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| State of Play wins the With Anticipation-G2 at Saratoga Photo: Adam Mooshian, Courtesy of NYRA |
When Soldat won the race in 2010, the mile-and-a-sixteenth With Anticipation was a Grade III, but this year, it earned Grade II and "win and you're in" Breeders' Cup status. State of Play has done little to suggest that he doesn't belong with his crop's top turfers: he's perfect in two career starts, and has banked $90,000. Among the colts he beat today were Mine That Bird's maiden half-brother, Dullahan (by Even the Score) and two promising juveniles--Captain Webb and Optimizer--from the first crop of Champion Turf Horse English Channel.
The Team Valor colorbearer was plucked out of last year's Keeneland September sale by Steven Long for a mere $13,000; it's not known how much Barry Irwin's group subsequently paid to acquire him last spring. But according to Team Valor's website, trainer Graham Motion's confidence in State of Play soared as the summer days lengthened. Originally planning to send him to Presque Isle to make his first start, Motion thought enough of the colt that he he entered him in the first juvenile turf race of the Saratoga meet: a five-and-a-half furlong maiden special weight test over good ground, on July 27th. State of Play proved a handy winner, and in doing so, became the first of War Front's two-year-old runners to win at first asking. That feat alone marked him as something special.
Parenthetically, State of Play isn't the only reason that Team Valor is high on War Front. The group purchased his three-year-old daughter, Summer Soiree, around the same time as State of Play joined Motion's barn, and she soon returned big dividends, capturing the Grade III Boiling Springs at Monmouth and the Grade I Del Mar Oaks in her last two starts, while adding $240,000 to her a career bankroll that now totals $331,400.
State of Play is the sixth foal out of the winning Procida mare, Valeta, who has also produced stakes-placed Knoxville (by Septieme Ciel). He was bred on the same cross (War Front on a Mr. Prospector-line mare) that produced three of War Front's best sons to-date: Grade I winner The Factor (out of Greyciousness by Miswaki); Grade II winner Soldat (out of Le Relais, by Coronado's Quest), and Warning Flag (out of Good Vibes, by Unbridled's Song), a listed stakes winner in Ireland.
Of course, War Front himself is a product of the successful Danzig/Mr. Prospector cross, which also produced Grade I winner Brahms (out of Champion Queena, by Mr. Prospector) and English Horse of the Year Dayjur (out of Champion Sprinter Gold Beauty, by Mr. Prospector).
On his dam's side, State of Play hails from one of the most distinguished female families in the Stud Book. His fourth dam is the Champion Hill Prince mare, Bayou, whose descendants include Champion Slew o' Gold, Belmont winner Coastal, and more recently, Jockey Club Gold Cup winner, Aptitude. With the abundant stamina flowing through the distaff side of his pedigree, State of Play should be well equipped, as he matures, to carry his speed beyond the eight-and-a-half furlong distance of the With Anticipation. If he stays sound, he has the makings of a very nice turf horse, indeed.