2005 Blue Grass Stakes Winner
Sire: Fusaichi Pegasus
Grandsire: Mr. Prospector
Dam: Divine Dixie
Damsire: Dixieland Band
Sex: Colt
Foaled: March 1, 2002
Country: Kentucky, United States
Colour: Dark Bay
Breeder: Marvin Little Jr., James Iselin & Ron McKee
Owner: Almakhdoob Stud / Tabor, Michael B. and Smith, Derrick
Trainer: Todd A. Pletcher
Jockey: Garrett K. Gomez
Record: 9 Starts: 5 - 1 - 0
Earnings: Over $676,380
Major races: Skip Away Handicap (2006), Blue Grass Stakes (2005)
Post-racing career: Entered stud in 2007 at Walmac Farm, KY. Standing in Saudi Arabia in 2012.
May 3 - Bandini
One of those paintings I'd love to get back into my hands . . .
A) I love black (really, really dark bays.)
B) He's from the first foal crop of Ky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus.
C) He's a Bluegrass Stakes winner at Keeneland.
D) I got up close to him when he won the Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park.
E) I painted him at the Keeneland yearling sale almost 20 years ago.
F) We have a FuPeg gelding named Painted Pegasus with the barn name Arthur for FuPeg's co-breeder Arthur Hancock. FuPeg was the last great sire by the amazing Mr. Prospector. He's also one of the few Keeneland yearling sale toppers that went on to win the KY Derby.
G) But this is about Bandini and I just feel this painting should be in my collection.
A son of a Kentucky Derby winner, trained by a Hall of Fame conditioner, and campaigned for one of the most powerful international ownerships in racing — Bandini arrived on the Triple Crown trail in 2005 with about as much pedigree polish as a horse can carry. A bay colt foaled in 2002, he was sired by Fusaichi Pegasus, the brilliant 2000 Kentucky Derby winner whose subsequent $70 million sale to Coolmore made him at the time the most expensive racehorse ever sold, out of the Dixieland Band mare Divine Dixie, herself a half-sister to the prolific stallion Stormy Atlantic. Trained by Todd Pletcher and raced for Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith of the Coolmore partnership, Bandini was bred and assembled to be exactly the kind of horse he became: a top-class spring three-year-old.
His breakout came at Keeneland in 2005, where he captured the Blue Grass Stakes (G1) in dominant fashion off a runner-up effort behind High Fly in the Fountain of Youth (G2) at Gulfstream. The Blue Grass score sent him into the Kentucky Derby as one of the betting favorites, but he could only manage 19th behind Giacomo over a sloppy Churchill Downs strip in one of the most chaotic Derbies in modern memory. He returned at four to win the Skip Away Handicap (G2) at Gulfstream Park and to set a track record at eight furlongs at Gulfstream, confirming the talent his classic prep had hinted at, before retiring with earnings of more than $676,000 and a Grade 1 on his page.
He took up stud duty at Walmac Farm in Kentucky, beginning with the 2007 breeding season, and ranked among the country's top twenty second-crop sires by 2011 on the strength of juvenile stakes winners like Defy Gravity and Midnight Serenade. He later moved on to stand in Saudi Arabia, part of the wave of well-bred American Grade 1 winners exporting to the growing Gulf-region breeding industry. Bandini's career is a portrait of how a particular kind of well-bred American colt makes his mark — a sharp Blue Grass, a forgettable Derby trip, a sound four-year-old encore, and a stallion shed door eager to open.
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