The black-type placed 2YO Group Text delivered a strapping colt by Blofeld last month, and now heads back to the Mid-Atlantic’s most exciting young sire for a repeat mating.
 Blofeld was an unbeaten graded stakes winner at 2YO, and was the first graded winner for his sire Quality Road, who is now among the elite stallions in the country. After picking up another G2 win as a 4YO, Blofeld retired to stud at Murmur Farm in Maryland for the 2018 season and received consistent support during his first four seasons when he covered 25-30 mares/year. But when his first 14 runners all won a race, he immediately became the most popular stallion in the Mid-Atlantic for the 2022 breeding season when he covered a reported 84 mares. His stats now sit at 31 winners from 39 to race, including 3 stakes winners (his progeny won both Maryland Million 2YO races in 2022) and 4 more black-type placed runners, and his average earnings/runner sits at an outstanding $70,461 with an AEI of 1.44 compared to his mates’ CI of just 1.20. As such, it’s no surprise that he was so popular again in 2023, with more than 100 mares booked to him. Blofeld does not yet have any offspring of racing age out of mares by Group Text’s sire Include, or from his Broad Brush sire-line more generally, but TrueNicks rates the broader Elusive Quality/Broad Brush cross as a “B” with a pair of stakes winners bred this way from limited attempts (just like in 2022).  However, Group Text’s dam is a daughter of the G1-winning 2YO Stormello, by Stormy Atlantic, who is also the sire of Gators N Bears, the broodmare sire of Blofeld’s black-type runner Beach Daze. This is the Storm Cat sire-line, and Blofeld has also sired the stakes winner Chickieness and 7-time winner Oak Hill Lg from Storm Cat-line mares (because Blofeld himself is out of a Storm Cat mare, these runners are all inbred to Storm Cat at various removes, and this foal will also have such inbreeding, 3×5). We also like that Group Text’s second dam is a stakes winner by Clever Trick, and he appears in the pedigrees of the dams of a couple of Blofeld’s winners already, including the six-figure earner Goldenize, and the highly thought-of Elusive Agent (2 wins so far, $93,360 in earnings). Although Blofeld’s first crop was a little slower to get going, his second crop contained the aforementioned pair of juvenile stakes winners, and that bodes well for the chances of a foal sired by him from a black-type placed juvenile like Group Text being nice and early. Physically, Blofeld is a strong, leggy, lengthy horse and tends to throw the same, which should mesh nicely with the well-made, stout and good-sized Group Text (it certainly seems to have done so with the first foal from this pairing).  |