We recently helped our friends at Wasabi acquire Cruise To Catalina at the ‘26 Keeneland January Sale, and are excited to send her to one of our favorite first year stallions in Darley’s Street Sense son First Mission.
Cruise To Catalina was a $130,000 2YO in-training purchase, who went on to win 3 of her five starts in brilliant fashion, earning $159,970 for trainer Riley Mott. She debuted going 6 furlongs at the Belmont at the Big A meet in June of her 3YO year, and dueled early that day before drawing clear to win by more than 6 lengths in a $75k New York-bred maiden special weight. She was 2nd in her first try against winners a month later, and then scored in a $95k Saratoga allowance race by 7 lengths going 6-1/2 furlongs after dueling early with an odds-on favorite from the Chad Brown/Klaravich stable. She followed that up in an $85k allowance back at Belmont at the Big A, a 7-furlong event which she won “geared down” by a length as the heavy favorite.
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Cruise to Catalina comes by this brilliance honestly, as her sire, Catalina Cruiser, was himself a brilliant sprinter from the excellent sire-line of Union Rags/Dixie Union/Dixieland Band.
Cruise to Catalina’s female family, meanwhile, is one of the best in the stud book, as her 3rd dam is Eclipse Champion Queena, a half-sister to G1 winner Chic Shirine (both of them out of the G1-winning King Ranch mare Too Chic). Queena produced G1 winner Brahms, as well as Cruise to Catalina’s 2nd dam, the G3-winning 2YO La Reina. La Reina, in turn, is the dam of G2 winner Chief Havoc and G3-placed Special Event, as well as of the G2-placed Aurelius Maximus, now a leading sire in Louisiana. Another of La Reina’s daughters produced G3-placed Tejana and is the granddam of black-type winner Curlin’s Kaos.
Cruise to Catalina herself is a half-sister to the black-type winner Kloepatra.
First Mission, meanwhile, is a horse that we have been fans of throughout his racing career. After a close 2nd-place finish in his debut behind his Brad Cox-trained stablemate Bishops Bay (now a multiple graded stakes winner himself) going just six furlongs, First Mission romped by 6-3/4 lengths in his second start when stretched to 1-1/16 miles. He was stepped straight into graded company after that, and triumphed in the G3 Lexington over Arabian Lion and Disarm (who would run 4th in the Kentucky Derby next out) in just his third career start.
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First Mission was our Preakness pick off of that effort¹, though unfortunately he scratched after training at Pimlico the preceding week and went to the sidelines for six months. But he made a big impression on us at Pimlico as a big, imposing, extremely athletic individual with an excellent pedigree (as we detailed in that piece).
When First Mission returned to the races in October of that 3YO season, it was against older allowance company as the odds-on favorite, and he overcame a troubled trip and the short stretch at Keeneland to again display his guts and get up to win on the wire. That was followed by a nose loss when again favored against older rivals, this time in the historic G2 Clark Stakes to close out his sophomore campaign.
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First Mission’s 4YO season was highlighted by back-to-back wins in the G3 Essex Handicap (by 5 carrying top weight) and the G2 Alysheba (earning a 106 Beyer Speed Figure), and he came back again at 5YO to run a 109 Beyer while winning the G2 Oaklawn Handicap, and he finished a game 3rd in the G1 Stephen Foster to Mindframe and Sierra Leone. He regularly showed a high cruising speed which he carried effectively going two-turns, and plenty of determination even if he was never able to add that elusive G1 victory to his resume.
Nevertheless, his accomplishments and his physical are impressive enough to warrant a shot at stud at his birthplace, not to mention his pedigree. As we pointed out in that Preakness piece, Darley already stands Street Sense and two of his sons, but both of those are out of Bernardini mares whereas First Mission has a dam by Medaglia d’Oro, and thus offers breeders the chance to send Bernardini — and other A.P. Indy-line mares — his way in an effort to replicate what has been an extremely productive cross for Street Sense.
While Cruise To Catalina is not an A.P. Indy-line mare, she is inbred 4×3 to that horse. And the TrueNicks rating for Street Sense-line stallions over Dixie Union-line mares is an “A+” thanks to a pair of black-type winners from just 18 foals to race that are bred this way.
But this mating is as much about proclivities as it is pedigree, in that both First Mission and Cruise To Catalina were very fast dirt horses that improved with time and distance (we think Cruise To Catalina would’ve continued to stretch out effectively if she’d had the chance). First Mission is a bit leggier and close-coupled, while she is a tad longer-bodied, but they should blend nicely and produce a fast and commercial foal!