart Strike (TrueNicks,SRO) out of the stakes-winning Lord At War mare Cuando, Dominus could prove to be a player as a “second season” 3-year-old.

Winner of the previously mentioned Triple Bend Handicap (gr. I) was Smiling Tiger (TrueNicks A++), a son of Hennessy’s three-parts-brother Hold That Tiger. Smiling Tiger is one of five stakes winners from 28 starters bred on a cross of Storm Cat line stallions over Cahill Road (brother to Unbridled, three-parts-brother to Pentelicus). On the same card as the Triple Bend, Courageous Cat (TrueNicks A++), a son of Storm Cat and the Rahy mare Tranquility Lake, won the Shoemaker Mile (gr. I, video below). He’s a brother to Lane’s End’s 2011 freshman sire After Market (TrueNicks,SRO), and bred on the same cross as Giant's Causeway (TrueNicks,SRO). The dam is a multiple grade I-winning half sister to the good Californian sire Benchmark (TrueNicks,SRO).

While Leading 2010 freshman sire Congrats (TrueNicks,SRO) has deservedly claimed a lot of the limelight recently, his brother Flatter (TrueNicks,SRO) has quietly continued to do a very good job. He’s had 15 stakes winners and five graded winners, with his fourth crop now only 3-year-olds, and at the weekend was represented by Flat Out (out of a mare by the Northern Dancer horse, Cresta Rider, and TrueNicks rated A), who scored an impressive win in the Suburban Handicap (gr. II, video below).

Florida’s Graeme Hall (TrueNicks,SRO) is another real race horse sire, and he was represented by his third graded winner of 2011 when Tamarind Hall upset the Bed o’Roses Handicap (gr. III). She’s out of a mare by Forest Wildcat, and rated TrueNicks A++. The Graeme Hall/Storm Cat cross (which gives a double of the Northern Dancer/Secretariat cross through Storm Cat and through Graeme Hall’s sire, Dehere (TrueNicks,SRO)) has also produced millionaire Hurricane Ike from just eight starters.

Filed under: Recent Winners

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