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This most recent Housatonic Recommended Mating features the maiden mare Intrepid Forest, a seven-time winner by the solid broodmare sire Forestry, who is now set to visit A.P. Indy’s last Grade 1-winning son to retire to stud, Long River.
We had initially picked Buffum as Intrepid Forest’s mate this year, and in that write-up we noted that the nick for that match was an “A++” because Bernardini and his sons, when mated with daughters of Forestry, have produced four stakes winners, including a Grade 3 winner. And while the larger nick of A.P. Indy’s sons with Forestry mares rates just a “B” given its greater opportunity, it has nevertheless produced a pair of additional, higher-quality stakes winners in Grade 1 winner Turbulent Descent and Grade 2 winner Call Paul.
In Long River, Intrepid Forest will visit a son of A.P. Indy who broke his maiden as a 2-year-old in New York, was a stakes winner at 3 when he ran a mile in 1:35.87 over Micromanage, was a Grade 1-placed stakes winner at 4, and who demonstrated his class and longevity when he won the Grade 1 Al Maktoum Challenge in Dubai as a 7-year-old. Long River is out of Breeders’ Cup Distaff-G1 winner Round Pond, and his third dam produced the European champions and sires Black Minnaloushe and Pennekamp.
Whereas Buffum was quite speedy, Long River is more in the classic A.P. Indy mold — though he wasn’t without tactical speed, he did all his best running at a mile or more, and he got better with age. That should blend nicely with the speed that Intrepid Forest demonstrated herself — although her pedigree is actually pretty classically-inclined as well, with names like Pleasant Colony, Broken Vow, Unbridled, Tour d’Or and Cormorant. And, interestingly, the only inbreeding for the foal from this mating will be 4×5 to Secretariat.
Physically, Long River and Intrepid Forest should blend nicely as well, given that both have plenty of size and scope, and a good deal of leg.
Long River wins the G1 Al Maktoum Challenge Round 3
Long River wins the Evening Attire Stakes
Turbulent Descent, by a son of A.P. Indy out of a Forestry mare, wins the G1 Test