Tough loss in Texas: Worldly Manner dead at 14

I'll take a minute this evening to offer my sincere condolences to an avid race fan, breeder and owner from one of my two Kansas "hometowns," Coffeyville.

Jim Percival, whose White Cat Farm partnered in standing Worldly Manner at David Bailey's Two B Rockin Ranch, near Bridgeport, Texas, lost that stallion today from an apparent heart attack while covering a mare. The good fella was just 14 years old.

I recall a couple of years ago when Jim lost his last stallion, Timetobewild, in the same fashion. That stakes-winning son of Flamingo Stakes-G1 winning Time for a Change was just 13 when he succumbed after covering a mare on Jim's own farm in Kansas. And Jim had not all that long before acquired Timetobewild to replace the late Arab Speaker, who had sired a stakes horse for Jim in Bonnie J before he passed along.

I scouted the field for stallion prospects -- on sales Web sites, in upcoming auctions and in claiming races, where so many pretty good (and intact) horses end up running out their long and successful careers when they aren't from powerhouse sirelines or the hottest-producing damlines. I made a few recommendations (including G2-placed Vinemeister, who could've been claimed on the cheap in the Mid-Atlantic at the time), but Jim opted to go into partnership on Worldly Manner.

I can't say that I blame him.

Worldly Manner was a heck of a 2-year-old. Under the guidance of Bob Baffert, he won the Del Mar Futurity-G2 and the Pest Pal S.-G3 during a stellar juvenile campaign.

Then he was bought by Godolphin and, honestly, wrecked, almost as surely as a drunk driver steering his Mustang into the ditch.

The Riverman colt (who I think might have been a better turf horse; his dam was a full sister to the dam of G1-winning grass horse River Flyer, also by Riverman) was the first of Sheikh Mohammed's big-dollar purchases (a reported $5 million) in an effort to win the Kentucky Derby after wintering in Dubai. Worldly Manner was shipped to the Middle East and inexplicably -- not to mention ill-advisedly, unwisely, insanely and just about every other negative term I can muster -- entered in the 1999 Kentucky Derby after exactly zero legit prep races at age 3. ... Nary a one. ... Other than a trial race in Dubai, Worldly Manner hadn't faced competition since winning the Del Mar Futurity in Southern California on Sept. 9 the year prior.

Yet he had talent, and guts, and as the field turned for home, Worldly Manner, ridden by Jerry Bailey, was on the lead at the top of the stretch at Churchill Downs, in America's biggest race.

Quite to be expected, he came up short, finishing seventh behind Charismatic. But he was only beaten a handful of lengths when it was said and done. Given a reasonable prep schedule coming up to the Derby, Worldly Manner might well have been a fit enough horse to finish the job.

Compounding the error, Godolphin entered him in the Preakness, and watched him finish 12th.

Sent back overseas, the horse failed to win again, making starts in Dubai and in England. His career ended with those three 2-year-old victories from 12 starts and earnings a little over a quarter-million.

After his racing career, Worldly Manner stood in Florida, California and Oklahoma prior to his acquisition by the partners who owned him at his time of death. He's sired a couple of nice horses, too, including $336K-earner Spot the Diplomat and stakes-winning hurdler Kilbride Rd.

And now Worldly Manner is gone before Jim and his partners can fully exploit his services to breed a few of their own (and for clients) to do battle among Texas-breds.

RIP, Worldly Manner. I have a hunch you were a much better horse than some of the handling you got along the way, and the reputation you were left with.

Advent of autumn marks last day of Summer Squall

When it rains, it pours.

On the first day of autumn, and just one day after Adena Springs Farm reported that top sire El Prado was dead of a heart attack at age 20, Lane's End follows up with the news that 1990 Preakness Stakes winner Summer Squall has been euthanized at age 22 due to "the infirmities of old age."

Summer Squall was 5-for-5 as a juvenile, including four stakes, two graded -- the Hopeful S.-G1 and the Saratoga Special-G2. But the 2-year-old championship went to Rhythm, whose only stakes win at 2 was the Breeders' Cup Juvenile-G1, a race Summer Squall had missed.

He won four of seven starts at age 3, all of them Grade 2 races or better: the Preakness; the Pennsylvania Derby-G2; the Jim Beam S.-G2; and the Blue Grass S.-G2, now a Grade 1 race. But the champion 3-year-old colt was Unbridled, who clearly earned the honors by winning the Florida Derby, Kentucky Derby, and Breeders' Cup Classic.

