Breeding Digest: Not Quite a Failed Connection

There are times when it seems as though nothing succeeds quite like failure. By then, of course, it's too late. But as night follows day, you know just what to expect whenever a Kentucky stud admits defeat on a stallion and sells him abroad. The latest example is Connect, whose export to Turkey was announced barely three weeks ago. Sure enough, last Saturday he responded by sending out two Classic-placed sons to run 1-2 in the GIII Ohio Derby.

By this stage, to be fair, it seems clear that the 13-year-old was never going to change the world. He has sired eight graded stakes scorers, and Chip Honcho and Ocelli demonstrate an efficacy that makes their sire a perfectly eligible sire of runners at just $10,000. But Connect's 2025 yearlings, conceived at $25,000, retailed at a median of $21,000 (12 sold of 15 offered) and it's hard to find a way back from that.

Not that the son of Curlin should necessarily be considered simply another victim of the dismally familiar model that nowadays requires a stallion to pay for himself more or less in one go. The standard, cynical procedure is for fees, averages and books to slide together as soon as a stallion has exhausted his value to the commercial breeders who process a debut crop.

Connect, in contrast, achieved enough as a freshman in 2021 to propose himself among the minority that might build a viable Bluegrass career. Only Gun Runner and Practical Joke finished above him, and while he only had two black-type winners to their six, he did not mess about. Rattle N Roll won the GI Breeders' Futurity and Hidden Connection won the GIII Pocahontas Stakes. (Both, incidentally, the work of a program that punches way above weight, St. Simon Place.) Rattle N Roll, moreover, remains on the worktab at seven, with 11 wins in 33 starts and $3.95 million in the bank.

That auspicious start earned Connect a moderate fee hike in 2022, from $15,000 to $25,000, when his book soared from 93 mares to 173–oversubscription, unequivocally, at a farm as commendably restrained as Lane's End.

Connect | Lane's End

The resulting foals are now sophomores, including Saturday's protagonists. The point is that Connect's own template virtually guaranteed that his stock would thrive with maturity, a classic Curlin trait, after all. He only broke his maiden at three, beat Gun Runner himself in the GII Pennsylvania Derby in September; added his Grade I in the Cigar Mile and looked set for new heights on what sadly proved to be his final start in the GIII Westchester. In other words, nobody could reach any conclusions about his renewed momentum until–well, right around now.

Yet his very next book, in 2023, collapsed to 45 mares. On the racetrack that year, with their third crop in play, Connect again finished third to Gun Runner and Practical Joke, matching the latter with nine stakes winners (from 179 starters, against 269). Yet he has since jogged along with 52 mares in 2024; and 36 last year. So the vogue had already cooled by the time the graduates of his big 2022 book went to market, averaging $47,355 as yearlings (median just $22,000). Chip Honcho, admittedly, brought $210,000, but Ocelli realized no more than $12,000. Yet while the latter famously remains a maiden, he ran third in the GI Kentucky Derby, while Chip Honcho filled the same spot in the GI Preakness Stakes.

This has proved an intake with no depth. It is topped by a phenomenon, followed by a prolific commercial sire who has made his volume count. But now Keen Ice is the only other still clinging to a berth in Kentucky.

The bottom line, overall, is that Connect has had limited success from limited numbers. Nonetheless we should give him credit for Chip Honcho, whose page is really quite compressed to fourth dam in Winter Treasure (Vigors), twice a Grade I runner-up (Santa Margarita Invitational/La Canada). In fact, the brightest talent in between is Chip Honcho's own dam Miss My Rose, who in winning her only two starts (including a stakes via disqualification) serves as one of few mitigations against the failure of her sire Magician (Ire). Both were dirt sprints, so perhaps his turf orientation had been overcome. On the other hand, Miss My Rose's half-sister Whiskey and Rye (Maclean's Music), by a much better stallion who largely trades in dirt speed, is a stakes winner on grass.

