On Breeders' Cup Saturday Nov. 5, freshman sire and 2018 Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) winner Accelerate sired his first stakes winner when Hal scored a half-length victory in the CA$130,750 Display Stakes at Woodbine.
Another first stakes winner scored Nov. 5 for Sequel Stallions' late sire The Lieutenant in race 4 at Aqueduct Racetrack where his son Vacation Dance won the six-furlong Atlantic Beach Stakes on the grass by 1 1/4 lengths.
Hal is a homebred for Suzi Shoemaker's Lantern Hill Farm and First Corp. Thoroughbreds. The gelding won his racing debut Oct. 2 at Woodbine and immediately followed with his stakes win going seven furlongs on Woodbine's Tapeta surface in 1:22 under Justin Stein, paying $6.90. Hal is trained by Darwin Banach.
Lantern Hill and First Corp. bred Hal out of the grade 3 winner Purely a Dream (Pure Prize), who is out of English stakes-placed winner Yorksters Girl. Hal is Purely a Dream's only foal.
Accelerate won five grade 1s during his racing career for Hronis Racing and trainer John Sadler—connections who celebrated Flightline 's victory in the Breeders' Cup Classic Saturday at Keeneland. Hronis Racing owns Flightline in partnership.
A son of Lookin At Lucky, Accelerate was the champion older male horse of 2018, when he punctuated his 5-year-old campaign by winning the Classic at Churchill Downs. Following a third in the Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes (G1) at Gulfstream Park in January 2019, he retired to stud with a record of 10 wins, five seconds, and six thirds from 23 starts and earnings of more than $6.6 million.
Accelerate entered Saturday with 12 winners from his first crop of runners. The stallion will stand the 2023 season at Lane's End in Versailles, Ky., for an advertised fee of $10,000.
Vacation Dance also won his debut Sept. 4 at Saratoga Race Course by a head for owners Sleeping Giant Stables, American Pastime Stables, and KimDon racing. In his next start, he was third in the Futurity Stakes (G3) at Aqueduct. He won the Atlantic Beach in 1:08.41 and paid $7.
Harry Landry and James Hogan bred Vacation Dance in New York out of the Zensational mare Matinee Express, who has now produced four winners from five to race.
The Lieutenant was a grade 2-placed, grade 3-winning son of Street Sense and a half brother to 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify . He died in 2019 while shuttling to Peru, when intruders killed him and three other stallions. He has sired two other winners.
