'Crook' 50th Black-Type Winner for Freud
Image:
Description:
Photo: Coglianese Photos
Fourstar Crook wins the 2016 Yaddo Stakes.
Freud , New York's current leading sire, gained his 50th black-type winner Aug. 26, when Fourstar Crook won the $150,000 Yaddo Stakes for New York-bred fillies and mares at Saratoga Race Course.
A 14-year-old son of Storm Cat—Mariah's Storm, by Rahy, Freud stands at Sequel Stallions New York, where his 2016 fee was $10,000. The full brother to prominent Central Kentucky sire Giant's Causeway has a further 52 black-type placed runners, including 11 black-type performers this year, led by Pat Day Mile (gr. III) winner Sharp Azteca, Argentine group III winner Key Dance, and Cloud Control, winner of a division of the New York Stallion Stakes.
Freud was New York's top sire by black-type winners from 2009-13. His leading offspring from 12 crops of racing include grade I winners Fanny Freud and Giant Ryan and a pair of Peruvian champions in Zeide Isaac and Alex Rossi. Overall, his progeny have amassed purse earnings of more than $43.4 million.
Michael Dubb, Bethlehem Stables, and Gary Aisquith's Fourstar Crook won her stakes debut in the Yaddo by three-quarters of a length and finished the 1 1/16-mile turf contest in 1:43.56 on a course rated as yielding. She is undefeated in three starts this year. Ridden by Javier Castellano for trainer Chad Brown, she rated off the pace early, charged to the lead in the final furlong, and outbattled a swarm of rivals to prevail as the favorite.
"We had sent her to Barry Eisaman in Ocala to lay her up (over the winter)," Brown said after the victory. "She had no issues. We were just focused on a campaign this year as a 4-year-old. She's a New York-bred grass horse, there was no reason to race her down in Florida. Mike Dubb and his partners were so patient. They came up with a plan. We just gave her a break and she's clearly responded. She's come back bigger and stronger. She appreciated the time we gave her and she hasn't looked back since."
Fourstar Crook, who has a 5-1-0 record from eight starts, was bred by Kathleen Feron from the D'Accord mare Avril a Portugal. Dubb bought her via agent Gary Young for $110,000 at the 2014 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale, where Parrish Farms consigned as agent.