Breeding


Pedigree Analysis Matabari: A Proven Winner Returns To Familiar Ways
Matabari returns under jockey Santiago Mendez after winning the Los Alamitos Winter Championship Sunday night.

© Scott Martinez
Pedigree Analysis Matabari: A Proven Winner Returns To Familiar Ways

By Andrea Caudill

Q-RACING JOURNAL—FEBRUARY 16, 2015—Sunday’s Los Alamitos Winter Championship (G1) promised to be a great race, and it certainly delivered.

At the wire of the $169,800 race, champion Matabari had a head advantage over reigning champion 3-year-old Moonist, snapping his nine-race win streak, with champion Jake Gold BR just a breath behind in third.

Owned by Balgo Racing Team LLC and Marlyn Gonzalez, Matabari adds a third Grade 1 victory to a highly successful, highly selective career. The mare, now 5, has made only 14 starts in said career, but has earned $1,410,471, placing her at No. 26 on the sport’s all-time leading earners list, and No. 5 on the list of all-time leading distaffers. After a freshman season in which she won the 2012 Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity (G1), she returned in 2013 to win the Los Alamitos Super Derby (G1) and run third in the 2013 Champion of Champions (G1) to be the sport’s champion 3-year-old filly. She is also the third distaffer to ever win the Winter Championship, joining 2014 winner Nellie Delaney and 2002 winner Corona Kool.

Matabari was bred by Jose Maria Gonzalez, and is by leading sire Mr Jess Perry and out of the Separatist mare Hold Me Now.

Mr Jess Perry this year turns 23, and he has been celebrated as equine royalty for at least 21 of those years. The son of AQHA Hall of Famer Streakin La Jolla out of the Sinn Fein mare Scoopie Fein, he was bred in Louisiana in the name of Jesse Perry, the father to Louisiana legend Leverne Perry, who selected Scoopie Fein for his daddy at a bargain price of $1,000 back in 1989. Mr Jess Perry, the horse, announced himself to the world in 1994, winning 7-of-9, setting two track records and being the champion 2-year-old. He would retire in late 1996 with $687,184 in earnings and begin carving the next chapter of his legend.

Owned by a syndicate, Mr Jess Perry stands at Burnett Ranches’ Four Sixes Ranch at Guthrie, Texas, and from 16 crops to race has progeny earnings of more than $45.6 million. He is the sport’s No. 3 all-time leading sire, behind only First Down Dash and Corona Cartel. Among his runners are 122 stakes winners and eight champions, including 2010 world champion Apollitical Jess.

Mr Jess Perry has also become a major sire of sires and broodmare sire, with several dozen successful sons at stud, as well as standing at No. 6 on the all-time leading broodmare sires by money earned. It is notable that of 2014’s 13 champions, 61 percent of them had Mr Jess Perry in the second generation of their pedigree; five were by sons of Mr Jess Perry and three were out of daughters of Mr Jess Perry. A ninth champion was out of a daughter of Streakin La Jolla, his sire.

Hold Me Now was bred by J. Garvan Kelly and Nancy Yearsley, and sports a pedigree with no inbreeding through the fifth generation. Kelly and Yearsley have brought us such luminaries as Bon Accord ($821,470), Value The Man ($732,399), Dutch Schultz ($356,668), Royal Proclamation ($305,048), the above-mentioned Nellie Delaney and many more. They frequently sent me to the history books investigating some of the names of their horses (such as Dutch Schultz, the human, was a famous mobster…I’ll leave further research to you).

The 2002 mare Hold Me Now is by Separatist and out of the Thoroughbred mare Fornow, a daughter of In Excess (IRE). She was a quality racehorse, making 32 starts and returning with seven victories, including the 2007 California Breeders’ Matron Stakes (RG2) and earnings of $109,005.

She has produced three starters, all of whom have returned winners. Matabari is her only stakes winner. Her foals include a 2-year-old by Walk Thru Fire named Shes Walking On Fire and a yearling by First Down Dash named Hashtaggin.

Sire Separatist was a champion and is a leading sire with progeny earnings of more than $20.6 million. His three champions include Winder Championship runner up Moonist. Hold Me Now’s dam, Fornow (TB), was a stakes winner in her racing career and earned $32,380. She produced four winners from six starters in Quarter Horse races, with Hold Me Now her best by far.

In Excess (IRE) was a leading California sire in Thoroughbred racing, but had other success in the Quarter Horse racing world, including his champion daughter Hateful Hanna ($139,487), herself the dam of champion Hardly Hateful ($436,979).

Fornow is out of the Sauce Boat mare Rincon Hill, a half sister to stakes-placed Thoroughbred Trojan Trick ($101,970).

The Winter Championship was the second Grade 1 race of the year (The Los Alamitos Winter Derby, held the evening before, was won by Ynot Walk, whose family I profiled a few weeks ago.) I also want to note that The Ocean King earned his third win, and third stakes win, of the year after winning the Roble Rojo Stakes yesterday. I profiled his dam, Runaway Wave, a few weeks ago. But needless to say, with the quality we’ve already seen, 2015 is shaping up to be a great year.

AQHA News and information is a service of the American Quarter Horse Association. For more news and information, follow @AQHARacing on Twitter, watch the AQHA Racing Newscast and visit www.aqharacing.com.

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