Michele Blanco
Calder Race Course

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Wildcat Heir was a fast Grade 1 winner and is off to a fast start at stud standing in Florida with 42 2-year-olds from his first crop nominated for the $1.3 million Florida Stallion Stakes series at Calder Race Course, leading the well-balanced list of freshman and established stallions such as Montbrook, Trippi and Concerto.

A total of 749 2-year-olds were kept eligible for the 28th edition of the six-race series after connections made sustaining eligibility payments for them as weanlings, yearlings and twice more this year as 2-year-olds by eligible stallions standing in the state.

Wildcat Heir leads the first crop sires on the FSS list that also will showcase the offspring of freshman Closing Argument (26), Indian Ocean (26), Bwana Charlie (12) and Proud Accolade (12). Closing Argument finished third in the In Reality Division of the FSS in 2004 and second in the Kentucky Derby (Grade 1) the next spring.

Montbrook is now 19 years olds and still going strong, siring the leading 2-year-old developed at Calder last year with Big Drama sweeping the three ‘open’ divisions of the FSS series. Montbrook has 11 juveniles eligible from this crop, including Centaur Farm and partners’ filly Miss Diane, who was impressive winning her career debut last Friday night at Churchill Downs.

Trippi, whose son Green Vegas won the 2006 renewal of the In Reality, has 28 offspring eligible, including Gottcha Last, a half-sister to Centaur’s handicap star Gottcha Gold and Pharmtrip, whose dam Pharmstar ran in all three filly divisions of the FSS series in 2001, winning the Desert Vixen.

Other veteran stallions well represented this year include Macho Again, Milwaukee Brew, Exchange Rate, Peace Rules, Repent, Tiger Ridge, Halo’s Image, Sweetsouthernsaint, Double Honor, Concorde’s Tune and Delaware Township.

Owner-breeder-trainer Wesley Ward has been in the headlines with his unprecedented assault on the 2-year-old races at last week’s Royal Ascot meet in England, winning with two of five juveniles. Ward races a division at Calder and has five prospects nominated for the Stallion Stakes, including Grand Times, a daughter of Greatness that broke her maiden here on May 2 by four lengths.

Other nominees of particularly interest by pedigree are an unnamed filly by High Fly out of Win Approval owned and bred by Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Plantation and Rustlewood Farm’s unnamed colt by Act of Duty out of April Invitation.

The filly is a daughter of Live Oak’s 2005 Florida Derby (Grade 1) winner High Fly and a half-sister to the stable’s Eclipse champion turf horse and Breeders Cup Mile (Grade 1) hero Miesque’s Approval and venerable stablemate Revved Up, recently retired after a long and successful career winning $1.5 million, including three straight renewals of the Bonnie Heath Turf Cup here.

The Rustlewood colt is a son of freshman sire Act of Duty and a half-brother to the stable’s top class sprint stakes star Mach Ride, winner of the 2007 Smile Sprint Handicap (Grade 2) here on Summit of Speed day, and currently on the comeback trail. 

The Florida Stallion Stakes series has an imposing list of graduates with Frances A. Genter’s Smile among the most prominent in the early years, sweeping the three ‘open’ divisions in 1984, and followed by Brave Raj, Not Surprising, Unbridled, Holy Bull – all Eclipse Award champions – and other nationally-acclaimed stakes stars over the years.

The 2009 Florida Stallion Stakes dates are: August 8 ($100,000 Desert Vixen and $100,000 Dr. Fager), August 29 ($150,000 Susan’s Girl and $150,000 Affirmed), and October 17 ($400,000 My Dear Girl and $400,000 In Reality).