CORAL GABLES

LAYS CLAIM TO TOP OLDER HORSE CROWN
Published on: June-July 2005

The conditions on Indian racetracks are generally so firm that few runners can survive the grueling grind of training and racing for long. Stress takes it toll and winnows down the number of sound runners, until there are very few active runners left from a particular crop

From amongst those that first saw that light of day in 2000, Coral Gables has proved to be an iron horse, retaining his enthusiasm for the game despite having had to contend with track conditions that might have felled a lesser individual.

Bred by the A. B. Stud & Agricultural Farm in Patiala, Coral Gables is out of their imported mare, Potsclose [GB], a daughter of the fine Mr. Prospector stallion, Miswaki. Acquired at the Tat-tersalls December Sales in 1995, Potsclose [GB] was carrying to Unblest at the time, but the resulting filly foal unfortunately died. Thereafter, the mare has exclusively visited Young Senor [USA].

And what a successful blend this cross has been! All the four resulting offspring, inbred 4 x 4 to Buckpasser and 5 x 4 x 5 to Native Dancer have been excellent performers, none more so than Coral Gables, who has annexed 14 races from 24 starts, earning Rs. 37,87,565 in the process. HIs most recent appearance was a winning one and came in the Grade 3 Jaya-chamaraja Wadiyar Cup at Bangalore last month.

Potsclose [GB], named after a village in Roxburghshire, where she was bred, scored twice in England, earning £10,752. Her dam, Starr Danias, run just twice, but was a half-sister to several stakes performers, notably Group 3 winner Zahdam (by Elocutionist), and a trio of listed race winners, Kohaylan (Acomb stakes), who later stood as a stallion in Australia, Chateau Dancer (kingsclere Stakes) and Stanislavsky (Garrowby Stakes). One must not forget that grand gelding Zaccio (by Sir Ivor), one of the finest steeplechasers North America has seen.

Matriarch of this blue-blooded clan was the prolific Chateaugay mare, Delray Dancer (1968), Who produced 16 foals in a career entirely spent at stud - she never raced. However, her own-sister, Pajara, won 9 races and became third dam of Grade 3 winner Max Forever, while her winning half-sister Op Art became ancestress of numerous stakes winners in Japan. Her only other half-sister, the placed Time For Art, became grandam of stakes winners Secret Imperatrice and Putthepowdertoit, and third dam of several others that earned black type. Delray Dancer's dam, Art Dancer, was an unraced daughter (by Native Dancer) of the diminutive Parlo, champion three-year-old filly North America in 1954. The 15 hands tall, smooth-actioned filly raced for Foxcatcher Farms and annexed 7 of her 24 career starts, including such prestigious events as the Beldame Handicap, the Firenze handicap and the Alabama stakes.

Apart from producing Art Dancer, Parlo also bred minor winner All Beautiful, whose claim to lasting fame came through her feats at stud, where she came up with Paul Mellon's wonderful champion Arts and Letters (American horse of the Year and winner of the Belmont Stakes in 1969), whom this writer say grazing in peaceful retirement at Gainesway Stud in 1997, aged 31! The appellation "the fellow with a big heart" given to him could well apply to his relative Coral Gables.