Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Catalina Cruiser to join sire
Union Rags was an obvious young stallion prospect for Lane’s End Farm to invest in. Phyllis Wyeth’s homebred is a son of former farm stallion Dixie Union, and going another generation back, his grandsire, Dixieland Band, was one of the original three stallions at Lane’s End Farm when it was established.
Union Rags scored one of his signature triumphs in the 2012 Belmont Stakes, a race Lane’s End has always prized as a demonstration of stamina and sire power. The farm has stood several winners of the oldest and longest American classic, most famously A.P. Indy.
Union Rags produced two Grade 1 winners from his first crop to the races in 2016 and has continued to blossom for Lane’s End – prompting the farm to invest further in the promising young sire’s line. His son Catalina Cruiser, part of a strong hand for Union Rags at the upcoming Breeders’ Cup, will enter stud alongside his sire next year.
Catalina Cruiser, who has won 7 of his 8 starts, is among the favorites for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Union Rags also will be represented in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff by multiple Grade 1 winner Paradise Woods, who comes off a victory in the Grade 2 Zenyatta Stakes, and by Grade 1-placed Comical in the Juvenile Fillies.
“I am a Union Rags man,” said bloodstock agent David Ingordo, who works with Lane’s End and with several prominent owners, including Hronis Racing, which campaigns Catalina Cruiser. “He is a horse who could be the next Quality Road. He has really good books in front of him, and he has top horses on the track. He is a good value right now.”
Catalina Cruiser seeks to add more value to his sire’s résumé before returning home. Catalina Cruiser was bred and raised at Lane’s End, with
Ingordo saying he was “always a standout” as a young horse. He is out of a mare by the farm’s homebred champion Mineshaft, by A.P. Indy.
Catalina Cruiser’s only loss came when sixth in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. This year, he has won the Grade 2 True North Stakes, Grade 2 San Diego Handicap, and Grade 2 Pat O’Brien Stakes, giving him five graded stakes triumphs.
“Catalina Cruiser is the quintessential American dirt horse,” said Bill Farish of Lane’s End. “He’s exactly what we’re looking for. Tough, with speed and the ability to carry that speed. He reminds me of stallions like [Lane’s End sires] Quality Road, Twirling Candy, and Liam’s Map. They all had tremendous speed and were classy enough to win graded stakes going two turns.”
Union Rags is enjoying a solid year commercially, recording a pair of seven-figure lots at the Keeneland September yearling sale to finish as the auction’s 10th-leading sire by gross. The stallion has a chance for several catalog updates at the
Keeneland November breeding stock sale. Among his mares offered in foal are graded stakes performer Purely Hot, who is the dam of Breeders’ Cup Juvenile candidate Eight Rings.
Battle of Midway represented
Before he died earlier this year, Battle of Midway scored the most prestigious victory of his career in the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. Two years later, just days after the Breeders’ Cup, two foals from the only crop of the star-crossed racehorse will be offered at the major mixed auctions in Kentucky as something of collectors’ items.
The regally bred Battle of Midway, by the late classic sire Smart Strike and out of Grade 1 winner Rigoletta, won or placed in six stakes and finished third in the Kentucky Derby at 3. He won the Grade 3 Affirmed Stakes at Santa Anita over that summer and continued on for a hard-fought victory over Sharp Azteca in the Dirt Mile at Del Mar. He was subsequently retired to co-owner WinStar
Farm in Kentucky, expected to be a popular stallion as one of the last significant sons of Smart Strike to enter stud.
However, Battle of Midway was found to be subfertile, missing a gene that affected his sperm’s acrosome reaction, part of the process in which the female’s egg is fertilized. According to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred and resulting foal crop statistics, Battle of Midway covered 61 mares, resulting in seven live foals of 2019.
Battle of Midway returned to the racetrack in August 2018, winning 3 of 6 outings in his second campaign. From that came one of the finest races of his career, as he bested Grade 1 winner McKinzie, now among the favorites for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, by a half-length in the Grade 2 San Pasqual Stakes on Feb. 2 at Santa Anita. Five days later, the first of the stallion’s small crop of foals arrived in Kentucky.
But Battle of Midway’s saga, which appeared to be on an upward trajectory, came to a tragic end just three weeks later, when the 5-year-old sustained a fatal injury in a work at Santa Anita. His loss makes his handful of foals all the more intriguing. Battle of Midway’s two representatives in the fall catalogs are a weanling filly at the Fasig-Tipton November sale the evening of Nov. 5, and a colt who is scheduled to sell during Book 2 of the Keeneland November breeding stock sale on Nov. 7.
The filly, already named Battle of Wits, will be the first horse into the ring at FasigTipton. Consigned by Susan M. Forrester, as agent, she is out of the stakes-placed Lemon Drop Kid mare You’re Kidding.
The colt at Keeneland is consigned by James B. Keogh’s Grovensale, as agent. He is out of the unraced Langfuhr mare Delicate Affair, who is from the family of Grade 1 winners Seeking the Gold and Fast Play.