by Ann Ferland © 2005

People who bet the races in this country have had a hard time believing in Brass Hat. When he won the Rushaway S on the Lanes’ End Spiral S(G2) undercard, he paid $79.60 to win. Then, after a decent effort on turf (2^nd in the Forerunner S at Keeneland) and a respectable second to the up-and-coming older stakes horse Alumni Hall at Churchill Downs, he paid $44.80 in winning the G2 Ohio Derby. He wrenched an ankle in that race and didn’t make it back to the races until early October, when he paid $22 for winning the Indiana Derby (G2), beating many of the same horses he had beaten in Ohio. More people were catching on, gradually. Perhaps Brass Hat didn’t like the attention he finally received, or perhaps he didn’t care for the track at Lone Star, which had absorbed a lot of moisture from earlier rains, but the only time he has been a favorite (in the Lone Star Derby on the day before the Breeders’ Cup) he finished far back in the ruck. He has not been seen on a track since, so he may have re-injured that ankle. But we do know that he will be back on the track if it is at all possible because he is a gelding. 

Brass Hat’s owner had no problem believing in Brass Hat because he bred him and raised him, and his son trains him. They entered him in the Rushaway as a twice-raced maiden because, as the trainer said, “I knew he wouldn’t stop on us. I looked at the form and figured he should improve. His half-sister won in her third start going long.” In a field littered with early-maturing horses with questionable credentials to run the 1 1/16 miles, Brass Hat was one bred to improve at 3 and run long.

Trainer William “Buff” Bradley has been quoted as saying his father sent the unraced  mare Brassy to the stallion Prized because “He’s a good, hard-nosed stallion.” They might have added that he was a high-class racehorse on dirt and turf, and one to whom added furlongs were no problem. Moreover he didn’t come with a fashionable pedigree that would’ve elevated his stud fee, yet had been close to the best of his generation.

Prized began his racing career quietly, winning two of his four races as a 2yo at Calder in Florida; both races were at 1 1/16 miles. He tried stakes company in the 9f Tropical Park Derby (G2), running third to Big Stanley. He shipped out west thereafter and won the Bradbury S (for non-winners of a stakes race) over 9f at Santa Anita. He didn’t reappear on the track until the Silver Screen H (G2) at Hollywood Park, another 9f race, where he finished third.

Prized came to the attention of the national public in the Swaps Stakes of 1989. Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Sunday Silence had gone to the lead early in the stretch and looked to have the 10f test in his hip pocket, cruising on an easy daylight lead. What was this? A horse closing out of the pack? But he can’t catch a horse like Sunday Silence, can he?  The answer was, yes, he could. Prized shocked Hollywood Park that day and ran down the classic winner in the final 100 yards. He went on to collect the first prize in the Molson Export Million, a 10f test for 3yo at Woodbine, defeating Canadian champion Charlie Barley. Then he took on his elders in the Jockey Club Gold Cup but could do no better than fourth in that 12f race behind fellow 3yo Easy Goer.

For whatever reason, Prized’s connections decided not to re-oppose Sunday Silence and Easy Goer in the BC Classic, choosing instead to run in the Turf. And to the surprise of the crowd and the experts, he got up to win a tight finish. The rest of Prized’s career was anti-climatic; at 4, he won the San Luis Rey (G1) and a prep race the Arcadia H(G3) at the Santa Anita winter meet. But then he was injured and was off the track until the following year, when he made only 3 starts, winning an allowance prep and running third in the Hollywood Turf H (G1). There is no doubt that he was a high-class stayer on both dirt and turf.

Prized was from the fourth crop of a fairly undistinguished racer named Kris S. This son of classic Derby winner Roberto out of a winning mare by Princequillo had won 3 out of his 5 starts before he was injured and retired – two of 3 as a juvenile and one of 2 at 3. His only stakes win was the aforementioned Bradbury S, in which he defeated future G1 winner First Albert. So expectations for his stud career were distinctly modest and he spent his early years at Meadowbrook Farms in Ocala, Florida.

