Grindstone

[Rokeby Forever]

I was just thinking...this stallion has to be Overbrook management at its absolute best!

Here's an Unbridled line stallion that had the speed to win a five furlong race, won the Kentucky Derby, has sired a Classic winner and two millionaires, and is standing for a whopping $3,500. I wonder if you can negotiate the fee down to a turkey sandwich if you have the right mare.

On the other hand, another Unbridled line stallion (Unbridled's Song), was defeated by Grindstone in the KY Derby, hasn't sired a Classic winner, and has only 1 more millionaire to his credit than does Grindstone. He stands for $200,000.

Empire Maker (another Unbridled) lost the KY Derby, doesn't yet have a foal to race, and is standing at $100,000.

Now, everyone can rant and rave that Grindstone has Drone on the bottom and he was an unsound horse. Well, how sound were Unbridled's Song and Empire Maker?

It's a good thing that old man Young's peanut butter business did so well, huh?

[Patuxet]

Grindstone's daughters are also starting to be heard from as stakes producers. He's the damsire of 3YO Noble Court, winner yesterday of the G2 San Vicente.

[habitat]

I was surprised to see his fee go down to 3.5K this year.

If you were this stallion's decision maker what would you do?

[Maven]

I think the main difference between Grindstone and most the more heralded Unbridled's is size. While many from the line have a good deal of size and often throw that size into their offspring, Grindstone is on the smaller side and most of his foals are quite small as well. We all know size matters! People just never really went for his get in the ring and besides some common conformational weaknesses, add smaller stature to it, and you're a dead duck in the ring.

[Rokeby Forever]

When Storm Cat kicks the bucket, the Overbrook team had better get themselves an established stallion. They can't plan all their future success on Jump Start.

[Keith]

A great mare can sure make a stallion look good and how many horses have become millionaires racing in Japan?


How good is Dear Birdie the dam of Birdstone?

Dear Birdie is the dam of champion Kentucky Oaks winner Bird Town and Belmont Stakes winner Birdstone.


Grindstone's other millionaire raced in Japan.


Keith

[freshman]

According to his stats, Grindstone only has 3% stakes winners or placers out of 8 crops of racing age. Trying to learn here, so this jumped out at me.

Also noticed that in the same number of crops, Unbridled's Song has twice as many stakes winners as Grindstone and his progeny's total earnings are $38.7 million versus Grindstone's $14.2 million, lifetime 2 year-old earnings are $6.3 million versus $1.9 million. Grindstone's lifetimes starts are 3.386 versus Unbridled's Song's 6,897.

Unbridled's Song also has sales figures that are exponentially better than Grindstones: average yearling price of $226,000 versus $42,00.

Don't know if this means that either horse is correctly or incorrectly priced, but it seems like no contest about which is a better sire.

[Shergar]

What is so bad about having Drone as a Damsire?

Regards, Shergar

[Rokeby Forever]

Was a Drone ever born that was sound?

[Patuxet]

Was a Drone ever born that was sound?

Well there are a dozen or so which made between 40 and 89 starts which suggests a certain amount of soundness.

Navajo Princess started 35 times, was in the money in 26 of them for earnings of $349.915. Bred to Lyphard she produced Dancing Brave which won the 2000 Guineas, the Arc, the Eclipse and the George & Elizabeth. He was one of three classic winners produced by daughters of Drone.

[Rokeby Forever]

Then I guess the key to Drone mares was to breed them to durable lines like Lyphard. Breeding to Unbridled got a Drone mare a KY Derby that ran 6 times.

What did Drone race...4 times, I think?

[Patuxet]

Yup, 4 starts, 4 wins. I remember hearing that Bull Hancock really loved this horse.

[Rokeby Forever]

He must have....Claiborne didn't usually stand lightly raced horses. I'm told that Woody Stephens had to use his best sales pitch to get Claiborne to stand Danzig.

[hpkingjr]

I believe Kid Grindstone was inbred to Drone 3x4 and Mr. Prospector 3x4, two fountains of soundness. Maybe it was the 5x5 to Tom Fool (bad feet?) and 5x5 to Swaps that saved the mating and allowed him to run 21 times and win about $300,000.00. Go figure.

[BJ]

I was just thinking...this stallion has to be Overbrook management at its absolute best!

Here's an Unbridled line stallion that had the speed to win a five furlong race, won the Kentucky Derby, has sired a Classic winner and two millionaires, and is standing for a whopping $3,500. I wonder if you can negotiate the fee down to a turkey sandwich if you have the right mare.

Couple of questions:

1. Did Lukas train all or most of Overbrook's stallions?

2. Are there Any SONS of Unbridled or Fappiano (other than Unbridled) that were sound and durable? It sure seems to me that Fappiano is the one bad apple in a bunch of good sound sires from the Raise A Native line.

From my standpoint, both Grindstone and Tactical Cat are values for my mares, but I sure don't like the number of starts made by either of them, and with Grindstone, I'd opine that his size *might* be chasing away the "commercial" breeders. With the soundness issues, that takes care of the "breed to race" breeders. Maybe Overbrook's management is more on target than first meets the eye. Personally, though, I'd stop having trainers that can't keep 'em sound train my stallion prospects.