By Andrea Caudill

Q-RACING JOURNAL—SEPTEMBER 29, 2014—This weekend featured some great distaffers all over the country. At Los Alamitos, Abigail Kawananakoa’s Significant Heart took Sunday’s $150,000 Mildred N. Vessels Memorial Handicap (G1), earning her second consecutive berth to the Champion of Champions (G1). We looked at her pedigree last year, when she won the Z. Wayne Griffin Director’s Trial.

Turning to New Mexico and the $55,000 Lubbock Stakes (G3) for distaffers at Zia Park on Saturday, it was the two longest shots in the field on top at the wire: 23-1 Fire Burning by three-quarters of a length over 28-1 Stel Surprise.

Fire Burning’s victory may have been a surprise – it is the 3-year-old’s first stakes win – but it’s certainly not when we take a look at the breeding pool she comes from.

Fire Burning was bred by a partnership of Lisa McMahon’s Blazin Farm LLC, Stonechase Stables and Matt Witman. She was purchased from the 2012 Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale by Mike Castanon’s Elite Oilfield Services of Perryton, Texas, for a mere $18,000. She is sired by Valiant Hero and is out of champion mare Blazin Fire, a daughter of This Snow Is Royal. She has won three of 17 career starts and earned $74,333 to date. Earlier this year, she was third in the South Florida Invitational Stakes (R) at Hialeah Park.

“She was real dainty and light on her feet,” remembers co-breeder McMahon of Fire Burning as a foal. “And she runs like a deer. She has a tremendous stride, but she runs real light over the top of the ground. I think that really helps her.

“(The win is) real exciting for me, because even though I don’t own them anymore, they’re like my babies,” McMahon added of Blazin Fire’s foals. “I thought (Fire Burning) was special when she was born.”

Sire Valiant Hero is a blue-blooded son of all-time leading sire First Down Dash and all-time leading dam Corona Chick. The stallion won half of his 14 career starts and earned $668,633 before beginning his career as a sire. Owned by a syndicate and standing at Lazy E Ranch at Guthrie, Oklahoma, he has sired the earners of more than $9.4 million from four crops to race. They include 147 winners and 21 stakes winners from 243 starters. Among his runners are champion Feature Hero ($1,409,410).

Dam Blazin Fire is a 12-year-old daughter of This Snow Is Royal out of the Easy Crimson mare Blazin Sin. Interestingly, she has absolutely no inbreeding through her fifth generation. The successful mare is a result of McMahon’s bloodstock analysis, a longtime hobby she has turned into a job at BlazinFire.com, a marketing and bloodstock business. (She also recommended the cross for the Diane Evans-bred Separate Dynasty, who was fourth in the Ruidoso Futurity (G1) and is a Dash For Cash Futurity (G1) finalist.) McMahon purchased Blazin Fire’s second dam, Miss Sin Sin, who had Blazin Sin at her side, back in Bill Hedge’s sale in 1984.

“I’m a real pedigree geek,” said McMahon. “I’ve studied it for years, and that’s how I ended up with this family. I bought (Blazin Fire’s) grandmother…strictly off pedigree. I learned a lot about the Thoroughbred sprinting lines and that’s what was in this family. I am so happy it has developed the way it has.”

Blazin Fire was a sound and consistent runner in her 35 career starts, all at Los Alamitos, and she won or placed in 23 of those races while earning $317,612. Along the way, she was the 2007 champion aged mare and collected victories in six stakes races, highlighted by the 2007 Distaff Challenge Championship (G1).

Retired to the breeding shed, she to date has produced five winners from eight starters. Her very first foal, Blazin Son (by First Down Dash), won the 2011 Town Policy Handicap and earned $32,319 in his career. Her third, Illegal Smile (by FDD Dynasty), was Grade 2-placed and earned $76,830. Blaze Carver, her 2010 colt by world champion Wave Carver, ran third in the 2012 Rainbow Futurity (G1) and has earned $89,534. Blazin Fire has two yearlings, the Mr Jess Perry filly Blazin Ms Perry and the Carters Cartel colt Blazin Jim. She was bred to No Secrets Here and young sires First Prize Doc and Divide The Cash for 2015 foals.

Blazin Sin is a 1984 daughter of Easy Crimson out of the Nativo (TB) mare Miss Sin Sin. The sorrel mare raced 16 times and won half of those races while earning $33,326. She won two stakes, the 1987 Brad Len Stakes and 1987 Blue Ribbon 440 Derby, and was also a finalist in Florentine’s 1988 Vessels Maturity (G1).

Blazin Sin’s first big runner was the On A High gelding Blazin High, foaled in 1992. The horse would race 23 times, and placed in the Grade 1 Heritage Place Derby, Heritage Place Futurity and Sam Houston Futurity. He earned $260,113 in his career. Blazin Sin also produced The Blazin Man, a 1998 son of Heza Fast Man, who was a four-time stakes winner and earner of $76,773. Blazin Fire was her final foal.

Blazin Sin’s First Down Dash daughter Blazin First Down is the dam of stakes winner This Snow Is Blazin (by This Snow Is Royal, $122,758). Blazin Fire’s full sister Too Hot To Snow is the dam of stakes-placed runners Paint It Black (by PYC Paint Your Wagon, $69,854) and Afterglow (by Shazoom, $21,058).

Miss Sin Sin was unraced, a daughter of the Raise A Native (TB) stallion Nativo (TB) out of the Leo granddaughter No Sin. The 1977 mare has been a wellspring of runners.

In addition to Blazin Sin, she is also the dam of Grade 1 winner Gamblin On Sin ($177,782), and stakes-placed runners Shez A Gamble (by Raise The Gamble, $44,680) and Smashing Sin (by Easily Smashed, $5,544).

Blazing Sin is not her only producer, either. Her immediate family have also produced the likes of Here To Entertain ($162,030), Check The Account ($88,340), Heza Fast Willie ($82,345), Hez Our Rock ($72,584), Heza Gambling Man ($62,967), A Dashing Gamble ($58,539), The Checking Account ($49,797), First High Royalty ($41,699), Sheza Title Achiever ($38,523), Federal Cash ($35,359), Agony Of Defeet ($32,034) and Heza Easy Gambler ($30,876).

The fire stoked through the generations is still burning hot.

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