Prized was conceived in the year that Kris S.’s first runners were to hit the track and mare-owners jitters are clearly to be seen – there were only 19 foals in Prized’s crop, in a time when 35-40 was considered a normal-sized one. But the doubts were unjustified: by the end of the year, Kris S. had 10 2yo winners from a crop of 28, landing him among the top ten freshman sires in number of winners and percentage of winners to foals. Eventually, that first crop produced 20 winners from 25 starters and 5 SWs, all of them minor.

Nineteen eighty-eight was the break-out year for Kris S., the year of his first grade 1 winners,  Evening Kris (Jerome H-G1) and Stocks Up (Hollywood Starlet S-G1).  Prized and Cheval Volant (Hollywood Starlet S-G1) followed the next year and Kris S. was on his way. Before too long he left Florida behind and was off to Kentucky and higher priced mares; more G1 winners and champions became the norm, horses like Hollywood Wildcat, Kissin Kris, Brocco, You and I, Arch, Dr. Fong, Soaring Softly, Kris Kin, Symboli Kris S, and Action This Day.

Prized, one of the first Kris S. sons to go to stud, didn’t duplicate his sire’s quick success, but, as Trainer Bradley remarked, he can sire hardy, professional racehorses who get better with age and distance. His first crop did include 4 SWs eventually, but all of them were minor and he didn’t have a graded SW until 2001, the filly Prized Stamp, from his fourth crop. She was conceived the first year that Prized began to shuttle to New Zealand, a land whose racing program which would seem a good match for his distance and turf abilities . And so it proved, for from that first shuttle crop, Prized sired two Group 1 winners Prized Gem (Kelt Captial S, Brisbane Cup) and Sale of the Century (Rosehill Guineas) among his group winners.

My Turbulent Miss, the dam of Prized, is one of those mares who put farms on a paying basis. She produced 15 foals, one unraced, all but one of the rest winners. Her third foal was her first SW and her 13^th foal was her 5^th SW. That last SW was the unbeaten 2yo star Exploit, winner of the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G2) and Iroquois S (G3); another was a full brother to Prized who was sold to Japan, where he was a G2 winner.  Yet another full brother was Knife Edge, a winner on the flat over 14f and 16f and a multiple winner of graded stakes races over both hurdles and steeplechase fences in Ireland; with 11 National Hunt wins, he has competed against some of the best jump-racers of his era and is still racing at age 10. Only two of My Turbulent Miss’s 4 fillies became broodmares and both have produced winners, including the G2 winner Orville N Wilbur’s. All of this from a mare who never ran.

My Turbulent Miss had a blue collar pedigree, but not one without merit. Her sire, My Dad George, was considered the second best 3yo of his year, 1970, the year he won the Florida Derby and the Flamingo S, and finished second in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. He was the last gasp of glory, the last SW, the last chance to keep the male line going in the US for his sire, Kentucky Derby winner Dark Star, but he proved to be a disappointing sire in Florida. He had an ‘old’ pedigree for his era, as his sire and dam were 17 and 16 respectively when he was foaled; his damsire was a son of Ascot Gold Cup winner Flares (the full brother to Omaha) and his second dam was by Kentucky Derby winner of 1932 Burgoo King while his third dam was by immortal sire Black Toney, a foal of 1911.

Prized’s second dam, Turbulent Miss,  won 4 of her 41 starts and placed in stakes races at Hialeah and Liberty Bell, two tracks that no longer host racing. She spent her broodmare career in Florida and produced 2  SWs , one SP winner, and 4 other winners from 10 foals. Her parents *Petare and Behaving Deby were both stakes winners, although of very different types.

