A BOLD START. AP INDY NOT DONE YET.

A.P. Arrow
(Photo : Summerhill Stud)

PASSING THE TORCH

A bold start. A.P. Indy is not done yet. He’s 21 years old, but the new Annual Progeny Earnings Index (APEX) figures - compiled last weekend by The Jockey Club Information Systems (TJCIS) through the end of 2009 - rank A.P. Indy the leading sire in North America, Europe or Japan, according to his A Runner Index. The A Runner Index is measured by the frequency with which a stallion sires “top two percent earners” (runners whose earnings in a year rank them among the top two percent of runners in each of seven major countries).

An A Runner Index of 1.00, which is average for the more than 1,000 sires ranked each year, means a sire had two percent A Runners to runners in the period covered. Among the nearly 700 sires to have 200 or more year-starters in the seven-year period 2003-2009 (APEX figures use seven years at a time, each year dropping one off and adding the most recent), A.P. Indy was the only one to register an A Runner Index of more than 5.00. His A Runner Index of 5.13 translates into 10.26 percent A Runners to runners. It’s the sixth time he’s led the list; he hasn’t been out of the top three since 1998, the year his first four-year-olds raced. So he’s led the list six times, and been in the top three for 12 consecutive years.

In the early years of the last decade, A.P. Indy was the all-American interloper (he’s by Seattle Slew, a great-grandson of Bold Ruler) who crashed an elite cast that was otherwise all - Northern Dancer: Danzig, Storm Cat, Sadler’s Wells, Nureyev and, later, Danehill. Now A.P. Indy’s the grandpa, and it looks as though he is the last sire who is going to register this high an A Runner index. It seems 4.00 is the new 5.00 (likely another by-product of the “big book” era); certainly, when you look at European stars Dalakhani (4.00) and Galileo (3.77), the two leaders on the list excluding sires that are 20 years old or more (those include six of the top eight by A Runner Index), you can appreciate just how great an achievement A.P. Indy’s 5.13 A Runner Index is.

There’s a notion out there that the aptitude of the A.P. Indy’s appears to be best expressed on a dirt surface. But that’s a “notion”, and not much more. Examine his record in greater detail and especially that of his sons Pulpit, Stroll, Sky Mesa and Tapit, and a whole new picture develops. If you can, with a little imagination, equate the new synthetic surfaces so prevalent in the United States now, with a turf surface, it seems the “AP’s” can do it, no matter the surface. Certainly, when it comes to South Africa, we already have a champion grandson and a champion granddaughter in Jay Peg and Consensual respectively, from the first and second crops of AP’s very average racing son, Camden Park.

That was enough for us. The evidence was on the board, and when the opportunity to buy a world-class racehorse, (as A.P. Arrow) was, raised its head, our money was down.

Extracts from Thoroughbred Daily News

JUSTIN SNAITH : Dancer's Daughter can win J and B Met

Justin Snaith and Dancer’s Daughter
(Gold Circle / Equimark)

Justin Snaith, the young Cape-based trainer of Dancer’s Daughter, is not one to cower on the side of caution when it comes to “big race predictions”. In fact, at just 34 years of age, Justin Snaith is totally confident in the ability of Dancer’s Daughter to deprive Pocket Power from cementing his place in history come tomorrow’s R2,5million J&B Met at Kenilworth.

Veteran racing commentator, David Mollet, writes in the Business Day that to say Justin Snaith is bullish about the chances of Dancer’s Daughter is an understatement. Justin Snaith is reported as stating, “If she’s at her best she will win - no doubt about it. That’s her - at her best she can run three wide, pull for her head and still win.”

Regarding the disappointing performance of Dancer’s Daughter in the R1million TBA Paddock Stakes, Justin Snaith says, “She was 2kg lighter than in her first two winning runs of the season, but she was still a little heavy. In the race she was too far back, and before entering the straight, Consensual in front of her was pulling her head up, while horses behind were galloping into her. She had to pick herself up again at the top of the straight and - I’m not sure that many people know this - but in the grade ones she had the fastest 400m finish of the day.”

The Mike Bass-trained Pocket Power remains the firm favourite for the J&B Met but Justin Snaith believes he is up for to challenge with his flying grey, “The only time we’ve lost to Pocket (Power) was when she started slowly and ran many horses wide in the Champions Cup at Clairwood. She was the worst weighted horse in that race too. But Dancer’s Daughter does better in Durban than Pocket Power. He does exceptionally well in the Cape - his record here is flawless. Unfortunately, one of them will have to lose.”

Dancer’s Daughter is drawn at 13 and will be piloted by jockey Kevin Shea, who arrives back in South Africa today following a successful start to his Dubai Racing Carnival campaign.

With a top class field, a colossal showdown between Pocket Power and Dancer’s Daughter, as well as a crowd predicted to be in excess of 40000, Saturday’s renewal of the J&B Met is set to be a genuine “hum-dinger”!