Escape Clause, Manitoba's Greatest Horse, Has First Foal

It’s a boy!

Manitoba’s greatest race horse gives birth to her first foal in Japan Saturday.

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Manitoba’s greatest race horse is now a mother. Escape Clause, who was bred in Russell, Man. and earned more than $1 million, gave birth at Northern Farm on Hokkaido Island in northern Japan to a colt on Saturday.

The colt’s father is Duramente who won the Japanese Derby in record time in 2015 and never finished worse than second in nine races that included six graded stakes. He earned more than $5.57 million.

The 7-year-old Escape Clause has lots of company. She is one of about 800 broodmares at one of the largest breeding operations in the world, Northern Farm which is about 45 minutes southeast of Sapporo where the 1972 Winter Olympics were held. She was purchased from her Manitoba owners in November 2019 for $300,000. U.S. at the Fasig-Tipton “Night of the Stars” auction in Lexington, KY.

Escape Clause did Manitoba proud by racing against some of the best mares on the continent. She won stakes races at Santa Anita and Del Mar and her main claim to fame was losing by a mere nose in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom Stakes at Oaklawn Park to Midnight Bisou who went on to finish second in the $20 million Saudi Cup a year ago.

Horse racing is a very challenging game for everyone involved–breeders, owners, trainers, race-track operators, race-players, you name it. Which means special moments could rightly be shouted from the rooftops.

Such was the birth in Japan on the weekend of a foal by superstar mare Escape Clause the Zipricks had bred at their Russell, Man. farm. The family’s 15 years of birthing sessions in the wee hours of the morning, all those painstaking efforts to produce winning foals, faded into the background at least for awhile after Northern Farm’s Noriko Takahashi announced the birth of Escape Clause’s son at the Japan farm.

Wrote Sherisse Ziprick in an email to Noriko: “We bred and raised Escape Clause and are just thrilled to be able to receive an update now that she is on the other side of the world, I know your operation is immense and your time is valuable, so please know that you have made the day for a family in small town Russell, Manitoba, Canada.”

Amen.

SIRE’S BIRTHDAY: Escape Clause’s sire, Going Commando, who now is retired from breeding, turns 21 next Friday. “Commando is spoiled and happy,” reports Sherisse Ziprick, from her farm in Russell, Man. “He’s blanketed and gets half a dozen carrots or more mixed in with his daily feed. He’s got my mini (horse) and the yearlings beside him for company.

“He has a really bad hip but is still feisty when he wants to be. He had a really tough spring and had gone downhill, but as soon as the mosquitoes were gone this fall, he started to perk up and put on weight again. We had him blanketed, but the bugs were just rotten. I think next year we will put him in a spot where we can light a smudge (fire) for him. Makes such a difference.”