BARGAIN BRED RACING SERIES & BREEDING CORNER

Horse Chestnut (SAF) (12471)

By request this week I bring you Horse Chestnut. He is an impressive grand son of Sadler’s Wells. He was pretty good on the track and has had some early success as a sire in real life. His potential as a sim sire seems pretty solid.

Real Life- Horse Chestnut is by Fort Wood. His dam sire is Col Pickering and his dam’s dam sire is Grey Sovereign. He was quite the turf horse winning nine of ten career races including the South African Triple Crown. His average margin of victory was six lengths. He did most of his running at three but did not race as a four year old. He was brought to the states and made one start at five in a grade III, which he won by five and a half lengths.

He has a lot of stamina and that has shown in his sim runners. His best runner to date is Lucifer’s Stone who was a grade I winner this year. He has two pretty solid juveniles that ran this year in Little Hussy and Spanish Chestnut. Both of his juveniles are inbred to Nasrullah 5X5. The dam sires in both juvenile are through the Raise a Native line and the dam’s dam sire is through Nasrullah. Horse Chestnut’s dam’s dam sire, Grey Sovereign, is a son of Nasrullah.  His oldest runners are only three this year and his runners should get better with age.

Sim Life – Horse Chestnut has produced forty-four sim runners and nineteen of those are two year olds. With only twenty-five older runners his sire stats are average but interesting. His progeny’s average speed figures over a mile on turf are ten points higher than their dirt numbers over a mile. It is rare in sim sires for their average turf speed figures to be higher than the average dirt speed figures. It is very unusual the difference is ten points. He has one older stakes winner. #47659 (Pleasant Colony) He is not much today but he ran some very nice 100+ speed figures on the turf. Other than that his older runners have been forgettable.

His two year olds are a different story. Horse #8369 (Seeking The Gold) is a grade II winner on dirt. Horse #92955 (Forty Niner) just broke his maiden with an 85-speed figure. His two year olds are much better bred than his older runners. They have excelled on dirt with four runners posting 80+ speed figures. The popular choice for dam sires is from the Mr. Prospector lines. As this bunch gets older they should make some noise. 

Breeding Suggestions – Since Horse Chestnut is a grandson of Sadler’s Wells the Mr. Prospector / Raise a Native line of sires seem a good fit as dam sires. I think Blushing Groom is the ultimate choice for dam’s dam sire. Any grandson of Nasrullah can be used in the dam’s dam sire slot to create a 5X5 inbreeding to Nasrullah.

Seattle Slew, Ribot, Halo, and Damascus would also be good sire lines to choose from. I am skeptical at this point about breeding back to the Northern Dancer line. A grandson of Northern Dancer would give you a 4X4 inbreeding to Northern Dancer. It has not really been tried in the sim so it may be worth a shot. That is an inbreeding that works in the sim and real life. On the other hand we know the Raise a Native line is producing well.

Horse Chestnut (SAF) (12471) X Affirmed (83) X Blushing Groom (FR) (669)

Horse Chestnut (12471) X Gulch (2625) X Mill Reef (3979)  

Bargain Bred – At this point Horse Chestnut does not get cheap enough to Bargain breed. 

What to Expect – He ran well in real life at three and still seemed to have it at five. His real life runners have been solid at two although not overwhelming. I would expect good runners at two and as the distances get longer the better his runners should be. His older runners almost all ran well on turf but his two year olds run well on dirt. I would expect his runners could go either way but be better on turf. In real life he won up to a mile and a half so his offspring should be capable of the same distances.