NEW YEAR’S EVE OVERDOSE!

The best Hungarian horse and one of the best Europeans of all time is considered to be the filly Kincsem, who was undefeated in 54 races in the 19th century. Today, the one and only operational racetrack in Hungary is Kincsem Park in Budapest, the capital.

If you haven’t heard, one of the great racing stories of 2008 came out of Budapest. A small, ugly duckling of a 3-year-old by the name of Overdose (Starborough – Our Poppet, by Warning) won 11 races in a row in Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Germany and Italy for Slovakian owner Zoltán Mikóczy’s SCH Racing Team and Hungarian trainer Sandor Ribarszki and brought excitement back to the struggling racing community in Budapest, which was/is considering closing Kincsem Park.

I visited Budapest a few years back. Budapest is actually two cities – Buda and Pest – split by the Danube, and is a city of intrigue, like Baden Baden, another city that I’ve had the pleasure of visiting.

Baden Baden, in Germany, happened to be the site of the international coming-out-party for the undefeated Hungarian-based sprinter, who won two stakes events there this summer, including the prestigious Group 2 Golden Peitsche — one of the top sprints in Germany – on Aug. 31.

Folks, trust me when I say that the Golden Peitsche is a top event. Overdose won the race by 2 ½ lengths, with the French group winner Starlit Sands in third. The final time was a sensational 1:08.21 for the 1200 meters (about 6 furlongs).

In between starts at Baden Baden, Overdose also won a Group 3 in Hamburg and a sprint at Bratislava racecourse in Slovakia. Last out, he won the Group 3 Premio Carlo e Francesco Aloisi in Rome over heavy ground in 1:10 flat for the 1200 meters. The winning margin was 10 lengths!

Overdose’s record is now a sensational 11 for 11, although it probably should be 12 for 12 with a Group 1 to his credit. A disastrous edition of the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye at Longchamp in October saw the starting gates of all but one runner open – creating a voided race. And yes, you guessed it; the Hungarian colt was alone at the finish in near-record time!

Overdose is not really a Hungarian colt. He was bred in England and sold at the December Tattersalls sale in 2006 for 2,000 guineas! His Werk Nick Rating is an “A” because of the Nureyev/Known Fact cross, his sire was a Group 1 winner, and his dam is a half-sister to a Group 1-placed stakes winner, but he made no money at the sale because of his small size and overall unattractiveness.

Winning 11 races in Kincsem-like style will make even a gnat look like a beauty queen, and to prove this it’s been reported recently in the Hungarian press that a 5 million euro offer has been tendered for the colt!

Today, on New Year’s eve, Overdose will start in a race at Kincsem Park. The track is expected to draw a crowd of 10,000, and Overdose’s connections will be given an award from the Hungarian Olympic Committee.

Here’s to you, Overdose!

Happy New Year to everyone, and may your luck Overdose in 2009!!

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FIRST DEFENCE: FITS LIKE A GLOVE FOR COMMERCIAL BREEDERS!

If you like Empire Maker as a stallion for $75,000 — which I do — then you gotta love his three-quarter brother First Defence, entering stud in 2009 at $17,500 at Juddmonte Farm.

Grade 1 winner First Defence is by Grade 1 winner Unbridled’s Song out of Grade 1 winner Honest Lady, by Grade 1 winner Seattle Slew. Honest Lady is a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Empire Maker, already sire of two Grade 1 winners, and to Grade 1 winner Chester House, also sire of two Grade 1 winners. His second dam is Grade 1 winner Toussaud, a Broodmare of the Year!

Unlike Empire Maker and Chester House, both route horses, First Defence was a sprinter, like his dam. His sire can also get some very fast horses, so this makes First Defence a great fit for the U.S. commercial market.

In 2008, at age 4, First Defence won two graded sprint stakes – one of them a Grade 1 – to secure a place at stud as one of the most attractive stallion prospects from the crop of 2004. One of those sprints, the 6-furlong, Grade 3 Jaipur at Belmont Park, was contested over a yielding turf course, which gives the colt multiple-surface prospects as a stallion. And yielding turf notwithstanding, First Defence put up some serious fractions to win the Jaipur – 21.93, 44.84, 56.77, and 1:09.48– although he was all out to hold on at the end by a short head. (Family note: Toussaud won a sprint on the turf, as did Honest Lady.)

