GEORGE Krikorian did something at the weekend that he had not done before, and that was to welcome a pair of Grade 1 winners on the one day. His two-year-old Just F Y I is reviewed elsewhere, while now it is the turn of the six-year-old War Like Goddess, successful in the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic on the turf at Aqueduct.

Eleven wins and four places in 17 starts, and earnings of almost $2,500,000, that is the record to date of War Like Goddess. Unraced at two, she won both her outings at three, while at four she was successful in the Grade 1 Flower Bowl Stakes and three other graded stakes, and placed in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.

Last year she won the first of her two Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classics, the Grade 2 Glen Falls Stakes for the second time, and the Grade 3 Bewitch Stakes also for the second time (she annexed this contest for a third time in 2023). War Like Goddess was placed on this occasion in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf.

War Like Goddess is a daughter of Calumet Farm’s English Channel (Smart Strike), the champion grass horse in the USA after he won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf at Monmouth Park in a course record time for the 12-furlong contest.

Maturing with age, just like his daughter, English Channel won six times at Grade 1 level, and he twice set a course record when winning back-to-back stagings of the United Nations Stakes which is run over 11 furlongs. He went to stud with a bank balance of more than $5.2 million.

English Channel is an outstanding sire of turf runners, and yet you could have used him in 2021, the year he died, for $27,500, or about €23,000.

500 winners

At stud, English Channel’s record stands at 70 stakes winners among more than 500 individual winners, headed by the dual champion Channel Maker.

He is also the sire of a number of champions in Canada, while a couple of his current crop of three-year-olds are Grade 1 winners, Far Bridge in the Belmont Derby and Last Call in the Natalma Stakes. War Like Goddess is one of his 14 Grade 1 winners.

War Like Goddess was bred by Calumet Farm and they gave her away as a foal at the Keeneland November Sale for $1,200, Florida owner Lawrence Hobson buying her. Soon after the sale Hobson was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he died without seeing the foals he bought, all for ‘pocket money’ prices, progress, some to sell for more than 100 times their purchase price.

The first plan was to pinhook the foals as yearlings, but when War Like Goddess was unsold at Keeneland as a yearling for $1,000, the decision was made to breeze her. She sold for $30,000, at least showing some return. What is she worth now?

While no doubt Calumet will be delighted to have bred such a notable Grade 1 winner, things got worse for them. The farm, having sold a few other produce of War Like Goddess’s dam Misty North (North Light) at the sales for peanuts, decided it was time to move her on too. They parted with Misty North, carrying a colt by their sire Bal A Bali (Put It Back), in 2019 for $1,000.

First blacktype

Misty North was a winner and bred a pair of winners from three runners, the other being seven-time three-year-old winner The Kid Rocks (Red Rocks).

War Like Goddess is the first blacktype horse in two generations of the pedigree. Her grandam Misty Gallop (Victory Gallop) is dam of five winners and, in turn, is a half-sister to three stakes horses, two of which are familiar in this part of the world.

Her half-brother Blush Rambler (Blushing Groom) was trained for Maktoum Al Maktoum by Sir Michael Stoute and he was a listed winner at two, runner-up to Tenby in the Group 1 Grand Criterium, and chased home Apple Tree and Environment Friend in the Group 1 Coronation Cup, with Urban Sea fourth!

Nine years after Blush Rambler was born, along came Tendulkar (Spinning World). He won on his debut, looked top drawer when third to Rock Of Gibraltar and Landseer in a blanket finish to the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes, and made just two other starts at three, running second to Tiger Royal in the Group 3 Weatherbys Ireland Greenlands Stakes. He had a largely forgettable spell at stud in Ireland.