What's Going On Here : storm cat

Forever Young - by Dan Liebman

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:02:00 GMT

During an interview just before the calendar flipped to the year 2000, veterinarian Robert Copelan had this to say about W.T. Young: “I often wonder what would have happened had the phone been busy (the first time Young called). Meeting W.T. Young was that bolt of lightning; the most important thing to happen to me in my life.”

On June 9, Bill Young Jr. announced he was dispersing the horses of his family’s Overbrook Farm near Lexington, which his father had developed and operated until his death in January 2004 at age 85.

Copelan, a friend and advisor to W.T. Young for 25 years, was surprised by the announcement, but he understood that while Bill Young had the same astute business acumen as his father, he did not possess the same passion and enthusiasm for Thoroughbred racing and breeding. So, while Copelan hates to see Overbrook cease to exist, he takes satisfaction in the success the farm enjoyed and, more importantly, in the friendship he forged with W.T. Young.

“For me personally, he was the wisest man I ever met,” Copelan, who refuses to slow down from practicing veterinary medicine at age 82, said. “He had everything nailed down. I tried to make him laugh, and he didn’t laugh a lot, but I kept trying. We had some great times together. He was a serious-minded guy. He suffered no fools.”

W.T. Young was a business legend in Kentucky, from starting a small peanut butter company that was sold and became the mighty Jif, to starting a trucking firm and storage company, businesses his son runs today. He was generous to a fault in his help to the University of Kentucky, Transylvania University, and Shakertown.

But W.T. Young took special satisfaction in the development of Overbrook, from its first 100 acres to more than 2,000, from his first mare to many grade I winners and producers, and especially in Storm Cat, one of the greatest sires of this or any other time.

“He called me out of the blue,” Copelan said, recalling the conversation of 30 years ago. “He asked if I would come look at a horse he had purchased. I went the next day. “I’ll never forget we shook hands and I called him ‘Mr. Young.’ He said, ‘We’re about the same age, so I will call you Bob and you call me Bill.’ He began to call me more frequently, and it became an arrangement where I was there for his assistance at any time, any way I could help. We became great friends.”

Dr. Bill Lockridge arranged for Young to purchase three mares privately, and the Overbrook Farm owner hit the jackpot; that package included Terlingua, the dam of Storm Cat, and Cinegita, the granddam of champion Flanders and great-granddam of champion Surfside.

One day Copelan selected a filly at auction by the stallion named for him, and she was purchased for Young for $45,000. When told he could name her, Copelan suggested Boondi Queen, from the Rudyard Kipling poem “The Last Suttee.”

“He just looked at me and said, ‘You read too much,’ ” Copelan recalled, laughing.

Instead, Young named her Pat Copelan, after the vet’s wife, and she won the 1988 Adirondack Stakes (gr. II).

“Being a part of Overbrook, and seeing what Storm Cat accomplished, is one of the proudest things in my career,” Copelan said. “What set W.T. Young apart from anyone else is that he always wanted the person to whom he sold a horse to have the best deal.”

When Bill Young told Copelan of his decision to shut down Overbrook, Copelan said he was “overwhelmed. But the reasons Bill cited were all valid, they could not be argued about, they were his decisions, and they were sound decisions.”

And who would understand those reasons more than anyone else? “Yeah,” Copelan said, “you’re right. W.T. would completely understand.”

Star Power - by Dan Liebman

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:38:00 GMT

Just three months after it was announced he was being pensioned, Storm Cat was represented by the top price Aug. 5 at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling sale. How fitting.

The success enjoyed by the 25-year-old son of Storm Bird is obvious. Storm Cat made Overbrook Farm what it is today because he has sired 13% stakes winners, which ranks him among the best stallions of our time. His progeny’s racetrack success allowed his stud fee to rise to the highest in recent memory, $500,000.

But Storm Cat has been a huge commercial success as well, which is important to breeders taking his sons and daughters to market, and buyers hoping not only for top racetrack performance, but significant future residual value as well.

Over the past 32 years, 109 stallions have been represented by at least one offspring sold at a North American yearling sale for $1 million or more. That group of stallions has sired 718 seven-figure yearlings, and of that total, a remarkable 90 are by Storm Cat.

Thus, 12.5% of all yearlings ever sold in North America for $1 million or more are by one stallion.

(For the record, the next highest total is the 52 sired by Storm Bird’s sire, Northern Dancer.)

A group of 34 colts and fillies by Storm Cat are cataloged to the Keeneland fall yearling sale that kicks off Sept. 8. This is a comparable number to last year, when 37 were cataloged and 23 sold for an average of $536,739.

This year’s list is like a “Who’s Who” of pedigrees. Nine of the yearlings are out of grade/group I winners (three champions) and eight are full or half-siblings to grade/group I winners (four champions).

With numerous offspring still to go through an auction ring, it is possible Storm Cat could become the first triple-double stallion—more than 100 stakes winners (he has 166 to date) and more than 100 yearlings sold for $1 million or more.

Stallions like Storm Cat do not come along very often. But they are the dream of everyone who retires a horse to stud, and like a couple of other horses in the news lately—Danzig and Theatrical—prove the best do not necessarily start in the breeding shed with a high stud fee.

Storm Cat may have commanded $500,000 for six years, but his initial fee was just $30,000 (and later $20,000).

Danzig, who first stood for $20,000 and saw his fee rise to $250,000 no guarantee, recently became the first North American stallion to sire 200 stakes winners. Danzig, who died in 2006, is from the same sire line as Storm Cat. Danzig is by Northern Dancer, sire also of Storm Cat’s sire.

The mark of 200 stakes winners is impressive for Danzig considering he stood at Claiborne Farm, which has never bred books as large as many other farms. Danzig’s largest crop was 59 foals. His percentage of stakes winners, 18%, places him among the elite stallions of all time.

At a time when many are questioning the durability of the Thoroughbred and commercialized focus of breeders, there is Theatrical, who will never be thought of as flashy or dazzling, but has consistently rewarded those who bred to him, and whose progeny have an average winning distance of 9.5 furlongs.

A product of the highly successful breeding program of Bert and Diana Firestone, Theatrical, by Northern Dancer’s son, Nureyev, recently sired his 22nd grade/group I winner, Winchester, a Firestone homebred.

The Firestones raced Theatrical and later took on Allen Paulson as a partner in the horse. He first stood at Paulson’s Brookside Farms and now stands at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms near Lexington.

Theatrical has sired 77 stakes winners (8%), but consider that 28.5% have won a grade/group I race.

Percentage of stakes winners should still be the most important measure of a stallion’s success.