Pedigree Profile: Sandman

One of the buzz horses coming into this year’s Kentucky Derby is Arkansas Derby winner Sandman. A $1,200,000 OBS March purchase owned by D. J. Stable, St. Elias Stable, West Point Thoroughbreds, and CJ Stables and trained by Mark Casse, Sandman has been a very consistent competitor in his eight-race career but broke through with his first stakes win on March 29th in the Arkansas Derby. He was sent off as the third choice in the field of nine and closed from eighth to sweep past Coal Battle, still showing a bit of greenness in the stretch but winning comfortably and galloping out well ahead of the field.

Sandman is a son of Tapit out of the Distorted Humor mare Distorted Music, a three-time winner in maiden special weight and allowance company during her career who has already produced a graded stakes winner in She Can’t Sing, a daughter of Bernardini who won the G3 Chilukki Stakes going a mile on the dirt and was also a multiple stakes winner on the turf.

Distorted Music is out of the Unbridled’s Song mare Music Room, the dam of the turf stakes placed Smart Strike filly Zinzay, who produced stakes winner and G1 placed Moon Over Miami. Music Room was a half-sister to G1 winners Musical Chimes and Music Note, the latter being the dam of G1 winner Mystic Guide. Their dam, the Sadler’s Wells mare Note Musicale, was out of multiple G1 winner and 1978 co-champion two-year-old filly It’s In the Air. It’s In the Air’s branch of Lowe family 4k is responsible for 28 stakes winners worldwide, including nine total G1 winners. Tapit is also the sire of the multiple graded stakes placed runner Triple Cream from a different branch of family 4k.

Sandman is a relatively heavily inbred individual, with a nine-generation coefficient of inbreeding of 4.63% (the average inbreeding coefficient for Kentucky Derby winners is 2.42%). He carries five crosses of Mr. Prospector within six generations, two of those via Unbridled, and also has four crosses of Northern Dancer within seven generations. The great stallion Nearco appears 20 times in his nine-generation pedigree. You can read more about the history of inbreeding and linebreeding in the Kentucky Derby here.

The cross of Tapit over Distorted Humor is famously responsible for two-time G1 winner and leading sire Constitution, but has not actually been a particularly successful cross at large, with only five other stakes winners (none of them graded) in 199 total starters on the cross. That 3.5% stakes winners is a decrease on both the 5.6% stakes winners from all starters with Tapit on the sire’s side of the pedigree and on the 5.4% stakes winners from all starters with Distorted Humor on the dam’s side of the pedigree.

While the Tapit/Distorted Humor cross has been fairly lackluster overall, the cross of Tapit over Unbridled’s Song holds up quite well, with 6% stakes winners in 302 starters, including G1 winners Unique Bella and Tapit Trice. In addition to linebreeding to Unbridled created in this cross - as Unbridled’s Song is a son of Unbridled and Tapit’s dam Tap Your Heels is a daughter of that same stallion, - this cross also duplicates Tapit’s female family 3o, as Unbridled’s Song is out of a mare by that family’s Caro.

Sandman seems like a horse who should appreciate the added distance of the Kentucky Derby, being a long-striding son of a stallion who has sired four Belmont Stakes winners. While his dam was a two-time winner around one turn, she was also a winner of a 1 1/16 mile allowance race at Churchill Downs by five lengths in the longest race of her career, and her best foal prior to Sandman was a stakes winner at up to that same distance (She Can’t Sing also never raced beyond 8.5 furlongs). His female family going back to his fourth dam is responsible for five G1 winners at ten furlongs or greater, and Sandman seems to be the kind of horse who could add a sixth to that tally this year.