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Hall of Fame - Piece of the Dream

Original article written by Marzy Dotes posted 13 years 4 weeks ago

Some traits run in families continuing from one generation to the next including inside the sport of thoroughbred racing. Whether it’s conformation or talent, it’s these special qualities that many breeders gamble on when making the decisions on what bloodlines cross best inside the breeding shed. The right combination of blazing speed, with an endless reserve of stamina and the spirited determination to utilize both in the heat of competition, all are part of the genetic lottery that all breeders play each time they match a stallion with a mare.

In some very special equine families, other traditions are passed down from one generation to the next and in one noteworthy family that tradition means being selected for induction into the sport’s Hall of Fame. A prestigious honor granted to very few horses that excel on the racetrack, the breeding shed and in some cases both venues. But for at least one of the more recent inductees, it became a family affair.

That horse Piece of the Dream joined that very elite membership, an honor she shared with both of her parents who as one racing champion bred to another, produced this very talented offspring. Her breeder, Brianna McKenzie held onto her prize foal just as she still owns both her sire and her dam and clearly there’s a lot of affection for her piece of the dream.

As for her decision on how to produce this memorable horse, McKenzie said it came down to supporting her own home breds, those that emphasized the qualities of what relatively few runners shared only with the very best of the breed.

“I spent a fortune buying Midnightconfession as a stud, so it was in my very best interest to support him with the best I had. His two top offspring Piece and Whileaworldsleeps were both bred by me from that first crop. So really I was just breeding my best mare to my expensive new stud and hoping for something special, which is what I got.”

That makes a lot of business sense certainly but it’s still indeed a gamble and an exercise in both hope and patience in waiting to see whether or not even such a promising mating bears fruit on the racetrack several years down the road. Endless hours spent working to make dreams come true in all kinds of situations is no guarantee that they will be transformed into reality. Many breeders like McKenzie have had their dedication tested and their hearts broken along the way to finding a way to turn their aspirations golden.

But as it turned out, Midnightconfession now a pensioner is no ordinary stallion. In fact, he’s the most successful son of the deceased Serena Success and a handsome one at that. His dam Tears That Fall produced three millionaires out of five foals including this most successful one. McKenzie purchased the chestnut horse at some point from his breeder, Gerry Hardie for a lot of cash and he remains in her stable even though his siring days are done. As a race horse, he was highly successful winning 11 out of 15 starts and won at distances from 4 ½ furlongs to 1 ½ furlongs on both the dirt and the turf. A versatility that is pretty much unheard of these days. Along the way, he captured some of the sport’s biggest races and generated much excitement in the sport.

He won the Steward’s Cup Juvenile during his undefeated season and finished fourth in the Louisville Derby which was won by a very special filly, Piece of the Moon. On the turf, he captured the Canadian Breeders’ Stakes and the Oak Tree Turf Championship showing his talented on that surface. During his career, he won titles as the champion two year and three year old colt and he made an impression which wouldn’t be easily forgotten.

After his final year of racing, he went to stud and quickly showed the versatility as a sire that he showed on the racetrack in terms of producing runners who succeeded at all distance ranges and different surfaces. He proved to be an amazing sire with 79.2% of his runners being winners who averaged earnings of an incredible $118,506. Not to mention that he sired 28 stakes winners. His top earner was the aforementioned Whileaworldsleeps who won over a half a dozen championship titles during his superb career sprinting on the turf although he also could be successful at longer distances. This runner’s full brother (out of Champion Female Turf Horse Riddle Me This), A World Awakened also mirrored his sire’s versatility at different distances on the turf.

Then there were others like Sauveur who could race successfully on more than one surface including being undefeated on the newer all weather surface. That horse’s dam was Minuit who loved producing very talented all weather racers and even studs who hopefully will pass that talent along to their own offspring. And so it was with many of the offspring of Midnightconfession who made his mark as a broodmare sire as well showing up in quite a few pedigrees for performers on different surfaces.

But then somewhere in the stallion’s memory was that mare that had his measure in the Louisville Derby named Piece of the Moon. Did he remember the dark bay mare who stood taller than him when they met in the saddling paddock and then showed him her heels in one of the biggest tests a three year old racer can face? They may have met in the shed as strangers as they did on the racetrack but their combination of DNA produced a remarkable daughter.

Piece of the Moon is the dark bay daughter of another Hall of Famer Five Circles and she’s out of champion Fading Star who produced another memorable racer and stud named Moon Beam (sire of promising all weather stud, Astonishing) as well as the not too shabby Tot Ziens. So this mare came from very distinguished bloodlines as well as the daughter she produced. Piece of the Moon was nearly undefeated, her only loss being a third place finish in the Baltimore Crown to two of the horses she vanquished in the Louisville Derby. She stuck to running against females after that and capped her career winning the Steward’s Cup Distaff in a nail biter of a finish before being voted champion three year old filly.

This former champion three year old filly was incredible in the shed, producing six millionaires and distinguished offspring, both male and female. Her most well known son was Life Worth Living, the result of a matchup with Chinese Bandit. Life Worth Living won races on both the dirt and turf but at stud has split his loyalties between the dirt and all weather camps. His son North American Champion Horse of the Year Lofty Goals (out of Hall of Famer and Broodmare of the Year Cadeauje) preferred the dirt winning the Steward’s Cup Classic while others like Standout flirted with dirt but preferred all weather surfaces.

