Candy Ride’s background

By Sid Fernando

CANDY RIDE

One week after Candy Ride’s first-crop 4-year-old Misremembered won the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap in front-running style, his second-crop 3-year-old colt Sidney’s Candy won the Grade 2 San Felipe Saturday at the same track, in the same manner, leading throughout. For the Lane’s End sire, 2010 is already looking as good as 2009, when Candy Ride was represented by two G1 winners and five Graded SWs, several of them early season classic prospects.

I wrote about Candy Ride after Misremembered won in my other blog, Sid Fernando + Observations. Click here to read the post, which compares him as a runner to other Argentine imports Forli and Lord at War. If you subscribe to TDN, there’s a fine article about the stallion by Andrew Caulfield in the March 16 edition, and he also compares Candy Ride to Forli.

Candy Ride was an outstanding racehorse, but his pedigree isn’t particularly noteworthy as a son of the US export Ride the Rails, a son of Cryptoclearance who won 4 of 14 starts and earned $255,096. The only stakes win for the horse was the Listed Foolish Pleasure Breeders’ Cup Stakes at 2, which he won by 8 1/4 lengths, but he was G1 placed at 3 when 2nd in the Florida Derby.

Candy Ride’s dam is a daughter of the stakes-placed Blushing Groom horse Candy Stripes, who was 2nd in the French Guineas and is a half-brother to French 2yo G1 winner Intimiste and top Japanese colt Bubble Gum Fellow, from the immediate family of the top California mare Sangue.

Candy Stripes began his career at stud in Maryland without much fanfare, then was sold to Alejandro Menditeguy’s Haras Abolengo after two seasons, where he immediately found success with the Abolengo broodmares, as well as mares from leading Argentine breeders as Vacacion and Lineu de Paula Machado (Brazilian owner who bred in Argentina, too), among others. One of his first prominent runners was the outstanding Abolengo-bred “D” family filly Different, a G1 winner in Argentina and the G1 Spinster winner in the US. Many high-quality runners followed, including Horse of the Year Invasor and Leroidesanimaux. The former was a Uruguyan triple Crown winner who came to the US and also won the Dubai World Cup; the latter was bred in Brazil and was a US Eclipse award winner.

Success for Candy Stripes meant stints at different farms after a 10-year stretch at Abolengo, including NH seasons at Taylor Made and SH stops in Brazil at TNT (1999 season), where Leroidesanimaux, UAE Derby winner Lundy’s Liability and South African champion Ilha da Vitoria were conceived. The latter, by the way, was from the same Abolengo “D” family as Different. The horse also stood in Florida and at another farm in Argentina at the end of his career.

The bottom line is that Candy Stripes was thoroughly top class in the SH, but like many such sires, not the same in the NH. Andrew Caulfield suggests in his piece—and it’s not outlandish—that Candy Ride probably gets much of his class through Candy Stripes. His daughter Candy Girl, the dam of Candy Ride, was a sister to the Candy Stripes colt City West, who won the G1 Argentine Guineas equivalent, as well as the G1 Jockey-Club and the G1 Santiago Luro.

City West, his sister Candy Girl, and her son Candy Ride were bred by Abolengo, which also stood Ride the Rails. The latter also stood at Pegasus Ranch in California after the success of Candy Ride. But the fact is, Ride the Rail never sired anything else approaching the quality of Candy Ride.

Candy Ride, however, is proving to be quite successful as a sire, and his ability to blend successfully with the Storm Cat line—Sidney’s Candy is out of a Storm Cat mare, and there are other SWs are out of Storm Cat-line mares—has helped in his success. It’s noteworthy to point out, too, that the Argentine-based Storm Cat sire Easing Along has also had success with Ride the Rails mares—the reverse of the formula that’s working with Candy Ride. Of course, on a bigger picture, Unbridled’s Song, from the same sire line of Fappiano (sire of Cryptoclearance), has also done well with Storm Cat-line mares.

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