Theagenes
7: 5-1-0
$402,000
2yo Season:
1st Loki Flame Stakes (G2)
2nd Steward's Cup Juvenile Sprint (G1)
What can I say about this guy? He's stolen my heart. The story is pretty much carbon copy of my other big horses, in that I found his dam in Greener Pastures. I retired her to find a Star in the rough. Decided to send her to my in house stallion because he could use some love. Ended up with an Allowance progressive yearling, which was A-OK in my book. He ran decent workouts, but nothing insane like Solarpunk had been running. So I figured he might earn some money on the track, but wasn't anticipating much.
He stayed Allowance progressive as a 2yo, and I tried him out in a stakes for his first race, and he won. Then he kept winning, to my surprise and delight. After 3 straight wins in listed stakes I threw him into a Grade 3 to test his mettle. Well, he faltered that day and ran off the board. Maybe he was just tired. Gave him a 3 week break and spotted a Grade 2 that was coming up easy, and figured he could take 2nd place if he was back to his old self. Except, he won. And then he won again, although in listed company this time. So I saw the Steward's Cup Juvenile Sprint, and more importantly saw that the big bad sprinters were opting for the 2yo Sprint Championship and thought... hell, why not? You gotta be in it to win it, right?
And that is how I ended up with this boy, the goodest of Allowance runners, who just ran 2nd by a neck in the SC race tonight. He is the best, and I adore him. It would have been epic to win back to back Juvenile Sprints, but I am over the moon with a close 2nd place effort! (and he ran faster than Punk did last year!)
Fun. Story. Time.
His name is from an ancient Greek athlete who was apparently very, very good at winning. So good that when he died they made a statue, and an old competitor who could never beat him in real life, decided he would beat the statue instead. Then one night as he is whipping this statue, it fell and killed him. So, naturally, his family took the statue to court for murder... and won. Resulting in the statue being thrown into the sea in exile. Except a drought hit, and an Oracle said it would stay until they brought the statue back. Which seemed impossible, but some fishermen caught it in their nets (on accident I presume), and after returning it the drought ended. What a time to be alive.
I had come across this story at some point during the year I bred this colt, and thus he inherited his name from random internet rabbit trails. You're welcome my guy.