In contrast to the Jaipur result, First Defense won the 7-furlong, Grade 1 Forego at Saratoga by 6 ¾ lengths. Again, he posted some sizzling fractions — 22.53, 44.61, 1:08.49, and 1:21.55 – and earned a 109 Beyer figure. He did get lucky because favorite Lucky Island was unlucky to miss the break, but the way he ran makes me think that no one would have come near him that day.

In fact, WTC Inc.’s New York-based speed handicapper agrees: “He freaked that day. No way anyone catches him, including Lucky Island on a good day. Frankel had been down on [First Defence] a bit because he’d been slowing down at the end of his races, but if you look back at it there were reasons for it. In the Jaipur the colt went 44 and change on a soft course – anyone would slow down on that. In his route races, like the Longbranch, we know now that he didn’t like the distance, yet he won. Six or 7 [furlongs] was what he liked, and at that distance he was pretty darn good.”

A simple reading of First Defence’s race record reveals this: 14 starts, 6 wins, 3 seconds, $580,534 in earnings; won Grade 1 Forego, won Grade 3 Jaipur (turf), won Listed Longbranch, 2nd in Grade 1 King’s Bishop, 2nd in Grade 2 Alfred G. Vanderbilt.

A Grade 1 winner on dirt, a graded winner on turf, and an outstanding workhorse on synthetics, First Defence brings serious front-end speed and class to the table as a sire prospect. Now add the powerful physique, throw in the sire, Unbridled’s Song, whose two 2-year-old sons Midshipman and Old Fashioned are serious Derby prospects, and then mix in the Seattle Slew dam, herself a Grade 1 winner and another seriously fast horse whose half-brothers Chester House and Empire Maker have already sired serious racehorses, and what you get is one heck of a serious stallion prospect. First Defence will stand for $17,500 in 2009, and, in my opinion, he’s worth every penny of it.

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SUITING UP FOR SYNTHETICS!

Every CME (Commercial Market Evaluation) that I do nowadays on a stallion prospect has to factor in the horse’s race record and perceived sire ability on synthetic surfaces.

Simply put, the American racing market now requires racehorses to perform not only on dirt and turf, but also on synthetic surfaces. This year’s Breeders’ Cup “dirt” races, for instance, were held for the first time on the synthetic Pro-Ride surface at Santa Anita, and they will be again in 2009. There are nine synthetic-surfaced racetracks now in the US, there are others in Europe, and others being built around the world, including the training track at the Meydan racecourse in Dubai.

At this point in time, everyone knows that dirt and turf form are different from synthetic form, but why these differences exist requires subtle analysis. A friend of mine, the international bloodstock writer and expert Sid Fernando – the former Bloodstock Editor of Daily Racing Form and also an accomplished youth baseball manager – explained some of the subtleties of synthetics to me recently by way of a baseball analogy that I think puts this into clearer perspective.

Sid noted that many college and youth baseball programs are building new fields with “field turf,” an artificial surface that in many ways is a game-changing parallel to the synthetic surfaces replacing conventional dirt tracks. This new baseball surface, for instance, requires that infielders play deeper than on traditional grass fields, because uniformly the batted ball travels faster over it, and it would be difficult to field the ball otherwise.

On a traditional grass baseball field, in contrast, the thickness of the grass would dictate how fast the ball travels, and usually the grass slows the ball down considerably. On the new “synthetic” fields, Sid said, infielders, especially shortstops, now need stronger arms to play the position from a deeper point, and arm strength is paramount to throw out the runner, because the runner also can get down the line to first base quicker on this faster ground. Conversely, a shortstop with an average arm is now at a distinct disadvantage. The point here, then, is that the surface has created new criteria – a strong arm, for example – for success.

Similarly, racetrack synthetics — Polytracks, Pro-Rides, Cushion tracks, Tapetas, etc. – are changing the profile of the American racehorse. To succeed at the middle distances on a synthetic surface, especially, now requires a horse to have sustainable late acceleration like that witnessed by both Raven’s Pass and Henrythenavigator, first and second, respectively, in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Most recently, we saw the Empire Maker colt Pioneer of the Nile make a long, sustained run to win the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity at Hollywood park.

