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If you’ve been reading our blog then you know how highly we think of Blofeld by now. With three crops totaling 74 foals so far of racing age, he has 48 winners from 56 to race, including 5 black-type winners (6.8% to foals, 9.0% to runners) and another 6 black-type placed offspring (for a total of 14.9% black-type earners/foals, and an astronomical 19.6% black-type earners/runners). His average starter earns north of $88,000 and his runners’ median earnings sits at over $66,000. He sports a fantastic 1.47 AEI/1.12 CI ratio – meaning he’s achieving these stats without significant help from his mates. After his son Johnyz From Albany and daughter Chickieness swept the 2022 Maryland Million 2YO races, Blofeld picked up back-to-back winners of the Maryland Million Lassie when Miss Harriett scored a gutsy win in that race in ‘23, and then most recently his first-crop daughter Charming Way took the open company Nellie Morse Stakes going 1-1/16 miles as a 5YO. Off the strength of these racetrack results, Blofeld has covered more mares than any stallion in the state for the last two years.
These stats are even more impressive than they were a year ago at this time when we decided to send Wowwhatabrat to him, and given his continued success, we see no reason to second-guess that decision and will duplicate the pairing in 2024.
Blofeld makes a fascinating match for the black-type placed, $300k earner Wowwhatabrat because his 2nd dam Colonial Minstrel has Rasmussen Factor inbreeding 5×4 (sex-balanced) to the Blue Hen Wheatley Stable mare Grey Flight via that one’s champion and Broodmare of the Year daughter Misty Morn (whose son Sunrise Flight is the broodmare sire of Pleasant Colony), and Misty Morn’s full-brother Misty Flight (the broodmare sire of G1W and champion 2YO Minstrella). Meanwhile, Wowwhatabrat’s sire Louis Quatorze is inbred 2×3 to the 3/4-siblings Bold Princess (dam of his sire Sovereign Dancer) and champion Bold Lad (sire of his broodmare sire On to Glory), the former by Bold Ruler out of Grey Flight, and the latter by Bold Ruler out of Misty Morn — so Louis Quatorze has Rasmussen Factor inbreeding to Grey Flight 3×5. This means that every foal from this match will have Misty Morn 7×6, and Grey Flight 8x7x5x7.
Given that Louis Quatorze stood at Murmur for years before Blofeld’s arrival, it’s not surprising that there are several of the former’s daughters that have been bred to the latter. So far, from six foals of racing age bred on this specific cross, there are five runners and all five are winners, including a trio of winners (two of those being six-figure earners, and two of them being winners again already in ‘24) by Blofeld and out of Wowwhatabrat’s less-accomplished full-sister Missy Kim.
Physically this remains an excellent match, as Blofeld and Wowwhatabrat are very similar specimens: both are tall, long-bodied and leggy horses with long necks and the same shoulder angle, and we think that bodes very well for their chances of producing a top class runner together!