Hughes, your daddy for 2010
Spotting the offspring of Henny Hughes at the sales, we are left to say “Wow!” This freshman sire is stamping his first crop with his sculpted good looks as well as his gifted speed.
The marvelous skeletal frame and muscle definition that Henny Hughes possesses might well have enchanted Leonardo Da Vinci or George Stubbs for one of their classics had the chestnut been born to an earlier century. Beneath his eye-catching outward magnificence however, is a horse with a beautiful mind and uncanny ability. He would neutralize any who dared to match strides through gut-wrenching even fractions. The World Champion sprinter of 2006 reeled off six wins and three G1 seconds from ten starts to earn $1,124,820.
Momentum is building for the G1 title holder at stud. 13 of Henny Hughes’ weanlings have fetched six-figure returns, his yearlings sold upward of $575,000, putting him second behind only stablemate Bernardini among the freshman sires of 2009.
Any horseman with a hint of reservation toward a freshman stallion need only review the under-saddle video of one particularly muscular colt that tripped the one-furlong timer in 10.2-seconds (Hip 166 at the Fasig-Tipton Calder Sale). The absolute flawless ease with which he carried himself over the Calder sand strip is a significant gauge of the quality that Henny Hughes is capable of producing.
Consigned by Breaking Point Farm at the Fasig-Tipton Two-Year-Old Select Sale in February, the bay colt out of Refugee - a granddaughter of Calumet Farm’s darling champion filly Davona Dale - made quite an impact on bloodstock agent Tom McGreevy who bid to $700,000 to lock in the sale on behalf of Fox Hill Farm. A familiar name to the Darley stud barn, Fox Hill Farm is the stable name of Wilmington, Delaware Chevrolet dealer Richard C. Porter who enjoyed fantastic success with his runners Hard Spun and Rockport Harbor.
Fox Hill Farm brought home two Henny Hughes yearlings last summer. At Saratoga, a chestnut son of a Coronado Quest mare – herself a daughter of Seattle Slew’s dual G1 winner Life at the Top - was hammered down at $575,000. A month later at Keeneland, the stable added a gray colt for $100,000 out of Christmas Affair, a rather fruitful stakes-placed Black Tie Affair mare. To date, four of the mare’s six winners, including stakes-placed Christmas Away, have rewarded their connections with six-figure earnings.
Bloodstock agent Eddie Woods remarked on the Henny Hughes babies that he prospected last year, “They are really nice horses. The nicer ones were really hard to buy from our point of view; we’re trying to pinhook them. And quite rightly so, when they look like that and they have a pedigree and he was such a good racehorse, they’re supposed to be expensive.”
Dr. Jerry Bailey, who developed Henny Hughes to preview a lightning fast nine-seconds at Barretts has been one of the stallion’s greatest advocates. Henny Hughes raced under the flagship of Bailey’s Gulf Coast Farm and Martin Cherry through his first couple of wins before selling to Sheikh Rajid bin Mohammed al Maktoum.
“We looked at a lot of Henny Hughes [foals] at the sale.” I try not to be prejudiced; I think that he gets as good a physical horse as any we have seen for a long time. So we would be shocked if we didn’t see some precocious individuals at the racetrack and actually a lot of them have a little more stretch than Henny Hughes himself.”
Dr. Bailey’s homebred colt out of the record setting juvenile Beautiful Moment did indeed prove to be precocious at the sale when majestically striding to an even 10 seconds for his first all-out breeze (Hip 81 at the Barretts March Sale). Sold for $200,000, he was one of four two-year-olds designated for Japan to the stable of Kazumi Yoshida.
When asked if his colt resembled his sire, Dr. Bailey laughed “They look so much alike, it’s scary. Same color, same build. I think [Henny Hughes] has done that very well.”
Respectfully, the late Jack Werk was also bullish on Henny Hughes, and dedicated some time to him in his November 2009 entry of “Who’s Hot.” Based on the strength of Hennessey’s dominating influence as a sire of sires, Werk wrote “IF the stallion does “hit,” you might hit the lottery!” He also pointed out that the fourth breeding season offers extra incentive with his breeding fee now at $25,000 stands and nurses.
Two youngsters that exchanged hands at the March Ocala Breeders’ Sale showed different elements of Henny Hughes potential as a sire. The well-developed and blazingly fast colt of James Layden impressed viewers with his 10-flat preview. He sold for $280,000. Another handsome colt which stretched out to a quarter-mile in a respectable 22 seconds has the look of a turf horse with large, well conformed hooves. Noticeably he is still growing into his near faultless frame and sold at a bargain $130,000. Although Henny Hughes was never introduced to grass racing, his sire line has produced innumerable turf stakes winners around the world.
Henny Hughes did however excel on dirt. In his June debut at two, he overcame a troubled break and whisked past a maiden field at Monmouth to win by six. In the historic, 5 ½ furlongs Tremont S. at Belmont, he had 15 lengths daylight between him and his next rival at the wire; and in the G2 Saratoga Special, he yielded a 105 Beyer Speed figure – second only to Discreet Cat in the same season. Stepping up to G1 competition, Henny Hughes raced second in the Hopeful, the Champagne and mirrored the performances of his sire Hennessy (1995) and grandsire Storm Cat (1985), with hard-fought seconds in the G1 Bessemer Trust Breeders' Cup Juvenile.
At three, he became the only horse to complete the G1 King’s Bishop - G1 Vosburgh double in a single season. His scintillating speed can only be truly appreciated when considering the ease in which flew past not only a Breeders' Cup Sprint winner, but several top older horses only to run out six furlongs in 1:08 flat. It was the fastest-ever Vosburgh, measuring 113 on Beyer Speed charts and the effort earned him an International Classification mark unmatched by any other three-year-old sprinter in the world.
13 April 2010