Awesome Act spotlights Awesome sire and dam

Awesome Again: Sire of G3 Gotham Stakes winner Awesome Act.

By Sid Fernando

The Adena Springs stallion Awesome Again stood for $125,000 in 2009, but he stands for $50,000 in 2010, a 60 percent decrease in fee from a year ago. On Saturday, March 6,  at Aqueduct his 3yo son Awesome Act won the G3, $250,000 Gotham Stakes with an impressive move to become — until the next set of Derby preps, at least — the latest legitimate contender for the classics. With a steep drop in fee and a live 3yo colt, Awesome Again suddenly looks downright appealing with the breeding season only a month old.

Take a look at the facts: 16yo Awesome Again is the sire of 9 G1 winners and 36 SWs through 8 crops; 22 are GSWs; and his SWs have an average winning distance of 8.5f. Among them are: HoTY Ghostzapper, one of the best and most versatile horses of recent years and a Breeders’ Cup Classic winner; the outstanding female champion Ginger Punch, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Distaff; Wilko, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile; and Round Pond, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.

Awesome Again won 9 of 12 starts, earned $4.4 million and himself won the Breeders’ Cup Classic. By champion Deputy Minister from Primal Force, by champion Blushing Groom, Awesome Again is half-brother to Macho Uno, also a champion, at 2, and a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner. That’s just the type of resume you look for in a high-priced sire!

Awesome Act is trained in England by Jeremy Noseda, who also trained Wilko before he was sold to American interests. Noseda brought Awesome Act, who’s co-owned by Mrs. Susan Roy and Vinery Stables and was bred by the Niarchos family’s Flaxman Holdings, to Santa Anita last year for the G2 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, and if you saw the race you’d remember he was the colt absolutely flying in the middle of the track late. I’d forgotten that he’d actually finished 4th that day — beaten only a length and a half for everything.

Noseda has the Kentucky Derby in the back of his mind, and that’s why the colt was sent on another transatlantic voyage for the Gotham — which actually hasn’t produced a Kentucky Derby winner since Secretariat in 1973. Although it was the colt’s first start on dirt, he handled it beautifully; his sire does has a terrific track record for getting dirt runners, after all. Awesome Act caught the eye in the paddock, too. Immaculately turned out, he’s an attractive chestnut with his tail squared off at the end in European style. He was a lukewarm favorite for the Gotham, but he won as if he were odd-on. His jock, Julien Leparoux, rode him with a lot of confidence, and on the turn for home Leparoux looked over his left shoulder as the colt went four-wide on the turn — a dead giveaway that he had plenty of horse under him. Awesome Act opened up by 3 lengths in the stretch and was mildly urged at the end to win fairly easily from the previously undefeated NY-bred Yawanna Twist by a length and a quarter. The colt covered the 1 1/16 miles in 1:43.85.

Blue Blood

Awesome Act has an awesome pedigree on the bottom side, too. He’s out of the Mr. Prospector mare Houdini’s Honey and is now her first SW and GSW. She, however, is a sister to Machiavellian (sire of Street Cry) and a half-sister to four other SWs, and her 3rd dam is Natalma — dam of Northern Dancer. Awesome Act is inbred 5×4 to Natalma and 4×2 to Mr. Prospector. Houdini’s Honey sold for $900,000, in foal to Johannesburg, at the 2007 Keeneland November sale, and her buyer, Canadian diamond man Chuck Fipke, says the Johannesburg colt, now 2, is one of his best. There may be more to this act yet.

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