Housatonic Meanderings — Overbrook Influence Continues Over Time

Though this past weekend featured a unique edition of the classic Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park while Pimlico undergoes renovations, the credentials of that field (winner Napoleon Solo was the only prior G1 winner among the entries, as Golden Tempo became the second straight healthy Kentucky Derby winner to skip the Middle Jewel) left us a bit underwhelmed. And while we are fans of Napoleon Solo’s sire Liam’s Map (who was also responsible for Saturday’s G3 Louisville Stakes winner Burnham Square, with both those big race winners having been produced from Scat Daddy daughters), there was another first-time stakes winner that jumped out at us as a much more interesting topic for this blog post.

The 4YO filly Lost Horizon became the 198th Northern Hemisphere black-type winner for Spendthrift Farm’s seven-time reigning Champion Sire Into Mischief with her victory in the Serena’s Song Stakes at Monmouth Park. And while that alone is not particularly noteworthy, a look at her female family gave us pleasant flashbacks to our early days as a racing fan when we were big fans of D. Wayne Lukas and the Overbrook Farm homebreds that he trained. That’s because Lost Horizon’s second, third, fourth and fifth dams were all produced from Overbrook matings — though the most recent generations of the family have plied their trade in Chile.

Lost Horizon is the second foal and first winner out of the Chilean Horse of the Year Wow Cat (CHI). Sired by Preakness winner and dual champion Lookin At Lucky (a better stallion in the Southern Hemisphere where he shuttled than he was at Ashford Stud in the Northern Hemisphere where he was originally based), Wow Cat (CHI) was an undefeated, multiple G1 winner and champion from eight Southern Hemisphere starts at 2 and 3YO. She was then acquired in part by Peter Brant and shipped north to the barn of trainer Chad Brown. Wow Cat (CHI) made eight more starts at 4 and 5YO for Brown, and though she scored only one Northern Hemisphere victory, it came in the G1 Beldame Stakes. She also finished 2nd in four additional graded stakes here, topped by the G1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff, and she was 3rd in the G1 Personal Ensign — so Wow Cat (CHI) clearly belonged at the top table in the States, even if she wasn’t dominant here like she had been in Chile.

Winter Cat (CHI) (Lost Horizon’s second dam) won four of her 11 starts at 2 and 3YO, and was even more successful in the breeding shed: all ten of her foals to race are winners. Although Wow Cat (CHI) is by far her best, a full-brother named Winwin (CHI) won five races and was 2nd in a local G1, while an earlier Scat Daddy son named Daddy’s Cat (CHI) also earned black-type.1

Winter Harbor (Lost Horizon’s third dam), meanwhile, produced ten foals in addition to Winter Cat (CHI), and all of them were winners on the track. There would have been little indication of this potential as a producer from her two-for-18 record on the track for Overbrook and Lukas, especially as both of her wins came when in for a $25,000 claiming tag. But her 11 winning offspring include the black-type placed Winy (CHI) (by Lookin At Lucky) and Winter Again (CHI) (by Saddad, and 3rd in a local G3), as well as black-type winners Lucky Winter (CHI) (by Lookin At Lucky) and Bay Harbor (CHI) (by Scat Daddy, who also placed in a G2 and a G3). Bay Harbor (CHI) — who shares her name with her broodmare sire’s half-sister, a daughter of Forty Niner campaigned by Overbrook and Lukas who gave jockey Pat Day his 7,000th career victory in 1997 — has also been a success at stud, as her six foals are all winners and include the G3 winner Bahia Perdida (CHI) (by Tiz the Law, another Ashford shuttler), plus the G1-placed Lucky Bay (CHI) (by Lookin At Lucky, and who is, in turn, the dam of G2-placed black-type winner Luckiness (CHI) (by Practical Joke, yet another Ashford shuttler)).

As you’ll note from the country suffixes (and lack thereof) above, Wow Cat (CHI) and her dam were born in Chile, but Winter Cat (CHI) (again, Lost Horizon’s second dam) was actually conceived at Overbrook from a mating between Cat Thief and Winter Harbor, a daughter of Boston Harbor. Winter Harbor was subsequently sold to Chilean connections at the 2004 Keeneland November Sale for $52,000 while carrying her first foal, which would become Winter Cat (CHI).

Cat Thief, Boston Harbor and Winter Harbor were all Overbrook homebreds trained by Lukas, and Cat Thief and Boston Harbor were among the best racing colts produced by W.T. Young’s operation.

Boston Harbor, a foal of 1994, was a son of the Lukas-trained Capote, and the first foal out of the black-type winner Harbor Springs. A half-million dollar yearling purchase by Lukas, Harbor Springs was a Vice Regent half-sister to the Eclipse Champion Sprinter Groovy. She won six of her nine starts as a 3YO for Overbrook and Lukas, and picked up black-type with a 2nd in Turfway’s Holiday Inaugural Stakes. She made two starts at 4YO in the sole ownership of Overbrook (still trained by Lukas), and won the Wishing Well Stakes at Turfway by five lengths before heading to the breeding shed off a 5th-place finish in Oaklawn’s American Beauty Stakes.

