Users of TrueNicks, and for that matter any pedigree program, will have already seen a number of examples where the quality of the immediate ancestors in a pedigree can have an impact on the genetic affinity, or lack thereof, that seems to be present. A good example of this is the royally-bred 2-year...

On the subject of the Unbridled's Song line - Songandaprayer ( TrueNicks , SRO ), subject of a post over the weekend, being a son of Unbridled's Song ( TrueNicks , SRO ) - Unbridled's Song's daughter Classify, who dead-heated for the Spring Fever Stakes at Oaklawn Park, shone a light on what might be...

Last weekend was a big one for two Ashford Stud Storm Cat-line stallions. Heatseeker (IRE)'s victory in the Santa Anita Handicap (gr. I) propelled Giant's Causeway to the top of the leading sires list. He has three other stakes winners this year, including a pair of 3-year-olds in the graded winner Cowboy...

Songandaprayer's ( TrueNicks , SRO ) first crop, sired relatively inexpensively in Florida, made a considerable impact, producing six stakes winners headed by the graded scorers Songster, What A Song, He's Got Grit, and Praying For Cash. That first crop was impressive enough as yearlings that it triggered...

After a slightly hesitant start to his stud career, champion older horse Lemon Drop Kid has rebounded to establish himself as a very solid racehorse sire. With his first crop having just turned 6, he has 23 stakes winners, eight of them graded and three grade I. He enjoyed a good weekend, with millionaire...

Mineshaft and his family were major winners over the Feb. 24-25 weekend. On Saturday, Little Belle took the Busher Stakes at Aqueduct. A daughter of A.P. Indy, she is out of Dubai Belle, a Mr. Prospector mare who is three-parts sister to Prospectors Delite, the dam of Mineshaft (Dubai Belle is by Mr...

We don't hear too much from the Buckpasser sire line these days, the great son of Tom Fool having been a much better broodmare sire than sire of sires. The last 10 days, however, gave us three stakes winners, all from the Buckaroo branch. The Gulfstream Park Turf Stakes (gr. I) went to Einstein (BRZ...

One stallion who has been enjoying a great February is More Than Ready ( TrueNicks , SRO ). In the U.S., last week brought stakes wins for Ruff and Ready (who routed the opposition in the Shotintheheart Stakes at Gulfstream on Valentine's Day) and Ready for Fortune (winner of the Dearly Precious Stakes...

The very promising start made by the first crop of Harlan's Holiday gained further momentum on Monday, when the undefeated Denis of Cork took the Southwest Stakes (gr. III). Denis of Cork is the sixth stakes winner for Harlan's Holiday, and he follows Hollywood Park's Cashcall Futurity (gr. I) victor...

Here's a mating which we think represents a first. When Ingrid the Gambler (Johannesburg - Pretty Livia, by Forest Wildcat) took the Wishing Well II Handicap Feb. 10, she became what is almost certainly the first stakes winner (in fact, the first stakes horse) by a Storm Cat-line stallion out of a Storm...