Pedigree Profile: Seize the Grey
The Preakness winner is the 25th G1 winner tracing to his fifth dam
If you’ve been reading my blog this year, the name Lady Be Good should be fairly familiar to you, but in case you missed the memo, I’d recommend checking out this post from April 1st for a quick refresher. In honor of Seize the Grey adding a 25th G1 winner to that Lady Be Good family, I’ve removed the paywall from that post.
Seize the Grey was the seventh Preakness Stakes winner for veteran trainer D. Wayne Lukas, and his 15th win in a Triple Crown race since getting his first with Codex in the 1980 Preakness Stakes. It had been 11 years since his most recent Triple Crown victory, which occurred in 2013 when Oxbow, in similar fashion to Seize the Grey, went to the lead and never looked back. Fellow Hall of Famer, jockey Gary Stevens, was aboard Oxbow, was winning his ninth Triple Crown race that day, but Seize the Grey’s jockey Jaime Torres was on the opposite end of the spectrum this year: the 25-year-old Torres was riding in a Triple Crown race for the first time, having just won his first graded stakes on the Kentucky Derby undercard with Seize the Grey. He rewarded Lukas’ faith in him with a perfect front-running ride, getting the early advantage over Imagination and maintaining it throughout.
Seize the Grey is owned by MyRacehorse and was a $300,000 yearling purchase out of the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Select Sale. He’s part of the final crop of his late sire Arrogate, who has now gotten a classic winner in each of his three crops to race, with Kentucky Oaks winner Secret Oath in 2022, Belmont Stakes winner Arcangelo in 2023, and Seize the Grey this year. He is the sire of 22 black type winners, now with six at the G1 level, in 224 foals to race, and this year Arcangelo will be his first son in the breeding shed, but if all goes well, Seize the Grey will be another exciting opportunity for Arrogate’s blood to proliferate.
Arrogate’s accomplishments on the racetrack are well-documented - after finishing third on debut, he put together an impressive string of seven consecutive victories, including a dominating run of four G1 wins in the Travers Stakes, Breeders’ Cup Classic, Pegasus World Cup, and Dubai World Cup. He never truly regained form after his impressive last-to-first victory in the Dubai World Cup, and retired after a fifth-place finish in the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Classic with earnings of $17,422,600, making him the all-time leading U.S. purse money earner.
Arrogate was the last great hope for his sire Unbridled’s Song, who died just months after Arrogate’s birth, to get an elite sire son. At the time of Arrogate’s retirement, Unbridled’s Song had G1 siring sons such as Even The Score, First Defence, Rockport Harbor, Old Fashioned, and Dunkirk, but none of them seemed like likely candidates to continue the sire line. Since Arrogate’s 2017 retirement, Unbridled’s Song’s sons Will Take Charge, Value Plus, Liam’s Map, and Cross Traffic have all gotten G1 winners in North America, so there are still opportunities for the sire line to continue outside of Arrogate. Zensational, Midshipman, and Emcee are the sires of G1 winners in South America.
Arrogate’s female family was just as impressive as his sire, tracing to 1990 Champion Two-Year-Old Filly Meadow Star as his third dam. His dam was a four-time stakes winning daughter of Distorted Humor who has also produced the stakes winner Osare (Medaglia d’Oro) and stakes placed runner Diamond Ore (Tapit). She was out of the stakes placed Deputy Minister mare Grechelle, who was also the dam of stakes winner Unbridled Femme by Unbridled. More distantly, his Lowe family 16g is responsible for horses such as Holy Bull, Miswaki, Frosted, and Jump Start. Unbridled’s Song Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winning son Midshipman is also a member of this family, although you have to go back to the 1865 mare Polly Agnes - the progenitor of family 16g - in order to find his most recent common tail-female ancestor with Arrogate.
It’s worth noting that both Seize the Grey’s family 8h and Arrogate’s family 16g share the L3a1b mitochondrial haplotype. Arrogate’s G1 winner Cave Rock was also a member of family 8h, and last year’s three-year-old champion Arcangelo was also from his sire’s mitochondrial family as a member of family 8f. Additionally, Arrogate’s G1 winning daughter And Tell Me Nolies is from the broader L haplogroup as a member of family 14f, while his other two G1 winners are from the unrelated families A4 and 9f.
