RIP Seattle Dancer

[erins isle]

What a shame, he made a good start with his offspring in Germany:
2006: 8 starters 16 races 4 winners total prizemoney won € 135,600.

From the Racing Post:

SEATTLE DANCER, who achieved infamy as a yearling when setting a world-record price of $13.1m in 1985, has died at the age of 23. According to the Blood-Horse, the son of Nijinsky suffered a heart attack last month at Gestut Auenquelle in Germany, his home since 2003.

SeattleDancer came to symbolise the heady days of the 1980s when the sky was apparently the limit for well-bred yearlings in the sales ring.

Out of the stakes-winning Poker mare My Charmer, he was a half-brother to the 1977 Triple Crown hero Seattle Slew and closely related to the 2,000 Guineas victor Lomond. The colt was destined to be hot property when he entered the ring at the Keeneland July Select yearling sale, and he lived up to the promise when purchased by the British Bloodstock Agency on behalf ofa group including Robert Sangster, John Magnier, Vincent O'Brien, Stavros Niarchos and Danny Schwartz.

His price tag remains a record for a yearling sold at public auction, although The Green Monkey, bought for $16m as a juvenile last year, has since eclipsed the record price for any horse sold at auction.

Unlike many other expensive yearlings who fail to live up to their hype, Seattle Dancer proved himself a high-class performer, winning the Gallinule Stakes and the Derinstown Stud Derby Trial, both Group 2s. Unraced at two, the colt made just five starts in his one-season career in the Niarchos colours, retiring with earnings of £111,303.

Such was the furore surrounding the colt that he was made third favourite for the 1987 Derby on the strength of his debut third place at Phoenix Park, although he would ultimately appear in the Prix du Jockey-Club rather than the Epsom Classic, finishing unplaced. In all, his career spanned just ten weeks, although it also included a second-place effort in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris.

The breeding shed was always going to be the place where Seattle Dancer was most likely to recoup his owners' outlay and he was retired to stand at Ashford Stud, the Kentucky arm of Coolmore's breeding operations, where his fee was initially set at $20,000 for the 1988 breeding season.

He remained at Ashford for the next seven seasons before transferring to Coolmore's Fethard base for two years. A spell at East Stud in Japan followed, before he took up stud duties in Germany in 2003.

While Seattle Dancer's stud career cannot be viewed as an unqualified success, his own talents as a turf performer were unlikely to ensure him great chances during his time at stud in Kentucky, although he did sire the 1996 Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks heroine Pike Place Dancer.

The stallion's five winners at the highest level spanned three continents, with Caffe Latte, winner of the Grade 1 Ramona Handicap in California, his only other top-class US performer.

The Racing Post Trophy winner Seattle Rhyme ranks as Seattle Dancer's best progeny to race in Britain, although the colt largely failed to live up to his early promise. The Australian Derby winner Dance The Day Away, and the dual German Classic winner Que Belle are his other Group 1 winners.

[oliverstoned]

Considered a colossal failure being a Group II winner Group I placed, what does that make The Green Monkey? At least Seattle Dancer had royal breeding.

[Mood Swings]

RIP Seattle Dancer