Andrew Caulfield, September 7, 2004–Tante Rose (Ire)
PEDIGREE INSIGHTS
BY
ANDREW CAULFIELD
STANLEYBET SPRINT CUP-G1, £225,000, Haydock,
9-4, 3yo/up, 6fT, 1:11.58, gd.
1--sTANTE ROSE (IRE), 123, f, 4, by Barathea (Ire)
1st Dam: My Branch (GB) (MSW & G1SP-Eng &
G1SP-Ire, $206,524), by Distant Relative (Ire)
2nd Dam: Pay The Bank (GB), by High Top (Ire)
3rd Dam: Zebra Grass (GB), by Run The Gantlet
(350,000gns HIT ‘03 TATDEC). O-B E Nielsen;
B-Addison Racing Ltd Inc; T-R Charlton; J-R Hughes;
£130,500. Lifetime Record: 13-5-0-2, £225,546.
Click for the free racingpost.co.uk chart or the free
brisnet.com catalogue-style pedigree.
As he’s a son of Sadler’s Wells, who has such an
exceptional record with mares from the Mill Reef male
line, Breeders’ Cup Mile hero Barathea was bound to be
sent mares from this line. What started as a trickle has
become a substantial flow since his first runners
reached the track in 1998, when Mill Reef’s son Shirley
Heights and Shirley Heights’ son Slip Anchor cropped up
as the broodmare sires of Barathea’s first two group
winners. Since then Barathea’s partnership with the Mill
Reef line has built up a sizeable collection of stakes
winners, including this year’s Group 2 winner Pongee
and three Classic-placed performers in Barathea Guest,
Alasha and Hazarista.
But there could be another reliable way of breeding a
high-class performer from Barathea, as his daughter
Tante Rose has been demonstrating throughout her
unbeaten 2004 campaign. This filly, who got up in the
last strides to defeat the males in the G1 Stanleybet
Sprint Cup, is inbred 3x3 to Habitat through two of that
excellent stallion’s Group 1 winners. Another of
Barathea’s group winners, the unbeaten French colt
Apsis, combines these two approaches, as he is out of
a grand-daughter of Mill Reef and he is inbred 3x4 to
Habitat. Another of Barathea’s stakes winners, the
French filly Pampa Negra, is another inbred 3x3 to
Habitat.
Habitat’s name may not mean much to American
readers, except that he sired the champion turf horse
Steinlen and the Santa Anita Derby winner Habitony
(who in turn sired that very fast horse Richter Scale). To
Europeans, though, Habitat will be remembered as a
champion miler who became a tremendously prolific
source of group winners and an exceptional sire of
broodmares. Unfortunately he will also be remembered
as a fairly disastrous sire of sires, but more of that later.
Habitat’s racing career began with two defeats over a
mile and a quarter and this son of Sir Gaylord raced only
at a mile throughout the rest of his career. It’s a
measure of Habitat’s class that he won five of his six
starts over that distance. His final appearance saw him
comprehensively account for a strong Prix du Moulin
field which included Right Tack, the dual Guineas
winner who was the only horse to beat Habitat over a
mile.
Tim Rogers then recruited Habitat to stand at his
Airlie/Grangewilliam Studs, with sensational results. Not
only did Habitat become the leading freshman sire of
1973, but he also topped the list of sires of
two-year-olds. His son Habat was the highest-rated
English-trained juvenile colt, while his daughter Bitty Girl
(now the third dam of Action This Day) was the co-top
juvenile filly.
Habitat was to top the two-year-old table on four
occasions and he reached the top 12 stallions on the
general sires’ list in 12 consecutive years. Unfortunately
he never took the title of champion sire--mainly because
his stock generally didn’t stay well enough to contest
the major mile-and-a-half prizes--but he finished second
four times.
The strangest aspect of Habitat’s stallion career,
which was ended by laminitis in 1987, concerned his
progeny’s stamina, or lack of it. Habitat was initially
considered to be a mile-and-a-quarter horse, which
seemed reasonable for a son of Sir Gaylord. But for
breaking down just before the race, Sir Gaylord would
probably have started favorite for the 1962 Kentucky
Derby on the strength of his win in the Everglades S.
over a mile and an eighth. Habitat was also a halfbrother to Northfields, a Northern Dancer colt who won
the Louisiana Derby over a mile and an eighth. cont.
www.coolmore.com
Yet Habitat’s mature progeny collected nearly 50
percent of their successes in Britain and Ireland in races
over distances between five and seven furlongs (which
aren’t nearly as common in Britain as they are in the
U.S.). Only 25 percent of their successes came beyond
a mile, even though Habitat was mated with plenty of
mares with staying pedigrees.
He sometimes completely negated the stamina in his
mares. For example, he sired the blisteringly fast Sigy
from a stoutly bred mare which had won over just short
of 11 furlongs. Then there was his son Hittite Glory,
winner of the G1 Flying Childers S. over five furlongs
and the G1 Middle Park S. over six, who was out of a
mare which excelled beyond a mile and a half. Another
example was his diminutive son Sayyaf, who was a
specialist sprinter even though his first three dams were
by horses which won over at least a mile and a half.
I have often wondered about the source of this
dominant speed. Perhaps the credit belongs to Sir
Gaylord, whose record during a 14-race juvenile
campaign reminds us how much times have changed
over the last 50 years. He had already had three races
in Florida by the time he won at Aqueduct on April 5.
Kept very busy, he won three stakes races over 5 1/2
furlongs before taking the Sapling S. over six furlongs
on Aug. 5. Clearly he wasn’t short of speed.
I said earlier that Habitat will be remembered as a
fairly disastrous sire of sires. Indeed, his male line has
virtually died out in Britain and Ireland, but a few of his
sons had respectable records, including Tante Rose’s
broodmare sire Distant Relative.
As Distant Relative belonged to Habitat’s penultimate
crop, the prejudice against sons of Habitat was already
well established by the time he retired to Whitsbury
Manor Stud in 1991. His fee was set no higher than
£6,000, even though this supremely consistent
performer had emulated Habitat’s victory in the Prix du
Moulin and had also won the Sussex S.
By 1998 he was on his way to Turkey, but he was by
no means a failure (four of his daughters--Distant Valley,
Iftiraas, Islay Mist and De Puntillas--won graded races in
the U.S.).
If Habitat had a reputation for being a “filly sire,”
Distant Relative took this to extremes. Fillies account
for eight of his 10 group winners and for eight of his
nine Listed winners. One of those Listed winners was
Tante Rose’s dam, My Branch, who was third in the
Irish 1000 Guineas after finishing fourth in the English
version. My Branch clearly stayed a mile and so did
Barathea, who won the Irish 2000 Guineas, but their
daughter--in true Habitat fashion--failed to stay the mile
in last year’s 1000 Guineas. Once again it appears that
Habitat’s influence has proved the strongest, even
though Tante Rose’s second dam, Pay the Bank, stayed
a mile and a quarter and her third dam, the Run the
Gantlet mare Zebra Grass, was bred to stay well.
The fourth dam, Ash Lawn, was a half sister to Royal
Palace, winner of the 2000 Guineas and Derby, and to
Glass Slipper, who produced winners of the 1000
Guineas and St Leger, so it was hardly surprising that it
took 350,000 guineas to buy Tante Rose at Tattersalls
last December.