COVER STORY

Two of the weekend's big winners--Mongoose and Summer Colony--underlined how important it is for breeders to take into account the number of mares any particular stallion is covering. Neither Mongoose's sire Broad Brush nor Summer Colony's sire Summer Squall nowadays comes close to covering the type of three- figure book which has become commonplace throughout the industry and, consequently, they are at a marked numerical disadvantage compared to many of Kentucky's other high-class stallions.

Summer Squall's subnormal fertility means that he has averaged only 34 named foals in his first eight crops. With 29 live foals in his 1999 crop and 23 in his 2000 crop, lack of numbers is likely to keep him out of the headlines, but he continues to justify support with a very creditable four percent graded-stakes winners.

Broad Brush, for his part, has had to be carefully managed since he required two colic surgeries in 1995. He covered 63 mares in 1998, 51 in 1999, 48 in 2000 and 47 last year, so he may eventually struggle to maintain his very consistent record of regularly finishing in the top 15 sires on the general sire list.

However, he has been in fine form. His seven stakes winners last year included the Grade I winners Pompeii and Include, plus Nobo True and Broad Appeal, two prolific Group winners on dirt in Japan. The Gainesway stalwart has also made an excellent start to 2002. Broad Appeal and Maybry's Boy both won at the Grade III level prior to Mongoose's breakthrough victory in the GI Donn H. which improved Broad Brush's figure to 5.6 percent--few stallions can boast a higher percentage of graded-stakes winners.

Although Mongoose matured quickly enough to win a Saratoga maiden and the Miller Genuine Draft Cradle S. in his first three starts as a juvenile, it isn't too surprising that he is now showing the best form of his life as a four-year-old.

Broad Brush is a tall, rangy individual standing 16.2 hands and Mongoose's dam Salty Gal is by Cox's Ridge, a 16.3-hand son of the 17.2-hand Best Turn. That said, size didn't prevent any of the three from showing very good form as three-year-olds, with Broad Brush gaining seven wins from 14 starts at that age, Cox's Ridge eight from 11 and Best Turn six from 10. All three, though, were arguably even better at four.

Broad Brush has the distinction of being inbred 3x3 to Turn-to, a stallion whose name is often linked to unsoundness. Fortunately, Broad Brush proved to have more in common with his sire Ack Ack, with both being sound enough to race 27 times during careers which featured victories in the Santa Anita H. over 1 1/4 miles.

Broad Brush's trainer Dick Small once revealed that, "I realized right then [after an early defeat] that this horse needed very stern, hard training; he needed fast works close to his races to run to his best. We worked him whenever we could because we knew we couldn't miss a single day."

Broad Brush's very tough constitution has allowed him to do well with mares which possess more Turn-to blood. His son Include, winner of the GI Pimlico Special, is inbred 4x4x4 to Turn-to, as are his Grade III-winning daughters Brushed Halory and Magic Broad, and so is Mongoose.

In fact, Mongoose has an extra line to two of Broad Brush's three great-grandsires: Broad Brush's dam, Hay Patcher, was a grand-daughter of Tom Rolfe, and so is Mongoose's second dam, Salt Spring. Interestingly another of Broad Brush's Grade I winners, Pompeii, also has two lines of Ribot in her pedigree, through Tom Rolfe and Graustark.

If Salt Spring's name sounds familiar, it is because she enjoyed a distinguished career in California after winning at the Group 1 and Group 2 level in Argentina. Her best victory in her adopted country came in the Yerba Buena H. over 1 1/2 miles on turf, and there is reason to think that Mongoose will cope well with the 1 1/4-mile route if the Gulfstream Park H. is chosen as his next target.

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