As mentioned, Boston Harbor was her first foal, and he showed significantly more precocity than either of his parents. Harbor Springs did not reach the races until April of her 3YO season, and Capote made his first start in September of his 2YO season, when he finished 11th (though his three wins thereafter included a pair of G1s that earned him the juvenile Eclipse Championship). Boston Harbor, meanwhile, was sent postward by Lukas at Churchill Downs as early as May 25th, and went wire-to-wire to romp by five lengths in a 2YO maiden special weight over five furlongs. He returned a month later to set a new stakes record with a four-length win in Churchill’s G3 Bashford Manor at six furlongs, stalking the early pace before outrunning his stablemate Prairie Junction to the wire.

Lukas then sent Boston Harbor to Saratoga where he was a distant 2nd to Kelly Kip in the G3 Sanford, before he returned to Kentucky to run in the Ellis Park Juvenile over seven furlongs. He again went wire-to-wire, this time by a widening six lengths as the odds-on favorite, and repeated that performance three weeks later in the G3 Kentucky Cup Juvenile at Turfway Park, drawing clear by seven lengths over a mile-and-a-sixteenth.

Those two wins, combined with his earlier score in the Bashford Manor, set Boston Harbor up to be eligible for a $1 million bonus if he could win the G2 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland — meaning he’d have won a stakes at each of Kentucky’s four Thoroughbred tracks. Boston Harbor duly complied2, though his half-length win was not nearly as impressive as his previous victories had been. Still, he showed plenty of courage to fight back after having been headed, and he went to that year’s G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Woodbine in Canada as the clear second choice behind G1 Champagne winner Ordway.

In the Breeders’ Cup, Boston Harbor — notwithstanding that his most recent effort seemed to suggest that he might have distant limitations — was sent straight to the front yet again by jockey Jerry Bailey, and allowed to cruise through solid fractions on the explicit instructions of Lukas, who felt that the colt had resented being asked to slow down early at Keeneland. Boston Harbor and Bailey opened up a clear lead around the final turn at Woodbine, and had enough left in the tank to hold on by a neck at the wire.

The Breeders’ Cup victory clinched the Eclipse Award as top 2YO for Boston Harbor, and his season earnings of $1,928,605 set a new record, surpassing the total taken home by Mountain Cat the year that he’d earned that $1 million bonus.

Boston Harbor would race just once more thereafter, finishing a well-beaten 4th in the G3 Santa Catalina Stakes the following February. He then came out of a workout with an injury and was retired to stud at Overbrook. He stood four seasons in Kentucky before his sale to Japan, and is credited with twenty black-type winners, led by G1 winner Healthy Addiction.

While Boston Harbor demonstrates the win-early tactics favored by Lukas and Overbrook, Cat Thief’s career epitomized another of Lukas’s most noteworthy characteristics: his willingness to run horses often and everywhere, even off of subpar efforts.

A son of Overbrook’s homebred multiple leading sire Storm Cat, Cat Thief came by his toughness honestly, as his dam — the Alydar mare Train Robbery — raced 44 times in a four-year career for Overbrook and Lukas, winning eight races and placing in 16 more. Train Robbery had been a $600,000 yearling purchase by Lukas and went on to earn $622,128 at the track, with her victories including the G3 Monmouth Park Budweiser Breeders’ Cup Handicap and the G3 Honeybee Stakes. She also placed in seven graded stakes, including the G1 John A. Morris Handicap and the G1 Go For Wand Stakes. Train Robbery, in turn, was a daughter of the Eclipse Champion Older Mare Track Robbery, who had started 58 times from 2YO through 6YO (she ran once more at 7YO) and won 22 races, with 19 more placings to her credit.

Cat Thief was the second foal from Train Robbery, following his black-type placed full-sister Catcher. He actually debuted even earlier than Boston Harbor had, facing the starter for the first time going four-and-a-half furlongs at Keeneland on April 22nd of his juvenile season — though he finished 6th that day as the favorite. Lukas brought Cat Thief back out in July at Ellis where he was 2nd, before he broke his maiden going six furlongs at Saratoga in early August. He then finished 2nd behind future G1 winner Menifee in a Saratoga allowance (with future Eclipse Champion Lemon Drop Kid in 3rd) three weeks later, and 2nd to future graded winner Successful Appeal in a Belmont allowance in September. Cat Thief made his stakes debut in the G2 Breeders’ Futurity, where he upset the year’s eventual Eclipse Champion Answer Lively and G1 winner Yes It’s True with a gutsy neck victory. He finished his seven-race juvenile campaign with a 3rd-place finish, beaten less than a length, in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

Cat Thief returned to make 13 starts as a 3YO, beginning with a 3rd in the G2 Hutcheson, a 2nd in the G1 Fountain of Youth, a 3rd in the G1 Florida Derby, a 2nd in the G1 Blue Grass, and then a 3rd to his Lukas-trained stablemate Charismatic in the G1 Kentucky Derby. Cat Thief finished off-the-board for the first time since his debut when 7th in the G1 Preakness, and then he was 6th in the G1 Met Mile against older horses just two more weeks after that.

