Pedigree Profile: Dreamaway
The Colleen Stakes winner is the product of the elite John Oxley breeding operation
Yesterday’s Colleen Stakes at Monmouth Park was headlined by the John Oxley owned and bred filly Dreamaway, who went off as the 4-5 favorite and validated that support with a dominant gate-to-wire score by 5 1/4 lengths over six rivals. Incidentally, readers might recognize the pedigree of Popstyle, who chased the winner throughout but was outfinished late. Today, though, all focus is deservedly going to be on the winner, who covered the five furlong distance in :55.64, just about a second off the :54.66 track record.
The Colleen was Dreamaway’s second career start. On debut, she was a tenacious gate-to-wire winner of a 4 1/2 furlong maiden special weight at Keeneland for trainer Wesley Ward. Speed and tenacity were the trademarks of her sire, Flameaway, as a racehorse, and she’s just the latest example of how he’s been passing those traits on to his offspring.
Dreamaway is the eighth stakes winner for Flameaway, who was also campaigned by John Oxley. Flameaway was the fifth-ranked leading first-crop sire of 2023 and currently sits sixth on the second-crop sire list. He is also the sire of graded stakes winner Dreamfyre, another blazingly fast two-year-old who shares some interesting pedigree similarities with Dreamaway.
Both fillies are out of mares by sons of Pulpit, who shares his female family 2f with Flameaway. Flameaway gets an additional source of that female family via his grandsire Johannesburg, whose second dam Yarn is a full sister to Preach, the dam of Pulpit. Another very interesting similarity between the two fillies is that they share a mitochondrial haplotype, the “H” haplotype that is only found in family 19 and its branches. Dreamfyre is from family 19, while Dreamaway is from the 19b branch.
Flameaway’s stakes success so far has come primarily with mares from the A.P. Indy sire line - in addition to Dreamaway out of a Tapit mare and Dreamfyre out of a Sky Mesa mare, he has Chilean GSWs Reitha and Ando Soltero out of Malibu Moon mares, stakes winner Freedom Principle out of a mare by Mineshaft, and stakes winner She’s Fire out of a Flatter mare. Intriguingly, Sky Mesa, Mineshaft, and Flatter all hail from female family 1x, which shares a mitochondrial haplotype with Flameaway’s sire Scat Daddy.
Dreamaway is the third foal out of her dam, G1 Del Mar Oaks winner Dream Dancing, an Oxley homebred. Oxley purchased Dream Dancing’s second dam, Beautiful Pleasure, for $480,000 at the 1997 Keeneland April Two-Year-Olds In Training Sale, and she would go on to be a five-time G1 winner and 1999 Eclipse Champion Older Female. Beautiful Pleasure was a Florida bred by the Foolish Pleasure stallion Mauldin and out of the Baldski mare Beautiful Bid, making her a full sister to multiple G1 winner Mecke. As a broodmare for Oxley, she produced seven foals, the most successful of which was the multiple graded stakes placed Thunder Gulch stallion Dr. Pleasure.
Beautiful Pleasure’s most successful daughter never started in a race, but To Dream About, by Oxley’s Kentucky Derby winner Monarchos, has proven to be an influential broodmare. In addition to Dream Dancing, To Dream About is the dam of the graded stakes placed full siblings Awesome Sky and Sky Dreamer, both by Sky Mesa, as well as graded stakes placed Dream Maker, a full brother to Dream Dancing. Sky Dreamer is the dam of Kimbear, by Temple City, who was a multiple graded stakes winner in the UAE.
Dream Dancing’s first foal, a daughter of Justify named Scat Dancing, is a four-year-old who has never raced, and she is also the dam of a three-year-old by Gun Runner named Beautiful Dancer, who was a winner in her second start as a two-year-old but has not been seen since an 8th place finish in the Global Tote Juvenile Fillies Stakes at Kentucky Downs last September.
The cross of Scat Daddy with Pulpit has been very strong: according to G1 Goldmine, Dreamaway is the eleventh stakes winner in 87 starters on the cross (12.6%). Triple Crown winner Justify is out of a second dam by Pulpit, as is Scat Daddy’s G1 winner Con Te Partiro, and Scat Daddy was also the sire of G1 winner Harmonize out of a mare by Pulpit’s son Sky Mesa. As mentioned, this cross creates linebreeding to the mare Narrate, the third dam of Johannesburg and second dam of Pulpit.
Dreamaway is the second stakes winner in just nine starters on the Scat Daddy/Monarchos cross, joining Scat Daddy’s G1 Just a Game winner Celestine, who was out of a daughter of Monarchos and - quite interestingly - a member of family 19. Celestine’s second dam, Hello Barbara Sue, is the second dam of Dreamfyre.
Dreamaway has five John Oxley owned and/or bred ancestors in the first three generations of her pedigree, and is evidence of the strength of the breeding program Oxley has been cultivating for decades. It will be very interesting to see how she matures as an individual - her pedigree suggests that distances up to a mile may be in her wheelhouse, though I would not be surprised to see her stick to sprinting and excel. If she’s anything like her dam, there could also be a bit more improvement for her as a three-year-old - Dream Dancing was a winner in her second start but failed to hit the board in three graded stakes attempts on the dirt at two before coming into her own as a three-year-old alongside a surface switch to turf. After such a blazing victory, I wouldn’t be surprised if races such as the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint are on trainer Wesley Ward’s radar for this filly.
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