In 1920, the great Man o’ War roared into legend. That same year, his dam Mahubah gave birth to her last foal, a rather delicate chestnut filly which received the name of Mirabelle.
Unfortunately, Mirabelle showed no trace of Man o’ War’s shattering talent, running unplaced in two starts. She was also an indifferent broodmare in spite of having visited some of the best sires of her day. Nonetheless, Mirabelle’s family continued through her daughter First Love (by *Sir Gallahad III), granddaughter Love (by Count Fleet), and great-granddaughter Double Bubble (by Double Jay), none of which ever won a race or even placed and none of which became a stakes producer. Seldom has a series of matings to good sires been attended by so much futility.
The family’s fortunes began to revive with Bubbling Miss, a Florida-bred daughter of Double Bubble by the useful sire Minnesota Mac, a son and successor of Ocala Stud’s foundation sire, Rough’n Tumble. While Bubbling Miss carried on her own family’s tradition of failing to win, she did manage to finish second once and third three times in sixteen starts. Then, bred to the Hail to Reason horse Hail the Prince, Bubbling Miss produced Champagne Shower, who beat the odds against a filly by a once-winning sire out of five straight generations of non-winning mares amounting to anything at all by taking the 1979 Vallejo Stakes as a three-year-old.
Thanks to her racing ability, Champagne Shower was mated to some of the better sires in Florida. Her broodmare career was, if anything, even better than her racing career as she produced stakes winners Shower of Silver (by Silver Buck), Winalot Dancer (by Fire Dancer), and He’sfullafire (by Fire Dancer).
Sunny Mimosa, Champagne Shower’s 1988 daughter by the unraced Northern Dancer stallion Sunny North, never raced, perhaps due to either mental or physical limitations inherited from her sire or from Champagne Shower’s tail-female line. That her problems were hereditary is suggested by the fact that four of her nine foals aged three and upwards have never even started. She also slipped her foal in four of her first six seasons as a broodmare. But her second foal to live was one for which many sins might be forgiven a broodmare: a chestnut son of the good Florida sire Notebook who received the name of Delaware Township.
A foal of 1996, Delaware Township proved a good but not great sprinter, limited by a come-from-behind style and an unwillingness to go inside horses that left him vulnerable to traffic problems. After winning the Tyro Stakes as a juvenile, he was unable to race at three due to physical problems but won the Forest Hills Handicap (G2) and the listed Longfellow Handicap at four.
At five, Delaware Township benefitted from a three-horse speed duel up front and charged down the stretch to win the Forego Handicap (G1) at Saratoga. He also repeated in the Forest Hills Handicap but left himself with too much to do in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1), in which he was shuffled far back in the field of fourteen. Although he was perhaps running fastest of all at the end, he ended up sixth behind winner Squirtle Squirt. But a smaller field in the Frank J. DeFrancis Memorial Dash (G1) at Laurel left plenty of room for his closing kick, enabling him to earn his second G1 win. He retired with ten wins and five placings from 21 starts and earnings of $996,950, making him Notebook’s leading earner.
Retired to Padua Stables near Summerfield, Florida, Delaware Township to date has sired 130 foals of racing age, of which 46 are juveniles of 2007. His 86 foals aged three years and upwards have so far produced 65 starters (75.6%) and 45 winners (52.3%), respectable but not exceptional percentages. His first two crops also featured 57.0% juvenile starters and 22.1% juvenile winners, very good percentages for those seeking runners with early speed. His prowess at getting early runners probably helps to account for his solid lifetime average of $53,464 (median $35,500) for two-year-olds in training.
Lizzy’s Township (x Tarahumara, by Black Tie Affair [Ire]) became her sire’s first stakes winner as a juvenile by winning the listed Mountaineer Juvenile Fillies Stakes in 2005. She has not trained on, but two other members of Delaware Township’s 2003 crop became stakes winners at three: Electrify, winner of the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Sophomore Stakes and the Unbridled Stakes, and Victorina, winner of the Eire Go Brach Stakes and the Meafara Stakes. Both have trained on to win stakes at four, Electrify winning the Mecke Handicap on July 4 and Victorina winning the Princess of Palms Handicap back in February and the Vacaville Handicap on July 14.
No stakes winners have yet emerged from Delaware Township’s 2004 crop, but his 2005 crop contains Whatever Whenever, third in the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes (G3) on July 4. Given that only ten of Delaware Township’s 2005 foals have made their first start yet and that the bulk of the juvenile racing season still lies ahead, this is a promising beginning.
While it is probably too early to predict any sire patterns with certainty, Delaware Township appears to be getting winners from a fair variety of sire lines. He seems to respond particularly well to mares carrying a return of In Reality in their pedigrees, a pattern seen in two of his three stakes winners as well as in a fair number of lesser winners. Another inbreeding pattern that appears in two of Delaware Township’s stakes winners is to Northern Dancer, with the dam’s return of Northern Dancer coming through Nijinsky II in both. Whatever Whenever is also inbred to Northern Dancer, but in his case, the second strain of Northern Dancer comes through Danzig.
Delaware Township ranked second on the 2005 freshman sire list and nineteenth on the 2006 second-crop sire list according to The Blood-Horse despite smaller crops than many of the other stallions on the lists; at present, he stands twenty-fourth on the third-crop sire list. His future is uncertain due to the announced relocation of Padua Stables’ operations to Kentucky, but it seems quite possible that he will remain within the state of Florida. On bloodlines and stud performance to date, he is a good fit for the regional market and, one hopes, will contribute to that market for some time to come.
