Pedigree Insights: Street Fancy

Bearing in mind that his sons collected such famous prizes as the Kentucky Derby and the Melbourne Cup, plus two editions of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and many other Grade I races, Street Cry (Ire) could never be described as a “filly sire.” However, he certainly owed some of his finest moments as a stallion to his daughters.

In the northern hemisphere Zenyatta will forever be remembered as one of the best–and most charismatic–mares ever to have graced the racetrack. And in the southern hemisphere, the Australian-bred Winx has also shown she can defeat the best of the males. When she took the G1 Cox Plate by nearly five lengths in late-October, her nearest pursuers were Criterion (NZ) (Sebring {Aus}) and Highland Reel (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) . Criterion has since come out the best horse at the weights when third in the G1 Melbourne Cup and Highland Reel confirmed his status as one of the top turf colts with his victory over Flintshire (GB) (Dansili {GB}) in Sunday's G1 Hong Kong Vase.

Of course Street Cry owed his GI Kentucky Derby success to one of his Breeders' Cup Juvenile winners, Street Sense, and this 11-year-old stallion is now showing that he too is capable of siring highly talented daughters.

When Street Fancy pounced late to take the GI Starlet S. at Los Alamitos, she became no less than the fifth daughter of the Darley stallion to achieve Grade I-winner status in North America, and the sixth worldwide. In comparison, the Street Sense males are letting the side down, their only scorer at the top level being the Australian colt Hallowed Crown (who is being shuttled from Australia to stand the 2016 season at Kildangan Stud in Ireland).

There is every reason for thinking that Street Fancy will be even more effective as a 3-year-old. Her trainer Phil D'Amato commented at Los Alamitos that:

“She's a big, giant scopey filly. She looks twice the size of anybody else in this field. I knew she wanted to go two turns. I was just hoping today was the day she showed she wanted it, and she did.”

She therefore has the physical scope to continuing progressing and her bloodlines also suggest she will have what it takes to shine after the age of two.

For a start, Street Sense's previous Grade I-winning daughters have largely been progressive types. His only previous Grade I winner at two was Sweet Reason, the 2013 Spinaway S. winner who trained on so well that she added further top-level successes in the Acorn S. and the Test S. A mile was the longest distance over which Sweet Reason won, but she has a dam by the high-class sprinter Mt Livermore. Another reasonably precocious daughter is Callback, who became a Grade I winner in the January of her 3-year-old season, when she took the Las Virgenes S.

Of Street Sense's other Grade I-winning daughters, Aubby K was four when she recorded her victories in the GII Inside Information S. and GI Humana Distaff S. Then there's Wedding Toast, who has proved highly effective as a 5-year-old this year, becoming a dual Grade I winner in the Ogden Phipps S. and Beldame S. And it was only after Politeness had scored four times at Group 3 level that this Australian mare won this year's VRC Myer Classic at the age of five.

The furthest any of these fillies and mares won over at graded level was a mile and an eighth, which is pretty much as far as any American dirt filly needs to go these days. But Sweet Fancy should stay well enough for the ten-furlong Alabama S. if she is still hale and hearty by the time Saratoga rolls around again. Street Sense, of course, not only won the Kentucky Derby but also the Travers S. over the same mile-and-a-quarter distance. This stamina is backed up by Cat Thief and Forty Niner, the stallions responsible for Street Fancy's first two dams. Cat Thief won the Breeders' Cup Classic at the end of a busy 3-year-old season, having earlier finished third in Charismatic's Kentucky Derby. Forty Niner, for his part, won the GI Travers S. after finding only the filly Winning Colors too strong for him in the Kentucky Derby.

Street Fancy's second dam Fortyniner Fever never raced, but with a son of Mr Prospector as her sire and the Danzig mare Angel Fever as her dam, she was closely related to Kentucky Derby hero Fusaichi Pegasus. Angel Fever, in turn, was a sister to GI Preakness S. winner Pine Bluff, so there is very little fault to be found with Street Fancy's pedigree.

In these circumstances it is surprising to read the filly's sales history. Offered for sale as a weanling, then twice as a yearling, she was RNA'd each time, with the bidding rising no higher than $34,000 at Fasig-Tipton's Fall Sale. It was the same outcome when she made her last appearance in the sales ring, at Barretts in March, but the story was somewhat different. At a sale where the top price was $400,000, she was led out unsold at that figure.

The TDN's Jessica Martini explained why there was such a difference in expectations on this occasion:

When hip 116 became the third horse to turn in the one-furlong bullet time of :9 4/5 during Friday's under-tack preview of the Barretts Selected 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, the speedy move wasn't a surprise to consignor Kim McCarthy.

“She had previously breezed really well,” McCarthy revealed Saturday morning. “So I was, I don't want to say cautiously optimistic, but when I saw that breeze I was thinking, 'I kind of like this.' And she was really happy here. So I expected a good work. I was thinking she might be able to go that fast, but I would have been happy with a :10.

“She is a large, lanky beautiful filly,” McCarthy said of the January foal. “She's the kind that you say, 'Wow. Look at her.'

Monday's Barretts sale will be the bay's fourth trip through the sales ring. She was bred by Hunter Valley Farm, which purchased Bold Angel with her in utero for $65,000 at the 2012 Keeneland November sale. The filly herself RNA'd for $100,000 at the 2013 Keeneland November sale and again for $115,000 at last year's Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July Sale. She most recently RNA'd for $34,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October sale.

“I've had her since the beginning of February,” McCarthy said. “She was in Louisiana getting ready.”

Maybe it was Street Fancy's size which compromised her prospects at the sales, or perhaps she wasn't helped by having Cat Thief as her broodmare sire. Equineline credits the former Overbrook stallion with 513 foals, the majority of which were sired at fees of $35,000. Unfortunately, Cat Thief managed to sire only two graded stakes winners. One of them, though, was the GII Black-Eyed Susan S. winner Regal Engagement, who–like Street Fancy's dam Bold Angel–had a dam by Forty Niner. Bold Angel also became a stakes winner, but at a much lower level, in the Sam Houston Oaks in Texas. She is now the first daughter of Cat Thief to produce a Grade I winner.

Mating Bold Angel to Street Sense resulted in duplications to several very prominent stallions–4×4 to Mr Prospector, 4x5x5 to Northern Dancer, 5×5 to Halo and 5x5x5 to Raise A Native. Wedding Toast, another of Street Sense's Grade I winners, has a broodmare sire by Forty Niner, so also produces 4×4 to Mr Prospector, as well as 4×4 to Northern Dancer. Street Fancy and her fellow Grade I winner Callback are also linked, with each having a son of Storm Cat as her broodmare sire.

I will be interested to see how Street Sense's career progresses, especially when he doesn't have an American crop of 2-year-olds running for him next year–a consequence of having spent the 2013 northern hemisphere season in Japan.