STAR FILLY WHO COULD SHAKE UP KENTUCKY COLTS
Taken from the Racing Post
By Tony Morris
EMPIRE MAKER enjoys high-class start to stud
career
JUDGED simply on its merits as a spectacle, the 2007 Belmont Stakes
would have to be a strong contender for race of the year on the
North American continent. The duel between Curlin and Rags To
Riches epitomised the sport at its best, with the crowd on its feet
at the thrilling climax.
But there was much more to it than a desperately close contest
between two outstanding equine athletes. What made it extra-special
was the fact that the filly triumphed over the colt, because, like
hurricanes in Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, victories by
females over males at Classic level hardly ever happen. This was
only the third time in 141 Belmonts that a filly had taken the
honours, and it has been a similar story in the other Triple Crown
events – just four successful fillies in 135 editions of the
Preakness, three in 133 Kentucky Derbys. The idea that there might
be a female winner in consecutive years is too outlandish to
contemplate. Or is it?
On Saturday, after Country Star’s decisive victory in the Grade
1 Hollywood Starlet Stakes, her trainer, Bobby Frankel, was in
bullish mood. Was he looking forward to the 2008 Kentucky Oaks? No,
he had his eye on the Kentucky Derby for a filly whom he has always
held in high regard, and who is living up to expectations. Bred and
raced by Robert and Janice McNair’s Stonerside Stable, which since
its foundation in 1994 has rapidly become one of the most important
thoroughbred operations in the States, Country Star has run only
three times, but she has already provided strong hints that she
might be a superstar in the making. She made her debut in mid-
September in a minor, but very wellcontested, maiden special weight
event on Belmont Park’s turf course, and she did not win it. She
did, though, make strong late progress to get within a length and a
quarter of the winner, Backseat Rhythm, and had more than three
lengths to spare over the third, Mushka.
It may have been just a minor race, but it turned out to be a
highly significant one. Backseat Rhythm went on to make two Grade 1
starts, finishing second in the Frizette Stakes and third in the
Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Mushka gave an impressive display
when winning the Grade 2 Demoiselle Stakes.
As for Country Star, her trainer had no qualms about sending her
out for her second start in Keeneland’s Alcibiades Stakes, a race
newly elevated to Grade 1 status. The punters discounted the
prospects of a maiden against already accomplished performers,
allowing her to go off at 8-1, but Frankel’s confidence was well
founded. She had to swing eight wide into the straight, but going
the longest route proved no problem, and she came home with a
length to spare and any amount in hand.
That was a cracking way for Country Star to shed her maiden tag,
and a performance that would have made her one of the favourites
for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies if her connections had opted
to go that route. Frankel chose instead to play a waiting game, a
decision that may have cost her a championship, because the title
generally goes to the winner of that race, and Indian Blessing, who
had already won the Frizette, duly collected her second Grade 1
success.
But the destination of the Eclipse Award for best two-year-old
filly can no longer be considered a foregone conclusion. On
Saturday the betting public were no less confident than her trainer
about Country Star’s chance in the Hollywood Starlet, backing her
down to even money, and they never had a moment’s concern.
Emphatically the pick of the paddock, she dominated her rivals
once more in the race, taking a wide route again around the final
turn, assuming command halfway up the straight, and drawing clear
to score her second Grade 1 triumph, eased down, by nearly three
lengths.
FRANKEL’S admiration for Country Star, a filly with an ideal racing
temperament, is no doubt enhanced by the fact that her sire
is EMPIRE MAKER the horse who gave the Hall of Fame
trainer his first victory in a Triple Crown event, when he
outlasted Ten Most Wanted and Funny Cide in the 2003 Belmont
Stakes. She is from the first crop by the son of Unbridled, who has
made a propitious start to his second career for Juddmonte, also
being the sire of the aforementioned Mushka.
EMPIRE MAKER himself won just a maiden as a
two-year-old, but he did give a hint of better things to come when
third in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes, his only other race that
season. And better things duly arrived
in the following year – Grade 1 successes in the Florida Derby (by
the widest margin in the history of the race), the Wood Memorial
and the Belmont. He had champion Funny Cide behind him twice, and
was his runner-up in the Kentucky Derby. Retired after a somewhat
dull effort as second in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy
Stakes, EMPIRE MAKER has now had four seasons
at Juddmonte’s Lexington branch, covering books of 111, 116, 131
and 130. Those figures indicate his popularity with breeders;
when two of his first crop fetched seven-figure sums as
yearlings his appeal to the commercial market became equally
obvious. He has had comparatively few runners to date, but those
two high-class juveniles ensure that he will remain in
favour.
Country Star was bred in Kentucky, but she is by no means a
thorough Bluegrass blue-blood on the dam’s side of her pedigree.
Her dam, Rings A Chime, hails from Washington, granddam
Outofthebluebell came from Illinois, and third dam Natchez Bluebell
was foaled in Nebraska. Their origins in what might be considered
outposts of the US industry suggest that this is not a family in
high repute, and it is true that it spent a while in the
doldrums.
But Rings A Chime changed all that. She fetched only $26,000 as
a yearling in an unfashionable Washington auction, and four years
later joined the Stonerside broodmare band at Keeneland’s January
sale for $800,000. Something significant had to have happened in
between those sales, and it did. Rings A Chime won the Grade 1
Ashland Stakes, and ran second to Secret Status in the Kentucky
Oaks. There were few better three-year-old fillies around in 2000,
when she ranked 8lb below Spain, the season’s champion.
Rings A Chime effectively rewrote her own pedigree, elevating
her family to a status it had not known for several generations.
Country Star guarantees it will not become obscure again in the
foreseeable future.
Date:
20 December 2007