Valid Wager - California Thoroughbred Breeders Association

Valid Wagerby ELLEN PARKERIn recent years, California has scored big with descendentsof Man o’ War like Cee’s Tizzy and Bertrando. Now a Man o’War relation from a different branch of In Reality, namelyValid Appeal, has taken his place alongside his predecessors asyet another Matchem descendent to excel on the West Coast.Valid Wager had much to recommend him when Tom andDebra Stull purchased him for their Tommy Town ThoroughbredsLLC farm in late 2000. A Florida-bred, Valid Wager hadpreviously stood in his home state, and the home state of both hissire and grandsire, at Harry Mangurian Jr.’s Mockingbird Farm.Among the leading juvenile sires of 2000, Valid Wagerwas represented by stakes winner Native Wager and grade IIplaced Major Wager. Since then, he has continued to dowell, and is now the sire of nine stakes horses, six of them inmajor racing jurisdictions, three in minor ones.California breeders hada good opportunity to assessValid Wager’s racing class.The bay stallion won thegrade III California JuvenileStakes at Bay Meadowsand ran second in thegrade III Hollywood PreviewBreeders’ Cup Stakesas a juvenile. In addition heran second in the grade IIArlington-WashingtonFuturity and was the championFlorida-bred juvenileof that season.Valid Wager ran only©Ron MesarosValid Wagerthree times at three. Hewon the grade II Hutchesonat Gulfstream, defeatingMr. Greely, but missed the Triple Crown after he wassold and shipped to Canada. When he did not run up toexpectations, owner Mangurian decided to let him mature abit and rested the youngster for almost 10 months.When the colt reappeared in New York the followingyear, he placed in the Sporting Plate and Toboggan Handicapsbefore winning the Westchester Handicap by a gameneck. That was his last win, and he retired to stud at hisowner’s farm with $306,020 in the bank and a high degreeof anticipation for his stud career.Valid Wager is out of the Mangurian-bred mare Bid Gal,who was bred on the same Bold Ruler/Fool-Me-Not patternas champion and classic winner Foolish Pleasure. From theoutstanding family of Miralwala (Ire), Valid Wager’s tailfemalelineage suggested much success both at the races andat stud.From the Mirawala roots had come not only Foolish Pleasurebut grade I winner Jersey Girl, Canadian championComet Shine (also a stallion in California), graded stakeswinner Bagdad, French Derby winner Hard to Beat, OneThousand Guineas winner Mrs. McArdy (GB), and GermanDerby winning siblings Borgia (Ger) and Boreal (Ger), tomention only a handful of the best descendents. The familywas known for precocity that often matured into classic ability,though Valid Wager was not able to achieve the latter.Like many Florida-based pedigrees, Valid Wager’s lineageis composed of Fair Play/Friar Rock and Bull Dog crosses.Early maturity was expected of his stock, and he delivered.As of this writing, it is still too early to get a definitivehandle on the likes and dislikes of Valid Wager. We can onlylook at trends and suggest ideas for the future that have yetto be tried.We find a very widevariety of inbreedingamong his best runners todate:1) Major Wager is sexbalanceinbred to Tourbillon,War Relic andMenow, and has somedeep linebreeding to Marchettawho is from theStrike-a-Light II family;2) Yo is inbred to WarRelic x2 and his full sisterAnchor’s Ahead, and is fromthe Rose Leaves family;3) Snowy Wager is linebredto full sisters Tea Biscuitand Toggery, and herdam Snowy is inbred to half siblings Emali and Khaled. Shealso adds three crosses of Bull Dog to Valid Wager’s contributionand, furthermore, she descends from the Rose of Ayrshirefamily;4) Native Wager is linebred to Fair Play/Friar Rock andis from the Stop Her family;5) Valid Video is inbred to half-sisters Drawbridge andTraffic, and interestingly adds Double Jay (which producedBagdad from this family) and Grey Flight (the family ofWhat a Pleasure, sire of Foolish Pleasure). Valid Video isfrom the Stolen Kiss family;6) Blackjack Boy is inbred to Questionnaire, has Tourbil-Continued on next pageCALIFORNIA SIRESJanuary 2003 41

