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A new client contacted us recently looking for mating recommendations for his pair of mares, including a stakes-winning Yonaguska mare named Minnesota Mafia, who was actually owned by a Country Life partnership during our time there. Minnesota Mafia’s new owner specified that he planned to race her foals himself, and – as it does whenever someone says that they’re breeding-to-race – that immediately led us to the list of “Value Sires” that we identified in our recent blog post to see if any might match up well for Minnesota Mafia.
Her sire, Yonaguska, was a Grade 1-winning 2-year-old and got the very talented Musket Man during his time at stud in the U.S., while Yonaguska’s sire, Cherokee Run, was 2nd in the G1 Preakness before going on to become an Eclipse Champion Sprinter. Cherokee Run’s other offspring include the Eclipse Champion 2-year-old, War Pass. And while neither of this pair jumped off the page at us with ideas with which they might match well, Minnesota Mafia’s broodmare sire, Tomorrows Cat (by Storm Cat) and the sire of her second dam, Cox’s Ridge, both made us think immediately of Include.
As we mentioned in the write-up for Akasha, who is also visiting Include, he has worked very well with mares carrying more of the blood of Turn-To (to whom Include is inbred 4x4x4): his Grade 1 winner Panty Raid and her Grade 2-winning full-sister St. John’s River, as well as his Grade 1 winner Her Smile, his Group 1 winner Samba Inc, and his Grade 2 winner Redeemed, all have another cross Turn-To’s son Hail To Reason; while his Grade 1 winner Include Betty has two more crosses of Turn-To; and his Grade 3 winner She’s All In has one additional cross of Turn-To. Plus, Grade 1 winner Mongoose, by Include’s sire Broad Brush, is out of a daughter of Cox’s Ridge.
Minnesota Mafia’s pedigree contains three crosses of Turn-To, through that one’s sons Sir Gaylord, Hail To Reason, and Best Turn. In addition, Cherokee Run brings yet another strain of Turn-To’s sire, Royal Charger, via Francis S., the sire of Cherokee Run’s second dam.
Include has also had success with mares carrying the blood of Tom Fool, and Minnesota Mafia’s pedigree contains three strains of Tom Fool: once as the broodmare sire of Drone, and twice through Buckpasser (to whom Minnesota Mafia is inbred 5×5).
As mentioned above, Minnesota Mafia’s dam, Kitiara, is a daughter of the Storm Cat stallion Tomorrows Cat. Include has sired four Group 1 winners and two more Group 2 winners out of mares by Storm Cat’s son Bernstein, as well as the 2018 stakes winner K P Wildcat out of a mare by Storm Cat’s son Forest Wildcat. Several of those runners contain further similarities to the foal from this mating: Group 1 winner Don Inc, out of a Bernstein mare, has a dam sired by a grandson of Lyphard, and Tomorrows Cat is also out of a mare by a grandson of Lyphard; the Group 1-winning full-sisters Sociologa Inc and Sobradora Inc (out of a Bernstein mare) both have Lyphard as well as Blushing Groom (grandsire of Cherokee Run) present in their female families; and K P Wildcat is out of a mare by Blushing Groom’s son Rahy.
Finally, although the TrueNicks report for the cross of Minnesota Mafia with Include generates a “no rating” designation (meaning no stakes winners yet bred on the cross), it has produced eleven winners from fourteen runners, including the $100,000-earner Desert Jewel (by Include out of a mare by Cherokee Run’s son Kafwain).
And, just as we mentioned in our write-up for Akasha, Include’s credentials as a runner and sire are also fantastic, independent of how well his pedigree meshes with Minnesota Mafia’s.
A homebred Maryland product by 1994’s leading sire, Broad Brush, who was also bred by and raced for Robert Meyerhoff, Include was stakes winner at 3, a Grade 1 winner of the Pimlico Special and four other stakes at 4, and a stakes winner at 5. In total, he won ten of twenty starts, including seven stakes, for earnings of $1,659,560. He put up thirteen triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures, including back-to-back performances of 117 as a 4-year-old.
In the breeding shed, Include has a reputation as a bit of a “filly sire,” as the females Panty Raid, Include Me Out, Include Betty, Her Smile, and Cash Included account for his North American Grade 1 victories. (In the Southern Hemisphere, where he was the leading Argentine sire of 2015, Include has produced an additional four Grade 1 winners, one of them being the colt Don Inc, mentioned above. Another of those Argentinian Group 1 winners mentioned above is Samba Inc, who is now with trainer Bob Baffert in California.) Include’s best racing son in the U.S. is Grade 2 winner Redeemed, who took the Brooklyn Handicap and currently stands at stud at Maryland’s Northview Stallion Station (where he is the only current hope of continuing the “all American” Domino sire-line, as Broad Brush’s other highly-accomplished racing son, Concern, did not breed on).
Regardless of gender, Include has produced a total of 40 Northern Hemisphere stakes winners (overall, he reached 50 career black-type winners in October ’17), good for 6% of his foals, and his AEI of 1.51 is well above his 1.34 CI, meaning that he moves his mares way up. These statistics make him huge value for a breeder planning to race the foal, without having to worry about what the commercial marketplace will think.
Physically, Include and Minnesota Mafia are a nice like-to-like pairing as they are both rangy, well-balanced horses with plenty of leg and length.
Include wins the G1 Pimlico Special
Include wins the G2 Mass Cap
Include’s daughter Include Betty wins the G1 Mother Goose
Include’s daughter Panty Raid wins the G1 Spinster
Include’s daughter Her Smile wins the G1 Prioress
Include’s son Redeemed wins the G2 Brooklyn