May 15, 2005

CONGRATULATIONS STEW!
Just heard that Stew Firlotte will indeed be inducted to Canada’s Hall Of Fame and deservedly so. The developer of Ralph Hanover, Town Pro, His Mattjesty, Historic and quite frankly a number of Perretti farmbreds has long been a Hall Of Famer in our neck of the woods!

ARTISCAPES 1-2
It was 1-2 for Artiscape in the Harness Racing Communications initial polling with Maltese Artist (Artiscape-Hula Dancer) eclipsing last year’s horse of the year Rainbow Blue (Artiscape-Vesta Blue Chip) for top honors amassing 326 points to the 320 garnered by the mare. Loyal Opposition was a distant third with 203. Been a heck of a year thus far for Artiscape as still another headliner son Art Director (Silky Satin) prevailed in still another 4-year-old Open feature at Harrington.

OLE! OLE
The mystery is solved. Scandinavian Bloodstock Agent Ole Bach was right.on target tabbing Hobokenbamhamamamas sire of the thus far impressive and likely Dexter Cup favorite Great George Two as a relative of Stefan Melander’s gifted Hambletonian and European champion Scarlet Knight. Hobokenbahamamamas is indeed the first foal of Ruby Crown by Supergill. This makes him a three quarter brother to this year’s impressive Mohammed Mali and a three quarter brother in blood to the noted Promising Catch. Thus there is ample license to sire a promising colt like Great George Two.

LAMENTABLE LOSSES
There were significant losses on the harness scene this week first in Little Brown Jug winner Seatrain and then the milestone race horse and stallion No Nukes.

Seatrain a gelded son of Meadow Skipper in many ways embodied the genius that was Meadow Skipper who so often could get a legendary performer out of just any mare. The dam Mary Brakefield (Jerry The First-Senatress Abbe) was a nice mare but apart from Seatrain threw nothing approaching major status. Her next best Adour by Dale Frost was perhaps an A3 pacer at Roosevelt and Yonkers. Seatrain not only won the The Little Brown Jug but WOUND UP taking his 1:55 record at the ripe old age of 12. He also was claimed a couple of times for rather significant sums if memory serves. In all Seatrain earned well over $800,000 at a time when purses were not nearly what they are today. Seatrain was 33

HARNESSED POWER
From the first crop of Oil Burner, No Nukes was a charter member of the sterling group of 1982 that also included Cam Fella. Merger, Temujin, Icarus Lobell, McKinzie Almahust, Armbro Aussie, Ideal Society etc. Of those, No Nukes and Cam Fella emerged as two of the most influential sires on record.

No Nukes was a meteoric success from the onset getting champions Jate Lobell and Nadia Lobell from his very first crop. Thereafter would come Die Laughing and Western Hanover and so many others.. Western will ultimately prove his supreme contribution through his contemporarily successful sons Western Ideal, The Panderosa and perhaps our own Red River Hanover.

No Nukes himself came along at a time when the Meadow Skipper line had clearly branched into the Most Happy Fella and Albatross tributaries and with his Oil Burner sire was four generations from Skipper and thus eligible to 4x3 linebreed to mares by Skipper sons. This he did quite successfully and of the above named Nadia Lobell, Die Laughing and Western Hanover are from Albatross mares.

No Nukes might have been the first of the Most Happy Fella’s to display the blinding speed associated with Albatross get while retaining the sheer power associated with the Happy’s. As such, the eligibility existed and he became truly a milestone stallion.

Often thought No Nukes’ best all around effort was a race he didn’t win namely the 1982 Meadowlands Pace in which he wound up a second a nose to Hilarion that one catch driven by a then up and coming John Campbell.

Actually had quite an association with No Nukes stemming from the old Boardwalk days where we first sent the likes of Misty Raquel, Inside Joke and Al Bragin’s Happy Times Stable mainstay Sweet O’Brien. The latter resulted in Sweet Sharon.

Given the impact No Nukes had on Perretti Farm mares over the years, he was accorded a rightful position in our honor roll of stallions.

You know Steve, often wondered if you ever regretted rejecting “The Most Anticipated First Crop Since Niatross” as the slogan line for Upstream’s initial presentation of No Nukes yearlings.

Still get a chill when HARNESS THE POWER flashes onscreen to the tune of Chariots Of Fire in the No Nukes stallion video!
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GRADE A FOR TROT
DO give TROT magazine a grade A for its comprehensive State Of The Industry issue. It’s a must read for all involved in all aspects of this business and hopefully can spawn some decisive and positive action sooner rather than later. It’s distressingly obvious that the status quo is not precisely working out so well during these trying days.

CAN’T CONFUSE RACING PROWESSAND BREEDING PROWESS
DID notice the USTA’s poll regarding the best overall racing son of No Nukes where the overwhelming majority of voters were split between Western Hanover and Jate Lobell with but scant support for Die Laughing.

Of course Western Hanover has been one of the most influential stallions of the last decade and is now the sire of top young stallions The Panderosa and Western Ideal.
Jate Lobell from the first crop of No Nukes has been a leading sire over the years and still gets good stake winners like Sugar Glider.

Die Laughing though not nearly commensurate in the stallion barn with either Western or Jate. However was one pretty fair pacing colt. Some forget that in the 1:51.1 2-year-old Breeders Crown epic set by Artsplace at Pompano, it was Die Laughing and Richie Silverman that went off at prohibitive 3-5 favorites from the outside while Artsplace and John Cambell were 3-1 from the inside. . Which tells you what they looked like going in.

Sometime in the 80’s, was asked to recreate a hypothetical race involving the best pacers from the years 1949 to 1976 with the contestants selected by poll. Certainly one of the more deserving of the 8 starters was Meadow Skipper who by then had established himself as perhaps the greatest pacing sire of any era. The kicker is that Skip’s contemporary and for the most part conqueror Overtrick was not named. Which in pure racing terms was a colossal injustice. Almost like having an all time thoroughbred match up listing Alydar but not Affirmed.

Meadow Skipper most emphatically “belonged” but in any hypothetical race citing all time greats so too did Overtrick.

This is not to imply that Die Laughing was the best racing son of Nukes though it is to state he was hardly as “distant” from the other two as the voting might suggest.

It is not unusual for stud prowess to over influence recollections of racing prowess.

That was an impressive move by Ideal News (Western Ideal-What’s New) in Friday’s NJSS for fillies. Looks like a Miss New Jersey candidate for sure..

Muscles Yankee fillies 1-2 in one Lady Suffolk division at Freehold. Mr. Muscleman could be the Cutler final favorite next week. Looked good in the elimination.

We got a real nice leggy Red River Hanover colt from Doc’s Girl. She next goes to Card Shark Jeff Snyder!

Bob Marks

   

 

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