BARGAIN BRED RACING SERIES & BREEDING CORNER

Sir Leon (5891)

If you are a fan of Florida racing you probably know Sir Leon. He is a rare sire carrying on the Damascus line through Private Account. He has produced many solid runners and one well-known runner. As one can imagine he has been over looked in the sim. He has few runners and has not been bred to very good dam sires. Even so I think he is very capable of producing solid runners that may be capable of beating back the wear and tear factor.

Real Life- Sir Leon is by Private Account. His dam sire is Ballymoss (GB) and his dam’s dam sire Honeyway. Sir Leon was a solid runner himself running fifty-six times and winning twelve. He earned just over four hundred and fifty thousand in purse money over his career. He was durable and has past that durability on to his real life runners. He also has quite a bit of stamina (dosage index of 1.27) and seems to pass that along to his runners.

Sir Leon’s best runner by a long shot was Sir Bear. Sir Bear was a grade I winner at ages five, six and eight. He won graded races at ages five, six, seven, eight and nine. He ran seventy one times with over 2.5 million in purses and nineteen wins. Sir Leon’s real life runners run better on dirt and seem to excel from a mile to a mile and a quarter. They would probably run farther but not many longer races like that in real life.

Sir Leon has been bred to lesser-known sire lines and has been fairly successful. You will not see him bred to many known Northern Dancer or Mr. Prospector line mares. Sir Bear’s dam sire was Bet Big from the Never Bend (Nasrullah) line. He is twenty-three now so he is probably not much longer for the breeding shed. 

Sim Life – Sir Leon has just eleven sim runners. Only one is an allowance winner. #32859 Sir Brit is a copy of Sir Bear (Bet Big X Greek Answer). He has a six year old that has run well. #7708 Ft. Lauderdale (Slew Prince X Skin Head) has a couple of solid speed figures sprinting and would probably do better at a longer distance.

One of his retired horses was a pretty solid runner that won seven times and was in the money in seventeen of thirty-two races. The couple of young runners he has are not very good at all but all of his runners are cheaply bred. At this point his runners are faster sprinters however I still believe he will produce better route runners. None of the horses have faired well on turf.

He has been used as a dam sire more than as a sire and has had solid results. As a dam sire he has produced four allowance winners from twenty runners. Those runners run well on dirt but the turf results are much better than his sire statistics. 

Breeding Suggestions – Sir Leon is from the Damascus line. Buckpasser will be in the fourth generation of Sir Leon’s offspring. Inbreeding back to Buckpasser could be an interesting experiment and just might produce some results. I went back and looked at what worked with Private Account and the Ribot line (His Majesty, Key To The Mint, Hoist the Flag and Tom Rolfe) produced the best results with Private Account. The Northern Dancer line (The Minstrel, Nijinsky, Lyphard, Nureyev) produced pretty well also. I think the Seattle Slew, Bold Ruler and Mr. Prospector lines should work well.

Breeding a cheaper sire like Sir Leon to more expensive or even top-notch dam sires can be risky but you could be rewarded with a very solid runner. Because Sir Leon is in expensive you may be surprised how affordable it can be to pair him with good dam sires.

Sir Leon (5891) X El Gran Senor (1894) X Hoist the Flag (2812)

Sir Leon (5891) X Key to the Mint (3293) X His Majesty (2803)

Sir Leon (5891) X Spectacular Bid (6122) X The Minstrel (6552)

Bargain Bred – Sir Leon is pretty in expensive at the end of the week. That sets him up to be a solid bargain sire. I would keep within the same sire lines I talked about earlier Northern Dancer, Ribot, Seattle Slew, Buckpasser.

Sir Leon (5891) X Cherokee Colony (1094) X Slew the Coup (5952)

Sir Leon (5891) X Roo Art (5423) X Danzatore (1504)

What to Expect – Sir Leon seems to produce runners that bloom later in their careers. Sir Bear was a stakes winner at three and I think his two year olds in real life do well so I would not be afraid to breed a two year old. His runners should run best as the distances get longer excelling over a mile. His progeny should also prefer the dirt however you may give the turf a try especially when breeding to the Ribot and Northern Dancer lines. You might get a horse useful on the turf.