https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/230590/ill-have-another-returns-to-u-s-from-japan
im excited about him coming back. He was always one of my favorites.
Oh, I’ve always liked him too!!! I wonder how recent that picture is? He looks stunning in it. Glad to see him coming home - and standing in Cal!
Great opportunity for breeders. I am surprised he is coming back after such a short stint overseas considering so many American farms passed him off and let him sell to foreign interest. He has a very interesting pedigree, I think, for American breeders. He’s balanced and correct as well. I hope breeders patronize him well and send him many good mares. He deserves every chance and will be a very affordable option for many
It will be interesting to see how he does. However the likely reason he returned from Japan was because he wasn’t proving to be a successful sire there. I’ll Have Another was by far his own sire’s best U.S. offspring–and Flower Alley now stands in South Africa. His pedigree doesn’t offer anything that isn’t easily available elsewhere and $6,000 is a pretty strong stud fee for CA. I’ll be curious to see how well supported he is by CA breeders.
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In some ways, he’s like a first year sire. The conditions in Japan are so different. For one thing, he got bred heavily to Sunday Silence line mares and there aren’t many of those here. This isn’t like failures from Kentucky trying to ply their trade with lesser mares. These are truly different mares. Also Japan is heavily turfy and California–other than the highest level --is not.
Intriguing.
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Pronzini, bearing all that in mind, will CA breeders support him? Because that will ulitmately be the only thing that matters.
The real question is will Ballena Vista and their clients support him and do the heavy lifting of racing some of these horses. California is so different from Kentucky both in culture and because of the distances involved. Until a horse becomes a national level sire --Unusual Heat, Lucky Pulpit, Tribal Rule–that level of sire, other farms and their clients usually don’t support them. Those first few crops of Tribal Rule were all River Edge. Most of the early Lucky Pulpits including California Chrome were all Larry Williams and Harris clients. Unusual Heat was all Barry Abrams.
So the pool of mares will probably be Ballena Vista, their clients and a few odd ones not affiliated with any stallion farm. The only recent stallion I can think of to defy that trend was Danzing Candy who really brought some excitement. Shaman Ghost didn’t and you’ll notice he didn’t stay.
The fee is probably negotiable to the right mare (and the right person). Unlike Kentucky, what they need are the people who will do the heavy lifting and race these babies. They also need to be smart about the mares they accept and tailor those mares to the Calbred program. These babies need to shine at Del Mar, not in the 4 and a half and 5/8ths maiden races in the fairs.
The short answer is I don’t know but if they are in it for the long haul and get some support from Reddam, he might make it here.
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Thanks for the detailed answer Pronzini! Living in central KY, I always somehow overlook the distances that are involved in breeding mares in CA.