*Petare was bred in Argentina, where he won twice and placed in a stakes race; exported to Venezuela he became a winning machine, with 30 wins including group 1-type races to become that country’s all-time leading money winner. Looking for more competition, he came to the US as an 8yo and won two stakes races, the City of Miami H (1 mile 70 yards) at Tropical Park and the Royal Palm H (9f ) at Hialeah. In his very first crop in the US, *Petare sired champion 2yo colt Sadair, winner of 8 of 12 races including the Garden S, Pimlico and Arlington-Washington Futurities, and the Saratoga Special, defeating future classic winners Tom Rolfe and Hail to All. Sadair retired after his juvenile campaign and became a decent sire, with Poule d’Essai des Pouliches (French 1000 Guineas) in his second crop and some SWs in the US, including Sir Wiggle, who became a sire as well.  In the US, *Petare also sired the good colt Subpet  and Suburban winner Barometer (a gelding) but he is usually found in the pedigrees of good runners through Sadair.

*Petare’s pedigree was ‘one generation removed’ from the top racing performers in it. His sire Moslem was a modest son of two English imports, the fine runner and sire Rustom Pasha, and Merrose, a daughter of Buchan and half-sister to major English 2yo SW Tolgus. His dam Collette was unraced; she was a daughter of the modest winner Diadoque (by Blandford from Dulce) but a half-sister to major Argentine SW Cocolo. His female line is, however, beyond reproach because he traces to Ante Diem, one of the great foundation mares in the history of the Argentine Thoroughbred.

Behaving Deby, on the other hand, was a fast and early 2yo, winning the Gulfstream Park Dinner S at the end of March as well as the important Fashion S at Aqueduct in mid-May.  Her other two stakes wins were in May and June; by late summer she could only place in stakes and by her 3yo year she was no longer competitive in stakes races. Her sire Ambehaving had been a good 2yo, too, but a later one, winning the Remsen S (in which he defeated Bold Ruler and Promised Land; yes, he is another member of that amazing crop of 1954) and placing in the Pimlico Futurity after winning a pair of New Jersey-bred stakes. He also went on to place in decent stakes races at 3 and 4. As a sire, he did okay, with grade 1-type winners Treacherous and Ampose, and most especially Good Behaving. This latter colt won the major New York Derby preps, the Gotham and Wood Memorial, with a slew of good colts like Jim French and Bold Reason behind him; but since he was not nominated to the Triple Crown races and no supplemental entries were allowed at that time, he missed his chance to become a classic winner. Ambehaving was one of several sons of top French runner Ambiorix who paid their way at stud without getting a sire son of their own, thus dooming this branch of the Herod male line in the US.

Dashing Deby, the dam of Behaving Deby, ran 3^rd once in 14 starts; as a broodmare, she was perfect, with 4 winners from 4 foals. Behaving Deby was her first; her second was a good SW by *Petare, no doubt inspiring the later mating that produced Turbulent Miss. The other two foals, both colts, were by Ambehaving and each made more than 100 starts in their careers; the youngest, Be Dashing, won 24 of his 159 starts. Her produce record was a significant improvement on that of her dam, Deby, whose 10 foals included 8 runners but only 2 winners. Some might point to the fact that Dashing Deby was inbred to classic winner and important sire Friar Rock 4x3 to explain how she managed to do so much better as a breeding animal than her dam. Her sire was Hasteville, a durable SW (26 wins in 96 starts), and the only son of Haste we have come across in the pedigree of a G1 winner – usually we see him as damsire of Count Fleet. Hasteville was out of a Pompey mare, which was out of a Friar Rock mare.

Deby herself was not much of a racer, unplaced in 13 starts, but was a full sister to a good winner named Kentmere Miss. Her pedigree was excellent – by the important sire Pilate from a winning daughter of *Teddy; her second dam was an English import by Neil Gow, and her third dam was by none other than St. Simon. The next dam Muirninn founded several branches that are still active in the production of stakes-type horses, although not in great numbers.

