|
|
|
After a series of matings which were designed to replicate the one that produced Wild For Love’s stakes-winning son Local Motive (by a son of Tapit), in 2024 she will return to a sire-line with which she’s also had (repeated) success when she visits the brilliant and popular second-year stallion Nashville.
Nashville is a son of the Champion Sprinter and leading sire Speightstown, who has also established himself as a sire-of-sires through the exploits of his sons Munnings and Central Banker (with Charlatan and Olympiad starting off at strong stud fees recently, too). Whereas Speightstown’s offspring have run the gamut from 2YO through older horses, on turf and dirt, sprinting and going the classic American distance of 10 furlongs, Nashville followed in his sire’s footsteps and excelled exclusively as a dirt sprinter. He won his first 3 races by open margins, including the Perryville Stakes at Keeneland on the Breeders’ Cup undercard in which his final time of 1:07.89 was a new track record, and significantly faster than Whitmore ran in winning the G1 BC Sprint later in the day. Nashville’s wicked sprinting speed was somewhat surprising given that he’s out of a mare by Mizzen Mast (a G1W at 7 furlongs, but also as far as 10 furlongs) and whose own dam is a full-sister to Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo — but we think that bodes well for his chances of being a versatile sire, much in the mold of Speightstown.
A $460k yearling purchase by the team at WinStar, who has to be one of the best-looking stallions in Kentucky, we clearly aren’t the only ones enamored with Nashville given that he covered 204 mares during his first season at stud in ‘23, and the buzz continues to build as he approaches his second year in the breeding shed.
As mentioned above, Nashville is a son of Speightstown out of a daughter of Mizzen Mast, which makes him very similarly-bred to one-time Maryland sire Despite the Odds (by Speightstown out of a mare by Mizzen Mast’s sire Cozzene), whose daughter from Wild For Love was the $228k-earner Unrequited Love. Wild For Love has also produced the 2023 winner Whatta Notion by Great Notion, a grandson of Gone West just like Nashville. And though the TrueNicks algorithm doesn’t like this cross, when looking specifically at Gone West-line stallions mated to Not For Love mares, there have been five black-type winners from just 105 runners, which is not a bad strike-rate (especially given the regionality of many of the runners included in the numbers).
There are some additional pedigree patterns that make us think Nashville could be an even more successful cross for Wild For Love than those earlier attempts with Despite the Odds and Great Notion. These center around the buildup of some prolific Tartan Farms lines that come through Holy Bull, the sire of Nashville’s second dam Styler, and Pentelicus, the sire of Wild For Love’s second dam Hair Spray.
Horse of the Year Holy Bull is a son of Great Above, whose paternal grandsire is Rough’n Tumble while his dam, Ta Wee, is by Intentionally out of Aspidistra. Pentelicus, meanwhile, is by Fappiano, whose broodmare sire is Dr. Fager (by Rough’n Tumble out of Aspidistra), and out of Charedi, a daughter of In Reality (by Intentionally out of a daughter of Rough’n Tumble) and Magic (who is out of Aspidistra). Tartan’s breeding program was typified by fairly heavy inbreeding, and the names above are no exceptions — so by line-breeding to them in this mating, hopefully we can tap into some of their success.
Physically, Nashville and Wild For Love are both medium-sized, well-made horses who make a good case of like-to-like, and we’re excited to see what they produce in 2025, and what it can do on the track further down the road!