Overseas stars have ancestress in common

Press, 9 May 1984, Page 46

Overseas stars have ancestress in common

By

J. J. BOYLE

El Gran Senor, the winner of the English Two Thousand Guineas on Saturday, is continuing an association between two masters of the thoroughbred that has changed the whole complexion of the bloodstock industry.

El Gran Senor was bred at Windfields Farm by E. P. Taylor, who has done for Canadian racing what Tesio did for Italy, and the Northern Dancer colt is trained in Ireland by Vincent O’Brien, whose purchase of a colt from Northern Dancer’s second crop for $84,000 started that famous breeder-trainer association.

The colt was Nijinsky, the first of many eminent performers of the Northern Dancer dynasty to triumph

in Europe. El Gran Senor, like Nijinsky, was sired by Northern Dancer. Both horses have a common ancestress, at the sixth remove, in Torpenhow, which was imported into the United States in 1915.

El Gran Senor’s dam, Sex Appeal, was an unraced daughter of Buckpasser, a high class racehorse by an unsound sire, Tom Fool, from the well-performed Busanda, by War Admiral. Best In Show (by Traffic Judge), the granddam of El Gran Senor, produced in 1979 the filly Blush With Pride, a top class galloper by Blushing Groom, winner of the Kentucky Oaks at the expense of the previous year’s two-year-old champion, Before Dawn.

El Gran Senor’s third dam, Stolen Hour (by Mr

Busher, son of War Admiral), won six races at three and four and bred seven winners, including the Nashua colt, Journalist. The fourth dam, Late Date, won 21 races from 112 starts to be rated a champion handicap mare. El Gran Senor will be retired to the Maryland division of Winfields Farm at the end of his racing days. He has a pedigree of classic quality to back his brilliant emerging talent and in the hands of one of the world’s most famous trainers he could bring more fame yet to a famous family and breeding ground.

El Gran Senor, a longbacked, short-necked, deepribbed colt with a great stride, is inbred to Hyperion (4 x 5), War Admiral (4 x 5), Discovery (5 x 5).