WELL beaten when he contested the 150th running of the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby, Dornoch (Good Magic) was unable to follow in the hoofprints of his full-brother Mage at Churchill Downs. The latter captured the $3m classic against an international field last year.

Mage (Good Magic) himself did not build on what was just his second victory when he took the feature at Churchill Downs, later running third to National Treasure in the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes, finishing second in the Grade 1 Haskell Stakes, and trailing the field in the Grade 1 Travers Stakes. It was off to stud after that, and Mage is now completing his first season at Airdrie Stud, where he was pitched to breeders at an introductory fee of €25,000.

Late last year, Mage’s full-brother Dornoch (Good Magic) rounded off his four-run juvenile season with victory in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes. At the start of this year, his trainer Danny Gargan said that the plan was to run the colt in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park, and then either the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland or the Grade 2 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct in his final prep before attempting to match the classic achievement of Mage.

Dornoch achieved the first leg of that plan with his victory in the Coolmore Fountain of Youth Stakes, but failed to add the Blue Grass Stakes, finishing fourth behind Sierra Leone. Nonetheless, he took his chance in the Kentucky Derby, and bounced back from that disappointing run to win the third leg of the US Triple Crown, the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes, at the weekend.

With a winner’s purse of some $1.2 million, this latest success took his race record to four wins and a pair of runner-up finishes in eight starts, and pushed his total winnings just north of $1,750,000. Dornoch has also done something that Mage failed to do, and that is to win as a two-year-old. Mage did not race as a juvenile.

First crop

Mage is a first crop son of Good Magic (Curlin) who stands at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms for $125,000, a large increase from his $50,000 fee last year. Mage made up for a shortcoming in his own sire’s record, as Good Magic, the champion juvenile colt of 2017, was second in the Kentucky Derby. A million-dollar yearling purchase, Good Magic was rated best of his generation at two after winning the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar.

While he came up short in the Kentucky Derby, by two and a half lengths to the sire sensation Justify, Good Magic won the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational and the Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes.

Good Magic made a dream start at stud when his first juvenile crop was headed by the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes winner Blazing Sevens. Mage doubled that tally with his classic success, and Good Magic’s second crop included the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes and Grade 1 Arkansas Derby winner Muth, who was second in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

Now Good Magic’s first two crops number four Grade 1 winners, 10 graded stakes winners, and 18 blacktype winners in total.

Mage sold twice at public auction, for $235,000 as a yearling at Keeneland, and at Fasig-Tipton as a breezer for $290,000. He retired to stud with earnings of $2.95 million. Mage and Dornoch, who sold for $325,000 as a yearling at Keeneland, were bred in Kentucky by Grandview Equine.

They are among three winners, the first three foals and runners, out of the Big Brown (Boundary) mare Puca, and that stakes winner and Grade 2 runner-up cost Grandview $475,000, carrying the stakes-placed, three-time winner Gunning (Gun Runner).

John Stewart

A $90,000 yearling buy by Donegal Racing, Puca won four times, from two to five, including a minor restricted stakes race at Suffolk Downs, and she has a two-year-old colt by McKinzie (Street Sense) named Baeza. He sold for $1.2m last September to Mayberry Farm, while Resolute Racing’s John Stewart paid $2.9m last November, also at Keeneland, to acquire Puca.

She has since produced a full-brother by Good Magic to the two classic winners. It is little surprise that Puca made the familiar trip to Airdre this spring to be covered again by the same stallion.

Puca is one of five winners from the stakes-placed, winning two-year-old Boat’s Ghost (Silver Ghost). By some way the best of that quintet was Finnegans Wake (Powerscourt).

He won eight races and $1.6m from the ages of three until seven, the highlight of his racing career coming with success in the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic at Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby.

Other wins for Finnegans Wake included the Grade 2 Hollywood Turf Cup in a record time, the Grade 2 San Gabriel Stakes and the Grade 2 San Marcos Stakes. This year he stands in California for free, and from just a handful of foals of racing age he has sired a number of minor winners.

National Treasure

Meanwhile, the horse that beat Mage in the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes, National Treasure (Quality Road), is doing plenty to enhance his stud prospects for 2025, as it has already been announced that he will stand at Spendthrift Farm. That statement was issued in February, on the back of his win in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes.

“National Treasure is the kind of stallion prospect we all look for because he possesses every quality that excites you about his potential to become an important sire,” said Spendthrift’s general manager Ned Toffey at the time.

“He was precocious enough to place in a very good Breeders’ Cup Juvenile [third], he’s an American classic winner at three, and now a leading older horse at four.

“National Treasure is fast, has tremendous heart, and he’s a very good-looking colt with exceptional sire power and pedigree.”

In the immediate aftermath of that announcement, National Treasure travelled to the Saudi Cup, and earned a whopping $1.5m when finishing fourth.

Bounced back

Any disappointment with that run was put to rest at the weekend when the four-year-old bounced back to his best and added a third Grade 1 victory to his curriculum vitae, the Metropolitan Handicap at Saratoga. He went one place closer at last year’s Breeders; Cup when he ran second in the Grade 1 Dirt Mile. With winnings of more than $5m, National Treasure has handsomely repaid the $500,000 investment made in him as a yearling at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Yearling Sale.

Bred by Peter E Blum Thoroughbreds, National Treasure was selected at Saratoga by bloodstock agent Donato Lanni. He is one of five runners from Treasure (Medaglia D’Oro), four of them being multiple winners, and his half-brother Ultimate (Speightstown) is a stakes-winning sprinter.

Treasure placed a few times after being kept in training for three years. She is a half-sister to four US blacktype winners, and out of the stakes-placed Proposal (Mt Livermore). That mare was own-sister to Grade 3 winner and Grade 1-placed Multiple Choice (Mt Livermore), and half-sister to the unraced Lady Godiva (Unbridled’s Song) who bred the Grade 1 Clark Handicap winner Leofric (Candy Ride).

National Treasure is his sire Quality Road’s 15th Grade 1 winner, and he is from the ninth crop by the Lane’s End stallion who covered this year at $200,000. He stood for that fee in 2020, but dropped back for two years to $150,000. His career tally of stakes winners stands at an impressive 82, while three of his offspring have been US champions, Abel Tasman, Caledonia Road and Corniche.