Pennsylvania-breds have banner weekend overseas
Group 1 winners Lucarno (St. Leger) and Mrs. Lindsay (Prix Vermeille) were foaled and raised at Bettina Jenney’s Derry Meeting Farm.
By Cindy Deubler
Pennsylvania horseman George Strawbridge has spent decades breeding Thoroughbreds, searching for the right combinations to produce classic-quality runners, and coming up with many successes. But he wasn’t convinced that his 3-year-old colt Lucarno fit the mold of an English St. Leger horse. Lucarno had proven his class through a spirited 2007 campaign, and still the question loomed: Did he have the stamina to succeed in the world’s oldest classic race, the Group 1 St. Leger, run at a grueling distance of more than one and three-quarters miles?
“Mr. Strawbridge is a great sportsman and he said, ‘We’re running—that’s it, said Lucarno’s English-based trainer, John Gosden. And the Pennsylvania-bred Lucarno proved that he is indeed a classic horse, powering to a one-length victory over Mahler and eight other rivals in the 231st running of the St. Leger at Doncaster on September 15.
Lucarno prepped for the St. Leger with an excellent performance in the Great Voltigeur Stakes-G2 at York three and a half weeks earlier.
“We thought the Great Voltigeur would be a great race to run in,” said Strawbridge. “When he won it nicely—the St. Leger is two furlongs longer—and he continued to train well and feel well, we decided we would consider the St. Leger.”
But Lucarno’s pedigree created doubts. Although a son of Dynaformer, a proven source of stamina, he is out of Strawbridge’s homebred Vignette, a very fast Diesis (GB) mare who counted a victory in a five and a half-furlong stakes on the turf at Hollywood Park among her four wins.
Distance wasn’t the only consideration in sending forth Lucarno in the classic. There was the four-horse assault from the barn of Europe’s version of Todd Pletcher—Aidan O’Brien—who saddled race favorite Honolulu, confirmed stayer Mahler and longshots Macarthur and Acapulco.
Another consideration was the current prejudice against distance races within the breeding industry.
“There is a theory that if you win the St. Leger, it ruins the value of your horse as a stallion,” added Strawbridge. “But I think versatility is to be admired and sought after. I think versatility speaks well for the future of a stallion.”
The list of past St. Leger winners includes such influential sires as Hyperion, Nijinsky II, *Tulyar, Tehran, *Ballymoss, Never Say Die, *Bahram and Bustino.
Bred in the name of Strawbridge’s Augustin Stable, Lucarno was foaled at Bettina Jenney’s Derry Meeting Farm in Unionville. Remarkably, another product of the nursery, Jenney’s own Mrs. Lindsay, completed a European Group 1 coup by taking the Prix Vermeille in France the next day.
Lucarno, named by Strawbridge for a town in Italy—“I’ve never been there but think I should probably go now”—was rather plain as a yearling, according to his breeder. But as Lucarno grew and matured, he developed “into a beautiful- looking horse.”
Gosden allowed Lucarno his entire 2-year-old season to mature and he didn’t make his first appearance on a race track until April 21, in a hotly contested one-mile maiden race at Newbury, in which he finished second at odds of 50-1. Making his next start two weeks later, Lucarno destroyed a maiden field by seven lengths going one mile over the all-weather track at Kempton.
The constitution of Lucarno was put to the test, as he made his third appearance in a Newmarket listed stakes, the Fairway at a mile and a quarter, on May 26. He drew off by three and a half lengths, prompting the Racing Post to note: “The time was nothing special but the nature of victory was certainly emphatic. . .”
“He won for fun,” said Strawbridge, who then opted to send his colt to the Epsom Derby-G1 one week later.
“There was no more intimidating a sight than seeing all eight of O’Brien’s horses come into the paddock together for the Derby,” said Strawbridge.
But the ambitious gamble nearly paid off as Lucarno—making his fourth start in six weeks—finished fourth in the 17-horse field.
