The weekend at Woodbine offered the first two grade 1 events of the year for 2-year-olds to be contested on the turf—the Summer Stakes (G1T) and Natalma Stakes (G1T), which went to the offspring of stallions at opposite ends of their career.
The Summer Stakes fell to Gretzky the Great , who follows Spinaway Stakes (G1) scorer Vequist as the second winner at the highest level from the first crop of Nyquist . By way of contrast the Natalma went to Lady Speightspeare, who is from the 13th Northern Hemisphere crop of her sire, the 22-year-old Speightstown.
The champion sprinter of 2004, Speightstown has consistently been a leading sire, but he's enjoyed a particularly strong year in 2020, and one that particularly emphasizes his remarkable versatility as a stallion. He has a trio of grade 1 winners: Lady Speightspeare (2-year-old filly, over eight furlongs on turf), the H. Allen Jerkens Stakes Presented by Runhappy (G1) captor Echo Town (3-year-old colt, seven furlongs on dirt), and Mozu Superflare (5-year-old mare, six furlongs on turf). His 2020 group and graded winners are last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T) captress Sharing (3-year-old filly, eight furlongs on turf), Flagstaff (6-year-old gelding, seven furlongs on dirt), San Huberto (4-year-old colt, 15 furlongs on turf), Victim of Love (4-year-old filly, 6 1/2 furlongs on dirt), and Lady Speightspeare's close relative Shirl's Speight (3-year-old colt, 8 1/2 furlongs on all-weather).
For good measure, those victories span four different countries—the United States, Canada, France, and Japan—on three different continents. Of course, those statistics don't include the currently sidelined Charlatan , whose first two starts resulted in Beyer Speed Figures of 105 and 106, and whose third start saw him finish six lengths clear in the Arkansas Derby (G1), only to lose the race due to testing revealing a trace amount of a metabolite of lidocaine (the findings of that failed drug test are currently under appeal).
Since he was a pure sprinter, Speightstown's versatility as a sire is down to an ability to respond positively to a wide-range of mares, and it's notable that his sire, Gone West, shared that trait, being responsible for talented runners across a broad spectrum of distances and on both dirt and turf.
In Lady Speightspeare's case, she has clearly inherited stamina from her dam, Lady Shakespeare, who closed out her 12-race career with wins in the Grey Goose Bewitch Stakes (G3T) at 12 furlongs and the New York Stakes (G2T) at 10 furlongs. Lady Shakespeare is also a full sister to the outstanding grass runner Shakespeare, winner of seven of his eight starts, including the Woodbine Mile (G1T) and Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational Stakes (G1T). She's also half sister to Perfect Shirl, successful in the Emirates Airline Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1T) and dam of the previously mentioned Shirl's Speight, and to the stakes-winning and graded-placed Fantastic Shirl.
Lady Shakespeare's pedigree appears an orthodox one for a top-class turf mare, since she's by champion turf horse Theatrical, out of Lady Shirl, whose victories included the Flower Bowl Handicap (G1T), E. P. Taylor Stakes (G2T), and Modesty Stakes (G3T).
That, however, can't be said of the pedigree of Lady Shirl. She is a daughter of That's a Nice, a horse who never won beyond the grade 3 level, which he achieved with back-to-back tallies in the Washington Park Handicap (G3T), and who in turn was the only significant runner for his sire, Hey Good Lookin, a son of the imported Australian champion Noholme II. Lady Shirl was the only graded stakes winner from the 16 black-type scorers (from 80 starters) for That's a Nice, and she and her descendants are the only place that That's a Nice and Hey Good Lookin are likely to be found in the pedigrees of major winners.
Lady Shirl's dam, Canonization, was minor stakes-placed, and also appears as the third dam of the Dance Smartly Handicap (G3T) winner Mona Rose. There is no other major black-type under Canonization or her dam, the unraced Heatherglow, but Heatherglow did own an interesting pedigree. She was by The Axe II, whose third dam, was La Troienne, and that same celebrate mare also appears in tale-female line of Heatherglow. Until Lady Shirl, this family had been a rather dormant representative of the La Troienne branch that descends through Striking, and Heatherglow's granddam, Glamour, whose influence has been most notably carried forward by her son, Poker, the broodmare sire of Seattle Slew, and her granddaughter, Numbered Account.
The Axe II was an interesting mating for Heatherglow's dam, Brilliantly, as he was by Mahmoud, a three-quarters brother to the dam of Nasrullah, the sire of Glamour, and his granddam, Big Event, was by Blue Larkspur out of La Troienne, where Brilliantly's third dam was by a son of Blue Larkspur's broodmare sire, North Star III, out of La Troienne. Interestingly, La Troienne is from the N2a mitochondrial haplotype, which stems from Tregonwells Natural Barb Mare, the founder of the Bruce Lowe #1 family. Four of Heatherglow's eight grandparents are from the N2a mtDNA line, as are both the sire and dam of Hey Good Lookin. This might offer some explanation for Lady Shirl's ability, since it could indicate the presence in both of her grandparents of nuclear dna that combines well with the specific N2a mithochondrial dna.
Although Speightstown's stud career is far from over, it's not too much of a stretch to see Lady Speightspeare as somewhat completing a circle for him, since she is out of a mare by Theatrical, also the broodmare sire of Speightstown's first group/graded winner, Lord Shanakill, who took the Dubai Duty Free Mill Reef Stakes (G2) as a 2-year-old in 2008, and followed up with a score in the Etihad Airways Prix Jean Prat (G1) the following year. Lord Shanakill, Lady Speightspeare, and the Penn Mile (G2T) and Kent Stakes (G3T) scorer Frostmourne represent a trio of stakes winners from only 12 starters for Speightstown out of Theatrical mare. He also has graded winners Benner Island, Bobby's Wicked One , and Victim of Love with Theatrical as sire of their second dam.
Theatrical's sire, Nureyev, is a three-quarters brother to Sadler's Wells, and Speightstown has sired She's Happy, who took the Gran Premio Estrellas Sprint (G1) out of a Sadler's Wells mare; a trio of graded winners headed by champion Canadian sprinter Essence Hit Man, out of mares by sons of Sadler's Wells; and another four, including grade 1 winners Rock Fall and Competitionofideas, out of mares by Medaglia d'Oro , a grandson of Sadler's Wells.
