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Posts Tagged ‘Shadow Wave’

Lady Shadow keeps stepping up and up

Posted in Pedigree matching, Standardbred breeding, tagged , , , , , on August 14, 2016| 2 Comments »

Shadow Play has left a beauty in the North American mare Lady Shadow. She started her career as a 2yo and 3yo going through the lucrative Ontario Sires Stakes programme and achieving over US$154,000 in each of those years. She stepped up again in her 4yo season, winning 5 of her 14 races and earning $360,862, and then has stepped up yet again as a 5yo to win some of the classic mares races this season including the Roses R Red, the Golden Girls in world record time (a performance worth watching), and a week ago the Lady Liberty on Hambletonian Day. Lady Shadow was bred by Winbak Farm, Chesapeake, and owners are David Kryway, Carl Atley and Edwin Gold. Her total earnings are now $1,312,162. What a mare!

Lady Shadow

Lady Shadow wins the Lady Liberty on Hambletonian Day 2016

Lady Shadow was one of the early 2yo Shadow Play winners I looked at back in a blog in July 2013 “Shadow Play – what can winners tells is?”  In my next blog I’ll catch up on how all those youngsters turned out to date.

What intrigued me then was the reoccurring double up of No Nukes/Oil Burner/Most Happy Fella, and Shadow Wave (who is the damsire of No Nukes, but appeared in many of these young horses pedigrees from a wide range of other sources as well.)

Lady Shadow’s grandam sire is Dallas Almahurst, a full brother to No Nukes Oil Burner. And interestingly, her maternal family (U3, Mambrino Beauty/Nervolo Belle) is the same as Shadow Play’s. It is a maternal family that in the modern day includes heaps of top trotters such as Garland Lobell, Muscle Hill and Donato Hanover, and locally the very good filly High Gait. On the pacing side, as well as Shadow Play some top North American racehorses like JK Endofanera and his sister JK Shezalady, Bar Hopping (a finalist in the 2016 Hambletonian), and Jereme’s Jet – among many, many others. The family sprawls wide in both gaits but keeps pinging up horses of great quality over many generations.

That said, the U3 family doesn’t pop up in Shadow Play’s other top progeny to date.

Those sires I’ve mentioned as positive double ups in his successful progeny are all from different maternal families – Shadow Play is from U105. No Nukes is from U4 (Jessie Pepper) family, his sire Oil Burner from U12, and his sire Most Happy Fella is from U28.

Of course No Nukes, Oil Burner and Most Happy Fella all appear in direct succession in Shadow Play’s siring line.

It is interesting always to find some common elements. I have no idea really why these sires/damsires in a pedigree seem to really suit Shadow Play.  It could be coincidence, or not. It could be the balancing of elements in a sire’s siring line and in mare’s maternal line – a “delta” effect of strong influences coming together from top and bottom.

Of equal importance is the quality of the recent family, and Shadow Play has had some solid mares to play with. Lady Shadow’s dam is a Camluck mare called Lady Camella who earned $203,022 and went 1.51.4. Lady Shadow is the 9th foal from her dam, who has also produced some nice racehorses, appearing to be types that get better as they go on. Her 2002 foal by Western Hanover was Lady Meghan O who won $424,000 and went 1.50.4. Another daughter born 2004 was Pure Movement by Artiscape who won $113,578. Both of these are now breeding on. Overall she has had 12 foals to date, 8 to race, and the best performers are her mares. Lady Shadow has a 2014 full sister called Lady Lynnly.

My personal investment

I’ve bred my Grinfromeartoear mare The Blue Lotus to Shadow Play twice. That cross brings two doses of Shadow Wave into the equation, plus Breath O Spring through a different offspring, and with New York Motoring a similar cross to Oil Burner – Most Happy Fella over a Shadow Wave mare. All in accessible places of the pedigrees.

My first result from that cross is the now 2yo colt sold at the yearling sales in February as The Snow Leopard, and renamed Blackened (after a Metallica song) by his new owner in Australia Domenic Martello.

