Rich N Elegant died on 19 November at the age of 22 – a remarkable mare whose foals included 6 in 1.54 and 5 with earnings over half a million dollars. She was a good racehorse herself, earning over $97,000 and taking a 1.56.8 mark at 3yo.
You can find a 3-part blog about her siring sons in my blog archives 2011 – and I can see a number of North American readers have already followed a forum link to those blogs.
Her son Rocknroll Hanover has certainly cemented his siring success in North America but will need more foals on the ground downunder for us to see what happens here, and he is already under stiff competition from his own classy son Rock N Roll Heaven. After very small frozen semen crops the last few years, he served 56 mares in 2012 in New Zealand.
All that aside, Rich n Elegant had the ability to produce extremely good racehorses, particularly her colts. All of us breeders know it is hard to produce one top race horse, let alone sever
al and from different sires – and that is a sign that your mare is something very, very special.
She is one of the few dams of top racehorses who had Direct Scooter so directly accessible (he was her damsire) and therefore, for those who follow the x factor/heart size theory, the ability to pass that on to her colt foals. They in turn, as sires, have the ability to pass it on to their filly foals only. Other dams of successful and upcoming sires that have Direct Scooter in their maternal lines almost always do so through his role as the sire of Matts Scooter, rather than directly Direct.
Her bottom line was the very, very potent Shifting Sands/Golden Miss family, which has proven to be one of the most powerful maternal lines of the modern era. It underscores sires like Real Desire, Panorama, Safely Kept who have all been successful in Australia and New Zealand.
So a tip o’ the hat to one of pacing greatest mares ever.
Google Rich N Elegant horse to get many more articles and accolades, but here is a very nice one on the Canadian Hall of Fame website that gives the mare a lovely credit as a great mum:
http://horseracinghalloffame.com/standardbred/2009/rich_n_elegant.html
b4breeding 
[…] Cullen is only just getting underway but with small numbers. This family reminds me in many ways of Rich N Elegant’s family and her own contribution as a wonderful dam of some outstanding racehorses, but for a range of […]
[…] in any pedigree. I’ve blogged on Rich N Elegant before so I won’t repeat myself – see my blog of November 2012 when she died, and from there you can link to the 3-part series about her sons at […]