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When we sent Coffee Pond to Raging Bull last year, we hoped for a foal that would inherit some of the leg, length and balance from the stallion. With Coffee Pond having delivered a colt this spring that was everything we could have asked for, and given that Raging Bull remains one of the most exciting young turf-centric stallions in the country, Coffee Pond will head right back to Gainesway for a repeat pairing in 2023.
The pedigree logic behind this breeding remains in full force, as well, and we need only tweak last year’s write-up to account for some more recent developments.
Described by Chad Brown as “the best-looking horse I have ever trained”, Raging Bull is a son of leading Irish stallion Dark Angel, renowned as a speed and precocity influence, out of a mare by the very fast American sprinter Mr. Greeley — though Raging Bull himself was a multiple G1 winner from a mile to 9 furlongs in the USA and showed his speed more as a blistering turn of foot than by rocketing from the gate. Coffee Pond, meanwhile, though from a classic family that has accounted — further back — for the likes of Generous, Imagine, Horatio Nelson and Van Gogh, is out of a half-sister to the multiple G1-winning sprinter/miler Moonlight Cloud, and sired by Havana Gold, whose own top runner has been the Euro G1 sprinter Havana Grey. So this is a matchup that should reinforce turf sprinter/miler tendencies with a chance to produce a foal that might also stretch out a bit on American grass.
Last year, TrueNicks rated the cross of Raging Bull’s sire-line with Galileo-line mares like Coffee Pond a “D” with the 3 stakes winners bred on the cross having included 2021 2YO G1 winner Angel Bleu and 2021 2YO G2 winner Malavath, as well as the 2021 G1P 2YO Cachet and 2021 G3P 2YO Juncture. Cachet went on to score in last year’s classic G1 One Thousand Guineas, while Juncture added a pair of listed stakes wins and two more G3 placings to her ledger. So even though TrueNicks now restricts their analysis to Dark Angel/Galileo and still gives it a “D” (Malavath and Cachet no longer feature), we remain convinced that the nick rating will look better in the near future than it does today — and indeed, 3YO Marshman scored in the G3 Prix Sigy just earlier today to count towards this nick rating.
As mentioned last spring, Coffee Pond’s family has already had success with this sire-line, too, having produced the likes of G3 winner Talwar (by Raging Bull’s grandsire Acclamation), stakes winner Bruges (by Marju, who descends from Try My Best as does Raging Bull), and stakes winner Osumi Tycoon (by Marju’s sire Last Tycoon).
Physically, we will again be hoping that Raging Bull’s leg and length, which he has more of than many European-breds (including the compact Coffee Pond herself), will stretch out their foal at the same time that he imparts plenty of speed and class!