Pedigree Insights: California Chrome

Saturday, Santa Anita
SAN FELIPE S.-GII, $300,500, SAX, 3-8, 3yo, 
1 1/16m, 1:40 2/5, ft. 
1–@CALIFORNIA CHROME, 118, c, 3, by Lucky Pulpit 
     1st Dam: Love the Chase, by Not for Love 
     2nd Dam: Chase It Down, by Polish Numbers 
     3rd Dam: Chase the Dream, by Sir Ivor 
O/B-Steven Coburn & Perry Martin (CA); T-Art 
Sherman; J-Victor Espinoza. $180,000. Lifetime 
Record: 9-5-1-0, $534,850. Werk Nick Rating: A. 
Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. 
Click brisnet.com chart, brisnet.com PPs or brisnet.com catalogue-style pedigree. VIDEO.
    One of the fascinating questions in American breeding is which son of A.P. Indy is going to prove the most important in the long term. Judging by the male line chart in the Blood-Horse's latest Stallion Register, the answer is going to by Pulpit, although we mustn't forget that Orb's sire Malibu Moon was born three years after Pulpit and didn't begin to command a fee higher than $50,000 until 2011. Then there's the much-younger Bernardini, who is already credited with a team of nine well-connected stallion sons, featuring the likes of To Honor and Serve and Stay Thirsty. 
    As things stand, though, it is Pulpit who has the biggest team on the Blood-Horse table, with 12 sons and five grandsons. 
    No wonder, then, that this branch is making its presence felt on the road to the GI Kentucky Derby and GI Kentucky Oaks. Pulpit himself has a smart 3-year-old son in Spot, who ran down the previously unbeaten No Nay Never to take the Swale S. but this Grade II contest over seven furlongs doesn't carry Kentucky Derby points. 
However, there were 50 points available to the winner of last Saturday's GII Tampa Bay Derby and another 50 to the same day's GII San Felipe S. The Tampa Bay Derby fell to Tapit's gelded son Ring Weekend, whereas the comparatively little-known Lucky Pulpit got into the act when his highly progressive son California Chrome took the San Felipe in excellent style. 
    Tapit has another points earner in Tapiture, who took the GIII Southwest S. to add 10 points to the 10 he earned for winning last year's GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. and the two he picked up for finishing third in the GIII Iroquois S. Tapit is also responsible for Untapable, the filly who shares the leading total of 60 points with Malibu Moon's daughter Onlyforyou in the Kentucky Oaks point standings. 
Tapit, of course, now shares with War Front the distinction of being America's highest-priced stallion, at $150,000–a distinction he is thoroughly meriting, having racked up five graded winners in the space of little more than two months. 
    At the other extreme, Lucky Pulpit is priced at a mere $2,500 for the 2014 season at Harris Farms in California. The 13-year-old–a member of Pulpit's third crop–won only three of his 22 starts, but he became a stakes winner over five furlongs on turf in the Smile S. as a 4-year-old, having earlier been graded placed at around a mile both at two and three. He won on dirt and turf and had the added attraction of being out of a three-parts-sister to the dam of the highly successful Unbridled's Song. Another stallion from this female line–the French and American Grade I winner Seattle Song–sired the dam of Tiznow. 
    With his good, if unexceptional record, Lucky Pulpit was never going to find it easy to make his mark. Fortunately his breeders, Larry and Marianne Williams, had plenty of faith in him and their faith has been rewarded. From a first crop of 28 named foals, Lucky Pulpit sired a pair of stakes winners, both bred by Mr. and Mrs. Williams. The Williamses did even better with Rousing Sermon, a colt from Lucky Pulpit's second crop. The youngster did so well as a juvenile in 2011 that he received 119 on the Experimental–a rating which placed him level with Dullahan and only seven pounds below co-top weights Hansen and Union Rags. Rousing Sermon made it to the start line of the Kentucky Derby and wasn't disgraced in finishing seventh, a little over seven lengths behind I'll Have Another. Altogether he has rewarded his owner- breeders to the tune of $710,000. 
    One significant fact that mustn't be forgotten is that Rousing Sermon came from a crop of only 23 named foals, while California Chrome comes from a similar-sized crop. Altogether there were only 94 named foals in Lucky Pulpit's first four crops. However, his encouraging early results coincided with some sterling work by other stallion sons of Pulpit. Tapit, Sky Mesa and Essence of Dubai all enjoyed Grade I success in 2010 and this surely played a part in sending 101 mares to Lucky Pulpit's door in 2011, in his fifth season. He did even better the following year, covering 114 mares for 79 live foals. In other words, his 2012 and 2013 crops are much larger than their predecessors. With California Chrome doing so well, it is a fair bet that Lucky Pulpit will be busier than ever this year. 
    Of course no stallion has a perfect record as a sire of sires and there has been the occasional disappointment among Pulpit's sons. For example, Corinthian has gone from being thought of as the hot young successor to Tapit to commanding a fee of $4,000 in Pennsylvania. On the other hand, the lightly used Sightseeing became the fourth son to sire a Grade I winner when So Many Ways won the 2012 Spinaway S. 
    There's every reason to think that this total of Grade I-siring sons of Pulpit is set to rise in years to come. As a winner of the GI Florida Derby and runner-up in the Kentucky Derby, Ice Box has plenty to offer for a stallion priced at $7,500. He covered over 100 mares in each of his first two seasons. He now stands alongside Sky Mesa at Three Chimneys. Then there's the GI FrontRunner S. winner Power Broker, who ranked joint-fourth among the 2-year-old males of 2012 before taking last year's GII Indiana Derby. 
To get back to California Chrome, his trainer Art Sherman envisages no problem with the Kentucky Derby distance, anticipating that the son of Lucky Pulpit will “run all day.” 
Bearing in mind that California Chrome's first two successes came over 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 furlongs, I'm not sure I share his confidence at this stage–especially when he is inbred 4×3 to Mr. Prospector and has daughters of Not for Love and Polish Numbers as his first two dams. On the plus side, the colt's third, fourth and fifth dams were daughters of Sir Ivor, Vaguely Noble and Ribot, which could explain why the colt showed no signs of stopping at the end of the San Felipe. 
The other interesting aspect of California Chrome's pedigree is that his dam Love the Chase is inbred 3×3 to the champion juvenile filly Numbered Account. This celebrated daughter of Buckpasser was admirably tough, winning eight of her 10 juvenile stakes in the space of six months. She went on to win a further five stakes races at three, before leaving a considerable legacy as a broodmare, so she was an ideal subject for close inbreeding.