Daddysruby Wins the G1 La Brea Stakes at Santa Anita

December 27, 2023

Two thousand and twenty-three ended in a blaze of glory for California breeding as the finish of the La Brea Stakes (G1), the final grade 1 event of the year, was fought out by the only two Cal-breds in the field as Daddysruby prevailed by the scantest of noses in the Dec. 26 race at Santa Anita Park over Big Pond with their nearest pursuer four lengths in arrears.

Both Big Pond and Daddysruby are comparatively lightly raced, the La Brea being respectively their fifth and sixth starts. George Krikorian homebred Big Pond had already captured the state-bred Fleet Treat Stakes on just her second start, but Daddysruby ventured into stakes company for the first time. She won her first three starts on three different surfaces, taking a six-furlong maiden special weight on the all-weather at Golden Gate Fields; a six-furlong optional claiming/allowance test on dirt at Santa Anita; and a one-mile optional claiming/allowance event on turf at Del Mar. The gray or roan filly suffered the only setback of her career to date in her next outing, apparently failing to stay when fading to fourth in a 1 1/16-mile optional claiming/allowance race at Del Mar. Dropping back to six furlongs, Daddysruby prepped for the seven-furlong La Brea by blazing through opening fractions of :21.88 and :44.70 en route to a 5 1/4-length victory in an optional claiming/allowance contest over six furlongs at Santa Anita.

Campaigned by Wachtel Stable, Gary Barber, and her breeder, Jethorse, Daddysruby is from the fourth of five crops sired by the Scat Daddy son Frac Daddy , who stands at Colebrook Farms Stallion Station, near Uxbridge, Ontario, for a fee of just CA$3,000 (having begun his career at Park Stud in Ontario). A winner of five of 20 starts and just more than $700,000, Frac Daddy scored his most notable successes in the 2014 Ben Ali (G3) and Eclipse (G2) stakes on all-weather surfaces, and he also finished second in the 2013 Arkansas Derby (G1) on the dirt. Frac Daddy has sired four stakes winners from 92 starters, including the 2023 juveniles No More Options and Frac Dancer . Remarkably, Frac Daddy is one of 22 individual sons of Scat Daddy to have sired a stakes winner, a group that includes standouts No Nay Never and Justify .

The impulse to send Daddysruby's dam, Youtheprizeandi , on a sojourn from California to Ontario presumably came from the fact that Youtheprizeandi's first foal, Daddysprize , a daughter of Scat Daddy, had shown herself to be a smart performer the previous year, missing by just a half-length in the 2018 Real Good Deal Stakes at Del Mar. Youtheprizeandi, a daughter of the Kris S. stallion You and I, was a Washington-bred and was a useful performer in her own region, winning three races, including the 2011 non-black-type Northwest Stallion Knights Choice Stakes at Emerald Downs.

Misty Knight, the second dam of Daddysruby, won the Mona Lisa Stakes at Emerald Downs in 1996, a feat that gave her the distinction of being the only black-type winner under Daddysruby's first four dams prior to the La Brea.

We don't reach any true class in the tail-female line until Daddysruby's sixth dam, Silver Service. She produced four stakes winners, headed by Jeffo, successful in the 1974 Bryn Mawr Stakes (G3) and dam of 1983 Delaware Handicap (G1) heroine May Day Eighty, and ancestress of Chi Town Lady , who took the 2022 Test Stakes (G1). Other descendants of Silver Service include SIlvernesian, successful in the 1992 Gran Premio Jockey Club (G1) in Italy, and Ishino Sunday, who took the 1996 Satsuki Sho, the Japanese Two Thousand Guineas. The female line goes back to Breeders' Futurity winner Betty Beall, a foundation mare for Col. E. R. Bradley's Idle Hour Stock Farm, bred out of the imported English mare, Macaroon.

Betty Beall is notably ancestress of 1988 Hose of the Year Alysheba. Betty Beall's half sister, Batter Cake, appears as third dam of champion 3-year-old male of 1944 By Jimminy, and subsequently broodmare sire of Sword Dancer, himself a champion and sire of champion Damascus—who appears twice in the pedigree of Frac Daddy—and Lady Pitt, the tail-female ancestress of Flightline .

Daddysruby is the second stakes winner from only four starters by Frac Daddy out of a mare by a son of Kris S., as his current juvenile stakes winner, Frac Dancer, is out of a mare by Philanthropist. A look at TrueNicks shows that the broader Scat Daddy/Roberto cross has also significantly outperformed opportunity with five stakes winners, four graded, from only 58 starters. We'll also note that Frac Daddy has three incidences of the once dominant Nasrullah/Princequillo nick, while Youtheprizeandi has Kris S. (a cross of Nasrullah's close relative Royal Charger over Princequillo) and as sire of her second dam, Table Run, a Princequillo/Nasrullah cross.

Source: Bloodhorse.com -- article by Alan Porter

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