2017 Kentucky Derby Prospect: Irish War Cry
On Saturday, December 31, the two-year-olds get one last chance to register a stakes victory before they turn three and Irish War Cry, a 2017 Kentucky Derby prospect, will do so in the $100,000 Marylander Stakes at Laurel Park.
Irish War Cry is coming out of a Laurel maiden special weight with an impressive first-time score by 4 ½ lengths. The November 11 victory earned a very solid 83 Beyer Speed Figure and more importantly was noteworthy enough to earn this son of Curlin a spot amongst the 23 juveniles listed in the Kentucky Derby Futures Wager Pool 1. When the wagering closed on November 27, the Graham Motion trainee was made the eighth pick at odds of 26-1.
Interestingly Irish War Cry is a New Jersey-bred from the 2014 crop that consists of only 117 foals registered with the Jockey Club. In total there were 22,300 foals in all of North America, so the odds clearly appear to be against him. However, this home-bred of Isabelle Haskell de Tomaso is no ordinary Jersey-bred. Irish War Cry comes from quality racing bloodlines of both the equine and human kind.
Owner and breeder de Tomaso is the daughter of Amory L. Haskell, the first President and Chairman of Monmouth Park and the namesake for the Haskell Invitational. Every summer, she and her sister Hope Haskell Jones present the trophy to the winner of the prestigious grade one for three-year-olds. The now 86-year-old, de Tomaso, was a very successful race car driver back in the 1950’s when she competed in famous endurance races like Le Mans and Sebring. She and her husband manufactured sports cars in Italy and later on in conjunction with Ford Motor Company.
On the equine side, Irish War Cry is by Curlin, out of the mare Irish Sovereign, who has produced six foals and all of them have exactly one win to their name. Irish Sovereign is by Polish Numbers bringing the royal Phipps bloodlines to her offspring. All of the foals have names that begin with Irish, like her 2010 foal Irish Politics, who was stakes-placed as a two-year-old. Each year, de Tomaso sends her best mares to be bred in Kentucky, but they return north to drop their foals at Overbrook Farm in Colts Neck, NJ, a mere seven miles from Monmouth Park. Irish Sovereign’s four most recent foals were sent to Maryland to be trained by Motion at Fair Hill.
In his maiden victory Irish War Cry rallied from ninth place in a field of twelve to win the six-furlong sprint in a time of 1:10.62. As far behind as eight lengths in the sprint, he made a bold move down the backstretch, entered the turn extremely wide, and drew off while racing very greenly. Jockey Fergal Lynch had to work very hard to keep his mount on a straight path or he may have won by a much greater margin.
The jump to stakes company is always significant, but Irish War Cry has been installed as the 9-5 morning line favorite in the field of seven in the Marylander. The 5-2 second choice, Undulated, who was a $625,000 purchase at the OBS March sale, will make his first start on the dirt. He had a second place finish on the turf in the Laurel Futurity and a fast-closing win on the synthetic at Woodbine in the Swynford. Two Charley’s was a late running second in the JF Lewis III Stakes at Laurel and O Dionysus sports a Pennsylvania-bred stakes victory at Parx.
The seven-furlong distance should to be to the liking of Irish War Cry and this more experienced field will be a worthy challenge to see if he has the talent to continue racing on the Road to the Kentucky Derby. Post time for The Marylander, which is carded as race four, is 2:00 ET.