Summer Squall also was a graded-stakes winner at 4, in the Fayette H.-G2 at Keeneland.

In all, he won 13 of 20 starts, nine of those wins in stakes races, for $1,844,282.

Summer Squall had already left the stallion ranks, being pensioned in 2004 due to declining fertility. But while he was on the job, Summer Squall gave us several fine racehorses.

Most notable among his winners, of course, was near-Triple-Crown champion Charismatic. Foaled from the Drone mare Bali Babe, Charismatic won the 1999 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes before finishing a hard-fought third in the Belmont Stakes while suffering a broken bone in his leg. Many race fans have vivid memories of jockey Chris Antley pulling up the horse and leaping off to support his mount's leg and calm the animal, perhaps saving the horse's life.

Summer Squall also sired millionaire females in Summer Colony (Personal Ensign H.-G1, etc.) and Storm Song, who was the 1997 Eclipse champion 2-year-old filly. Daughter Summerly won the 2005 Kentucky Oaks-G1.

Summer Squall was another product of the highly successful breeding operations of W.S. Farish III and W.S. Kilroy; a son of top sire Storm Bird out of the legendary Secretariat broodmare Weekend Surprise. This, of course, made him a half-brother in one of the more noteworthy bands of siblings in American racing and breeding of the latter 20th century.

His most prominent half-brother was Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old, now leading sire, A.P. Indy. Also among the family are stakes winning sire Eavesdropper; blackytpe-placed late-sire Honor Grades; and Hong Kong G2 winner Rainbow and Gold (registered in the U.S. as Garcia Marquez).

The sisters also could run -- and produce.

Summer Squall's G1-placed sister Weekend in Seattle is the dam of stakes winner and Travers-placed Mambo in Seattle. Half-sister Welcome Surprise was a G3 winner. Unraced sister Weekend Storm was the dam of Hollywood Derby-G1 winner Court Vision, multiple stakes winners Lord Snowden and Smart Surprise, stakes-placed City Weekend, and $121K-earner Kipling (sire of Breeders' Cup Mile-G1 winner Kip Deville) among her 10 winners. And modest winner Lassie's Legacy produced stakes-placer Aspiring.

The family is just one branch of the female-family legacy left by the great Buckpasser mare, Lassie Dear, who is in the tail-female line of many dozens of blacktype horses, including Lemon Drop Kid, who defeated the aforementioned Charismatic in that fateful '99 Belmont.

So, another sad farewell, the second in as many days. Rest in peace, Summer Squall.

Perhaps tomorrow will bring fairer skies for us all.

New York stallion on the market: Badge

As the breeding season comes to a close, a New York stallion whose connections have put considerable effort into marketing him, appear ready to move him along to other ownership.

Badge (Air Forbes Won-Revenge Time, by Raja's Revenge) is listed for sale at Thoroughlybred.com at an auciton-starting price of $25,000, though the page says offers would be accepted. I presume an "offer" is what will buy the horse.

The stallion has been standing at Foggy Bottom Farm in Geneseo, N.Y. His fee this year was advertised as "private" by the Stallion Register online, but is valued at $4,000 according to the farm's Web site. (Edit: It's worth adding that numerous discounted seasons have been available through sources including Thoroughlybred.com for the past couple of years.)

Badge was a fairly accomplished runner, winning the Gotham S.-G3 at Aqueduct and finishing a game third behind Kentucky Derby winner Charismatic and the brilliant Menifee in the Preakness in 1995. At stud, the solidly built chestnut horse has been workmanlike, but unspectacular, over his first four very small crops of 40 total foals of racing age.

One might blame his mares. I haven't seen updated stats for 2009, but from his first four crops going into 2008, Badge's progeny posted a pretty good Average Earnings Index of 1.19 -- that's essentially 19 percent more in earnings than the average racehorse (which is quantified as 1.00), for those fans who aren't into the breeding side of the business and don't follow such numbers. But that 1.19 AEI has been achieved with foals from mares whose Comparable Index (foals by other sires) is merely 0.70. That discrepancy -- 1.19 AEI vs. 0.70 CI -- suggests that Badge's foals are a little better than average even though the mares he's been mated to produce foals that are usually much worse than average.

Put in breeders' terms: Badge upgrades his mares.

