That Japan has arrived at the very highest levels of breeding and racing has been apparent for a considerable time, but if the point had needed any underlining, it surely doesn't after a March 26 Dubai World Cup Day where eight graded stakes featured five Japanese winners, including Panthalassa, who dead heated with Lord North in the Dubai Turf Sponsored by DP World (G1).
Four of those winners came on turf, but Crown Pride issued a reminder not to ignore Japanese runners on the dirt, taking the UAE Derby Sponsored By Mubadala (G2) by 2 3/4 lengths over United States-bred Summer Is Tomorrow. This was the third win in four starts for Crown Pride, who won his only two outings, both over nine furlongs, at 2, and then finished unplaced in the Hyacinth Stakes, run on a muddy track, on his reappearance.
It's no surprise that Crown Pride comes from the all-conquering Sunday Silence sire line, but his sire, Reach the Crown, is some way removed from being a member of the Japanese stallion elite. Reach the Crown raced every year from 2-7 (although he made only 11 starts in his last three seasons, with only one third place to show), and overall he compiled a lifetime record 4-4-1 from 26 starts. Two of his victories came in black-type events, the Yomiuri Milers Cup (G2) and the nine-furlong Kisaragi Sho (G3). His only other graded placing came with a third in the Nakayama Kinen (G3). At stud, Reach the Crown has six crops of 3-year-olds and up, and one previous black-type winner, Kyohei, a member of his first crop who captured the Nikkan Sports Sho Shinzan Kinen (G3).
If Reach the Crown's race and stud records are somewhat underwhelming, we can note that he does own a fine pedigree. He is by Special Week, one of the best sons of Sunday Silence, and a winner of nine black-type events, including the Japan Cup (G1), as well as the Spring and Autumn Tenno Sho (the Emperor's Cup) and Tokyo Yushu-Japanese Derby. Reach the Crown's dam is the imported Seattle Slew mare Crownpiece. She is out of Classic Crown, winner of Frizette Stakes (G1) and Gazelle Handicap (G1), and a half sister to champion 2-year-old Chief's Crown. Reach the Crown's third dam, stakes winner Six Crowns, is an appropriately named daughter of Secretariat out of the filly Triple Crown heroine Chris Evert. That family had a red-letter day in Dubai, as Chris Evert also appears as fifth dam of the Dubai World Cup Sponsored by Emirates Airline (G1) victor Country Grammer.
Crown Pride's dam Emmy's Pride won nine of 27 starts racing at Monbetsu and Funabashi on the secondary Japan NRA circuit. She was a sprinter, which is a little surprising in view of her pedigree, as she is a daughter of Kingmambo's Japan Derby winner King Kamehameha, and her dam, Emmy's Smile, is a black-type winner who scored at as far as 10 furlongs. Emmy's Smile is by Agnes Tachyon, a son of Sunday Silence who went 4-for-4, including the 10-furlong Satsuki Sho (Japanese Two Thousand Guineas).
A half sister to black-type winner Diraqouee, Emmy's Smile is out of Hemisphere, who is by Dancing Brave's Italian Derby (G1) winner White Muzzle. Neither the fourth dam, Grey Eminence (by group 1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe scorer Tony Bin), nor the fifth dam, Grey Quill, produced a black-type horse. Grey Quill, who was unraced, was foaled in the U.S. and imported to Japan. She was half sister to the Arlington Classic (G1) winner Sumptious, but it's likely that her specific appeal was that her second dam, Twill, was a half sister to Shill, the dam of champion Japanese 2-year-old Maruzensky. Twill and Shill are both out of Princequillo's daughter Quill, champion at 2 and a top-class performer at 3 and 4. A very successful producer, Quill is now ancestress of more than 70 stakes winners, 13 of them group or grade 1, including champion 2-year-old filly Awesome Feather; champion turf horse Run the Gantlet; and champion Canadian turf horse One For All.
Crown Pride is one of 19 stakes winners, 15 graded, and three grade 1, by Sunday Silence line stallions out of King Kamehameha mares. Another bred on that cross, Stay Foolish, took the Dubai Gold Cup Sponsored by Al Tayer Motors (G2) Saturday.
Crown Pride is also inbred 3x4 to Sunday Silence. The first stakes winner with a Sunday Silence duplication, Not Formal, gained a black-type victory in 2015, but an early trickle for that pattern has turned into a far faster flow more recently—there were six stakes winners with the duplication foaled in 2106, seven in 2017, nine in 2018, and from the 2019 crop, just into the spring of their 3-year-old campaigns, there are already nine.
