In addition to trying to find the right blend of pedigrees, an important consideration in mating planning is trying to find a stallion that might compensate for a mare’s shortcomings. In sending Wand Work to first-year stallion Casa Creed for 2025, we’ll not only get a great pedigree matchup, but a great balance of physical characteristics and racing proclivities as well.
An ultra-consistent and versatile runner with a throwback physique, the multiple Grade 1 winner Casa Creed was a winner going 7 furlongs on dirt at Saratoga as a 2YO. He then switched to the turf for his 3YO debut and became a black-type winner that day in Gulfstream’s Kitten’s Joy Stakes. He added his first graded victory at Saratoga that summer when taking the Grade 2 Hall of Fame, and picked up a Grade 1 placing in the Fourstardave Stakes at the Spa at 4YO. At 5YO he scored in the Grade 1 Jaipur sprinting 6 furlongs over Belmont’s turf course, earning a 105 Beyer Speed Figure, and he repeated that performance as a 6YO (104 BSF that year).
Following his second Jaipur victory, Casa Creed made it two straight when stretched out to a mile for that year’s Grade 1 Fourstardave (another 104 BSF). Returned to the races at 7YO, Casa Creed was 3rd in the Grade 1 Jaipur, triumphed in the Grade 3 Kelso, and went back-to-back in the Grade 1 Fourstardave (102 BSF). He matched his career top Beyer of 105 when 3rd, beaten just a half-length for the win, in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile that fall. After racing twice at 8YO, Casa Creed was retired with an anachronistic career line of (36) 9-5-6, for $2.6 million in career earnings.
That consistency, durability and toughness will stand him in good stead at Mill Ridge, where he follows in the footprints of the equally turfy Oscar Performance. It is also what makes him an excellent match for the unraced Wand Work — hopefully those proven traits of his can compensate for her lack of racetrack performance. Similarly, Casa Creed is a tall, scopey, rangy horse who resembles the tough old campaigners of yesteryear in more ways than one, and that will again hopefully balance out the more petite build that Wand Work brings to the pairing.
This mating also works on pedigree, not just on physical. Specifically, Wand Work is a half-sister to the the 2023 black-type 2YO and 2024 winner Hedwig (by Maclean’s Music), who has now earned well over $200k. Her black-type placed dam, Mrs. Norris, also has another colt by Maclean’s Music in the Godolphin pipeline that will hopefully race in 2025. Maclean’s Music (to whom Wand Work is pregnant with her first foal) is a son of Distorted Humor, as is Casa Creed’s own sire, Jimmy Creed. So this sire-line has already worked with the female family, and TrueNicks rates the match a “C+” on the basis of three graded winners by Distorted Humor-line sires out of Indian Charlie-line mares, including 2024 2YO graded winner Mo Plex, by a Distorted Humor grandson (like Casa Creed) out of an Uncle Mo dam.
So all signs point to this being a successful pairing, and we can’t wait to see the foal that Wand Work produces in 2026!