Seize the Grey is the third foal from his dam, the stakes placed Smart Strike mare Smart Shopping. Her first foal, a filly by American Pharoah, is also a black type placed winner, while her second foal, a four-year-old Uncle Mo filly, is unraced. She has a two-year-old filly by Justify named Cirque Lodge.
Smart Shopping was out of the stakes winning Wild Again mare Shop Again, the dam of G1 winner Power Broker by Pulpit and stakes winner Fierce Boots by Tiznow, who is also the dam of a multiple stakes placed runner by Tapit. Shop Again was a half-sister to G1 winner Miss Shop (Deputy Minister), graded stakes winner Trappe Shot (Tapit), and graded stakes placed Bulling (Holy Bull). Miss Shop is the dam of multiple graded stakes winner Tin Type Gal (Tapit), while another daughter, Shop Here, is the dam of stakes winner Fifth Avenue (Monarchos) and the second dam of stakes winners Shoplifted (Into Mischief) and Imprimis (Broken Vow).
Seize the Grey’s third dam, Shopping, was a daughter of Private Account out of the Majestic Prince mare Impish, the dam of two stakes winners and a stakes placed runner. Impish is the tail-female ancestor of 46 stakes winners worldwide, and stallions descending from her family have sired 55 stakes winners worldwide. Impish was, of course, a daughter of Lady Be Good, whom I’ve already discussed in depth in the post linked above.
With a pedigree like this, it’s natural to look forward to the future of Seize the Grey as a stallion. As a hard-knocking competitor who seems to be getting better, it will be very interesting to see how he progresses throughout the year - he’s still younger than he sire was when he got his first G1 win, and almost exactly the same age as Arcangelo was when he won the Belmont Stakes, which he followed up later in the year with a victory in the Travers Stakes. Being by a late bloomer such as Arrogate, you have to consider that maybe we’re just beginning to see what the longshot winner of this year’s Preakness is really capable of.
There are certainly plenty of sire lines that would be appealing to cross with Seize the Grey, most notably Tapit, the damsire of Arcangelo and the sire of stakes winners from Seize the Grey’s immediate family such as Trappe Shot and Tin Type Gal. Tapit’s sire Pulpit was the sire of G1 winner Power Broker out of Seize the Grey’s third dam. The Unbridled’s Song/Tapit cross has gotten 5.3% stakes winners in 113 starters, an improvement on the 4.2% stakes winners from all starters with Unbridled’s Song in the top half of the pedigree.
Although the most prolific sire from Seize the Grey’s immediate family is Maclean’s Music, a son of Arrogate’s damsire Distorted Humor, that inbreeding is deep enough to be of possible interest to me, though inbreeding to Distorted Humor has not proven to be particularly effective to date. The pattern has gotten two stakes winners in 46 starters (4.4%), but with more distant descendants of that stallion at stud, that sample size should increase over the next few years and give some more clarity on the efficacy of the inbreeding - right now, it’s a pretty significant decrease on the 5.9% stakes winners from all starters with Distorted Humor, and is a cross I regard with some skepticism. That said, I’d be curious to see if Seize the Grey had any success with mares by sons of Maclean’s Music, particularly those such as Cloud Computing and Jackie’s Warrior who also bring in A.P. Indy.
Seize the Grey is free of Storm Cat, and with a stakes winner by Into Mischief under the third dam, that line has to be considered an option as well. Both Liam’s Map and Midshipman have stakes winners out of Into Mischief mares - the Unbridled’s Song/Into Mischief cross has gotten 6.9% stakes winners in 29 starters.
Seize the Grey’s Preakness Stakes win was a thrilling one on multiple levels, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds for him as a potential heir to the throne his sire vacated far too soon.
Thank you as always for reading! As a quick note, the next post for paid subscribers will be delayed until June 3rd, as I’ll be out of town this week and won’t have time to dedicate to writing. Thank you for your understanding!
For each lesser-remembered, but still failed son of Unbridled's Song (Buddha, Domestic Dispute, Graydar, Noonmark, Thorn Song, Eurosilver, Griffinite, Winslow Homer, Keep Up), we maintain hope for the contemporary sons (Arrogate and Liams Map) who have gone on to potentially add to his tail-male legacy as a grandsire of sires. Maybe it takes the trifecta of Northern Dancer, In Reality, and more Mr. P. to stabilize the brilliant speed and precocity of UBS.