By Frances J. Karon
The tell that Brad Cox believed he might have a good one in Godolphin’s lightly raced 4-year-old Highland Falls (Curlin) was that the trainer shipped the colt to California to run in the G1 Santa Anita H. in March to make his stakes debut in just his fifth start. Highland Falls—at the time the winner of a maiden at Ellis Park last August and allowance races at Churchill and Fair Grounds from his four starts—finished fourth that day, a head behind Reincarnate in third.
In his next start, the G2 Oaklawn H. in April, Highland Falls was a well-beaten second to favored Skippylongstocking (Exaggerator, by Highland Falls’s sire Curlin), an earner of over $2 million who was winning his sixth career graded stakes. But the improving Highland Falls came through in his third stakes attempt, winning the 9 fur. G3 Blame at Churchill on Saturday’s Stephen Foster preview card, in the process becoming Curlin’s 105th stakes winner.
Highland Falls’s dam Round Pond won the biggest race of her career at Churchill when she was four, the 2006 Breeders’ Cup Distaff at nearly 14-1. Thirteen hundred dollars short of hitting $2 million in earnings, Round Pond was bought for $5,750,000 by John Ferguson on behalf of Godolphin at Fasig-Tipton as a broodmare prospect the following November, in 2007.
HIGHLAND FALLS (2020 Curlin – Round Pond, by Awesome Again)
B: Godolphin
O: Godolphin LLC
T: Brad Cox
Record: 7-4-1-1, $562,060
Highest achievement: Grade 3 winner
Last Auction Price: none
The dam of seven foals, Round Pond’s best are her bookends: first foal Long River (A.P. Indy), a listed stakes winner at three and four before he won the G1 Al Maktoum Challenge Round 3 at Meydan as a 7-year-old, and he’s now a stallion and the sire of winners at Hope & Anchor farm in Maryland; and her last foal Highland Falls, a Grade 3 winner with a promising future ahead of him. Somewhere between Long River and Highland Falls, Round Pond produced the listed stakes winner Lucerne (Dubawi) as well as the unraced Bernardini mare Tyburn Brook, who’s the dam of Grade 1 winner Speaker’s Corner (Street Sense), a Darley America stallion with first foals this year. Tyburn Brook’s 3-year-old Knightsbridge (Nyquist) is undefeated in two starts for Bill Mott and Godolphin.
G1 Travers winner Keen Ice was Curlin’s first graded stakes winner inbred as closely as 3x3 to Deputy Minister—Curlin’s broodmare sire—and Highland Falls is now the third graded winner with Deputy Minister 3x3, after last year’s Grade 3 winner Scarlet Fusion. Keen Ice and Highland Falls are two of the three stakes winners from 11 foals of racing age by Curlin out of Awesome Again mares.
A memorable Derby Festival for Coolmore
Coolmore sires had a banner two days at Epsom on Oaks Friday and Derby Saturday, winning five of the six stakes races, including, of course, the big one with City of Troy in the G1 Derby. Trained out of Ballydoyle like all of Aidan O’Brien’s nine previous Derby winners, City of Troy is the first Classic winner for Triple Crown winner Justify, who stands at Coolmore America—where his sire Scat Daddy, grandsire Johannesburg, and great-great-grandsire Storm Bird stood, too. If memory serves, Storm Bird was the first horse retired from Ballydoyle to Ashford Stud (now Coolmore America), even before Ashford was acquired by Coolmore’s John Magnier and partners.
If that’s not enough for you, City of Troy’s dam Together Forever is a daughter of Coolmore’s dual Derby winner and champion sire Galileo, whose sire Sadler’s Wells was yet another Coolmore stallion.
Nearly all of the horses mentioned above, with the exception of Justify (Bob Baffert) and Scat Daddy (Todd Pletcher), were trained at Ballydoyle by either Vincent O’Brien (Storm Bird and Sadler’s Wells) or Aidan O’Brien (City of Troy, Together Forever, Galileo, and Johannesburg).
Together Forever—not to be confused with her Group 1-winning full sister Forever Together—was the winner of the G1 Fillies Mile at two before she became the dam of City of Troy. She has six foals of racing age (including an Uncle Mo 2-year-old, Takemetothemoon, in Ireland), and her first five foals—three by War Front, two by Justify—are all stakes horses. City of Troy, the winner of two Group 1s and four of five starts, is the best of these.
City of Troy led home a one-two-three-four finish for Coolmore sires in the Derby, with Ambiente Friendly (by Galileo’s son Gleneagles out of a mare by Coolmore’s Fastnet Rock, with a second dam by Alzao—all Coolmore sires in their day) finishing second ahead of Los Angeles and Deira Mile, both sons of Camelot (whose sire Montjeu, by Sadler’s Wells, also stood at Coolmore).
The Coronation Cup—the supporting Group 1 on the Oaks card—was won by Luxembourg (by Camelot from a Danehill Dancer mare), while the G3 Diomed was won by Royal Scotsman (Gleneagles). Breege’s win in the G3 Princess Elizabeth provided Starspangledbanner (Choisir) with his 43rd stakes winner; out of a Zoffany mare, Breege is another example of Coolmore sires on top and bottom. Lastly, Evade, by Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj), won the listed Surrey S.
