'TDN Rising Star' Messier romped in the Bob Lewis Sunday | Horsephotos
Published By: Thoroughbred Daily News
Written By: Chris McGrath
Here we are, then, in what Oliver Hardy could only call “another nice mess.” But let's disentangle this flourishing sapling Messier (Empire Maker) from the tentacles that may restrain him from a timely bloom on the first Saturday in May, and take a moment to celebrate not only the storied nursery that cultivated his family but also the alert grafting that now involves another farm in his future success.
For this horticultural analogy permits only one classification of the spectacular GIII Robert S. Lewis S. winner–as a young maple. Messier represents a fifth generation of breeding by Sam-Son, the iconic Canadian farm that began a poignant process of disbandment last winter, nearly half a century after its foundation by Ernie Samuel. With 84 Sovereign Awards, 14 Grade I winners and four Eclipse Awards, Samuel and his heirs–latterly with the skilled assistance of long-serving farm manager David Whitford–had by then created an indelible legacy in the North American Thoroughbred. This had been freshly condensed by the 2019 GI Kentucky Derby winner Country House (Lookin At Lucky), whose grandsire Smart Strike was out of a daughter of Samuel's foundation mare No Class (Nodouble); and whose second dam was by her son Sky Classic (Nijinsky).
Among the 21 Sam-Son mares that realized $6.75 million at the 2021 Keeneland January Sale–supplementing the $3.45 million banked by four headline acts at Fasig-Tipton a few weeks previously–was an 11-year-old daughter of Smart Strike, Checkered Past, a dual winner of the listed Trillium S. at Woodbine and offered in foal to Candy Ride (Arg). Her catalog page listed two unraced daughters, plus a colt from what had meanwhile proved to be the penultimate crop of Empire Maker. He had been sold as a yearling, at Fasig-Tipton the previous September, to a syndicate of Bob Baffert's patrons for $470,000.
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