A.P. Indy influence continues

Tapit, the most successful sire in the modern history of the Belmont Stakes, is an imposing specimen whose coat has gone snow white with age. His whitehot son Constitution, who has this year’s Belmont favorite from his first crop, is a racy contrast in bright bay. Bernardini’s dark coat is unmarked as he strides by like a panther. The sturdy Honor Code is a darker shade, nearly black, but his dark coat is splashed with chrome.

Yet put these four seemingly different stallions in a lineup, and one would pick out a similar intelligent eye and a certain curve of the neck, as all four follow in the massive hoofprints of the stallion they inherited those features from, the late, great A.P. Indy. All four stallions will be represented by sons or grandsons in this Saturday’s Belmont Stakes.

A.P. Indy, a breed-shaping sire who died in February at age 31, had one of his finest hours at the 1992 Belmont Stakes.

A.P. Indy established himself as one of the favorites for the 1992 Kentucky Derby by winning the Grade 1 Hollywood Futurity, Grade 2 San Rafael, and Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby. However, he was scratched from the Kentucky Derby at the 11th hour with a quarter crack. After a brief rest, A.P. Indy returned to the races at Belmont Park, a massive oval for which he showed a clear affinity. After winning the Grade 2 Peter Pan Stakes, he delivered on his classic promise with a victory in the Belmont Stakes.

“I think he’d have won the Triple Crown, but we’ll never know,” regular rider Eddie Delahoussaye told the Chicago Tribune after the race.

A.P. Indy started three more times that fall, capped by a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Gulfstream Park to lock up Horse of the Year honors, as well as the Eclipse

Award as outstanding 3-yearold male. In total, he won 8 of 11 starts for earnings of more than $2.9 million. He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2000, alongside his trainer, Neil Drysdale.

A.P. Indy, whose stud career spanned from the 1993 season until his pensioning in 2011 at Lane’s End Farm, sired 164 stakes winners worldwide for combined earnings of $137,238,550. He ranked as North America’s leading general sire in 2003, when his son Mineshaft was honored as Horse of the Year, and in 2006, when Bernardini captured the Preakness Stakes en route to a divisional Eclipse Award. A.P. Indy, who ranked among the leading sires on six other occasions, had another American classic winner in the Eclipse champion filly Rags to Riches, who won the 2007 Kentucky Oaks before outdueling the great Curlin for a historic Belmont Stakes victory. A.P. Indy was also the sire of Eclipse Award champions Honor Code and Tempera.

A.P. Indy has continued to build a legacy through his sons and grandsons, with many continuing to pass on his stamina. One example is his son Malibu Moon, sire of Kentucky Derby winner Orb. A.P. Indy’s son Pulpit was a successful sire of racehorses, but his greatest legacy has been as a sire of classic sires. His branch of the line is responsible for Lucky Pulpit, sire of two-time Horse of the Year and dual classic winner California Chrome, and now Tapit, the only sire in the modern era represented by three Belmont Stakes winners, and one of just five stallions ever to sire three or more winners of the classic. Gainesway’s Tapit has been represented by Belmont Stakes winners Tonalist (2014), Creator (2016), and Tapwrit (2017), along with Belmont runner-up Frosted (2015) and third-place finisher

Lani (2016). Tapit will look for a fourth victory in the Belmont Stakes this Saturday, and if Tap It to Win prevails, Tapit would tie the great Lexington for the all-time Belmont record with four winners.

“What really stands out is their competitive nature and will to win,” Gainesway director of sales Michael Hernon has said of Tapit’s offspring. “Some of [the Belmonts] were won by short margins but that’s part of their DNA and their will to win. I’ve watched them race over the years and if a race comes down to a photo finish and there’s a Tapit in it, you want to be holding a ticket for the Tapit because they really seem to come out on top. They have that ability combined with soundness and ability to carry at a distance.”

In keeping with grandsire A.P. Indy, Tapit is emerging as a sire of sires in his own right, with his sons Tapizar and Flashback siring Eclipse Award champions and four sons in the top 15 on last year’s freshman sire list. Leading that freshman group was WinStar Farm’s Constitution, the sire of multiple Grade 1 winner and Belmont Stakes favorite Tiz the Law. Constitution is also the sire of graded stakes winners Amalfi Sunrise, By Your Side, Independence Hall, and Laura’s Light from his first crop, as well as Grade 1-placed Gouverneur Morris, another Kentucky Derby hopeful.

“Constitution was very spirited and tough,” said Randy Gullatt of Twin Creeks Farm, which co-campaigned Constitution, bred and sold Tiz the Law, and co-owns Independence Hall. “He was all racehorse. We’re seeing that in a lot of his offspring.”

A.P. Indy’s son Honor Code, who stands at Lane’s End, finished 15th on the freshman earnings list last season, without a stakes winner. However, Honor Code, a champion older horse, was expected to sire runners who got better with age and distance. Thus far, that has been the case with his son Honor A. P., who stretched out to 1 1/8 miles with aplomb to win the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on June 6. While Honor A. P. awaits the Kentucky Derby, another son of Honor Code, Max Player, takes his shot in the Belmont Stakes. Max Player didn’t debut until November, but has won 2 of 3 starts, most recently the Grade 3 Withers Stakes in February at Aqueduct.

“He’s grown up a lot,” trainer Linda Rice said. “He’s changed tremendously since he was a 2-year-old. He ran at Parx Racing twice and was very green then. We used to breeze him in company to get him focused and at this point he’s changed a lot mentally and physically.”

In addition to turning out top sons, A.P. Indy was also a leading broodmare sire, with the best runners out of his daughters including Hall of Fame racemare Royal Delta and fellow Eclipse Award champions Game Winner and Wait a While.

Bernardini and Tapit are both relatively early in the curve of their careers as broodmare sires – runners out of their daughters have been on the track for less than a decade – but both have found early success, and both are represented by Belmont possibilities.

The bottom line of all these converging storylines and bloodlines? Nearly three decades after his own Belmont Stakes victory, A.P. Indy is responsible, via his direct male line, for the sire or broodmare sire of six of the 10 expected starters in this year’s renewal.

“He’ll have influenced the breed for decades to come,” Lane’s End wrote in a statement on the occasion of the stallion’s 30th birthday. “And what better tribute than that?”