Then tossed on the roster of this mare’s offspring are some amazing broodmares like the sublime North American Champion Three Year Old Filly Salute The Sky (by the equally so California) and stakes winning Unfathomed (by Saga) who produced Father’s Day who didn’t take long to sire his first 10 winners.

Before all those sons and daughters came along, Piece of the Moon produced her very first foal, Piece of the Dream.

“I had sky high expectations of a champion, Piece of the Moon is a blessing of a mare who never lets a person down and allows them to dream pretty big,” McKenzie recalled.

She didn’t disappoint winning her first six races including the Arcadia Oaks, the Coaching Club American Oaks and the California Cup Matron. Next up of course was the Steward’s Cup Distaff but a trio of scorching hot future broodmares including future Hall of Famers Tiara and Cadeauje tore up the track that day relegating her to fifth place.

Still, she won more races after that than she lost and in her second attempt at the Distaff, she scored the victory by three lengths in one of her most memorable performances. She also captured the Change the Stars Stakes and the Gardenia Handicap as well as finishing second to another future Hall of Famer Twilight in the Desert Duty Free.

McKenzie reflected on her illustrious racing career over four seasons which included being voted the champion older mare and said she was happy with how it played out with no regrets.

“Her biggest win has to be her SC Distaff race, I am pretty proud of her for winning that race but honestly she never threw a bad race, so I was never disappointed in her at all. The only change I'd make now is to finish out her 5 year old season on the track but at the time I felt it was time to stop, she had nothing more to prove and she didn't have to do anything more, but she COULD have. I can live with that knowledge because she's a superstar in my eyes regardless.”

So after hanging up her tack, Piece of the Dream moved on to her next career in the breeding shed where hopefully she would produce offspring which would inherit the qualities which made her a champion. Of course along with that career path, comes the decisions McKenzie would have to make about which stallions would mesh best with her mare, a process that holds many challenges on the way to parsing out its rewards. Along the way she experienced frustration as well because after all, even in the best of circumstances on paper, breeding the next generation of champions can often prove to be elusive.

But she did what she could to push Piece of the Dream in the direction of being a broodmare who could stamp her offspring with her own brand of greatness.

“Loki D was the obvious choice for a multi surface mare, and again I owned him so I had to support him the best I could. Fighter Jet and Gave Unwavering were two of my favorite dirt route stallions, so she went to them next, then back to Loki D to get a daughter from clearly best cross. Then I tried a strictly turf bred horse, then two more awesome multi surface stallions. Basically I was just trying my very best to get something as a special as her and it hasn't worked.”

Piece of the Dream struck gold right off with her first foal, The Right to Dream by Loki Dynasty.

The now pensioned dark bay stallion has proven to be one of the hallmark sires of horses who could run on a variety of surfaces just as he did. . Most of Loki Dynasty’s top runners loved the dirt including Notorious, Awake As I Am and High Flyer. But you had others like tri-surface winner West and Comestoanend (whose broodmare sire was Midnightconfession) who succeeded on all three surfaces.

The Right to Dream spent most of his early racing days running on the dirt and placed third in the Louisville Derby behind Braveheart and Desert Nomad before winning the Super Derby. But inside the horse was an all weather performer waiting to jump out and sure enough when he tried running on this newer surface, he finished out his career by winning three consecutive stakes and defeated horses like Always With Me and Life Divided.

At stud, his best performers were on the all weather surface even though he had winner on all three surfaces. Champion All Weather Male Answer the Dream hit the board in all of his fifteen starts but one and hopes to transfer that success to the breeding shed. Defend Your Rights blazed some of the quickest times in the morning at several distances but hasn’t yet transformed those efforts to his races though he’s also hit the board in all but one of his starts.

After her first hallmark foal, Piece of the Dream struggled to establish herself as a hallmark broodmare; to do what her dam had done which was to duplicate her success on the racetrack inside the breeding shed. She produced a full sister to The Right to Dream, Perk, who did well in stakes competition on all weather and dirt but didn’t come close to duplicating his success. After she retired, she went on to produce Gratuity; a filly by Colorado who hit the board in all of her starts so far but hasn’t competed in stakes completion.

Another one of Piece of the Dream’s daughters, Fated (by Magician) won stakes races and hasn’t retired yet to become a broodmare. That runner has a full sister as well in Staying Put who is still trying to break her maiden as a two year old.

So far, producing a champion like herself has eluded the great mare as she reaches the twilight of her second career when the act of procreation might carry along with it the ultimate price of death. McKenzie in the wake of this reality decided to provide the opportunity for someone else to try their luck at breeding a potential champion from Piece of the Dream. She decided to offer that chance to the breeder who probably knows more about how to do that than anyone in the industry, the Steward who was somewhat surprised to hear that news and somewhat speechless. However, who could pass up on such an opportunity to breed such a great mare?

It's a fitting new chapter to the exciting story of a mare who born of champions and Hall of Famers herself had picked up the mantle in honor of her parentage to become remarkable enough to earn those honors herself. Whether or not she does as they did and passes that baton onto the next generation, well the story hasn’t reached its final chapter yet. And Piece of the Dream isn’t a mare that you would ever want to bet against.


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