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REILLY'S PEERAGE OCTOBER 4, 2011 Shades of Gray by Kellie Reilly Last Saturday, the bright gray Zazu rallied furiously to win the Lady's Secret, a race named after a silver-hued Hall of Famer. One race earlier at Santa Anita, the well-regarded gray juvenile Creative Cause bounded away with the Norfolk. Other gray ambassadors around at the moment include Bob Baffert's exciting three-year-old The Factor, who is back in action in this Saturday's Ancient Title, and the outstanding turf filly Winter Memories, who will cap her season soon at Keeneland. Their major campaigns call to mind the fascinating history of the gray coat color in the Thoroughbred, and how fortunate we are to have so many at the sport's highest level today. Gray Thoroughbreds, a precious relic of the breed's earliest days, became a rarity on the racecourse for a good part of the 19th century. The prominent gray ancestors of ages past were still appearing in extended pedigrees, but almost entirely through their bay or chestnut descendants. The color was falling into obscurity, if not extinction. Thankfully, one thin gray line sparked a spectacular revival in the 20th century. Virtually all of our contemporary gray Thoroughbreds can trace their color to this single, precarious silver thread. The renaissance began with the French stallion Le Sancy (foaled in 1884), but gathered pace with his paternal grandson, the French-bred stallion Roi Herode (foaled in 1904). Roi Herode transmitted his gray coat color through two enduring lines of descent: chiefly through his phenomenal son The Tetrarch, and secondarily through his daughter La Grisette. La Grisette appears as the direct maternal-line ancestress of American Hall of Famer Native Dancer. Racing's first television icon, he was an enormously popular performer of the 1950s dubbed the "Gray Ghost." Native Dancer's gray heritage lives on through some of his descendants, such as The Factor. Yet Native Dancer has made a deeper impact via his non-gray progeny -- especially the chestnut Raise a Native (sire of Mr. Prospector) and the bay Natalma (the dam of Northern Dancer). So as helpful as his contribution has been, Native Dancer is not the leading player in the gray revival. That starring role belongs to The Tetrarch, an Irish-bred whose biography reads like a novel, right from the start. His sire wasn't even supposed to stand at stud that season. But as fate would have it, Roi Herode broke down in training in early May of 1910. His owner, Edward Kennedy, who had purchased Roi Herode for his stallion potential anyway, dispatched him to his Irish stud farm to serve just a few mares at the end of the breeding season. One of those mares was Vahren, who the following spring foaled The Tetrarch. As a yearling, the big colt was a curiosity; his gray coat was splashed with white splotches. "He was an odd-looking fellow," the Bloodstock Breeders' Review (BBR) later recalled in 1914, "for his great size made him appear ungainly and coarse, while his grey coat was covered with white patches as if somebody had been dabbing whitewash on it." Sizing up the colt's unlikely appearance, one of Kennedy's friends suggested that he should geld him and turn him into a steeplechaser. Had Kennedy taken that well-meaning but woefully misguided advice, we would have been deprived of many of our most cherished champions. Other observers chuckled at his idiosyncratic coat when he was offered at the 1912 Doncaster Yearling Sales. Here was "a rocking horse." One trainer actually talked his client out of buying him as a racing prospect, dismissing the very idea as foolishness. Real racehorses didn't look like that. Trainer Atty Persse, however, was taken with the colt's powerful presence, and the fact that he was a half-brother to another useful runner he'd had. Persse snapped up the young prospect for 1,300 guineas and later sold him to Major Dermot McCalmont. Persse, who continued to train The Tetrarch, was stunned by his first workout in company. Not close to being fit, he was expected to tire behind his more finely-honed companions. Yet The Tetrarch blew them all away. If he could do that when out of shape, what could he do when race-fit? The Tetrarch's mottled coat was again cause for laughter when he appeared on the British racecourse. "Onlookers laughed as the comically-colored grey came striding in lengths in front of the nearest horse," noted an article reprinted in the 