For only the second time in the 37 years of the Sovereign Awards ceremony, a horse that was not based in Canada has been voted with the ultimate honour, the Horse of the Year. It happened two years ago with Juddmonte Farm’s European American transplant Champs Elysees, based mostly on his victory in the Grade I Canadian International.
Never Retreat, the 2011 Horse of the Year, made the required three starts in Canada to be eligible (she made four in fact) and was a major winner both at Woodbine and in important races in the U.S.
What Never Retreat has, however, that Champs Elysees did not, was a true-blue Canadian pedigree, branches of horses grown right in Ontario. In her first three generations, Never Retreat shows six Canadian-breds in the paternal or maternal line, starting with both Smart Strike, her sire, and Steady Growth, her broodmare sire.
Very smart
Sam-Son Farms’ homebred Smart Strike was born into a legendary Canadian family. The son of classic sire Mr. Prospector was the fourth foal to race of Classy ‘n Smart, a Canadian Oaks winner for Ernie Samuel and family in 1984. Classy ‘n Smart had already produced champion Dance Smartly, a Canadian Triple Crown winner and Canada’s first Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner. Dance Smartly produced Plate winners Dancethruthedawn and Scatter the Gold.
Smart Strike, while a somewhat delicate colt, lived up to expectations on the racetrack, winning six of eight races including the Grade I Philip H. Iselin Handicap in 1996 and the Grade III Salvator Mile.
It has been his performance at stud, however, that has put Smart Strike in the league of the great sires. Through 2011, Smart Strike, who stands at Lane’s End, in Versailles, Kentucky, had sired 81 stakes winners including two-time Horse of the Year in the U.S., Curlin, Canadian Horse of the Year Soaring Free and champions English Channel, Lookin At Lucky, Eye of the Sphynx and many more.
Team Block, the owners of Never Retreat, retired its star mare for 2012 and will surely be encouraged by Smart Strike’s statistics as a broodmare sire already. He has produced the dams of 22 stakes winners.
So Steady
Never Retreat’s female family, which, like Smart Strike, traces back to legendary Turn-to (1951 stallion by Royal Charger), mixes Canadian sturdiness with the Mr. Prospector line of Smart Strike.
Her dam, Lisieux, while Kentucky bred, is a stakes placed daughter of Kinghaven Farms’ Plate hero Steady Growth, an amazon of a colt by Gardiner Farms stallion Briartic. Steady Growth, more often than not, got big-boned, hard knocking runners while standing his entire career in Ontario.
Lisieux, a daughter of the Sailor mare Gay Sonnet, was purchased for $40,000 as a yearling in 1990 by the Thoroughbred Advisory Group and raced for Ted Burnett’s Josham Farms. Trained by Mike Mattine for most of her career, she was a multiple grass winner and placed third in the La Prevoyante Stakes in 1992. She earned $111,474.
She began producing foals for breeder Nancy Dillman in Kentucky with three winners from her first three foals. In 1998 Lisieux produced the Red Ransom filly Laoub, a winner who is the dam of English listed stakes winner Bannock and Australian stakes winner Moulin Lady.
Never Retreat, bred by Gerry O’Meara and Stanley Inman in Kentucky, is Lisieux’s 10th foal. The mare, now owned by Patricia Ziefle, has an unraced two-year-old by Bob and John and a yearling filly by Flower Alley,
The pedigree cross of Never Retreat is just another example of the powerful nick of the Mr. Prospector – Nearctic (sire of Briartic) line that produces speedy, classic and versatile type runners.
