Pedigree Profile: Catching Freedom

Taking a look at the Louisiana Derby winner in the lead-up to the Kentucky Derby

The Kentucky Derby is just under two weeks away, and all eyes are turned toward Churchill Downs and the Run for the Roses. I’ll be putting out a special handicapping edition of the blog prior to the Derby, but in the meantime, I wanted to take a look at Louisiana Derby winner Catching Freedom, who is one of many stakes winners bred on the Tapit/Empire Maker cross.

Catching Freedom was a winner of the Louisiana Derby going a mile and three sixteenths, and I don’t expect the extra sixteenth of a mile to bother him in the Kentucky Derby. He is a son of Constitution, who is the sire of 2020 Belmont and Travers Stakes winner Tiz the Law, so he has proven that he can get a runner at the classic distance. Catching Freedom’s dam, Catch My Drift, was a daughter of Pioneerof the Nile who was a stakes winner at nine furlongs in the Summer Colony Stakes.

Catch My Drift is the dam of three winners from three starters, and all three have been stakes quality. Her first foal, Strava (Into Mischief), is multiple stakes placed, with third place efforts in the Ellis Park Derby at a mile and in the Harrods Creek Stakes at seven furlongs. Bishop’s Bay, by Uncle Mo, was twice a runner up in graded stakes company at nine furlongs, most notably running eventual three-year-old champion Arcangelo to the wire in last year’s G3 Peter Pan Stakes.

Catching Freedom began his career with a maiden victory on debut at Churchill Downs going a mile, and finished a troubled fourth in his second start at that same track. He started the year with a victory in Oaklawn’s Smarty Jones Stakes, then chased Sierra Leone and Track Phantom home in the Risen Star before taking the Louisiana Derby with an impressive rally.

This colt hails from the fairly uncommon Lowe family 42 and traces to the Florida-bred stakes winner April Dawn Marie as his fifth dam. That mare, a daughter of Baldski (incidentally, a member of the same family 21a as Pioneerof the Nile), is the tail-female ancestor of sixteen stakes winners. Six of those are by stallions carrying a source of A.P. Indy (20% of 30 starters on the cross), including multiple graded stakes winner Clapton, whose sire Brethren is out of an A.P. Indy mare.

Constitution is the sire of one other starter from this female family, a filly named Sals Dream Girl, a useful claiming/starter allowance type of runner who is a four-time winner in 20 starts and has earned over $147,000.

The cross of Tapit over mares carrying Empire Maker has gotten ten stakes winners in 86 starters (11.6%), including G1 winner Valiance. This cross creates so-called “sex-balanced” inbreeding to Unbridled, who is the damsire of Tapit and sire of Empire Maker. Inbreeding to Unbridled through all sources has produced 4.3% stakes winners in 1533 starters, while inbreeding to Unbridled via a daughter on top and a son on the bottom has produced 5.1% stakes winners in 572 starters. Tapit is almost exclusively responsible for this number, as this inbreeding pattern has produced just a single stakes winner in 151 starters (.7%) via other stallions carrying daughters of Unbridled. The cross of Tapit over all mares carrying sons of Unbridled has produced 6.7% stakes winners in 421 starters.

Just for reference, the opposite pattern - sons of Unbridled over daughters of Unbridled - has produced 4.6% stakes winners in 374 starters. Crossing two daughters of Unbridled has produced 5% stakes winners in 114 starters, and crossing sons of Unbridled has produced 3.2% stakes winners in 476 starters.

It would seem that inbreeding to Unbridled via Tapit is a beneficial pattern, and the Tapit/Empire Maker cross has been a particularly prolific version of this cross.

Tapit has also seen significant success with mares carrying Cherokee Run, the sire of Catch My Drift’s damsire Yonaguska. There are eight stakes winners in 91 starters on the Tapit/Cherokee Run cross (8.8%).

It’s no surprise that Catching Freedom has proven to be an elite runner, with his dam having produced two stakes placed runners from two other foals to race, significant precedent for success on the sire line crosses of Tapit with Empire Maker and Cherokee Run, as well as the cross of the A.P. Indy sire line with his female family. I don’t expect the Kentucky Derby distance will prove problematic for Catching Freedom, and expect we’ll see plenty more from him as the year progresses.