In the past two Factoring Pedigree posts we profiled the emerging first crop sires Girolamo and Twirling Candy. But it’s Scat Daddy who rules as North America's overall sire of two-year-olds this year, and by a wide margin.
The Ashford Stud stallion has 20 juvenile winners so far, well ahead of Twirling Candy’s 12, and his babies have racked up nearly $1.5 million in purses. A very impressive five of those winners are already stakes winners and they've captured a good number of the major North American juvenile blacktype races on the grass.
That Scat Daddy is a good sire of two-year-olds is no surprise. He won three of his first four starts at two, including the Champagne Stakes (G1). He was a good early three-year-old as well notching the Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) and Florida Derby (G1) before being injured during his 18th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby.
Scat Daddy also hails from a sire-line known for juvenile performance. His great grandsire, Storm Cat won the Grade 1 Young America Stakes in 1985 before being nosed out by Tasso in the second Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Storm Cat, of course, went to be one of the all-time great sires and Hennessy was one of his early stars after taking the Hopeful Stakes (G1) and just falling short to Unbridled’s Song in the 1995 BC Juvenile. Hennessy then sired Scat Daddy’s sire Johannesburg, who was able to win the Juvenile in 2001, finishing off an unbeaten international juvenile campaign.
Johannesburg was a Group 1 winner on European grass courses, so while Scat Daddy never ran on the grass, he is passing on his sire’s aptitude for the lawn.
Scat Daddy’s two-year-old daughter Acapulco scored one for the U. S. in the June 17 Queen Mary Stakes (G2) at the Royal Ascot meeting. Both juvenile turf stakes at Saratoga fell to the Scat Daddy clan - Azar (Grade 2 With Anticipation Stakes) and Harmonize (P. G. Johnson Stakes). And just last Sunday, Conquest Daddyo scored in the Grade 2 Summer Stakes on the lush Woodbine grass course. Scat Daddy also has a good 2015 dirt juvenile in Pretty N Cool, winner of the Sorrento Stakes (G2) and runner-up to Songbird in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante.
Overall, 17 of Scat Daddy's first 30 blacktype winners (56%) have won on the turf.
Scat Daddy was the #3 first crop sire in 2011 and made it up to 10th on the 2014 two-year-old sire list (after finishing 32nd and 70th the previous two seasons). Part of the reason we’re seeing so many Scat Daddy winners and stakes winners is simply that there are a lot of them out there - 150 to be exact. But make no mistake, he’s clearly establishing himself as an elite juvenile sire and one of the very best sires of any kind on the international stage. It will certainly be hard to ignore his sons and daughters at the windows in this fall's juvenile grass races.
Scat Daddy's 2015 Royal Ascot winner Acapulco.