Even for a global powerhouse like Coolmore, the Epsom results were quite a feat. This is the A+++ tweet posted from the Coolmore account on X:
Updates from a week ago
Here’s what I wrote in this space last week, and in that short timeframe, it’s already out of date:
There’s been little variety in the sires of the winners of five of the six Classics contested so far in England, France, and Ireland this year, and if you’re Godolphin, you’re not complaining. The winner of the 2000 Guineas, Notable Speech, is by Dubawi, and Dubawi is the sire of the sires of the winners of the Poule d’Essai des Poulains (won by Metropolitan, by Zarak) and Irish 1000 Guineas (Fallen Angel, by Too Darn Hot). Shamardal made his mark on the Irish 2000 Guineas (Rosallion, by son Blue Point) and Poule d’Essai des Pouliches (Rouhiya, by son Lope de Vega). While neither Zarak (at The Aga Khan Studs in France) nor Lope de Vega (Ballylinch Stud in Ireland) stand for Godolphin, their successes reflect favorably.
We can add the winner of the Oaks—contested last Friday at Epsom and, as noted above, the only stakes winner at Epsom on Friday and Saturday that was not sired by a Coolmore stallion—and Sunday’s Prix du Jockey Club at Chantilly to this tally. Oaks winner Ezeliya is a daughter of Dubawi, while Lope de Vega’s colt Look de Vega led a one-two for his sire in the Jockey Club—the French equivalent of the Derby.
I also wrote about First Defence as a broodmare sire of graded stakes winners. Since that post, First Defence has already picked up another graded stakes winner—taking him up to 11 graded winners produced from 10 individual daughters—in the form of Juddmonte’s homebred Scylla, the 164th stakes winner for her sire Tapit when she won the G3 Shawnee at Churchill on Saturday. The full sister to Grade 2 winner/dual Classic-placed Tacitus (standing at Taylor Made for $10,000, with first yearlings now) is out of First Defence’s champion daughter Close Hatches. A third full sibling to Scylla and Tacitus, 3-year-old Batten Down, was—as I mentioned at the time—under consideration for the June 8th Belmont S. but is now pointing to the Ohio Derby on June 22nd for his stakes debut. Like Scylla, Batten Down is trained by Bill Mott.
Brad Cox-trained champion Idiomatic (Curlin), whose dam Lockdown is a stakes-winning full sister to Close Hatches, is the favorite in the G1 Ogden Phipps on Saturday’s Belmont S. undercard, so it could well be a big few weeks for the First Defence full sisters Close Hatches and Lockdown, members of the Best in Show family, which is also responsible for last year’s champion 3-year-old/Belmont winner Arcangelo, sired by Arrogate for another link to Juddmonte and Unbridled’s Song.
Odds and ends: Ottoman Fleet (Sea The Stars), winner of the G3 Arlington at Churchill on Saturday, took Godolphin trainer Charlie Appleby’s N. American record this year to five wins, all graded stakes, in 16 starts. Appleby’s runners have also finished second in five graded races and third in three graded races from those 16 starts. Obviously, the trainer shipped to the U.S. with quality stock, but regardless, that’s a pretty impressive record. He has seven entries in five graded stakes at Saratoga this coming weekend; one of those—Measured Time (Frankel), the 7/2 second choice in the G1 Manhattan—is a half-brother to Rebel’s Romance (Dubawi), who Appleby trained to win the G1 Champions & Chater Cup at Sha Tin in Hong Kong on May 26th…
Lane’s End stallion Twirling Candy got his 50th and 51st stakes winners in a 20-minute span on Saturday. Number 50 was Twirling Point, winner of the Jersey Derby at Monmouth (over Move to Gold, also by Twirling Candy) for trainer Jonathan Thomas, and 51 was Cugino in the listed Audubon at Churchill, trained by Shug McGaughey. Both 3-year-olds are out of mares by Kitten’s Joy, the broodmare sire of four stakes winners from eight foals by Twirling Candy, who stands for $60,000…
Coolmore stallion Churchill wasn’t in on the Epsom stakes haul but he nonetheless got a new stakes winner on Friday in N. America when Poolside With Slim won the Penn Oaks. Trained by Rusty Arnold, she’s the 24th stakes winner for the dual Guineas winner…Coolmore America sires Mo Town and American Pharoah had a good run of their own at Woodbine on Saturday, siring the winners of two of the three stakes races. Play the Music won the G3 Royal North for Mo town and Flag of Honour won the G3 Jacques Cartier for American Pharoah…Kentucky Derby winner Authentic was represented by his first winner on Friday when Adeera won her debut for trainer Steve Asmussen at Churchill Downs. A son of Into Mischief who also won the Breeders’ Cup Classic as a 3-year-old, Authentic stands at Spendthrift and has 160 foals in his first crop. Thoughts are with Adeera’s winning rider Keith Asmussen, who was injured in a fall the next day…
With first-time stakes winner Happy Jack’s win in the G2 Triple Bend at Santa Anita, Oxbow—the sire of 16 total stakes winners—now has five stakes winners out of five individual Tapit mares, or 9% to foals on the cross. Oxbow, who stands at Calumet, also has Grade 1 winner Tuz from a mare by Tapit’s sire Pulpit and Grade 3 winner Oxy Lady from a mare by Pulpit’s sire A.P. Indy.