The 2yo sold for $20,000 and  was broken in and worked for 7 weeks here by Logan Hollis who found him to be a natural. Domenic Martello has kindly kept me posted of his progress since he was moved to Australia, where he is being trained by Geoff Webster at Bannockburn. Reports are all good at this stage – a good attitude and a nice gait, and he’s paid up for Bathurst in case he turns out to have enough as a 2yo.

The mare is now back in foal to Shadow Play, after having a filly by A Rocknroll Dance. ‘

I wouldn’t mind a Shadow Play filly at all!

Delighted to receive this video of Blackened in training in Australia.

 

 

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Chestnut filly brings shadows to light

Posted in Harness racing, Pedigree matching, Standardbred breeding, tagged , , on November 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Shadow Play’s first qualifier in the Southern Hemisphere is the chestnut filly Lettuceplayginger, in Australia.

It’s interesting to see once again the predominance of Shadow Wave references in Shadow Play’s progeny to date. I blogged about this earlier, re Shadow Play’s qualifying and racing offspring in North America and then about what might suit him in New Zealand.

This filly is chokka with Shadow Play references, and also the Golden Miss line which has been so influential in the engine room of sires like Art Major, Real Desire, Grinfromeartoear, and the click with Breath O Spring/Old Maid and Good Time. so in terms of pedigree she is off to a damn good start.

Her dam Rollon Rodi is by Aces N Sevens who has No Nukes as his damsire and hence connections back to both Shadow Wave and Good Time (and then back to Nedda Guy). Aces N Sevens also has the Big Towner mare Town Tramp as his dam, so that brings in Shadow Wave again via Tiny Wave (who interestingly also goes back on her maternal lines to Nedda Guy).

Then the grandam of Lettuceplayginger is Remember Rodi, a very good Australian racehorse (1.57.4, 18 wins, $78,271 in the late 1980s and early 1990s), by Hilarion (a Meadowlands Pace winner) who brings Shadow Wave in again as his damsire, as well as that marvellous Golden Miss line via his sire Strike Out.  She’s a lovely broodmare who has left some nice racehorses by beautifully compatible sires like Grinfromeartoear (Grinforseymour) and Panorama (Rollon Seymour) as well as the very good Fake Left colt Rollon Bigred ($343,903).

There’s a New Zealand connection too – Remember Rodi’s dam Dorana Star is a daughter of Bachelor Star (a son of Bachelor Hanover) who is part of the family of Adio Star that produced Bionic Star who in turn produced one of my favourite mares in New Zealand’s racing history, Bionic Chance (18 wins,  $323,630).  Dorana Star produced not much else – but I notice that Remember Rodi and the colt she had by Hilarion were both chestnuts – no surprise since Hilarion’s sire Strike Out was a chestnut and his damsire Shadow Wave was also chestnut.  Not just that, Bachelor Hanover was also a chestnut!

So the chestnut filly Lettuceplayginger is carrying on a good line of colour and talent, and her breeders have chosen well in selecting Shadow Play as her sire.  It will be interesting to see how she develops.

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Shadow Play – what can winners tell us?

Posted in Harness racing, Pedigree matching, Standardbred breeding, tagged , , on July 29, 2013| 7 Comments »

Looking for ‘clicks’ in a new sire can be dangerous.  And even hindsight can be tricky with established sires. Mainly because we focus our analysis of the pedigrees on a sire’s top foals rather than say 20 of his average foals or perhaps his bottom 20 foals that never succeeded as racehorses.  It’s something I’d like to do one day.  Or if it has been done, i.e. a sort of “control group’ experiment, I’d be very interested to know about it.

But having said that, I’m going to focus on the pedigree of Shadow Play’s American winners in this blog.

Richard, one of my blog friends, has been conversing with me about Shadow Play. This is a sire that is making a bold debut in North America and has a pedigree that could match well with some of our mares.  I’ve been seriously considering him for my Grinfromeartoear mare, and Richard is doing the same for his Bettor’s Delight mare.

