Take a Memo

DEL MAR, Calif. (July 26, 2002) -- The influence of Chilean-breds in America has been colorful and steady since the arrival of Cougar II in the early 1970's. The long-tailed star of the California turf brought his homeland's influence full circle by siring a winner of the Kentucky Derby with Gato Del Sol.

This story continues on the racetrack in the form of top horses like Lido Palace, and perhaps nowhere greater in the breeding shed than in California. Upon his retirement, Memo was coveted by breeders in both his native Chile and California, and in fact has stood in both hemispheres, as has the similarly bred Malek. The former wound up at Ridgeley Farm in Hemet, and in fact both appear to have continued the presence of US bloodlines once exported to great success in the Southern hemisphere, back to America.

Memo's importance in California, whose racing surfaces appear so ideal for his "well-heeled" progeny, is manifested both in the form of his fast, hard-knocking runners like Grey Memo and La Femmin, and the demand for his yearlings at high profile sales like Del Mar. 

Nine of the 15-year-old's yearlings are catalogued at Del Mar this summer, as eclectic a mix of pedigree match-ups as any major stallion in the sale. They include yearlings out of mares by two sons of Seattle Slew, Tsunami Slew and Slewpy, another pick for our broodmare sires of the future list; and 1986 3-year-old champion Snow Chief, broodmare sire of Godolphin Mile winner Grey Memo, Memo's highest profile horse in America (he has also sired Chilean-champion Memo Guapo).

Earlier in this series we wrote of the special pedigree of Hip 76, the Event of the Year-Aunt Carol filly who is a half-sister to the grand Cal-bred Nostalgia's Star. On Memo's behalf, we present Hip 119, and another, admittedly more clandestine, link to another uniquely special Cal-bred. 

The chestnut colt is a full brother to a pair of local stakes winners, and as impressive and pertinent as that appears, his third dam, the whimsically named One Chicken Inn, counts among her progeny the marvelous gelding Super Diamond. One Chicken Inn also descends from the family of longtime California stallion Cutlass Reality.
-- Robert Knollhoff