It is interesting that the sires along Prized damline all belonged to rare and/or extinct male lines – My Dad George traced to Gainsborough via Solario; *Petare traced to Son-in-Law via Rustom Pasha; Ambehaving traced to Tourbillon via Ambiorix; Hasteville traced to Le Sagittaire via Maintenon; and Pilate traced to Rock Sand via Friar Rock. *Teddy in the US has dwindled down to Damascus; the Marco branch of Matchem bit the dust long ago; and even the mighty St. Simon’s line is holding on by the skin of its teeth.

We can’t say that about Prized’s son Brass Hat; the sires of his first four dams are male line descendents of Phalaris, the dominant sire-line of this era. His dam Brassy was unraced due to a crooked leg and was purchased for $5000 by Mr. Bradley pere at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale of 1996. Presumably he had her value as a broodmare in mind. She was a daughter of Dixieland Band’s talented son Dixie Brass, a speedy miler and winner of 6 of his 15 starts, and not to be confused with the 3 years older Fountain of Youth S (G2) winner Dixieland Brass. A listed SW at 2, Dixie Brass won the Swift at Aqueduct early in the season, but his connections seemed to recognize his distance limitations by not pointing him towards the Kentucky Derby. He stayed in New York, where he next won the Withers Mile (G2), the race that was once the US’s Guineas classic. Next he took on a more difficult task, beating older horses in the G1 Met Mile at the end of May; taking advantage of his feathery impost of 107 lbs, Dixie Brass bested such accomplished oldsters as In Excess, Pleasant Tap, Rubiano, and Twilight Agenda.  

Dixie Brass has been a decent sort of regional sire in New York; he has had G1 winners in Puerto Rico and Jamaica, G2 winners, Dixie Dot Com (G1 placed) and Im Brassy, and several G3 winners. His sire, Dixieland Band, won stakes races from 2 to 4, including two grade 2s, the Pennsylvania Derby and the Massachusetts H, but was not considered anything special when he retired to stud compared to other sons of Northern Dancer. He showed the world its misjudgment with his first crop, which had 32 winners from 37 starters, 8 of them winning at 2, with 7 SWs. For the most part, the Dixieland Bands have been miler sorts, with the notable exception of Ascot Gold Cup (G1) winner Drum Taps.

Dixie Brass’s dam Petite Diable also foaled Odyle, a son of Alleged who promised to be a special sort when he won the San Felipe H (G2) but was felled by repeated injuries and never fulfilled that promise, and 5 other winners. She herself was a winner and placed in listed stakes. Her sire was Secretariat’s shadow and a very good horse in his own right, Sham, a classic sire (of Jaazeiro, Irish 2000 Guineas) and sire of some good broodmares, a role in which he follows his sire Pretense. She was the best runner from Taste of Life, dam of 6 runners, 3 winners and 2 placed, none of them black-type earners.

Taste of Life was by Bold Ruler’s son Dewan out of Good Taste, by Vertex, dam of 2 SWs and a full sister to another SW named Irongate. Another of Good Taste’s daughters produced the third dam of Arkansas Derby (G2) winner Private Emblem. The next dam, Kuchen, by Spy Song was a half-sister to Breeders’ Futurity and Clark H winner Shy Guy, who also placed in major races like the Widener H and Arlington Classic. This is a family that has been in the US a long time, since Stockwell’s daughter Maud was imported at the time of the Civil War, and has produced some top horses although not in large numbers.

Calm Princess, second dam of Brass Hat, was bred by W. T. Young under the name of his storage company. She started 14 times and managed to finish second and third ten times without winning, in good company. She was a daughter of  Majestic Prince’s son Sensitive Prince, a G1 winner of 14 of his 20 starts and nearly $1/2 million. He set a track record at 2 for 5f at Hialeah of :57 1/5; at 3, he won the Jerome H (G2), the Fountain of Youth S (G3), set a track record of 1:39 3/5 for the 1 1/16 miles of the Hawthorne Derby (G3), and set another for 7f of 1:20 4/5 in the Hutcheson S; at 4 he set a track record for 10f of 1:59 1/5 while winning the G1 Gulfstream Park H and was third behind Star de Naskra in the Carter H (G2). Despite all of these heroics, the only thing that Sensitive Prince is remembered for by those who DO remember him is that he was the pacesetter in the Kentucky Derby that began Affirmed’s Triple Crown. He was out of a daughter of Argentine star Sensitivo who was a half-sister to Fred Hooper’s stars Tri Jet, Sky Gem, and Tinsley. Despite his racing ability and fine pedigree, Sensitive Prince didn’t make much of a mark as a stallion, his best being the durable G2 winner All Sincerity.

