GET STORMY (Stormy
Atlantic–Foolish Girl by Kiri’s Clown), $7,500 Crestwood
From Chris McGrath, TDN Kentucky Sires Series, February 21, 2020
Last year he was favoured by the most
helpfully named of advertisements in dual Grade I scorer Got Stormy, a $23,000
yearling ($45,000 2-year-old) who broke the Saratoga track record as the first
female winner of the GI Fourstardave H. in 1:32 flat, besides also finishing
second in the GI Breeders’ Cup Mile. But Get Stormy is no one-trick pony, with
four other graded-stakes performers in 2019 headed by dual Grade I-placed
Clyde’s Image, himself a $24,000 yearling.
Though he is viewed absolutely as a turf sire,
I have a bit of a crackpot theory about Get Stormy. Physically he has all the
bone and power you seek in a dirt horse and it might be wrong to typecast him
at what remains an early stage of his career. Last year 71 of his 106 starters
raced on turf; but this group accounted only for 26 of his 48 winners (leaving 22
winners from the remaining 35). Similar story in 2018: 75 of 114 starters raced
on turf, but included basically only half his total winners at 27 out of 53
(leaving 26 winners from the other 39). Even allowing for the fact that some of
these others scored on synthetics, I just have a feeling that he’s not being
given adequate opportunity on dirt.
Get Stormy himself certainly carried his speed
relentlessly, the premier hallmark of dirt racing, having made the running for
all three of his Grade I wins. Obviously the Storm Cat line is associated with
versatility and while there’s plenty of grass in his pedigree, it’s a healthy
mix overall: his damsire is by Foolish Pleasure, for instance, and his sire’s
dam is by Seattle Slew. In terms of sheer quality, moreover, he also carries
Claiborne champion and matriarch Moccasin 4×5. Anyhow that constitution of his
(won graded stakes four years running) would be worth replicating for any
discipline of racing.
So let’s forget prescribing any rules for Get
Stormy and just recognize how he’s upgrading the limited material he can expect
at this level of the market. Got Stormy herself, for instance, is out of a
$4,500 Malabar Gold mare who raced in Puerto Rico.
Just imagine what Get Stormy might achieve
with the mares lavished, at more industrial farms, on newcomers who will never
make the grade. As it is, he is in excellent hands; and last year already
expanded his book from 47 to 86. And that was before his
first big star had remotely hit her full stride.
The barometer says Stormy, but that means a
sunny outlook for breeders.
