F E A T U R E
The Race Is On California Sires by LISA GROOTHEDDE The planned matings of 2009 are a distant memory, the resulting foals of 2010 are now grown and the race to become California’s leading freshman sire of 2012 has officially begun for a diverse group of stallions whose first-born offspring are eligible to compete as two-year-olds, starting this spring. Leading the way with the largest arsenal of potential runners is a stallion who relocated to the Golden State prior to the current breeding season: nine-year-old Heatseeker (Ire), a familiar name to California racing fans as the winner of Santa Anita Park’s 2008 Santa Anita Handicap (grade I). The $1,177,776-earner by Giant’s Causeway won seven of 17 starts in his native Ireland and the United States, including two graded stakes races at Hollywood Park, and covered mares at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms in Kentucky from 2009 through 2011. Produced by Defensive Play’s unraced daughter Rusty Back, Heatseeker currently stands at Harris Farms in Coalinga and has 60 registered two-year-olds in his initial crop, according to The Jockey Club. Ranking second among all California first-crop sires with 33 juveniles is the grade I-placed millionaire McCann’s Mojave. The 2004 California Champion Older Male won 12 races from the ages of two to eight, including the 2004 Potrero Grande Breeders’ Cup Handicap (grade II) at Santa Anita and a pair of grade III tests at Golden Gate Fields in 2007 and 2008, and completed his career with a $1,513,565 bankroll. By Memo (Chi) out of the two-time stakes winner Joni U. Bar, by Nordic Prince, McCann’s Mojave is a 12year-old resident of Rancho San Miguel in San Miguel. Credited with 23 members of his inaugural foal crop is Council Member, a 10-year-old Seattle Slew stallion out of
McCann’s Mojave
©Mesaros
©Mesaros
©Mesaros
©Benoit
Lucky J. H.
Bedford Falls
Surf Cat
34 CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED • APRIL 2012
Council Member
©Mesaros
Heatseeker (Ire)
©Lee Thomas
unraced Zoe Montana, by Seeking the Gold. A multiple group-placed, dual stakes winner in England who also placed in grade III company in New York, the $347,306-earner stands at Special T Thoroughbreds in Temecula. Grade I-placed Surf Cat, a six-time grade II winner in Southern California who banked $1,045,420 overall, is also the sire of 23 juveniles in his first crop. The 10-yearold son of Sir Cat out of the multiple winner Trust Greta, by Centrust, retired from racing in early 2009 to stand at Old English Rancho in Sanger. Also located in Sanger is Poplar Meadows, the residence of nine-year-old Bedford Falls, a Forestry half-brother to the multiple grade I-winning sire Harlan’s Holiday. The threetime winner, a $1.1 million Keeneland September Yearling Sale graduate out of the winning Affirmed mare Christmas in Aiken, is represented by 18 two-year-olds this year. California-bred Lucky J. H., a grade III winner and $632,065-earner, stands at his birthplace: Harris Farms. The 10-year-old Cee’s Tizzy stallion out of the stakes-placed winner Lucky C. H., by A.P. Indy, has 17 juveniles. Several other California-based stallions are represented by their initial two-year-olds in 2012 as well. Rancho San Miguel is home to Storm Wolf, a Hollywood Park grade II winner by Stormin Fever. Meanwhile, grade III winner Chattahoochee War, by War Chant, holds court at E.A. Ranches. Also breaking from the gate as freshman sires this year are West 12 Ranch’s winning A.P. Indy stallion Quasimodo, the grade III-winning Cape Town stallion Southern Africa of Running Horse Equine Training Center, Morning Glory Farms’ winning Notebook stallion Ghosttrapper and Deputy Commander’s grade I-placed, dual stakes winner Roman Commander of Milky Way Farm.
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