The Life and Legacy of Grand Slam

Grand Slam's daughter Millionreasonswhy winning The Matron-G2
Photo:  Adam Coglianese, Courtesy of NYRA

Grand Slam, a regally bred son of champion sire Gone West who demonstrated brilliance and tenacity on the track, and as a sire, passed those attributes on to his progeny, died suddenly yesterday, felled by heart failure.  The 17-year-old stallion, who has thus far sired 73 stakes winners from 11 crops of racing age, was standing at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Versailles, Kentucky at the time of his death, for a published fee of $12,000. 

Grand Slam’s unexpected passing came just two days after the untimely demise of Coolmore’s world-class sire, Montjeu, a 16-year-old champion son of Chef-de-Race Sadler’s Wells who stood at the group’s main farm in Ireland.

Bred by Overbrook Farm, Grand Slam was a $300,000 Keeneland yearling, purchased by the partnership of Robert and Christina Baker, William Mack, and David Cornstein, who raced him under the tutelage of Wayne Lukas. 

Grand Slam signaled from the outset that he was something special, breaking his maiden by 11 lengths in his first start while equaling the Belmont track record (1:03.06) for five and a half furlongs. He went on to triumph in the Grade I Futurity and Champagne, and seemed invincible until the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, when he suffered a gash to his hind leg that not only took him out of the race, but almost ended his career.

He was never quite the same again, though his sheer courage and ability shone through again at three, when he captured the nine-furlong Peter Pan at Belmont and ignited hopes that he was good as new.  Alas, that wasn’t true.  But Grand Slam acquitted himself with honor for the rest of that season, gutting out second-place finishes in the six-furlong Breeders’ Cup Sprint-G1, the one-mile Jerome-G2, and the nine-furlong Swaps-G2, as well as a third-place effort in the Haskell. 

Visionaire winning the King's Bishop-G1 at Saratoga
Photo:  Adam Coglianese, Courtesy of NYRA

At stud, Grand Slam has sired 26 graded stakes winners, many of whom were produced from mares who, like his own dam, Bright Candles (by El Gran Senor), descend from Northern Dancer. They include Jim Dandy-G2 winner Strong Hope (out of Shining Through, by Deputy Minister), King’s Bishop-G1 victor Visionaire (out of Scarlet Tango, by French Deputy), Brooklyn Handicap-G2 winner Limehouse (out of Dixieland Blues, by Dixieland Band), Mr. Prospector-G3 winner Apriority (out of Midway Squall, by Storm Bird), Daytona-G3 turf specialist Dilemma (out of Heavenly Cat, by Tabasco Cat), and Kentucky Cup Classic-G2 hero and recent Old Friends retiree, Ball Four (out of Making Faces, by Lyphard).

Malibu Prayer winning the Ruffian-G1 at Saratoga
Photo:  Adam Coglianese, Courtesy of NYRA

Grand Slam has also shown an affinity with A. P. Indy, having sired the current Kentucky Oaks hopeful Millionreasonswhy (out of In Secure, by A. P. Indy), winner of the Matron-G2 at two and of the Wide Country Stakes at Laurel last month.  Grand Slam’s stakes-winning daughter, Grand Prayer, who brought $1 million at last November’s Edward P. Evans dispersal at Keeneland (in foal to Medaglia D’Oro), produced the highly regarded Grade I winner Malibu Prayer (by A. P. Indy), who sold for $2 million (in foal to Smart Strike) at the same dispersal.  Both mares were purchased by Besilu Stables.

In the sales ring, Grand Slam’s individuals seem to get better as they mature.  His 137 weanlings sold at auction have averaged $88,613, his 719 yearlings, $110,281, and his 191 two-year-olds, $127,412.  Grand Slam’s colts have typically brought significantly more than his fillies, and for the most part, they have outshone his fillies on the racetrack, too.  He will have one of each sex in next week’s Keeneland April Two-Year-Olds-in-Training Sale.  A dark bay or brown colt out of the Awesome Again mare, Tyne, will be offered as Hip #81, and a chestnut filly named, “Work for a Living,” out of the Tiznow mare, Tiz Maya, is catalogued as Hip #77; she was a $4500 Keeneland September yearling.

Through March 25th, Grand Slam had sired 798 winners, with average earnings per starter of over $60,000.  At the time of the stallion’s death, Coolmore’s website sported a banner broadcasting his achievement in siring four three-year-old stakes winners in just the last three weeks:  Tribune (Fr) (out of Tanguista, by War Chant); Slamit (out of Excedius, by Seattle Dancer), Millionreasonswhy, and The Lumber Guy (out of Boltono, by Unbridled’s Song).  He will be missed.

Proud Citizen's Daughters

Believe You Can (left) wins the Silverbulletday at Fair Grounds
Photo:  Lou Hodges, Jr., Hodges Photography

With stakes victories at two different tracks, two  different distances, and on two different surfaces, two of Proud Citizen's daughters, Believe You Can and Chilean-bred Vamo A Galupiar, demonstrated their sires versatility yesterday.

