ON Saturday morning the world welcomed a colt foal by Medaglia D’Oro (El Prado) out of the A P Indy (Seattle Slew) mare Music Note into the world.

Hours later, there was further cause for delight when the new-born’s four-year-old half-brother Mystic Guide landed the $12 million Group 1 Dubai World Cup. This was a career best performance by the son of Ghostzapper (Awesome Again) who took his earnings to just short of €6.4 million from four victories in eight starts.

Unraced at two, Mystic Guide gained his first stakes success last year in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga, one of two wins that year, and his four placed efforts were highlighted by a fine second-place finish in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont.

He travelled to Oaklawn Park for his first start of 2021, a victory in the Grade 3 Razorback Handicap, before heading to Dubai.

In a sad week for Sheikh Mohammed’s family, following the death of Sheikh Hamdan, this win was most appropriate, and also very poignant. The brother’s other sibling, Sheikh Maktoum, was recalled with this victory by Mystic Guide, as his Gainsborough Stud enjoyed many great racing and breeding moments with this family.

The long association with this pedigree started in November 1984 at the Keeneland Sales. Then Hill ‘N’ Dale Farm Sales Agency sold It’s In The Air (Mr Prospector) to Michael Goodbody on behalf of Sheikh Maktoum Al Maktoum for a sale-topping $4.6 million, then the second-highest price ever paid for a broodmare at auction. The eight-year-old was sold carrying a filly, Bitooh (Seattle Slew), who went on to become a Group 2 winner in France.

Dual champion

It’s In The Air was a champion at two and three in the USA, she won 16 races and earned $892,339, and five of her wins were at Grade 1 level. She never produced a runner of her own calibre, but she was a good broodmare, three of her nine successful offspring winning stakes races. Two of her daughters, however, did go on to become Group/Grade 1 producers.

Try To Catch Me (Shareef Dancer), who once sold for just 14,0000gns to Philip Hore in Mount Eaton Stud, is the dam of Sheikh Maktoum’s Storming Home (Machiavellian). In England that colt won the Group 1 Champion Stakes at Newmarket from Moon Ballad and Noverre, and the Group 2 King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot, before leaving Barry Hills to join Neil Drysdale in the USA.

There Storming Home continued to blossom and won two of their major Grade 1 races for older horses, the Charles Whittingham Memorial and the Clement L Hirsch Memorial Turf Championship. In spite of his victories, he is often remembered more for his disqualification after passing the post in front in the Arlington Million.

Storming Home went to stud at Shadwell’s Nunnery Stud, shuttled to the southern hemisphere, and ended his stud career at Darley Japan.

Note Musicale

Of more interest for now is another daughter of It’s In The Air, this time it is the unraced Note Musicale (Sadler’s Wells). She had just six foals but half of them won, and all of that trio made an impact. Two of them were fillies and they became Grade 1 winners, while the ‘lesser’ of the three was Top Of The Bill (Lear Fan). He started his racing career in France with André Fabre and won, but then became a dual stakes winner over hurdles in the USA.

Fabre also trained Note Musicale’s daughter Musical Chimes (In Excess) and in 2003 she won the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas and ran third in the Group 1 Prix de Diane-French Oaks. After finishing second in the Grade 1 Yellow Ribbon Stakes at Santa Anita she transferred to Neil Drysdale and on her second start for him was beaten a neck by Heat Haze in the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes. Musical Chimes landed an American Grade 1 at four when she won the John C Mabee Handicap at Del Mar.

Five years after Musical Chimes, along came Music Note. Bred in Kentucky by Gainsborough Farm, she raced for Godolphin and was originally trained by Tom Albertrani, winning for him as a two-year-old on her second start. She switched to Saeed bin Suroor in 2008 for the rest of her career, comprising two seasons, and she went on to win six times for him, all but once at Grade 1 level.

Classic sophomore

Music Note won over a mile in late May of her second season by seven lengths, before being thrown in at the deep end in the Grade 1 Mother Goose Stakes a month later, but she was up to the challenge and won it easily. Odds-on for the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks, Music Note had 11 lengths to spare over her opponents at the wire.

Such was the brilliance of these victories that connections considered entering Music Note in the Grade 1 Travers Stakes against colts but ultimately decided not to, and ran her in the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes for fillies. She went under by a head to Proud Spell who later that year was ranked the champion three-year-old filly.

Music Note started at 1/20 for the Grade 1 Gazelle Stakes and won as a long odds-on shot should, and then she made her final start of the year in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic, held at Santa Anita. She finished a highly creditable third to Zenyatta and Cocoa Beach.

Another year

Kept in training for another year, Music Note was beaten on her seasonal bow, but was back to her best at Saratoga in the Grade 1 Ballerina Stakes over seven furlongs. The field of five also included multiple Grade 1 winners Indian Blessing and Informed Decision, but Music Note won by a commanding five lengths. The following month she won the fifth Grade 1 of her career, the Beldame Stakes.

Now, with her sixth foal, Music Note is herself the dam of a Group 1 winner in Mystic Guide, one of four winners she has produced. Her three-year-old son Gershwin (Distorted Humor), like Mystic Guide, is trained for Godolphin by Mike Stidham. Also like his year older sibling, Gershwin did not run at two but is already off the mark this year and hopefully, just as the Dubai World Cup winner did, he will improve with age.

Music Note’s eighth offspring is the two-year-old filly Gina (Maclean’s Music) and now we know the identity of her latest produce.

Ghostzapper

Mystic Guide’s sire Ghostzapper won Grade 1 races at six and a half furlongs (Vosburgh Stakes), a mile (Metropolitan Handicap), and a mile and a quarter, the latter being the Breeders’ Cup Classic, which he won in a new track record. A versatile horse, Ghostzapper was a particular favourite of trainer Bobby Frankel.

He retired to stud at Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs Farm in Kentucky, with an initial fee of $200,000, the highest ever for a first season stallion at the time. The former Horse of the Year was relocated to Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms in Kentucky and this year his fee is $85,000.

Mystic Guide is his leading earner, while Ghostzapper’s other 12 Grade 1 winners include champions Shaman Ghost ($3,859,311) and leading sprinter Judy The Beauty, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.

As a broodmare sire Ghostzapper is also responsible for the Triple Crown hero Justify (Scat Daddy) and the Eclipse Award winner and champion sprinter Drefong (Gio Ponti).