I’ve looked at the pedigrees of 17 of Shadow Play’s American winners to date. I haven’t done detailed analysis, just a quick look to see if there anything that stands out. (Note: Names and some additional information on these foals has been added to the bottom of this blog, 30 July)

Shadow Play

Shadow Play – looking for Shadow Wave

Two things stand out for me:

  1. Of those 17 winners,  6 have Artsplace has the damsire (another 3 have Artsplace as the grandamsire). And yet I’m not sure the volume of Artsplace “nicks” tells us too much yet, after all, the proportion of Artsplace mares available to a promising sire will be high and a high speed sire from the Western Hanover line would be flagged as a good match for those breeders who want that Artsplace/Western Hanover line cross.
  2. This is one of those sires/families that loves getting “more of the same” blood and specifically an uncanny amount of doubling up with No Nukes and Shadow Wave.

It’s that 2nd point of interest I want to focus on, because it is intriguing. While Shadow Wave is an influential sire, he’s not an especially common one. In commercial families he is present usually via No Nukes/Oil Burner or Big Towner, or in the best of the Golden Miss family.

But in the pedigrees of these 17 mares, Shadow Wave comes in from a range of directions.

The total number of times Shadow Wave appears in those 17 dams’ pedigrees is 22  23 times.

10 of those are via No Nukes.

That leaves another 13 Shadow Wave connections, 4 of which are via Big Towner.

All Shadow Wave’s credits except one are as a damsire.

In 7 of those 17 dams, Shadow Wave appears TWICE in their pedigrees.

And of course that’s not counting the fact he appears twice in Shadow Play’s own pedigree. So 7 of the 17 winning foals have Shadow Wave 4 times in the first 7 generations.

What makes this unusual is that Shadow Wave is not a sire like Meadow Skipper, Cam Fella, Albatross who had much larger numbers of foals and became sires of sires which means they appear quite often in these sorts of numbers in the pedigrees of horses.  Shadow Wave was not a ‘go to’ sire. He had a total of 524 foals over 14 years at stud, many of them in his last few years.  Just to compare, Meadow Skipper had 1267, Albatross 2642, Abercrombie 1816 and Bret Hanover (like Shadow Wave a son of Adios) had 1724 foals.  Artsplace must be close to 2000. Shadow Wave left very few sons who became sires, and none were particularly successful. So he is popping up almost entirely as a damsire.

Very interesting.

The pedigrees of these 17 Shadow Play foals are packed with goodies, certainly packed with the influence of Adios through two very different sons. Shadow Wave, like Bret Hanover and Adios himself, like having ‘their best blood returned to them’, as they say.  Shadow Play seems to be carrying on that tradition.

Those of you who know my blogs will recall that I sometimes use cooking as a way of describing my approach to breeding and pedigree analysis.

In terms of recipes, I see these Shadow Play foal pedigrees as a “chicken three ways” sort of dish or a dessert that uses white chocolate mousse, dark bitter chocolate base and grated chilli chocolate on top. Initially you sort of think “oh, way too much of a good thing.” Then you start to eat it and think “Yum”.

Shadow Play’s maternal line includes Warm Breeze (Bret Hanover-Touch Of Spring) which brings in Good Time-Breath O Spring and the classic Old Maid/Spinster/Scotland connections. So does No Nukes’s maternal lines through Tar Heel and Gogo Playtime.  Shadow Play will enjoy getting those influences returned from the mares he gets – .

It works both ways – those mares with No Nukes/Oil Burner/Shadow Wave/Adios in their pedigrees seem to love getting what Shadow Play offers.

