|
|
|
As an undefeated, multiple graded stakes-winning 2YO by one of the leading stallions in the country in Quality Road, and from a top class female family developed by longtime home breeder Ned Evans, Blofeld is a young Mid-Atlantic based stallion that we believe has a chance to be a star. We are excited to recommend a product of Ned Evans’ father’s breeding program to visit him in 2021 in Seville’s Princess.
Blofeld broke his maiden first-time out going 5 furlongs at Saratoga as a well-bet 2-year-old with a big reputation, before stepping straight into graded stakes company. He overcame a troubled trip to get up gamely in the Grade 2 Futurity at Belmont in his second start going 6 furlongs (and earning a 94 Beyer), and then stretched out to a mile and romped by five lengths in the Grade 2 Nashua at Aqueduct (with a 93 Beyer), closing out his juvenile campaign three-for-three. Blofeld started twice at 3, including a 3rd-place finish in the William Walker Stakes, and at 4 he returned to his best form to triumph in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap going a mile over the likes of Stanford and Anchor Down, with a career top 103 Beyer. He retired with four wins from 14 starts, and $745,420 in earnings. A $135,000 weanling and then $275,000 yearling from the first crop of his sire (who sired a pair of 2017 Eclipse Award winners plus five individual Grade 1 winners in 2018, and will stand for a live foal fee of $150,000 again in 2021), Blofeld is from carefully-cultivated Ned Evans families on both the top and bottom sides of his pedigree (he shares a fourth dam with the 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner, and also has Horse of the Year Saint Liam in his female family). His first 2YOs will run in 2021.
Seville’s Princess, meanwhile, comes from the hugely productive female family of Dance Review, who was bred by Ned Evans’s father Thomas Mellon Evans (Buckland Farms). A daughter or Northern Dancer and the Reviewer mare Dumfries, Dance Review was a 3/4-sister to the multiple G1-winning runner and champion sire Lyphard, and although she won just two races and $40,125 on the track herself, she proved a Blue Hen producer in the breeding shed. Dance Review’s 13 winning offspring included Grade 1 winners Another Review and No Review (she the dam of stakes winner Smashing Review, by Pleasant Tap), multiple G2-winning 2YO Dance Colony (by Pleasant Colony, and the dam of two graded-placed runners and granddam of graded winner Blueskiesnrainbows plus two more stakes winners), stakes-placed Pleasant Review (by Pleasant Tap, and the dam of G2 winner Sparkling Review), stakes-placed Colonial Review (by Pleasant Colony, and the dam of a stakes-placed winner and granddam of a stakes winner), plus winners Promenade Colony (by Pleasant Colony, and the dam of — among others — Grade 2 winner Promenade Girl, she in turn the dam of Grade 1 winner Cavorting, who is the dam of 2021 Grade 2 winner Clairiere) and Ballet Colony (by Pleasant Colony, and the dam of a Grade 1-placed winner).
We highlight all of these good runners and producers by Pleasant Colony and his son Pleasant Tap because — in addition to showing just how deep and classy Seville’s Princess’s family is — her own stakes-placed dam, Rap and Dance, is by Pleasant Tap, and Blofeld’s second dam is a daughter of Pleasant Colony. That means the foal from this mating will be inbred 4×4 to the 1981 Kentucky Derby winner (a pattern responsible for Eclipse Champion British Idiom so far from just under 100 foals of racing age). Blofeld himself already has the full-brothers His Majesty (sire of Pleasant Colony) and Graustark in his pedigree, as well as a third cross of their dam Flower Bowl through her daughter Bowl of Flowers, who appears in the pedigree of Quality Road’s broodmare sire Strawberry Road. These duplications are reinforced thanks to the appearance of Pleasant Tap in Seville’s Princess’s pedigree, as are the two strains of Grey Flight, who appears in Blofeld’s pedigree through her grandson Sunrise Flight (broodmare sire of Pleasant Colony) and her son Misty Flight (sire of Blofeld’s 4th dam). We also like that Nijinsky shows up again in Seville’s Princess’s pedigree, as he does in Blofeld’s pedigree in conjunction with his close relatives The Minstrel and Storm Bird.
Looking a little closer-up, this match does not rate highly in TrueNicks at the moment, though the Elusive Quality/Sadler’s Wells cross has produced the Group 1 winner Royal Marine. But we believe that it very much worth noting that Quality Road sired a $1.5 million yearling filly in 2020 out of a Galileo mare named Marvellous, and that filly is now in Ballydoyle with Aidan O’Brien for Peter Brant and the Coolmore partners. Marvellous is one of two G1-winning Galileo mares (and one of three Galileo mares overall) that Coolmore sent to Quality Road that year, and they sent a further 6 Galileo mares to him in 2019 that will be yearlings of 2021 — so we believe that this nick is poised to rate a lot more highly sooner rather than later (Seville’s Princess being by Seville, a Group 1-winning son of Galileo).
In addition to the inbreeding and line breeding identified above, Blofeld happens to be out of a Storm Cat dam, and Seville’s Princess is a half-sister to a stakes winner by Storm Cat’s son Tale of the Cat, plus 3 other winners by Storm Cat-line stallions, which bodes well for this mating.
Finally, we love this pairing on physical considerations as well — both Blofeld and Seville’s Princess are strapping, impressive individuals with lots of leg and scope, and we expect them to produce a foal that is just as physically imposing, and hopefully one that runs to its looks!
Quality Road filly from a Galileo mare brings $1.5 million as a yearling in 2020
Blofeld wins the G2 Futurity
Blofeld wins the G2 Nashua
Blofeld wins the G2 Gulfstream Park Handicap