THERE was a pair of Grade 1 races for two-year-olds in the USA last weekend, and both were won by horses representing the first crops of their sires.

The Spinaway Stakes on Sunday at Saratoga was the first Grade 1 juvenile contest of the year in the USA. It provided a first win for Vequist, a Swilcan Stables’ homebred daughter of Darley America’s Nyquist (Uncle Mo). The filly was beaten a neck on her debut, and had no trouble stepping up to Grade 1 level and she won in a near-record time for a stakes race over seven furlongs.

Vequist is only the second stakes horse of any kind in the first four generations of her family, and the other is her dam Vero Amore (Mineshaft), twice a winner at two and runner-up in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes. The first four dams in the family are winners and winner producers, however.

Champion at two and winner of the 2016 Grade 1 Kentucky Derby, Nyquist is making an impression with his first runners and his daughter Lady Lilly was third in the Spinaway on Sunday. He is also sire of the Canadian stakes winner Gretzky The Great and a couple of other maiden winners. Nyquist stood for $40,000 this year.

Not This Time

For just $12,500 you could have sent a mare in 2020 to Not This Time at Taylor Made Stallions, but it is a sure bet that fee will not be available in 2021. The Grade 3 winning son of Giant’s Causeway (Storm Cat) only raced at two and he was runner-up in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. A half-brother to the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Liam’s Map (Unbridled’s Song), Not This Time’s first crop have hit the track running and he is one of the leaders of his generation.

His daughter Princess Noor won the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante Stakes at Del Mar, her second success in as many starts, and she is the first of her sire’s nine winners to double up. That first crop of runners also includes the Grade 3-placed Hopeful Princess.

Princess Noor has not gone unnoticed and she topped this year’s OBS April Sale when selling for $1.35 million. She is the second runner and winner for the Grade 3 winner Sheza Smoke Show (Wilko) and Princess Noor has now ensured that the stakes-winning record of the direct female line stretches to four. Her grandam Avery Hall (A.P.Jet) and third dam Royal Form (Dynaformer) were minor stakes winner.