IN December 2020 it was revealed that Race Day, a multiple Grade 2-winning son of Tapit (Pulpit), had been exported to continue his stallion career in Korea. He previously stood at Spendthrift Farm, where he began his stallion career in 2016.

As so often happens after such a move, his best runners then appear, and this is the story with Race Day. A four-year-old son of his, White Abarrio, took his winning tally to six when he added the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes at Saratoga to last year’s victory in the Grade 1 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. Successful twice in each of the three seasons he has raced, White Abarrio’s rise to becoming the earner of $1.8 million is a heart-warming tale.

Bred by Spendthrift Farm and sold for a mere $7,500 as a yearling at the end of 2020, White Abarrio made a quick reappearance in March at a breeze-up, and sold for a profitable, if still modest, $40,000.

His sale price will have been a huge disappointment for his breeders, who paid $475,000 for his dam as a yearling in 2016. She was Catching Diamonds (Into Mischief), but she was sorely misnamed and ran three times without showing much.

White Abarrio is the first foal and only runner to date for Catching Diamonds, though his Grade 1 win last year boosted the sales values of his now two-year-old and yearling half-brothers by Lord Nelson (Pulpit), and they sold for $155,000 and $100,000 respectively at Keeneland in September and November.

A look at the family of White Abarrio gives some clues as to why Catching Diamonds, while a daughter of leading sire Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday), would sell for $425,000 as a yearling.

Her half-brother Cool Cowboy (Kodiak Kowboy) was a multiple stakes winner in the USA and a dual Group 3 winning sprinter in the UAE. Another sibling, Appeal To The Win (Successful Appeal), was a stakes-placed winner in Canada.

Traded

Since her purchase, a winning half-sister to Catching Diamonds, Downside Scenario (Scat Daddy), bred the Grade 2 winner and Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes-placed Mutasaabeq (Into Mischief). In 2021, Downside Scenario traded for $1,150,000.

Race Day won half of 12 starts for earnings of $748,000. His career was highlighted by victories in the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap and Grade 2 Fayette Stakes, along with the Grade 3 Razorback Handicap. He also finished third in the Grade 3 Fred W. Hooper Stakes, and all of these stakes efforts came at the age of four. White Abarrio is the only one of Race Day’s eight stakes winners to have been successful at a level beyond listed or stakes class, though one of his sons, Barber Road, while not a stakes winner, was second in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby.