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Regular readers of these write-ups will remember that we have been big fans of Airdrie’s veteran stallion Include for some time, and we are excited to have been able to recommend that I’m Engaged visit him in 2020.
Include’s appeal as a mate for I’m Engaged is, firstly, that at his advertised fee of $7,500, he offers incredible value for the number of stakes winners that he’s produced (43, good for 6% of his foals aged 3 and up), which includes five Northern Hemisphere G1 winners and another five G1 winners in Argentina (also worth noting that nine of those G1 winners are fillies, and so far all of I’m Engaged’s foals have been fillies). He also sports a 1.47 AEI compared to a 1.33 CI, meaning that he moves his mares up, too, and he happened to be a heck of a racehorse as well: a homebred Maryland product by 1994’s leading sire, Broad Brush, who was also bred by and raced for Robert Meyerhoff, Include was stakes winner at 3, a Grade 1 winner of the Pimlico Special and four other stakes at 4, and a stakes winner at 5. In total, he won ten of twenty starts, including seven stakes, for earnings of $1,659,560. He put up thirteen triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures, including back-to-back performances of 117 as a 4-year-old.
As he is getting on in age (he’ll be 23 in 2020), Include’s future availability is not guaranteed, though he still looked the part when we check in on him a couple of weeks ago. And with the chances that I’m Engaged has had in the past few seasons, her own produce record is what will make or break her commercial prospects by the time this foal reaches a sale, so with Include’s consistency and the respect that he commands he is a relatively low-risk option who offers the promise of years of future breeder bonuses, even if he doesn’t have quite the same commercial upside as a first-year sire might.
He has also already sired the Grade 2 winner Open Water from I’m Engaged’s female family, which is something that we always like to see. And for us, that’s more important than the “D” nick rating for this matchup, especially since the nick is based on just 35 foals, only two of which are actually by Include out of Broken Vow mares. The rated nick has produced the very classy Grade 3 winner Victress, plus 21 other winners from 29 other foals to race — not bad statistics from a very small sample. Not to mention that Include’s Grade 1 winner Her Smile has a second dam by Fappiano (grandsire of Broken Vow).
There is more to like about this matchup when you delve a little more deeply into the pedigrees and notice that I’m Engaged is out of a Private Account dam — he being the broodmare sire of Include’s Grade 1 winner Panty Raid and her Grade 2-winning, Grade 1-placed full-sister St. John’s River. And Private Account’s sire, Damascus, appears as the sire of the second dam of an Argentinian G2 winner by Include.
Include and I’m Engaged’s sire Broken Vow (who actually competed against each other a couple of times as 4YOs back in 2001) also happen to have very similar average winning distances (AWD) for their foals, at 7.29 and 7.26, respectively — both very high relatively speaking, and an indication of their classic-type influence. So this mating should work on proclivities as well, while physically, Include is a good-sized, stout individual that ought to add a little bulk to the foal of the slightly feminine I’m Engaged.
Open Water, by Include from the family of I’m Engaged, wins the G2 Marjorie Everett
Include wins the G1 Pimlico Special
Include wins the G2 Mass Cap
Include’s daughter Panty Raid wins the G1 Spinster