1914 BBR. But The Tetrarch had the last laugh, by turning his races into laughers. He tore through his juvenile campaign unbeaten and unchallenged, earning a more adulatory nickname. The rocking horse had become the "Spotted Wonder." Plans called for The Tetrarch to bring his perfect seven-for-seven record into a classic campaign in 1914. But those dreams were dashed when he sustained a suspensory injury in training, and he never made it to the post again. His connections hailed his freakish talent. "When he galloped," Persse said, "his back seemed to get shorter and his legs to get longer. That was due to his extraordinary hind leverage. He drives his hind legs out. When you watched him galloping, his hind legs seemed to project right out in front of his forelegs." "He was a marvel," said his legendary jockey, Steve Donoghue. "You scarcely realised he was going ever so much faster than the fastest horse opposed to him...He only seemed to be cantering or going at half-speed. No horse ever extended him." The Tetrarch retired to stud in Ireland. Despite siring a total of just 130 foals before becoming sterile at the age of 14, he made incalculable contributions to the breed. His influence extends well beyond those who inherited his coat color, but even this limited sample of his gray descendants is impressive. The Tetrarch handed on the gray legacy to his legendary daughter Mumtaz Mahal, the "Flying Filly" who was celebrated as perhaps the fastest ever seen on the English turf. Touring the Doncaster Sales ring as a yearling in 1922, she was given a better welcome than her sire at the same venue a decade before. The royally-bred filly garnered rave reviews for her conformation, and accordingly went to the Aga Khan for the handsome sum of 9,100 guineas. At that time, she ranked as the second most expensive yearling filly ever sold in England. Mumtaz Mahal showed that she inherited her sire's rampant ability, as well as his color, during a glittering two-year-old season. The 1923 BBR commented on the "effortless ease" and "phenomenal speed" she displayed: "Off like a flash the moment the barrier was raised, she practically demoralised her opponents in the first furlong and was left to canter home at her leisure." Mumtaz Mahal suffered only three defeats in her 10-race career -- once when her trainer knew that she was not at her best, and twice when she attempted to carry her speed over a mile. She became a foundation mare for the Aga Khan's bloodstock empire, and her blood now saturates every corner of the globe. Her grandson Nasrullah, to mention only one of her non-gray descendants, is the male-line ancestor of Triple Crown winners Secretariat and Seattle Slew and a fundamental building block of modern pedigrees. Although Mumtaz Mahal left a few contributions to "grayness," her principal color-impact came through her maternal grandson Mahmoud. According to pedigree authority Abram Hewitt in Sire Lines, rumors swirled that Mahmoud almost wasn't conceived. His dam, Mumtaz Mahal's daughter Mah Mahal, kept rejecting the attentions of the stallion Blenheim. Gossip suggested that the mating wasn't accomplished, but that artificial insemination was illicitly employed to get her in foal. While that tall tale needn't be trusted, it's not the only "What if?" surrounding Mahmoud's existence, as we'll see. Mahmoud chose the right occasion to run the race of his life, the 1936 Epsom Derby. The Aga Khan's small, quick-striding gray wasn't fancied by his connections to stay the 1 1/2-mile distance as well as his stablemate, Taj Akbar, but he silenced all of his doubters with a record-shattering victory. His final time of 2:33 4/5 ranked as the Derby's fastest until 1995. Often compared to an Arabian in appearance, Mahmoud stood his first four seasons in England. But World War II prompted the Aga Khan to sell, and C.V. Whitney hammered out a deal to import him to the Bluegrass. Mahmoud almost didn't make it across the Atlantic. The first ship he embarked upon was not allowed to carry livestock, and the conscientious captain turned around and deposited Mahmoud back on shore. After resuming its journey, that same ship was sunk by a German U-boat, and all were lost. Mahmoud later sailed on another ship, dodged the U-boat threat, and arrived safely in North America. If that ill-fated captain had been less punctilious, Mahmoud would have been killed, and his subsequent descendants unborn. There would be no Northern Dancer, no Halo -- both grandsons of Mahmoud's chestnut daughter, Almahmoud. Nor would we have the profusion of grays who get their coat color from Mahmoud -- like Kentucky Derby winners Silver Charm (1997), Gato del Sol (1982), Determine (1954) and his son Decidedly (1962); Horse of the Year and Breeders' Cup Classic hero Skip Away; and successful stallion El Prado, sire of Winter Memories. Yet there is another notable gray line emanating from The Tetrarch, through his gray-transmitting daughter, Queen Herodias. She is a link in the pedigree chain that leads to the aptly-named Grey Sovereign, whose paternal grandson, French champion Caro, is responsible for a host of modern grays. Caro has imparted his color to his Kentucky Derby-winning daughter Winning Colors (1988), to his Breeders' Cup Mile-winning son Cozzene (1985), and to further descendants including Unbridled's Song, the 1995 Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner and a fashionable sire, and current Breeders' Cup Juvenile threat Creative Cause. While these high-class grays inherited their coats from a single thread of ancestry, some of our most famous grays descend from horses with a double-shot of the color, so to speak. This "double-gray" factor, usually involving a mare with two gray parents, is a potent pedigree pattern. Hall of Famer Spectacular Bid has an ancestress with two gray parents. His broodmare sire Promised Land is out of the gray Mahmoudess, a daughter of Mahmoud and champion Forever Yours, who was herself out of a mare by The Tetrarch's son Tetratema. Hall of Famer Lady's Secret's dam, Great Lady M., has two gray parents. Great Lady M. is by Icecapade, whose broodmare sire is Native Dancer, and out of a mare by Grey Sovereign's son Young Emperor. Hall of Famer Holy Bull's dam, Sharon Brown, is another double-gray. Moreover, her sire, Al Hattab, is himself the product of two gray parents -- by Mahmoud's son The Axe II and out of Abyssinia, by the all-time great sprinter Abernant, another grandson of Mumtaz Mahal. Sharon Brown's dam, in turn, is by Grey Dawn II, himself out of a Mahmoud mare. As a result, Sharon Brown is inbred to Mahmoud, with extra Mumtaz Mahal thrown in for good measure. Champion and top sire Maria's Mon is out of a doubly-gray dam, Carlotta Maria. She is by Caro and out of the multiple Grade 2 winner Water Malone, who traces through her gray female line to Tetratema's son Royal Minstrel. The successful gray sire Relaunch was produced by Foggy Note, a mare with a double-shot of gray. She is by Mahmoud's son The Axe II and out of a gray mare descended from The Tetrarch's son Stefan the Great. Foggy Note is the same gray source for hot young stallion Tapit, sire of Zazu and Juvenile aspirant Hansen. Our final example of this two-gray-parents pattern, French classic winner and noted sire Zeddaan, gives us even deeper insight into the gray Thoroughbred. For his sire is Grey Sovereign, but his gray dam, Prix de la Foret winner Vareta, did not get her color from The Tetrarch or even Le Sancy's general line. As far as contemporary pedigrees go, this makes her an anomaly. Vareta was sired by the gray Vilmorin, who inherited the color from his fifth dam, by a stallion called Grey Leg (foaled in 1891). Grey Leg had a sprinkling of notable gray descendants, but he had nowhere near the impact of The Tetrarch. But the fascinating twist is that Grey Leg and Le Sancy share a common ancestor who gave them both their gray coats: Master Robert, foaled in Ireland in 1811. He in turn received the silver livery from his female line. Master Robert's great grand-dam, Bab (foaled in 1787), was the product of two gray parents. She was inbred to the gray luminary Crab (foaled in 1722), a son of the gray Alcock Arabian. But Bab also descended, in an unbroken line, from such gray progenitors as the Brownlow Turk (early 18th century) and the Fairfax Morocco Barb (17th century). We have now reached the wild frontier of the pre-Stud Book era, when a riot of exotic colors like palomino, dun, and buckskin were well attested, alongside our more familiar hues. Gray was on its way to becoming a "museum" color too. But the thin gray line was preserved, thanks to the otherwise obscure Master Robert, whose gray posterity held on, one generation at a time, until bursting forth anew with The Tetrarch and his tribe. The vicissitudes of genetics, bad advice, sterility, and U-boats could not prevent it.
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