We bided our time for a year, waiting for the moment that we could claim Cabra Chica as a broodmare prospect, and were lucky to get that opportunity last October in what wound up as her last start. We will partner in her breeding career with Timbercreek Farm in Virginia, and are excited to kick her off with a proven Kentucky stallion in ‘25 that should fit her to a “T”.
Cabra Chica’s appeal is many-fold. She was a fast, precocious, hard-knocking racemare that won 11 of her 47 starts from 2- through 5-years-old, finished 2nd ten times and 3rd six times, earning a total of $278,308. Her wins came from 5 furlongs to 7 furlongs on fast, good and sloppy tracks. Her speed and consistency led to her being claimed no fewer than ten times during her career.
Prior to her racing career, Cabra Chica was a $15,000 yearling purchase from the Fasig-Tipton Timonium sale, a price which is not too shabby for a regionally-bred daughter of Grade 3 winner and local stallion Street Magician. That price indicates that Cabra Chica owned a strong physical, which continues to be the case into her second career: she is a big, stout-bodied mare, well-balanced with plenty of leg and substance, all of which should allow her to become an excellent producer.
Cabra Chica also has a strong and active female family to round out the package. She is out of the unraced My Rib, who is the dam of ten foals of racing age, of which nine have started and eight have won, including the multiple black-type winner My Magician — a full-sister to Cabra Chica who triumphed in the Maryland Million Lassie, the Dashing Beauty, the Geisha and the Politely Stakes, while earning $454,242. My Rib is also the dam of black-type placed Miss Philly Dilly (by Tritap), and the six-figure earners Louise the Laser and Next Street (the latter another full-sister to Cabra Chica). My Rib’s last foal is a Great Notion colt of 2023 named Great Ribs.
Cabra Chica’s dam My Rib is a half-sister to the Maryland Million Oaks winner Undercover, as well as to the unraced Merriweather, whose ten winning foals include the Grade 3-placed black-type winner Vielsalm — better known as the dam of 2024 graded stakes winner and Maryland-bred Horse of the Year Post Time (by Frosted), who has already been victorious in the Grade 2 Carter and Grade 3 General George, and placed in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, the G1 Met Mile and the G1 Whitney. Post Time is slated to return to the races in 2025.
With all of these factors in her favor, we were anxious to get Cabra Chica’s breeding career off to the best start possible, and we believe that the best way to do that is with a proven stallion. There is one of those in Kentucky this spring that we have repeatedly stated offers the best value for this season, and he also happens to fit Cabra Chica for several other reasons besides. That stallion is Army Mule at Hill ‘N’ Dale Farm.
Army Mule only ran three times, but was undefeated by a combined 22-1/4 lengths, including a win in the G1 Carter with a 114 Beyer. Even though he was the son of a regional stallion, his looks and stride were good for an $825,000 price tag as a 2YO in-training. And despite starting at the low end of the stud fee spectrum in Kentucky when made a $10,000 proposition his first year at stud (albeit at a farm which has made a regular habit of identifying brilliant but very lightly-raced prospects who succeed at stud), his progeny came out firing as 2YOs in 2022 and he wound up 4th on the Freshman Sire List behind Bolt d’Oro, Good Magic and Justify, who had all started at much higher fees and had at least a third more foals than Army Mule. Army Mule’s total of five black-type winners was just one less than the six that each of those top three freshman sires had, and he had seven additional black-type horses to his credit as well.
Since then, Army Mule has added G2 winner Danse Macabre and G1 winner One In Vermillion to his tally, as well as 2024 G2 winner Federal Judge, and 2025 Kentucky Derby prep winner California Burrito. He is now up to 15 black-type winners from 151 runners (10%), with nine additional black-type placed runners (16% total BTH/starters). And his AEI to CI ratio is an excellent 1.36 vs. 1.11. That CI also indicates that what Army Mule has achieved so far has been done without much help at all from his mates, which is not surprising for a stallion starting at the fee he did in Kentucky.
Army Mule had a somewhat quiet 2024 (though Federal Judge was a brilliant winner of the G2 Phoenix and among the favorites for the G1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, while classic-placed Stanley House hit the board in a handful of graded stakes last year,), but that wasn’t totally unexpected with his smallest crop of 2YOs coming to the races in ‘24 (that crop does include his just-turned 3YO son California Burrito, who recently triumphed in the John Battaglia on the Derby trail, plus a ‘25 3YO black-type winner in Turkey). He did cover a third more mares in 2022 (115) than he did in 2021 (83), once people had seen his first yearlings and his first juveniles at the breeze-up sales, and that crop of 79 will be racing as juveniles in 2025.
His 2023 book was almost twice as big again (at 199) after that first crop had run in 2022, despite a fee raise to $12,500 (which went even higher towards the end of the breeding season as his book filled up). He covered 160 mares in 2024 at an advertised fee of $25,000 following the graded scores by One In Vermillion and Danse Macabre.
With a slight drop to $20,000 for 2025, knowing what Army Mule has already done and what he has every right to do in the next few years, he looks like easily the best value in Kentucky this year. The commercial market has still been kind to him despite his quiet year (his yearlings averaged $74,572 in ‘24 for 44 sold; in ‘23 it was $75,765 for 40 sold), and it will continue to embrace him as his better-bred yearlings come through starting in 2025 — and more runners like his first juvenile starter of 2025, the $90,000 weanling purchase Pinky Finger who scored by a pole first-time out at Keeneland for Wesley Ward, won’t hurt either!
Given that Cabra Chica is a half-sister to a black-type runner by a son of Tapit, and with Post Time being by Tapit’s son Frosted, we wanted to target an A.P. Indy-line stallion for her, and obviously Army Mule fits that bill. He also has additional similarities to Frosted inasmuch as Army Mule’s sire is bred on the same A.P. Indy/Deputy Minister cross as Frosted, and Army Mule’s own proclivities as a top class sprinter/miler are similar to those of Frosted (a record-breaking winner of the G1 Met Mile, and a far speedier influence at stud than probably anticipated).
Army Mule doesn’t yet have any runners out of Street Cry-line mares (he does have four 2YOs of ‘25 to his credit out of mares by sons of Street Cry), but he’s done well with Mr. Prospector-line mares generally, and the broader A.P. Indy/Street Cry cross is good for a “C” rating on TrueNicks.
Physically, Army Mule is a stout, strongly-made and correct horse with incredible balance, all the substance that you’d want, and just enough leg — which makes him a pretty good like-to-like match for Cabra Chica. And we’re also hopeful that her durability will compensate some for his fragility (though so far he’s not passing that characteristic on at stud) — with a full complement of the speed that both demonstrated in their own racing careers!