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As we noted in our write-up about why we recommended that Wasabi Ventures Stables purchase Floral Hall in foal to Frosted out of the recent Keeneland November Sale, her immediate female family has produced several good horses by Pulpit-line stallions. As such, she will be paired with Greatest Honour at Spendthrift in 2023, an exciting multiple GSW son of Tapit with a female family to die for.
Greatest Honour rose to prominence on the Triple Crown Trail in Florida, breaking his maiden impressively despite a troubled trip and then reeling off victories in both the G3 Holy Bull and G2 Fountain of Youth Stakes in off-the-pace style for trainer Shug McGaughey over a Gulfstream surface and configuration that would not have played to his strengths. Though he went to the sidelines before the Kentucky Derby-G1, the impression that he made in those wins combined with a stunning physical presence and a pedigree that’s second to none in the studbook, he makes for a fascinating new addition to the Kentucky stallion ranks. His incredible pedigree combines a sire in Tapit who is the all-time leading North American sire by money won, and a three-time Leading General Sire, responsible for the likes of Flightline, Essential Quality, Constitution, Tonalist, Frosted, Untapable, Unique Bella, Tapizar, Tapiture, Tacitus, etc, with a dam who was a $2.2 million broodmare purchase and is half to the Belmont-G1 winners Rags to Riches and Jazil, all of them out of the Broodmare of the Year Better Than Honour, herself a daughter of Blue Hen broodmare and Kentucky Oaks-G1 winner Blush With Pride (in turn out of Blue Hen Best in Show). This is the female family also of Eclipse Champion Close Hatches, the dam of Tapit’s multiple classic-placed and exciting young sire son Tacitus.
Floral Hall is a half-sister to the multiple G2W Skylighter, by Pulpit’s son Sky Mesa, and to stakes winner Cave Hill, by Tapit’s son Frosted, while one of her half-sisters has produced the G3P/SW Meru, also by Sky Mesa. That alone is grounds for thinking that she’ll match up well with a Tapit son like Greatest Honour, but there’s even more reason to love this match: the Tapit/Empire Maker nick rates an “A++” on TrueNicks (having produced G1W Valiance, G2W Amalfi Sunrise, G3W Glass Ceiling, etc), while the nick between Tapit and Broad Brush-line mares like Floral Hall’s dam Painted Lady is also an “A+” and has accounted for recent G1W Proxy, among others. Then Greatest Honour’s dam happens to be a daughter of the MG1W Street Cry, and Street Cry is the sire of Floral Hall’s SW half-sister Speckled (also the dam of G2W Pixelate), of G3PW Sky Painter out of Floral Hall’s half-sister Skylighter, and of G3W/G1P Cat o’Mountain, who is out of a half-sister to Floral Hall’s dam Painted Lady.
When you add those pedigree patterns to a physical matchup in which both Greatest Honour and Floral Hall are scopey, well-balanced horses, with his size and substance well-suited to compensate for her femininity, this is a mating which we could not be more excited about!