Again, going into 2008, Badge had sired 26 starters from 40 foals of racing age, a respectable 65 percent. Of those starters, 16 had become winners; that's 62 percent of his runners to that point, and 40 percent of all foals. Their average earnings per raced horse at the beginning of last year totaled $38,168, and from such small crops, Badge had already posted nearly $1 million ($992,363) in progeny earnings, obviously a figure well-eclipsed by now.

Badge still has sired no stakes winners, just competitive, professional runners. Among his best are: filly Heathersdaddysbaby, 12 wins from 37 starts and twice stakes-placed for $306,059 (still active in 2009); filly Pretty Partisan, who won 11 races from ages 2 to 5 and was stakes-placed at Aqueduct for $255,730; and No Badge, a filly who won 17 of 66 for $194,679.

But the fellow apparently can't get enough business to remain employed in New York.

Some might suggest he just wasn't a good enough runner to merit standing at stud, or at least to attract attention from outside (particularly commercial) breeders. But it isn't the race-record that has cursed him -- plenty of horses who proved to be mediocre racehorses or even winless busts at the track have been sent to stud and actually gotten business. (I hear you up in that tree, Green Monkey; stop throwing banana peels. I know you'll probably serve 40 mares this year alone.)

It's pedigree that's the problem. Badge has neither a noted blacktype tail-female line nor particularly fashionable sirelines.

With breeders so enamored of certain lines -- particularly those stemming from Storm Cat, A.P. Indy and Mr. Prospector -- it's hard for a horse from outside those lines to get any traction as a stallion prospect, even one with a halfway decent race record.

Badge was given a chance, albeit a brief one. Without a "big horse" or two in those first crops -- not just a stakes winner, but preferably a graded one -- this is probably the end of the line for Badge in a first- or second-level breeding state.

Which leads me (and plenty of others) to wonder: What are we breeding for?

It is not to get racehorses?

All Badge did on the track was win at 2 (like breeders hope), win a Grade 3 mile at Aqueduct and then run his guts out finishing a close third to truly brilliant horses in the Preakness at 3, and earn a G2-placing at age 4, earning $380,630. His first four years at stud produced 65 percent runners from extremely marginal opportunity, foals that had won 17 percent of their lifetime starts and earned $2,335 per start coming into 2008.

Badge's numbers are very similar to those posted during the career of another stallion who started his career at the same time and is now standing in New York, the A.P. Indy son Golden Missile. A Grade 1 winner in the Pimlico Special at age 5, this son of A.P. Indy had five crops of racing age going into 2009, compared to Badge's four crops from the 2008 report.

Golden Missile's get far exceed Badge's in sheer weight of numbers -- a stunning 398 foals. But of those, 263 were runners (66 percent, just 1 percent higher than Badge), only 157 were winners (39 percent, 1 percent below Badge), and Golden Missile's present AEI of 1.14 is not only less than that of Badge (entering 2008), it was produced by foals from mares with a Comparable Index of 1.91 -- females that usually produced much, much better than what they've done with Golden Missile.

Sure, Golden Missile has produced some splendid runners, including Gazelle S.-G1 winner In The Gold, Merv Griffin-owned San Felipe S.-G2 winner Cobalt Blue and Sorrento S.-G3 winner Inspiring, who made only four lifetime starts. But given nearly 400 mares, and mares nearly twice as good as the average producer, I'd venture to say Badge would've thrown a graded-stakes winner or three by now, as well.

Yet Golden Missile now stands in New York for nearly twice the price of Badge at $7,500 (though he started out in Kentucky) and I doubt that he's going anywhere anytime soon. Golden Missile covered 62 mares in New York in 2008, that's plenty of business; Badge 18, I suspect mostly at sharp discounts.

It won't be for $25,000 (in my opinion), but perhaps Badge will wind up in a state where he has a second chance. Maybe Louisiana, where breeders seem to have a greater appreciation for a sturdy, workmanlike stallion even if he isn't descended from fashionable lines; horses like Afternoon Deelites and Time Bandit from the dwindling Damascus line, Richter Scale (Habitony) or the late Zuppardo's Prince. Or maybe in the Southwest; New Mexico might be a good home.

And, you can't rule out a trip overseas.

Wherever he goes, I suspect Badge will continue throwing sturdy foals who race, and who win.

I just hope he gets that chance.