Victory another boost to Justify sire’s legacy
The late Scat Daddy produced winner, four Derby starters.
LOUISVILLE, KY. — On Friday, Nov. 6, 2015, there emerged a stud-fee list rich in glitterati. All the attention whooshed understandably toward the $200,000 that Ashford Stud, the U.S. division of the Irish global breeding colossus Coolmore, would charge those wishing to bring a mare to Versailles, Kentucky, to hook up with the freshly retired Triple Crown winner American Pharoah.
Another number down the list would have drawn knowing nods within the microcosmos of horse racing intellectuals: The cost of breeding a mare with Scat Daddy, the blossoming sire merely 11 years old, had sprouted from $35,000 to $100,000.
Thirty-eight days later, on Monday, Dec. 14, 2015, an overcast day with a temperature seeking 60, the Ashford manager Dermot Ryan tweeted: “Scat Daddy was in the best of health, but totally unexpectedly he dropped dead when walking out of his paddock. Everyone here at Ashford is very upset as he was a smashing horse with a great career ahead of him.”
As the Blood-Horse confirmed this week, Scat Daddy was the first sire in 95 years to produce four starters in one Kentucky Derby — one-fifth of the field. His four aren’t middling: winner Justify, Mendelssohn, Flameaway and Combatant.
“To have four in the Kentucky Derby, I mean, that is unbelievable,” said John Gunther, who owns Glennwood Farm in Versailles.
Count Glennwood, with its 400 acres and 20-30 broodmares, among the smallish
farms where the mirth of having a horse in the Derby is tinged with condolence. Through the wisdom of Gunther’s daughter, Tanya, Glennwood bred its Stage Magic with Scat Daddy to get Justify on March 28, 2015.
By now, of course, Justify is “a man against boys if you look at him physically” and “about as perfect as you’ll ever see,” Gunther said. But even from the start, the son of Scat Daddy and Stage Magic had something. “If you were paying attention to Vino Rosso,” Gunther said, “Justify would give you that look: ‘Hey, what about me?’ He would walk over like he was the king. And he knew he was. You could tell in the paddock, the way he looked
at you, the way he strutted around. He knew he was the cat’s meow. He really did.”
His sire had come far. Named for his first owner, the former Wall Street maestro Jim Scatuorchio, and trained by Pletcher, Scat Daddy won the 2007 Florida Derby, then finished 18th in the Kentucky Derby, a tendon injury ending that career.
Early on, stud-wise, he had done moderately well with some honors in Chile. In the North American sire standings, he rose from 36th in 2012 and 49th in 2013 to ninth in 2015, at $9.7 million in offspring earnings.
As Scatuorchio said in an NBC feature, “That can’t be replaced, you know?”