|
|
|
Basin was a wide-margin winner of Saratoga’s historic, stallion-making Hopeful Stakes-G1 as a 2YO, and we think the stoutly-made and stoutly-bred Animalistic will make a perfect pairing with him in his first book this coming spring.
Following his top-class juvenile campaign, Basin progressed sufficiently at 3 to place in the 1-1/8-mile G1 Arkansas Derby behind Charlatan on the Kentucky Derby trail, as well as in the 1-1/16-mile G2 Rebel behind Nadal. Later that season he was 2nd to Yaupon in Saratoga’s G2 Amsterdam back sprinting at 6 furlongs, and as a 4YO he triumphed in Gulfstream’s Sir Shackleton Stakes at 7 furlongs — demonstrating that he had an abundance of speed to go with his precocity, but enough class to be competitive in top class going two turns. From the first-crop of a top-class miler son of Unbridled’s Song, and as a half-brother to G3-winning 2YO and millionaire Rise Up, Basin came by his speed and precocity honestly (his broodmare sire, Johannesburg, famously won G1s as a 2YO in 4 different countries, including the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in his dirt debut).
That speed and precocity give him a big shot as a sire, and make him an easy choice for Animalistic, who didn’t make her own racetrack debut until she was 3YO. She is also a bigger, stouter type of mare, with a pedigree to match (she’s by G1 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom, and out of a mare by classic winner and sire Summer Squall, and while her dam was eventually a four-time stakes winner, she didn’t win a race of any kind until she was 4).
Animalistic is also a half-sister to the multiple stakes-placed six-figure earner Miss Dolce, by Unbridled’s Song (who is the sire of Liam’s Map). And deeper back in her family is the multiple stakes-winning Unbridled Time, another by UBS. So this sire-line has worked repeatedly with the female family of Animalistic, and although TrueNicks gives the UBS/Candy Stripes cross a “No Rating”, from just a single runner out of a mare by Animal Kingdom’s sire Leroidesanimaux (there are no foals by Liam’s Map out of mares by any son of Leroidesanimaux), Liam’s Map has sired G2 winner Churn N Burn. Churn N Burn’s dam also has Nijinsky close up in her pedigree, and Nijinsky is similarly-bred to Storm Bird, the sire of Animalistic’s aforementioned broodmare sire Summer Squall.
So in addition to the positive physical pairing, there are a lot of pedigree reasons that don’t immediately jump off the page but which lead us to like this mating a lot — can’t wait to see how it turns out with the foal of 2023!