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New Stallion Warm Up December 14, 2010  It's Christmas in more ways than one in Midway, with newly arrived stallion prospects scattered around the farms like unwrapped presents.
The following list of new recruits started this summer as soon as Summer Bird retired, and I love to hop in the car with a friend or two and see these recent heroes when their racing glory and final injuries are fresh enough to instruct us breeders which qualities and faults might mix best with a particular mare.
Like a chef hoarding recipes, every year I’ve scrawled conformation notes on 3x5 cards going back as far as Nashua and Damascus. Trolling through these cards is always interesting; most of the names (Huckster? Alphabatim?) are here only a few seasons and forgotten, underlining the futility of one stallion making a lasting ripple in the rich blood of Central Kentucky.
Even more instructive is how little the conformation notes have to do with later sire success; I loved Tasso (“tremendous shoulder and hip, good bone”) and had little use for Distorted Humor (“very small, offset and curby”), although I did call the one of the greatest sires in the world “cute, with a good hip.”
Yet once the November breeding stock sales are over, the new year’s ritual begins with a look at the new boys, then running home to pore over race records, pedigrees and nicking software; hoping to distill a billion intangible qualities into that one magic, perfect race horse.
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Arch
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KY
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$35,000
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Tapit
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KY
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$7,500
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Street Cry (Ire)
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KY
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$10,000
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Giant's Causeway
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KY
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$6,000
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Smart Strike
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KY
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$35,000
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Harlan's Holiday
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KY
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$10,000
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Unbridled's Song
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KY
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$15,000
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Speightstown
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KY
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$12,500
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Giant's Causeway
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KY
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$7,500
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Storm Cat
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KY
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$5,000
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Birdstone
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KY
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$15,000
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Maria's Mon
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KY
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$20,000
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Tale of the Cat
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KY
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$15,000
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Afleet Alex
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Gainesway
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KY
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$10,000
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Mineshaft
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Lane's End
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KY
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$15,000
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Giant's Causeway
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Taylor Made Stallions, Inc.
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KY
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$30,000
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Mr. Greeley
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Breeders' Station
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KY
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Private
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Lion Heart
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Spendthrift Farm
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KY
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$7,500
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Elusive Quality
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Lane's End
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KY
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$35,000
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Medaglia d'Oro
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Spendthrift Farm
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KY
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$15,000
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