This family traces to an interesting seventh dam. Tennis Slipper (Aus) was a rarity in 1958, as an Australian yearling imported to the United States. Apparently she was in a cargo of five, sent to the pioneer tennis professional Jack Kramer: an example, no doubt, of the payment he sometimes received, in horseflesh, in an era when currency transfers were complicated and heavily controlled. And, speaking of dismantling international boundaries….

Praise Justified at Ascot

Lauding a stallion in print can sometimes reverse the effect described above, where a stallion responds indignantly to being written off. But Justify certainly overcame the burden of our headline last week, to the effect that he can meet any and every agenda. For while he duly horrified American breeders with a top-class son who can carry his dirt speed fully 20 furlongs on grass, he set up Scandinavia's G1 Gold Cup success when his only other runners at Royal Ascot finished 1-2 in the Chesham Stakes for juveniles over seven.

The winner Nola Soul is yet another Glennwood Farm masterpiece, Justify's breeders having combined him with a granddaughter of foundation mare Marozia (Storm Bird). Her dynasty began with GI Travers winner Stay Thirsty (Bernardini) and extended through her daughter Without You Babe (Lemon Drop Kid), dam of GI Dirt Mile winner Tamarkuz (Speightstown) and G1 St James's Palace Stakes winner Without Parole (GB) (Frankel {GB}).

Nola Soul's granddam Smart Change (Smart Strike) has proved a somewhat less productive daughter of Marozia, showing little on the track and hitherto producing only a stakes-placed stayer in Britain. Smart Change's daughter by Muhaarar (GB), Sing Me Home (GB), appeared only mediocre in a light career and was discarded at the 2025 Keeneland November Sale, in foal to Yaupon, for just $25,000.

Craig Bernick, who had bought the weanling Nola Soul (her second foal) in the same ring the previous year for $220,000, evidently perceived his promise early enough to arrange a private purchase of both the mare and her Yaupon filly. If culling Sing Me Home proves that even the most influential farm of its size can occasionally do things it may regret, its role in both sides of his pedigree gives Nola Soul the chance to expand yet further Glennwood's outsized footprint on the modern breed.

Incidentally, the Chesham runner-up was actually making his debut, rattling home after showing his inexperience at the start. A $100,000 pinhook by C.F. Bloodstock at Keeneland last September, On Just Terms elevated his value to 220,000gns at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up only a few weeks ago. His dam Elitiste (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}) was recruited by St. Elias Stable after delivering her first five foals in Europe, as a half-sister among others to two G1 Coronation Stakes winners. Her granddam is East Of The Moon (Private Account), champion daughter of the immortal Miesque (Nureyev). On Just Terms is bred to be any kind.

Mischief Clawing Back the Deficit

The principal domestic prize of the week, the GII Chicago Stakes, was won by Eclatant (Into Mischief). We explored her antecedents after her recent Grade I success, though it's worth reiterating how Justify's sire Scat Daddy continues to expand his distaff legacy. Ocelli is also out of a Scat Daddy mare, as are recent elite scorers Classic Q (Classic Empire) and Napoleon Solo (Liam's Map).

Eclatant's latest earnings take the champion within six figures of Not This Time in the general sires' table. The young pretender, who stole a march with Magnitude in the spring, now defends $16,812,167 from Into Mischief's $15,905,256.

Eclatant | Kurtis Coady

Into Mischief continues to deploy an unrivalled cavalry, having just sent out his 300th starter of the year, compared with 236 for Not This Time. It is to his rival's credit, then, that both should be precisely in step with 16 stakes winners this year, with 10 apiece at graded level.

Into Mischief launched an exciting new talent in his latest TDN 'Rising Star presented by Hagyard': Hughes, a six-length debut scorer in :57.22 at Los Alamitos. His dam K P Dreamin (Union Rags), twice Grade I-placed at two, is out of a sister to Go Between (Point Given). It's nice to see that forgotten horse, whose great heart gave out after a workout in 2009, dusted off in a pedigree. With his trademark late run, he was a downright kleptomaniac when it came to collecting track records, notably in the GI Pacific Classic.