Bernardini

[Betsy]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

Bernardini's sire A. P. Indy has long emerged as the best dirt route sire out there. He's by Seattle Slew out of a Secretariat mare - which means two triple crown winners and no Mr. Prospector or Storm Cat.

A. P. Indy




Bernardini's dam Cara Rafaela was an extremely precocious route horse. She was a close 2nd in the BC Juvie fillies and won a strong Grade 1 as a 2yo - and her career quickly went to absolute sh!t. Though she was able to win a division of a 39K restricted stakes at Fairplex as an older horse.

CARA RAF:



Cara Rafaela's half brother was the wickedly fast So. Cal sprinter from the Mid 90's Abaginone.



Even though Bernardini's race record is similar to A. P. Indy's (Bernardini was the better race horse of the two by the way) I have my doubts his offspring tendencies will be similar.. especially with what I've seen from his first crop.

Bernardini's offspring are looking quicker and a lot better suited to sprinting than A. P. Indy's. He's only had one crop race so far - and the best horses have been To Honor and Serve, A. P. Warrior, Stay Thirsty, and Biondetti ... but you'd think he's already proven himself a great stallion.

Hopefully a lot of his good offspring don't develop like his mom did. Interesting to follow - because he could be either the next all-time great stallion - or a just a very good stallion who sires a lot of well bred flash in the pan types that look real promising and fizzle.

I'm still annoyed at the Sheikh retiring this horse before he'd had a chance to really prove himself, but yeah - he was a tremendous racehorse (though I still think Pulpit was Indy's most brilliant).

As to your last point, I suppose we can say that about any sire. This topic was brought up on another board, but lots of stallions got off to fine starts only to fizzle. I certainly have the highest hopes for Bernardini, so obviously I hope that he takes after his sire and not his dam. Indy is proving to be a very good sire of sires and even Mineshaft, who got off to a slow start as a sire, is doing well now.

I agree that Bernardini is imparting more speed to his offspring than Indy, but I'm not sure they are more suited to sprinting - it's not like he's imparting crazy speed (though I think Crossbow will end up being a sprinter/miler - he's very fast). It's just that they all seem to have tactical speed, which is certainly an advantage (though Indy hasn't done badly thus far, lol). So far this year, he's had some runners who have not run well, but he's also had some show very good promise (Crossbow, Cassini Flight, Heron Lake and Break up the Game - yes, I know the latter is still a maiden- and another maiden, a Pletcher filly named R Gypsy Gold). I guess we'll find out soon enough if his best offspring have trained on because Stay Thirsty (I know he's not well thought of here) is set to work this weekend (and his first race back will be in the Gotham), AZ Warrior will return in the Las Virgenes most likely and hopefully To Honor and Serve will make the FOY. Unfortunately we'll have to follow Biondetti (who is a particular favorite of mine) from afar. One thing Bernardini has over AP Indy is that his offspring (at least in Europ) have handled turf and synthetics.