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The precocious, versatile and well-bred Scat Daddy son Flameaway was one of the most popular incoming stallions of 2020, and we are excited to send Miss Charlotte his way this year.
Flameaway proved an especially gutsy horse on the track, winning from 2YO to 4YO, on dirt (fast and sloppy), turf and all-weather, from 4-1/2 furlongs to 1-1/16 miles, and often in front-running, stretch-battling style. Originally a $150,000 short yearling purchase, Flameaway was subsequently pinhooked for $400,000 at Saratoga. He broke his maiden first-time out in May of his 2YO year for trainer Mark Casse, then was a stakes winner at Saratoga and won Keeneland’s Grade 3 Bourbon Stakes by a nose despite a 3-wide trip in the slop later in his juvenile season.
Flameaway’s first start as a 3YO was a win in the grassy Kitten’s Joy Stakes (“battled every step, game” was the chart comment) before he out-gunned future Grade 1 winners Catholic Boy and Vino Rosso to take the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis on dirt (“pressured, headed, game”). He was then 2nd in the Tampa Bay Derby-G2 and the Blue Grass-G2 prior to attempting the Kentucky Derby-G1. Later in the year he was 2nd in the Jim Dandy-G2, and at 4YO he returned to be 3rd in the Mineshaft-G3 and win the Challenger Stakes at Tampa (“determinedly”).
Flameaway’s sire, Scat Daddy, ascended to the top of the stallion heap prior to his untimely death, and his sons are now at a premium after the early success of the likes of No Nay Never, as witnessed by the fact that Justify and Mendelssohn have been at the top of the list of mares bred since their retirements in 2019, and Flameaway himself covered 183 mares last spring in his first season at stud.
The match of Miss Charlotte with Flameaway is good for a B+ on TrueNicks, as there are no fewer than 10 G1 winners by Scat Daddy or his sons out of mares by Mr. Prospector-line stallions, and there is at least one stakes winner by Scat Daddy’s sire Johannesburg out of a mare by Two Punch himself.
This Storm Cat sire-line is a cross that has also worked repeatedly for Miss Charlotte’s female family. Miss Charlotte is herself a half-sister to a good winner by Tale of the Cat (who is very closely related to Johannesburg), and her stakes-winning dam is a half-sister to a four-time stakes winner by another Storm Cat son in Forestry, while another half-sister is the dam of a multiple grade 3 winner by the Storm Cat grandson Eskendereya, and Tale of the Cat’s grade 1-winning daughter My Trusty Cat appears under Miss Charlotte’s third dam.
In addition to these positive pedigree points, this is a great physical matchup as well — Flameaway is an incredibly well-balanced, medium-sized horse, and could “tidy up” the slightly larger and bulkier Miss Charlotte, while her sprinting victories will pair very nicely with his own natural speed.
Flameaway wins the G3 Sam F. Davis over Catholic Boy and Vino Rosso
Flameaway wins the G3 Bourbon Stakes