Why Not Tonight became the first stakes winner campaigned by our friends at Wasabi Ventures Stables when she scored in the 2022 All Brandy Stakes at Laurel in what turned out to be her last career start. She’s now the first stakes winner in the Wasabi broodmare band, and for her first mating in 2023 she will visit the blazingly fast first-year sire Nashville at WinStar Farm.
Nashville is a son of the Champion Sprinter and leading sire Speightstown, who has also established himself as a sire-of-sires through the exploits of his sons Munnings and Central Banker. Whereas Speightstown’s stud record includes offspring that have run the gamut from 2YO through older horses, on turf and dirt, sprinting and going the classic American distance of 10 furlongs, Nashville followed in his sire’s footsteps and excelled exclusively as a dirt sprinter. He won his first 3 races by open margins, including the Perryville Stakes at Keeneland on the Breeders’ Cup undercard in which his final time was significantly faster than Whitmore ran in winning the G1 BC Sprint later in the day. Nashville’s wicked sprinting speed was somewhat surprising given that he’s out of a mare by Mizzen Mast (a G1W at 7 furlongs, but also as far as 10 furlongs) and whose own dam is a full-sister to Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo — but we think that bodes well for his chances of being a versatile sire, much in the mold of Speightstown.
Interestingly, Why Not Tonight’s racetrack proclivities were also surprising in light of her pedigree: she earned all 4 of her career wins on turf, despite being a daughter of the top class dirt runner Tapiture, out of a Not For Love dam who scored her 4 career wins on dirt and was unplaced in all her turf tries, with the next two dams by the dirt influences Silver Charm and Carson City. But hopefully this blend of versatile pedigrees bodes well for their eventual offspring.
Why Not Tonight is a half-sister to 3 other winners from all of her dam’s foals of racing age thus far, including the 2022 2YO debut winner Lost Weekend, who was 2nd in the non-black-type First State Dash in his second start and who is a son of Great Notion (like Nashville, a grandson of Gone West — so the sire-line has already worked with this immediate female family). And Speightstown and his sons with daughters of Tapit-line mares have earned an “A++” TrueNicks rating on the basis of four stakes winners from just 23 starters (17 winners), including G1W Lexitonian and the top-class fillies Bonny South and Finite (both G2Ws).
Physically speaking, Why Not Tonight has perhaps a bit more leg to her than Nashville, who is built like the pure sprinter that he was, but their types aren’t really that different. We think they’ll be entirely compatible, and can’t wait to see the result of their union in 2024!