Six Facts About Remington Park's Springboard Mile Nominees

The Breeders’ Cup may be over but for a large group 2-year-olds, their season looks to continue at Remington Park on December 16 with their connections nominating them for the Springboard Mile. The Oklahoma race will award its winner a valuable 10 points toward the Kentucky Derby with the top four also earning points toward the Derby.  

Here are a few facts and figures to get you prepared for next weekend’s race.

By The Numbers – 58 2-year-olds have been nominated for the race, including eight geldings and two fillies. They were bred in eight states with 41 bred in Kentucky and the next largest being Oklahoma with seven. The other states and provinces are California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ontario, and Texas.

Race Accomplishments – There are two Grade 1 winners nominated for the race (Knicks Go and Mind Control) and three Grade-1 placed horses. Six of the horses nominated ran in the Breeders’ Cup this year led by Breeders’ Cup Juvenile runner-up Knicks Go (Paynter) and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf runner-up Uncle Benny (Declaration Of War). Among the other horses are four Grade 2-placed horses, one Grade 3 winner, two Grade 3 placed horses, eight stakes winners, and four stakes placers. Twenty-seven other horses have won at least one race, four are placed and if Gospel Ike (Sidney’s Candy) runs, he’ll be making his racing debut.

Grade 1 Knicks Go is nominated for the Springboard Mile

Auction Appearances – Forty of the horses nominated have made at least one sales ring appearance with 16 other horses never going through the ring and at least co-owned by their breeders. Of the 40 to go through the ring, seven were RNAs. The average sales price of the horses the last time they went through the ring was $150,615 with the most expensive being the $625,000 Mucho Gusto (Mucho Macho Man), who sold at the Fasig-Tipton 2-year-old Mid-Atlantic Sale and the most inexpensive being Dobbins G (Jimmy Creed), who sold for $4,300 at the 2017 Carter Sales.

Breeders' Cup runner-up Uncle Benny brought $185,000 at Saratoga. 

Sires – Forty-nine stallions have horses nominated to the race with Curlin (Smart Strike), Graydar (Unbridled’s Song), Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday), Paynter (Awesome Again), Point Of Entry (Dynaformer), Take Charge Indy (A.P. Indy), Temple City (Dynaformer), and Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie) all having two apiece. The average age of stallions with nominated 2-year-olds is 13.1 years old with the youngest being Atreides (Medaglia d’Oro) and Cairo Prince (Pioneerof the Nile) and the oldest being Distorted Humor (Forty Niner).

Six of the stallions with nominees are first-crop sires with all but New-York based Central Banker (Speightstown) standing in Kentucky. If you bred to these stallions in 2015 when this crop was conceived, you would have paid an average of $27,021 (the most expensive being Tapit (Pulpit) at $300,000 and the least expensive, Euroears (Langfuhr) at $1,500). In 2019 you’ll see a 28.83 percent change to $34,810 (no change on the most expensive or most inexpensive).

Temple City

Sire Lines – There are 10 different sirelines represented in the nominations, led by Northern Dancer with 18 followed closely by Mr. Prospector with 17. A.P. Indy’s son, grandsons, and great-grandsons account for eight runners to be third. Fappiano’s case for creating his own sireline is again on display here with nine of the Mr. Prospector runners tracking their sireline through him.

Damsire Lines – Lemon Drop Kid (Kingmambo) leads all broodmare sires with three runners out of his daughters and 19 runners overall out of mares whose sires come from the Mr. Prospector sireline. It’s a swap of the sireline results here with Northern Dancer having the second most at 17. A.P. Indy again makes an appearance here with four sons or grandsons having daughters with runners in addition to one of A.P. Indy’s daughters having a runner as well. Both his sire Seattle Slew and another Slew son in Doneraile Court also have nominees out of their daughters as well.

The draw for the Springboard Mile card will take place on Thursday, December 13. You can see the full nomination list here.