Lukas gave Cat Thief six weeks off after those two poor performances, and he responded with a victory over General Challenge in the G1 Swaps Stakes in California. Back to New Jersey for the G1 Haskell, Cat Thief was a close 2nd to Menifee before finishing 7th in the G1 Travers. A disappointing 3rd against older as the heavy favorite in the G2 Kentucky Cup Classic next time out set Cat Thief up for the biggest victory of his career in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic, held that year at Gulfstream Park in Florida.

The Breeders’ Cup wouldn’t end Cat Thief’s sophomore season, though, as Lukas sent him back to California for the G1 Malibu the day after Christmas, in which Cat Thief was 3rd.

He ran ten more times as a 4YO, and though he did not win again, Cat Thief did finish 2nd or 3rd in the G1 Whitney, the G1 Oaklawn Handicap, and the G2 San Fernando, G2 San Antonio, and G2 Stephen Foster, retiring with a career record of (30) 4-9-8, for $3.9 million in earnings. He then joined his sire and Boston Harbor at stud at Overbrook, before being moved to Pennsylvania and later to Saudi Arabia. He is credited with having sired just 15 stakes winners, but is the broodmare sire of Eclipse Champion Classic Empire in addition to Wow Cat (CHI).

Bringing it back to Lost Horizon, her third dam, Winter Harbor, was out of the unraced mare Plateau. Plateau (Lost Horizon’s fourth dam) was a “full-sister in-blood” to the Overbrook homebred Eclipse Champion Flanders. That is to say, both Plateau and Flanders were sired by Seeking the Gold and their dams — Storm Star (Lost Horizon’s fifth dam) and Starlet Storm, respectively — were full-sisters, sired by Storm Bird and out of the Secretariat mare Cinegita.

Cinegita (Lost Horizon’s sixth dam), who won the G3 Railbird Stakes during her racing career, was one of three mares in whom W.T. Young purchased half-interests from Dr. William Lockridge upon their retirements, along with Three Troikas and Terlingua.3 Lockridge was in the process of building Ashford Stud, but ran into financial difficulties which resulted in Young buying him out of Cinegita (while she was pregnant with Storm Star) and Terlingua (while she was pregnant with Storm Cat).4

Plateau did not race, but Storm Star raced in England for Young, where she won half of her four starts, all as a 2YO, including the G3 Cherry Hinton Stakes. Her four-years-younger full-sister Starlet Storm, meanwhile, raced just twice, both at 3YO, winning both times for Overbrook and Lukas.

Storm Star’s other offspring included the G3 winner Dodge and black-type winner Captain Starbuck, but her branch of this family has not been overly productive through the generations — though Puerto Rican champion and U.S. G2 winner My Wandy’s Girl and her G3-winning son My Prankster trace back to Storm Star, among a handful of other black-type winners (and, of course, Wow Cat (CHI)).

Starlet Storm’s branch of the family has been significantly more productive than her sister’s. Though she herself only produced the one black-type winner in Flanders, Flanders then produced Eclipse Champion Surfside and G2 winner Battle Plan. Surfside is the dam of G3 winner Irish Surf and the granddam of G3 winner High Celebrity (FR) and G1 winner Ziilzaal (SAF). Another of Flanders’s daughters produced G2 winner Open Water and is the granddam of G2 winner Boecio (ARG). Meanwhile, Flanders’s full-sister Circle of Gold is the granddam of European Champion 2YO Air Force Blue, and G3 winner Trophy Chaser via a different daughter.5 There are numerous non-graded black-type winners tracing back to Starlet Storm, as well.

That Lost Horizon scored her first black-type victory in the Serena’s Song Stakes and comes from the same female family as Flanders provides an interesting, “full circle” type moment in that the most iconic win of Flanders’s racing career — and one of the most memorable races in the history of the Breeders’ Cup — came when she defeated her Lukas-trained stablemate Serena’s Song in the 1994 Juvenile Fillies.

And we should also note that — just as Lost Horizon traces in tail-female to a family cultivated for several generations by Overbrook Farm from one of its original broodmare purchases — so too does Lost Horizon’s sire Into Mischief trace in tail-male to the Overbrook product Storm Cat, who was foaled the same year as Storm Star out of another of those original broodmare purchases.

Thus does Lost Horizon demonstrate the enduring influence of Overbrook Farm on both the top and bottom halves of her pedigree, more than 20 years on from the death of W.T. Young and more than 40 years after he first obtained those bloodlines.