“We wouldn’t have beaten [the winner] Authorized, but his greenness may have cost him a placing or two,” Strawbridge noted. Lucarno missed third place by a head, while holding seven of O’Brien’s army at bay.
A busy summer campaign continued when, 20 days later, Lucarno contested the King Edward VII Stakes-G2 at Royal Ascot and finished second. Back again in another three weeks, Lucarno was united with a new rider and failed to settle early in the mile and a half Group 2 Princess of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket while facing older runners for the first time. He finished fourth and earned a brief freshening.
Lucarno’s return came in the Great Voltigeur, once again against 3-year-olds and featuring a reunion with rider Jimmy Fortune, who has guided the colt to all four of his victories. The St. Leger completed the season for Lucarno, who is being prepared to race again at 4, with his calendar for 2008 expected to be filled with Group 1, mile and a half European championship races.
Along with its prestige, the St. Leger was lucrative, worth more than $600,000 to the winner, which propelled Lucarno’s lifetime earnings past the $1 million mark (to $1,033,373). He made a total of eight starts, all within a five-month span.
Strawbridge has won many important fixtures on the European racing calendar, with runners such as champion Turgeon, who accounted for the Irish St. Leger-G1 as a 5-year-old in 1991, and 2006 Prix Royal-Oak-G1 winner Montare, his Irish-bred filly who won France’s version of the St. Leger.
“But those two races are for older horses, while the English St. Leger is limited to 3-year-olds,” noted Strawbridge, deeming Lucarno’s victory his first true classic score.
Winning the classic “is about as high as you go—an enormous thrill,” said Strawbridge, adding it equaled the excitement of homebred Tikkanen’s surprising victory in the 1994 Breeders’ Cup Turf-G1.
Still, Strawbridge admits that he got a slightly bigger thrill watching his son, Stewart Strawbridge, ride The Bruce (NZ) to victory in this year’s renewal of the Maryland Hunt Cup. A former president of the National Steeplechase Association, Strawbridge once rode his own steeplechase horses—he continues to share the title of most victories by an amateur rider in the famed Iroquois Steeplechase (which he won four times in the 1970s) —and remains one of steeplechasing’s leading owners.
His diverse racing background prompted Strawbridge to quip to the European press following Lucarno’s score: “I’m used to steeplechasers running over three miles, so [the St. Leger] was a sprint to me!”
Mrs. Lindsay caps off Group 1 weekend
“I love racing in France,” said Bettina Jenney following a trip to Paris, where she watched her 3-year-old filly Mrs. Lindsay capture the $416,340 Prix Vermeille-G1 at Longchamp on September 16.
Sharing the French “joie de vivre” are the descendants of the *Le Fabuleux mare Tananarive (GB), who was purchased by Bettina’s late husband, Marshall Jenney, in France in 1976 for the equivalent of $24,104 and has provided a lasting legacy for Jenney’s Derry Meeting Farm.
The fifth dam of Mrs. Lindsay, Tananarive was in foal to Great Nephew when Jenney brought her to Pennsylvania in 1976. The following spring she produced Mrs. Penny.
Sold at Saratoga as a yearling to Eric Kronfeld for $40,000, Mrs. Penny became the third stakes winner bred by Derry Meeting Farm, which Jenney launched after purchasing a dairy farm in 1967 and converting it to raise Thoroughbreds. Mrs. Penny became a marquee name while racing in Europe, being named champion 2-year-old filly in England and co-champion 3-year-old filly in England and Ireland. But two of her greatest triumphs were on French soil where, during her 3-year-old season in 1980, she captured the classic Prix de Diane-G1 as well as the Prix Vermeille-G1.
