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Hall of Fame: Titanic

Original article written by Gabrielle Mackenzie posted 1 year 1 week ago

I try to visit the forums and see what’s happening in the general SIM population every morning, keeping an eye out for good horses to write about for some extra cash. Sometimes inspiration just lands in my lap, like it did today when I read Nena Olson’s reply to a question about horses that changed the game for you. Honestly, I could have gone with any of the horses she mentioned in her well-written response, but it was the last on the list that caught my eye. The horse that refused to be like her namesake and wouldn’t sink: Titanic.

Titanic was bred by Nena Olson in the beginning of Year 42 to the cool, cloudy backdrop of Ireland in the early Spring. She was by African Horse of the Year Storm the Bow, who took home several G1 wins during his career, including the Desert Duty Free, the Los Campeones Route, and the Cape Town Derby. Storm the Bow’s sire was the discreet Scream in the Wind, who won only one G1 race and produced only one millionaire. Storm the Bow was out of the more prolific World Traveler who won multiple G1 rated stakes and earned $1,339,500 on the track. World Traveler also produced seven stakes winners out of her nine foals.

Titanic’s dam was Nena Olson homebred Lavishing, who was, except for producing her exceptional daughter, unremarkable. Perhaps throwing a Hall of Fame inductee is enough to push her into the ranks of other excellent broodmares. Lavishing was sired by Steward’s Cup Turf winner Feat, who would go on to rival some of the most golden of sires in the Hall of Fame without being inducted himself. Feat sired 17 millionaires for total progeny earnings of $103,844,065. Feat is no stranger to having Hall of Famer children; he also sired Hall of Famer Olive Branch and his other children have won title after title in their careers. Lavishing’s dam was GiveUpTheGhost, whose claim to fame is being sired by the famous Black Condor.

Making her debut in Year 44, Week 10, Titanic proved herself to be a force on the track. She ran a 96 speed figure and defined the running style that would carry her through her next races. Despite a clumsy exit from the gate, Titanic kept her place in the middle of the pack before rocketing to the finish with a terrifying three-and-a-half length lead. The bay mare mastered this pattern and gobbled up two listed stakes races before making her debut in Grade 1 company at the Steward’s Cup Bunburette. There she proved her dislike of the gate as she ran out at an angle, cementing her place at the back of the pack. Her jockey Wayne Wolf knew however that her competitive spirit would win out, and at the third call she was neck and neck with the second place horse. Titanic still had more to give and quickly overtook the first place runner for a first place finish with a one-and-one-quarter length lead. In her first graded stakes victory, Titanic beat out fellow Hall of Famer Queen of Atlantis.

Nena Olson started Titanic’s 3-year-old year with an easy breezy Grade 3 race before settling her back where she belonged in the Grade 1 competition. She would go on to beat Hall of Famer With Care in the G1 Louisville Bunburette, a field of seven other racers in the G1 International Oaks, a field of five in the G1 Oceanside Oaks, and Trial By Summer sale alumnus Up in the Night in the G1 Queen Mother Stakes before returning to defend her Steward’s Cup crown in the Steward’s Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Evidently 3-year-old Titanic had learned the secrets of the gate and performed a beautifully smooth exit before finding her sweet spot near the back of the pack. She ran through the pack like the pro she was before focusing on the finish line to beat the competition by one-and-a-half lengths. Titanic beat out Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf winner Bolt From the Blue, two-time Steward’s Cup runner-up It’s Christyneth, and fellow Louisville Bunburette winner Manda.

It would only be in Titanic’s third year of racing that she would show any signs of slowing down. She began her four-year-old career with a second place finish behind the aforementioned Bolt From the Blue in the Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf; her first loss to date. But it would not faze this superstar racer; Titanic devoured the competition in her next G2 race and came back to win against the boys in the G1 Oceanside Stakes. It was at this point that Titanic decided she’d had enough of the track as she pulled a third place in the G1 Beverly B Stakes, and finally a fourth place in the Steward’s Cup Filly and Mare Turf, pulling away from the racing scene together with rival Queen of Atlantis.

Even though she was slowing down on the track, Titanic would take her winning spirit and apply it to the breeding shed, where she proved to be a shining star once more for Nena Olson. Olson kept the star power strong in the mare’s first breeding to fellow Hall of Famer Coleman Hell. The resulting mare, Run Wild, would go on to make $1,353,333 on the track, finishing as the runner-up in two Steward’s Cup races. Nena then leased Titanic out to the Steward for the sum of $4,000,000, who paired the mare with Pegasus Turf winner and 8.5 million dollar man Take Me Up to create Louisville Bunburette winner Mauretania (dam of Steward’s Cup winner and European Horse of the Year Moulay El Hassan). And Titanic still had more to give when she was leased to Danny Derby and sent to Hall of Famer Itoko, producing South Pacific Champion Three-Year-Old Female White Star, who accumulated earnings of $1,086,500 over the course of her career.

Evidently creating superstar after superstar can get tiring, and Titanic took a three year break from throwing millionaires, settling into a rhythm of stakes winners and one of two breeding flops. It was only when Titanic was sent back to her very first sire, the stunning Coleman Hell, that she rediscovered her desire to shine and produced Steward’s Cup and Pegasus winner Manic. Desert Turf Classic and Pegasus Turf winner Voyage (by Hall of Famer Reddington) was soon to follow, and Steward’s Cup runner-up Oceanside (by Steward-owned Pinatubo) marked the end of Titanic’s brood of scary-good racers. Titanic was pensioned in Year 56 and sent to live out her days in the heat of the Venezuelan sun.


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