ALPHABET SOUP MATING RECOMMENDATIONS

With a pedigree free of both Mr. Prospector and Northern Dancer, Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Alphabet Soup has worked predictably well with both of those important influences.

Some 64% of Alphabet Soup’s stakes horses are out of mares that carry Northern Dancer in their lineage and the Vice Regent branch has played a big role. Champion Phantom Light is out of a daughter of Vice Regent, while the second dam of Champion and Grade 1 winner Our New Recruit is a granddaughter of that stallion. Vice Regent is also found in the second damline of two other Alphabet Soup stakes winners: Media Play (second dam by Vice Regent’s best son Deputy Minister) and Show Me Your Glory (second dam by the Vice Regent son Regal Remark). Grade 3 winner Sal the Barber is out of a mare by Deputy Minister himself. Alphabet Soup has also sired a graded stakes-placed runner out of a mare by the Deputy Minister stallion Silver Deputy.

Alphabet Soup has worked well with other strains of Northern Dancer, namely Nijinsky II, Dixieland Band and Danzig. He has sired four stakes winners and four additional stakes horses out of mares that carry the influence of Nijinsky II. These include the Grade 2 winner Leprechaun Kid.

With the Dixieland Band broodmare line, Alphabet Soup has sired three stakes horses, including the stakes winner Alpha Charmer and the Grade 2-placed Spelling. Danzig sired the second dam of Alphabet Soup’s leading runner of 2010, the multiple stakes winner Fugitive Angel, and he is also the maternal grandsire of the graded winner Silver Whistle (dam by Polish Numbers).

Fugitive Angel was produced by a daughter of Unbridled, confirming Alphabet Soup’s affinity for the Fappiano branch of the Mr. Prospector line. She is her sire’s second stakes winner out of an Unbridled mare. Alphabet Soup has also sired a stakes winner out of a mare by the Fappiano stallion Quiet American.

Overall, about a third of Alphabet Soup’s stakes horses show Mr. Prospector on the dam’s side and he has worked especially well with mares carrying a version of the Mr. Prospector/Buckpasser cross. He has sired stakes winners out of mares by Miswaki and Mining, both of whom are by Mr. Prospector out of Buckpasser daughters. Mining is also the broodmare sire of the Grade 1-placed Argent Lady and Miswaki’s son Black Tie Affair is the damsire of the stakes winner Lentil. Overall, Alphabet Soup has sired eight stakes horses out of mares that carry some form of the Mr. Prospector/Buckpasser cross, including Grade 3 winner Watchem Smokey. He has also sired the Grade 3 winner M B Sea out of a mare by Afleet, who is by Mr. Prospector out of a mare by Buckpasser’s sire Tom Fool.

Buckpasser appears to be an effective ancestor for mares bred to Alphabet Soup even without the presence of Mr. Prospector. Alphabet Soup has produced five stakes winners, including a pair of graded winners, out of mares that carry Buckpasser alone.