And look at the great families Shadow Play is getting to play with:

  • Two of his progeny (Shadowbriand and Shark Festival) are out of mares who are from the wonderful Rodine Hanover family (both those mares are from the No Nukes mare Romanticize).
  • Arthur Blue Chip’s dam is a grand-daughter of Tarport Cheer.
  • Shadow Place’s great grandam Loving Proof is, I think, a full sister to Camtastic.
  • Play It Again Sam – that maternal family is one I mentioned in my last blog about the Meadowlands damsires – He’s from a daughter of Orchid Island, who is a full sister to Island Fantasy and a great producer.
  • Reasonable Force – the grandam Shady Katie is a half to the great mare Shady Daisy (by Falcon Seelster).
  • Of interest to NZ breeders, Book Babe’s greatgrandam is No Secrets (Oil Burner-Treachery) who is also the greatgrandam of Attorney General, who stands at stud here, and has a very talented 2yo filly Imhisdaughter (from an Artiscape mare) starting her racing career. Attorney General is a son of Falcon Seelster. Falcon Seelster is of course by Warm Breeze, who features in Shadow Play’s maternal pedigree. Falcon Seelster also appears as Imhisdaughter’s greatgrandam. Of course Imhisdaughter’s damsire Artiscape carries Shadow Wave through Happy Motoring.
  • That’s just some of them I can spot at a glance, I will have missed others.

It sure helps if a sire can get some well bred mares that bring something to the table – especially if they come with the goodies he likes.

All of the above makes me think again about whether I can resist the match with The Blue Lotus, as that pedigree would have some of the elements I see producing good results here.

I’ll look closely at that in my next blog soon, as well as some comments from Richard “across the ditch in Australia”, and a look at the very different overall broodmare pool that Shadow Play will be accessing in New Zealand and also in Australia.

Additional information/names

The 17 winning foals of Shadow Play I looked at are: Book Babe, Shadowbriand, Alibi Seelster, Shark Festival, Reasonable Force, Brookdale Shadow, Lady Shadow (grandam is by Dallas Almahurst, a full brother to Oil Burner), Play It Again Sam, Performing Art, Shadversary, Twin B Spy, Skippin By, Shadow Place, Courageous C, , Yoselin Seelster, Nefertiti Bluechip, and Arthur Blue Chip (the only one whose dam doesn’t carry any No Nukes/Oil Burner/Shadow Wave in her pedigree).

The damsires are: Artsplace (6, plus 3 as grandamsire), Cam’s Card Shark (3), Bettor’s Delight (1), Jate Lobell (1, plus 3 as a grandamsire), Armbro Operative, Camluck, Blissful Hall, Life sign, Intrepd Seelster, Abercrombie (all 1).

No Nukes and Big Towner appear 2 times as grandamsires.

Confessions of a Shadow Wave lover. Yes, it’s true, I love this old guy. And for good reason. Check out my blog about Shadow Wave and his influence as a damsire and in my own mare’s family.

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Destination Moon launches race career

Posted in Harness racing, Horses, Pedigree matching, Standardbred breeding, tagged , , , , on May 30, 2013| 2 Comments »

Destination Moon racehorse

Take off – Destination Moon at 2012 yearling sales with Kym Kearns

He’s named after a book about flying to the moon. And from the photo, you can see he was keen to take off long before race day!

It was great to see Destination Moon get his first win last Friday at Alexander Park. The field was not nearly as strong as his first race a couple of weeks earlier, which was a Sires Stakes heat with the speed on, but the way he won was impressive.

He reached the front early and ran confidently in the lead, not switching off, keeping a good margin to the others and pulling away to win by over 2 lengths with little encouragement needed from Joshua Dickie in the bike.

Destination Moon is the half brother to Tintin In America and full brother to The Blue Lotus (3rd in Sires Stakes Fillies 3yo final), from my wonderful mare Zenterfold. His sire Grinfromeartoear is not highly commercial but if you get the right match he adds a lot of value and leaves some tough horses with speed.  “Duncan” (as we nicknamed Destination Moon) was a lovely type as a yearling and sold for $68,000 to Rosslands Stud Ltd (Kerry Hoggard) at the 2012 yearing sales.

He has shown up in his workouts and qualifying trial just prior to racing, but pleasing to see there wasn’t a rush to get him into the 2yo Sires Stakes if he wasn’t ready.

Recently I spoke to trainer Steven Reid about Destination Moon’s next steps, and he says he will be racing till the end of June then have a spell before being aimed at the 3yo Sires Stakes heats, which come up early in the new season and culminate around NZ Cup time.