When Marshall Jenney, one of the racing’s most enthusiastic and affable sportsmen, died unexpectedly at the age of 60 in November 2000, Mrs. Penny’s trainer, Ian Balding, wrote in a remembrance: “I first met Marshall at Saratoga in 1978 when his infectious enthusiasm as the consignor and breeder of Mrs. Penny convinced me, as much as her lovely temperament and long easy stride, that the chestnut daughter of Great Nephew should be bought to go to Kingsclere [Balding’s training yard]. . . no breeder could ever have enjoyed the success of one of his ‘children’ more than he did.”
Mrs. Penny was retired to her birthplace following her racing career, where she produced her first four foals for Kronfeld’s Maverick Productions before being sold in the mid-1980s.
The fourth foal out of Mrs. Penny was a daughter of The Minstrel whom Jenney purchased for himself and named Mrs. Jenney.
While Mrs. Jenney’s career on the track and at stud was brief, she became a stakes winner, but more importantly, an exceptional producer.
Mrs. Jenney never raced in France, instead winning as a 2-year-old in England before returning to the U.S. to win two stakes at 3.
Before her untimely death from colic at the age of 7, Mrs. Jenney produced two foals. Her first was Grade 1 Whitney Handicap winner Unaccounted For, who earned just shy of $1 million and placed in such Grade 1 events as the Breeders’ Cup Classic and Jockey Club Gold Cup.
The second foal, A Votre Sante, is a daughter of Irish River (Fr) who was a stakes winner in France. Now pensioned at Derry Meeting, A Votre Sante produced as her first foal Vole Vole Monamour (by Woodman), a winner at 3 in France and the dam of Mrs. Lindsay.
Derry Meeting Farm generally sells its yearlings, and Mrs. Lindsay was offered at the 2005 Keeneland September yearling sale, but the chestnut daughter of Theatrical (Ire) was bought back for $95,000. Jenney, who keeps a handful of horses to race, sent Mrs. Lindsay to the stable of French trainer Francois Rohaut.
Mrs. Lindsay made one start during her juvenile season, finishing third at Longchamp in September.
In her first start at 3, she won by four lengths, going a mile and three-eighths at Fontainebleau, then came back one month later, on April 9, to win the Group 3 Prix Penelope at Saint-Cloud by a head in a gutsy performance.
Mrs. Lindsay tackled Group 1 company for the first time next out, finishing second to West Wind in the Prix de Diane (French Oaks).
Rohaut always targeted the Vermeille as the filly’s fall objective, so a subpar effort at Deauville in August didn’t deter her connections.
The Prix Vermeille, open to older runners for the second time in its 164-year history, drew a field of 10, including West Wind. Given a savvy ride by Johnny Murtagh, Mrs. Lindsay was prominent throughout the mile and a half test, biding her time in second before getting the jump on the rest of her competition as the field headed for the straight run to the finish.
Mrs. Lindsay held West Wind safe by three-quarters of a length and increased her mark to three wins from six starts, for earnings of $553,334.
Bettina Jenney, who married Marshall in 1973, continues to carry on what her late husband started at Derry Meeting, and never considered any other course of action after her husband’s death. Sales prepping and consignments constitute a good portion of farm business. And the nursery has been famous for decades as the birthplace of such stars as Danzig, Storm Cat, Selkirk and Tikkanen.
Derry Meeting is filled to capacity each year, foaling approximately 50 mares annually. George Strawbridge boards 35 of his own mares there, including Lucarno’s dam, Vignette, who produced a 2007 filly by Epsom Derby-G1 winner North Light (Ire) and is back in foal to that champion son of Danehill.
Jenney owns five broodmares of her own and eight in partnership, and credits advisors James Wigan (of London Thoroughbred Services) and Brian O’Rourke with their guidance in breeding and sales decisions.
Vole Vole Monamour is currently in foal to Dixieland Band. Her yearling son, by Tale of the Cat, was sold by Derry Meeting for $150,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Select Yearling sale at Saratoga.
“We’ve had a cluster of good horses this year,” said Jenney. “Derry Meeting is really producing runners.”
And continuing to put Pennsylvania in the spotlight on the world stage.
