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Because he stands in Florida, we haven’t had much chance to recommend Bucchero to clients yet, but that does not mean that we haven’t identified him as a young stallion to watch — and in fact we are publicly on record as believers in his chances of making it as a stallion (you can read our blog piece on Bucchero from a few months ago here). With the recent acquisition of the Florida-based broodmare So Dear, we are now in a position to put our money where our mouth is, and So Dear will visit Bucchero this spring after she delivers her first foal by Wagon Limit at T-Square Stud.
While Bucchero came to prominence as an older turf sprinter (with back-to-back wins in the G2 Woodford at Keeneland as a 5YO and 6YO), he actually finished 2nd in a stakes in his 2YO debut then broke his maiden sprinting on dirt in his second juvenile start, and was also a multiple stakes winner going two turns on the dirt. Retired to Pleasant Acres in Florida for the 2019 breeding season, his first foals are yearlings this year, and he covered 291 mares in his first two years at stud. His first handful of short yearlings have sold very strongly, and thanks to the efforts of the team behind Bucchero there are photos of plenty of his foals out there for potential breeders to see — from which our own impression is that many have significantly more scope to them than one would expect for a turf sprinter (which again, is not all that Bucchero was).
While Bucchero represents a very fast, very versatile sire-line (his sire Kantharos having been “promoted” from Florida to Kentucky in time to sire his crop of 2021 3YOs), it is not one that has been crossed very often with stallions from the line of So Dear’s sire Fury Kapcori (by Tiznow, and himself too early in his stud career to have any record as a broodmare sire, no matter the covering stallion). Because of this, TrueNicks offers a “No Rating” for this mating. However, there are 7 winners from 7 runners on this un-rated cross of Lion Heart-line stallions over Cee’s Tizzy-line mares, including 2 by Kantharos out of Tiznow mares, and 2 more by Kantharos out of mares by a son of Tiznow. So that’s much more promising than “No Rating” alone would indicate. And eNicks actually gives this mating an “A” by analyzing the Lion Heart/Relaunch cross (so another level back on the broodmare sire-line side), which produced Kantharos’s stakes winner Jackson (out of a mare by the Relaunch grandson Put It Back) and another stakes winner by Lion Heart’s Florida-based son Uncaptured out of another Put It Back mare.
So Dear also happens to be a half to a winner by the Storm Cat grandson First Samurai, with a stakes winner by the Storm Cat son Heart of the Storm under her second dam, so her female family has had some success with Bucchero’s sire-line, too.
Beyond the “nicks”, there is actually plenty in this mating that makes it similar to that which produced Silver Wagon (discussed in the afore-cited post about So Dear’s mating with Wagon Limit), if one delves more deeply into the pedigree in the style of Edwin Anthony as set forth in his “The American Thoroughbred, Volume I”. Anthony attributes the success of Silver Wagon to, among other things, reinforcement in his pedigree of the Blue Hen mare Lavendula via Ambiorix (sex-balanced) and Turn-To (who appears sex-balanced in the pedigree of Silver Wagon’s sire Wagon Limit, by Conquistador Cielo).
Well, this Bucchero/So Dear mating not only has seven instances of Turn-To (five through his son Hail To Reason, another through his son First Landing, then one through his daughter Tammy’s Turn, making it sex-balanced), plus two instances of Ambiorix (sex-balanced), but also brings in My Babu, whose dam is a daughter of Lavendula, too — a trio that Anthony finds combine very successfully in pedigrees because of this reinforcement of Lavendula’s genes (particularly Turn-To and My Babu, given that they also share Mumtaz Mahal in common via Turn-To’s sire Royal Charger and My Babu’s broodmare sire Badruddin).
The Bucchero/So Dear foal will also have multiple crosses of Mr. Prospector to go along with the appearance of Darn That Alarm as So Dear’s broodmare sire, and they “both carry Native Dancer, Case Ace and Count Fleet in a concentrated format,” which Anthony found noteworthy in Silver Wagon’s pedigree (where Mr. P popped up just once, as opposed to three times here, xyy).
Another accumulation highlighted by Edwin Anthony that will feature in this foal’s pedigree is that of the successful pairing of Rough ‘N Tumble and Intentionally (interestingly, given that So Dear’s female family has spent several generations in Florida, this is not something that this foal will share with Silver Wagon, whose pedigree contains neither or those names). Bucchero’s pedigree features Great Above as the sire of his 3rd dam, and Great Above is a son of Minnesota Mac (by Rough ‘N Tumble) out of Ta Wee, by Intentionally (noteworthy, also, is the fact that Minnesota Mac appears elsewhere in Bucchero’s pedigree through a daughter). Meanwhile, So Dear’s sire, Fury Kapcori, features the sex-balanced presence of In Reality, who is by Intentionally out of a Rough ‘N Tumble mare. That means that Rough ‘N Tumble shows up xxyy and Intentionally shows up xyy in this foal.
All of which, we hope, will help to produce a successful runner by a sire we think has a big shot at success.
Bucchero repeats in the G2 Woodford at Keeneland
Bucchero wins his first G2 Woodford at Keeneland
Bucchero wins the two-turn To Much Coffee Stakes on dirt
Bucchero wins the Brickyard Stakes on dirt