First Graded stakes winner for A P Warrior
Saturday; Gulfstream Park
Hutcheson Stakes (Grade 2), 7f, dirt, 3yo
THUNDER MOCCASIN (c A P Warrior - One Stormy Mama by Storm Cat)
Bred by Stonewall Farm Stallions
STONEWALL Farms stallion A P Warrior became the latest in a growing tribe of sons of A P Indy to provide a Graded stakes winner when Thunder Moccasin devoured the opposition in the Hutcheson Stakes.
The Todd Pletcher-trained colt was making only his second start, yet quickened clear from Il Villano (Pollard's Vision) to win eased down by 6 3/4 lengths.
Thunder Moccasin is from the second crop of Grade 2 winner A P Warrior, a stallion bred on the same A P Indy - Quiet American cross as Bernardini.
Successful in a pair of Grade 2 races on dirt and turf, A P Warrior retired to Stonewall Stallions in Kentucky in 2006 at a fee of $20,000, a figure which has since slumped to $4,500. In 2011, he was transferred alongside other Stonewall stallions to stand at Stonewall in Florida.
Thunder Moccasin provides a welcome change of fortune for A P Warrior; the son of A P Indy, who is out of Aidan O'Brien's 1999 Queen Mary Stakes third Warrior Queen, sired just five juvenile first-crop winners in 2010 and checked in at only 36th on the 2011 leading American second-crop sires' list. Prior to Thunder Moccasin, his best performer was Listed winner Faisca.
Thunder Moccasin's win represented a double success for Stonewall Stallions in that they bred the colt out of One Stormy Mama. A $95,000 Fasig-Tipton KentuckyJuly yearling purchase by Starlight Partners, he is the first winner out of the mare, a dual-winning daughter of Storm Cat from the further family of Caerleon.
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