Ideally a new broodmare would head to the breeding shed for the first time before May. But sometimes you just have to play the hand that you’ve been dealt. For example, as our good friend T.K. Kuegler from Wasabi Ventures Stables likes to reminisce, Wasabi first got into the breeding game “accidentally” with a mare that was bred for the first time in June, after racing for the final time on May 26th!
In the case of the well-bred and beautiful young mare Velvet Vixen, circumstances conspired to make it so that her first cover will occur closer to the end of this breeding season than the beginning. But, as this year’s Kentucky Derby field demonstrates, May cover dates can still produce very good horses. And she’ll still get as good a shot as a mare can get in the Mid-Atlantic when she visits Blofeld later this month.
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Blofeld’s statistics continue to make him the best stallion in the Mid-Atlantic, headed by ten black-type winners and another ten black-type placed runners from his first 109 runners. He has a 1.31 AEI compared to a 1.09 CI for his mates, meaning he’s moving those mares up, and the average amount earned by his runners stands at an excellent $94,391.
Of those ten black-type winners sired by Blofeld, fully half of them are out of mares from the same Storm Cat sire-line as Velvet Vixen. That handful includes the talented Chickieness out of a mare by Harlan’s Holiday, who is the grandsire of Velvet Vixen’s sire, Maximus Mischief. We find these points significantly more exciting and instructive than the “B” rating TrueNicks gives to this matchup on the basis of the Quality Road/Harlan’s Holiday cross. Blofeld also has a pair of winners out of mares by sons of Tiznow (Tiznow being Velvet Vixen’s damsire), and that’s a cross that has also worked well for Blofeld’s sire Quality Road (including G2 winner Road to Victory).
Velvet Vixen also happens to be a half-sister to the talented $276k earner Dannie’s Deceiver by Quality Road (who also finished 4th in a G1), which bodes well for this pairing. And we think that her leggy physique and 2YO speed will be perfectly complemented by Blofeld, who has a bit more substance to him and has proven that he can get a good 2YO from the right mare — having sired a trio of Maryland Million 2YO stakes winners.
All of which makes this a shot well-worth taking despite the relative lateness in the breeding season!
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