Second to only Better Than Ready among Queensland second crop sires this season, Grandview Stud based Whittington goes from strength to strength with a flurry of recent winners adding further to his burgeoning success.
Whittington has had seven winners within the past month including the very promising Whittington Stone, who has won his past two starts in Victoria for the Mike Moroney stable.
A $35,000 Magic Millions National Yearling Sale purchase for Mike Moroney Bloodstock, Whittington Stone has missed a place only once in seven starts and has already won over $60,000 in prizemoney.
Whittington has had 16 winners this season from 47 runners with his progeny racking up nearly $800,000 in prizemoney.
His top performers include classy five time metropolitan winner Stampe, who has won over $300,000 as well as metro winner Bold Style a winner of over $155,000 and multiple winners Patches and Washington Towers.
Whittington is a fast precocious son of Tale of the Cat (USA), who shuttled successfully to New Zealand and Australia for a number of seasons enjoying great success in the Southern Hemisphere to go with his formidable results in North America.
For those who need reminding, Tale of the Cat left 108 stakes-winners worldwide including 10 Group I winners and he is also closely related to another influential sire in Johannesburg, whose son Scat Daddy has proven a sire sensation and had four Group I winning sons at stud in Australia last spring.
In looking for what matings might prove productive with Whittington it’s worth delving further into the past success of Tale of the Cat.
Red Ransom (USA) is a sire that definitely offers promise and the good news with that is there is loads of Red Ransom blood in Australia thanks to his 10 years of shuttling here and myriad of sons who went to stud.
Tale of the Cat left 17 winners from 20 runners bred from daughters of Red Ransom and four of those winners are stakes-winners, so the fact Whittington already has two winners from three runners out of Red Dazzler mares makes good sense.
Zabeel is another good option, his daughters producing 15 winners from 20 runners by Tale of the Cat including two stakes-winners headed by Group I winner Trusting.
Zabeel’s sire Sir Tristram (IRE) also had a good result with Tale of the Cat, the cross producing 13 winners from 19 runners including two stakes-winners highlighted by Group I winner Tell a Tale.
Looking more into the success of Tale of the Cat’s close relation Johannesburg, through his son Scat Daddy, it’s possible for Australian breeders to use Whittington replicate the line breeding that produced undefeated US Triple Crown winner Justify.
Justify was a sensation in 2018 winning all six of his starts from 1400 to 2400m including the US Triple Crown to retire undefeated to Coolmore Stud.
He is line bred 4 x 4 to two influential full sisters in Yarn and Preach, who are sired by Mr Prospector from Narrate. You can read an excellent article here from US Bloodhorse on the two famous sisters.
The mating is no fluke as Australian dual Group I winning Scat Daddy mare Con Te Partiro is bred exactly the same way as her grand-dam is also by Pulpit as is Justify’s.
Line breeding to Narrate (dam of Yarn and Preach) has produced 19 stakes-winners worldwide with Justify and Con Te Partiro among the four Group I winners bred this way.
Yarn is the dam of Tale of the Cat as well as Group I winner Minardi and is grand-dam of Johannesburg, while Preach is the dam of top class sire Pulpit, now best known as the sire of current US Champion Sire Tapit.
Mares carrying the blood of either Yarn or Preach aren’t commonplace in Australia, however there are some opportunities and one of those would be looking for mares that carry the blood of Johannesburg, who shuttled here for five seasons and has a son at stud in Turffontein.
The resulting double up of Storm Cat from that mating would be no negative as 164 stakes-winners worldwide are bred that way including eight Group I winners sired by Scat Daddy.
Whittington’s service fee for 2020 will be announced shortly – he stood for $6,600 including GST last season.