CALIFORNIA SIRESVALID WAGER Continuedlon balanced, and an unusual Flares double. He also hassome far removed linebreeding to Marchetta and full sistersKildeer/Kildare, and descends from Lou Lanier; and7) Giving Noreen is sex-balance inbred to Tourbillon x3and has a cross of Bold Lad, a three quarter brother to Whata Pleasure, sire of Foolish Pleasure. The family is that ofNoreen Agnes.Thus, with the possibleexception of linebreeding toTourbillon, Valid Wagerquite simply does not haveenough offspring to give usthe full picture. Sire lines arealso no help. The broodmaresires of this group are Mr.Leader, Geiger Counter/Mr.Prospector, Gallant Man,Our Native, BlushingGroom, Rock Talk and Icecapade.Even if you want tostretch a point and call Raisea Native the winner due totwo tail-male descendents inMr. Prospector and OurNative, one has to take intoconsideration that there aremore horses from this sireline than most and in a groupthis small, it is likely insignificantto see the name twice.There are many intriguinglines and crosses in the pedigreeof Valid Wager thathave yet to be tried. Any orall of them would make forquality inbreeding patternswith Valid Wager:1) In Reality often likes areturn of his blood via anopposite-sex strain, so mareswith daughter crosses of InReality would be good matesfor Valid Wager;2) Valid Appeal’s broodmare sire Moslem Chief is a halfbrotherto Tumbling, the third dam of Alleged. This is alsothe family of Secretariat and Sir Gaylord. These strains,especially Alleged and Secretariat/Sir Gaylord inbreds likeA. P. Indy, would be intriguing matches;3) The Clonaslee family of In Reality contains some possibilities,including mares with crosses of Decathlon, DeputedTestamony, Superbity, Lucky North, Tank’s Prospect andPrince Blessed;4) Bold Bidder’s Traverse clan gives us Seven Corners(see Gulch), Hasty Road, Traffic Judge, Golden Eagle, BoldIntentionally, the paternal great grandsire of Valid Wager,was the American Racing Manual’s Sprinter of 1959.©Bill Denver/Equi-PhotoValid Video became Valid Wager’s first graded stakes winner with this victoryin the grade III Sapling Stakes at Monmouth Park on Aug. 10, 2002.Bidder’s full brother Balance of Power, Pas Seul andSquadon Leader;5) Tea’s Over, the family of Hangover, has as representativessuch good horses as the Albania family, which includesThe Doge, John’s Joy, Mt. Livermore, Staunchness, WellDecorated and Distinctive. Sultry Song and Jamestown areother family members; and6) The wonderful Mirawala family from which ValidWager descends is an especiallypotent tool. FoolishPleasure would be best, ofcourse, but other fineinbreeding crosses are Bagdad,Tehran, Comet Shineand Authi.When a sire line has doneas well in California as InReality’s has, it is temptingto ask why. The answer is acommon-sense one.The Thoroughbred is at acrossroads in his developmentwith the majority ofhorses—or at least commercialhorses—being inbredand linebred to NativeDancer via Northern Dancerand Raise a Native. Many ofthe In Reality kin are devoidof this blood—Cee’s Tizzyand Bertrando have only oneNative Dancer line whileValid Wager has none.This is a breed that hasbeen ‘closed’ to outside horses(that is, horses of differentbreeds) since the Stud Bookwas established in the late1700’s. There is no longerany such thing as an “outcross”.However, there areclever ways of using the bestof horses like these with thetop Raise a Natives andNorthern Dancers.Mr. Prospector and Alydar, for example, both carry BullDog, as do many Northern Dancers via Bull Page. They area natural match with In Reality, who has a Bull Dog crossvia Roused. Many, if not most of In Reality’s better sonswere bred in Florida, where there is still a lot of Bull Doginbreeding. What this achieves, is linebreeding to one ofthe soundest speed lines in the stud book while avoidingthe closer, more fragile Native Dancer inbreeding that isprevalent.The end result is a speedy, precocious sort that staysaround for a while. And that is every breeder’s dream.42California Thoroughbred