Brereton Jones’ homebred filly, Believe You Can, winner of last fall’s six-furlong Tempted-G3 at Belmont in her fourth start, captured the listed Silverbulletday Stakes at a mile and seventy yards at Fair Grounds on Saturday, in her initial race as a sophomore, and her first around two turns.  The Larry Jones trainee had hinted at her mettle in the Tempted, when she “fought tenaciously” while besting Schulyerville-G3 heroine Georgie’s Angel and three other rivals. 

Believe You Can showed the same grit in the Silverbulletday, this time seeming to get stronger as the stretch lengthened.  She never looked seriously threatened at any stage of the race, winning in wire-to-wire fashion while fending off determined tries from Hard Spun’s graded stakes-placed daughter, Inny Minnie and the even-money favorite Summer Applause.  The highly touted Applauding, who set a new track record for six furlongs (1:07.76) in her debut at Keeneland last fall, was a late scratch after developing colic-like symptoms earlier in the day.

In a post-race interview, Larry Jones confided that “we were very confident that she would go long,” adding that he’s penciled in a campaign that would send Believe You Can to the Kentucky Oaks.  Based both on her performance yesterday, that doesn’t seem far-fetched.

Brereton Jones probably never imagined he’d find himself in Believe You Can’s winners circle photos, having consigned the dark bay filly to the 2010 Keeneland September sale.  He brought her back home to Airdrie when she didn’t meet her reserve, after attracting a final bid of $70,000.  Believe You Can is the fourth foal from her unraced dam, El Fasto, a half-sister to the graded stakes winner Classic Elegance  (by Carson City).  At the time, El Fasto had produced but one modest winner, Oh Charlie Boy (by Canadian Frontier).  But the astute Jones must have seen something special in the filly, even then.  He let another, seemingly better pedigreed Proud Citizen filly, Businesslike, go for $40,000 at the same sale.  Businesslike is out of a half-sister to two-time Breeders’ Cup Mile-G1 hero, Da Hoss, and she herself is a full sister to the ill-fated Group 3 winner, River Proud.  To-date, though, Businesslike is unraced, and there is no record of her on the work tabs.   

Their sire, Proud Citizen, is a handsome, robust, well-balanced colt who, if he ran to his looks, would have won all his races.  I saw Proud Citizen run twice, at Saratoga:  in the 2001 Hopeful-G1, in which he finished a lackluster sixth to another son of Gone West, Came Home, and in the 2003 Forego-G1, where he was a tiring sixth to eventual Sprint Champion Aldebaran.  Proud Citizen always entered the paddock like he owned the place, and indeed, he came close to being a classic winner, placing in the Derby and finishing third in the Preakness, before suffering a condylar fracture in the Belmont.  Though rested for a year by D. Wayne Lukas, Proud Citizen never regained the form he’d shown at two and three, and was ultimately retired at the end of his four-year-old campaign.

From the start, Proud Citizen redeemed himself at stud, like so many sons of the great Gone West.  His best foal to-date, Champion Three-Year-Old Filly Proud Spell (out of Pacific Spell, by Langfuhr) was a member of his first crop.  Like Proud Spell, Believe You Can is from a Northern Dancer-line mare (by El Prado).  Indeed, several of Proud Citizen’s best runners, including Chilean Champion Two-Year-Old Filly Vamo A Galupiar, who won the grassy Megahertz at Santa Anita yesterday, are out of mares or have second dams who are by sons of Northern Dancer, notably Sadler’s Wells. 

And that’s no accident, in that Proud Citizen descends from the great foundation mare, Almahmoud, second dam of both Northern Dancer and Halo (sire of Believe You Can’s second dam, Taegu).  His fourth dam, Arctic Dancer, is a full sister to Northern Dancer.  To-date, Proud Citizen’s best runners have had two or more distant crosses of Almahmoud, and her daughter Natalma. 

Vamo A Galupiar (Chi) wins the Megahertz at Santa Anita
Photo:  Benoit Photos

In 2006, Proud Citizen shuttled to Chile, where he stood one season at Haras Don Alberto, south of Santiago.  It turned out to be a successful trip.  Among his Chilean foals born in 2007 were at least five stakes winners, including Vamo A Galupiar, who determinedly shot up along the rail in the eight-furlong Megahertz Stakes and never looked back, notching her first Northern Hemisphere victory in only her second U.S. start.  Vamo a Galupiar’s second dam, Catalina La Grande, is by Sadler’s Wells’ graded stakes-winning son, Stagecraft, and her maternal grandsire, Special Quest, is out of Mona Stella, by Nureyev. 

Like Proud Spell and Believe You Can, Vamo A Galupiar’s pedigree is fueled by multiple crosses of the blue hen Natalma, whose powerful influence may be the driving force behind Proud Citizen’s seeming emergence as a sire of outstanding fillies.  We’ll see.