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EMPIRE MAKER A SERIOUS STALLION IN THE MAKING!

By Derby winner Unbridled out of Broodmare of the Year Toussaud, by Irish Derby winner El Grand Senor, Empire Maker was bred in the purple and raced to his pedigree. Now he’s starting to make a name for himself at stud.

Pioneer of the Nile, winner of the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity at Hollywood Park Dec. 20, is by the Belmont Stakes winner out of the Lord at War stakes winner Star of Goshen, who was undefeated in two starts at sprint distances. She is also the dam of the stakes-placed Gone West colt Forefathers, who was undefeated in two starts at 2 and was placed in the Grade 2 Jerome at 3.

By all accounts, Pioneer of the Nile has no sprint speed like his dam or half-brother, but he is a Derby horse for trainer Bob Baffert, whom I spoke to on the Monday morning after the Futurity, Dec. 22. “I’m really high on this colt,” he said. “The big thing with this colt is his tremendous lung capacity, and that’s really important for the Derby. In fact, I’m so high on the sire that we’re sending Indian Blessing and some other top mares to Empire Maker.”

Baffert said he is not concerned with the colt’s ability to handle dirt because “the synthetic at Hollywood is very close to dirt in its texture.”

In the race, Pioneer of the Nile was under a sustained drive from a long ways out, and this particular ability has been the hallmark of superior synthetic runners.

Empire Maker is now the sire of two Grade 1 winners on synthetics, but he also sired four stakes winners on dirt and two on turf from a total of eight stakes winners in two crops. Interestingly, some of his runners have shown a distinct aversion to synthetics, including 2-year-old restricted stakes winner Summer’s Empire (out of Summer Mis, by Summer Squall). The colt raced three times over synthetics without success, then switched to dirt and won three in a row, including a stakes Dec. 13 over 1 1/16 miles. The dam, by the way, was stakes-placed at 2, and the Storm Bird line also nicks well with Unbridled.

Empire Maker, who stands for $75,000 in 2009, is also a half-brother to the late Chester House, who had a phenomenal season in 2008 with 18 stakes winners, including two Breeders’ Cup winners, and this obviously bodes well for the Empire Makers. Chester House had 11 stakes winner on turf this year, with four each on dirt and synthetics (one won on both turf and synthetics).

Also, the A.P. Indy stakes winner Indygo Shiner, produced from Toussaud’s full sister Navarra, had a extraordinary 2008 season as a stallion in Argentina with four Group 1 winners among his six stakes winners, including the winners of the Derby, Oaks, and 2000 Guineas equivalents. He’s now at Hill n’ Dale for 2009 at $7,500 live foal.

Going back even deeper in this pedigree, you will find the outstanding sire Alibhai!

All this points to Empire Maker as a serious stallion in the making!

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CHEROKEE RUN IS A BARGAIN THESE DAYS!

I’ve always liked Cherokee Run, which is why I so often recommend him to breeders. In addition to outstanding stats overall, he seems to get a “big” horse every year, and this is what breeders are looking for. Cherokee Run will stand for $25,000 in 2009, and this is a relative bargain these days considering the high quality of many of his runners. It’s also notable that Cherokee Runs gets good results at the sales, from weanlings to 2-year-olds in training.

CHILUKKI: G1 winner of $1.2 million – sold for $875,000 as 2yo, highest of 18 for sire
DURING: G2 winner of $800K – sold for $350,000 as yearling, highest of 38 for sire
DREAM ABOUT: G2 winner of $235K – sold for $270,000 as 2yo, 3rd highest of 16
DREAM RUN: G2 winner of $456K – sold for $170,000 as yearling, sixth of 30
KAFWAIN: G2 winner of $715K – sold for $720,000 as 2yo, highest of 25 for sire
RECAPTURETHEGLORY: G2 winner of $396K – sold for $215,000 as 2yo, highest of 19
WAR PASS: G1 winner of $1.5 million – sold for $180,000 as yearling, 2nd of 50 for sire
YONAGUSKA: G1 winner of $536K – sold for $1,950,000 as 2yo, highest of 9 for sire
ZANJERO: G2 winner of $1.6 million – sold for $700,000 as yearling, highest of 54 for sire

Especially in these uncertain times, Cherokee Run is one of the safer bets in 2009.

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