Calm Princess produced 7 foals, including 2 SP winners plus 2 other winners. Her dam Equanimity did a bit better, with a Fair Grounds SW and 2 SP winners from her five winners. Equanimity herself had been a G1 winner, having accounted for Oaklawn’s Fantasy S; she also ran second in the Santa Susana S (G1-now the Santa Anita Oaks), Santa Ysabel and Senorita S. This racing ability was nothing out of the ordinary for the offspring of her sire Sir Ivor. The Derby S winning son of Sir Gaylord has left a legacy of classic winners, classic sires and classic producers that has spread all over the world. 

Equanimity had a full brother who won a juvenile hurdle stakes in Ireland and ran third in the Daily Express Triumph Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival; a half-sister was SP in Italy and second dam of a G2 winner in Argentina; all six of her remaining half-siblings were winners. The dam of this estimable crew was Constant Nymph, an unraced daughter of Never Bend, another sire of great influence whose pedigree needs no detailing here. She was one of 13 foals from the *Ambiorix mare Spring Muse, whose best runners were the durable US turf SW Vis-à-Vis and Herbager’s son Meadow Mint. The latter won the Chesham S at Royal Ascot at 2 and the Grosser Internationaler Kaufhof, one of Germany’s best mile races, at 3; he was also a the sire of G1 winner Funny Hobby. One of her daughters Minor Miracle is ancestress of a handful of group winners.

Spring Muse’s sire *Ambiorix was touched upon earlier, as the sire of Ambehaving. Top of his generation at 2 in France, and near the top at 3, *Ambiorix led the US sires’ list back in 1958(?) and continues to be an important element in pedigrees, although not in the male line. Her dam, Spring Run, was likewise an influential matron, but primarily through her sons rather than through her producing daughters. Her son Racing Fool won the Blue Grass S; her son Up Spirits won 2 of his 4 starts and became a sire in Canada; and her son by Nasrullah, Red God, won group/graded-type sprints at 2 in England and at 4 in the US before founding a dynasty at stud.

Most pedigree students by now recognize that this is the female family of the imported Belle Rose and her mighty daughter Pink Domino, dam of Sweep. John Henry descends from this family; so did champions First Flight and Family Style; top horses like John P. Grier, Thanksgiving, Career Boy, Crafty Admiral, Beau Purple, Hennessy, Editor’s Note, and Hold That Tiger count Pink Domino as their female line ancestress.

Brass Hat has no repeated names in his first five generations, which qualifies him as an outcross. Princequillo shows up 4x6x7, and Turn-to is there 5X6 with another cross of his sire Royal Charger in that 6th generation. Nasrullah is 6x7x6 and the founder of the other major branch of Nearco, Nearctic occurs but once, as does Raise a Native. One can see a goodly amount of Teddy and Hyperion in the background of this pedigree.

Equanimity is the member of the family with the most interesting pedigree from the standpoint of the enthusiast. The half-siblings Source Sucree (dam of Turn-to) and Ambiorix appear 4x3; and the ¾ siblings Athenia and Menow (same sire, dams mother and daughter) appear 3x4. The dams of these sets of siblings were Lavendula and Alcibiades, respectively, both important producers and founders of major female lines. Inbreeding to significant females via different offspring is held by some breeding experts to be the way to produce better offspring and it certainly worked in the case of Equanimity.