Destination Moon pacer

Destination Moon wins on 24 May 2013 at Alexandra Park

Steven says he was “rapt” with the win – “He just cruised that, and it is how he’s been working at home.”

He describes Destination Moon as having the potential to step up and be quite a good horse.

Tintin In America and The Blue Lotus now have a Real Desire half brother weanling who is hanging out in our paddock with a full brother to Flying Isa, great mates.

More about him and an update on other branches of the family coming in a blog soon.

Destination Moon’s pedigree is one I wanted because Grin offers some physical and genetic influences that really complement his dam Zenterfold.  I have always taken on board Aria Small’s advice that the family love the old blood – the Spinster/Old Maid/Scotland connections, which it has on its bottom line through Bachelor Hanover. And that has been a touchstone for me in getting a good nick for the mare. Grin hauls that old blood up through his remarkably close-up Storm Damage damsire, and also in his maternal line through Shifting Scene and Race Time (a son of Breath O Spring and half brother of Storm Damage). Shifting Scene is part of the lovely Golden Miss maternal line that you see in many classy families (Rich N Elegant, Real Desire’s maternal line etc) and of course the overlooked element in that line is my dear old Shadow Wave.  In Zenterfold’s pedigree, Shadow Wave pops up promptly as the damsire of New York Motoring, who I believe is a key figure in what have developed into the two best branches of the Zenover family – Interchange and Zenola Star, both sired by New York Motoring. Finally you have the Direct Scooter and Tar Heel influences of In The Pocket, the sire of Zenterfold and so grandamsire of Destination Moon. These are again classy old bloodlines and with a fairly up close dose of trotting blood and both are descending from Volomite and maternally tracing to the wonderful Roya McKinney and Scotland/Rose Scott. Zenterfold’s grandam Now And Zen is also chokka with trotting blood via her sire Chiola Hanover. Chiola Hanover goes back to Volomite and the Scotland influences as well. But none of that is an issue for Grin, thanks to his breeding, especially Storm Damage who is described by John Bradley as having “some of the oldest bloodlines still available for pacers” – his dam was 24 years old when she foaled him, and he is a remarkable “sleeper” in the pedigree of a modern day sire.

Phew! that’s a little peep into some deep old echos in a 2yo pacer just launching his career.

Of course what I also liked about Grin was his ability to leave guts, character and grittiness, which The Blue Lotus showed in her races too. That gave the Zenterfold speed-at-all-cost attitude something to hang its hat on.

Cover Destination Moon book

Cover of Tintin book

It’s what might work for a particular family that counts. And that’s what I think about, more than what is the most fashionable option at the time.

Destination Moon has a long, long way to go. The rocket is just launched, yet to fire the booster engines and go into the statosphere.

I hope he ends up amongst the stars.

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Big Towner still makes big waves

Posted in Harness racing, Pedigree matching, Standardbred breeding, tagged , , on November 9, 2012| 3 Comments »

Here’s another blog about one of those hard working broodmare sires that add so much value to pedigrees, particulary when they have specific compatibilities to the mare/family.

As I mentioned in my blog about Overtrick, Big Towner is part of a Hambletonian “stub” – one of those Hambletonian lines that struggled to keep extending its siring line. But the Gene Abbe “stub”  has continued to thrive and to drive many of the best aspects of standardbred racing through its potent influence in damsires, much like Tar Heel has done for another “shortened” line of Hambletonian. Thank heavens for the maternal lines of our pedigrees – many of these damsires have enduring influence on the quality of our current and future stock.

Big Towner

So for me, Big Towner makes it to my list of all time greats in terms of contribution to the cause. Just for a start, look at his influence as the granddamsire of Art Major, Perfect Art, Real Artist and Panspacificflight.

Why? The primary reason is that he ADDS something. He doesn’t just lurk around as a ‘nice to have’. What he adds through the maternal lines appears to be heart size (x factor) but also speed. Yes, these are linked, but not always so. Not automatically so.

I’ve mentioned Big Towner’s contribution in some of my other blogs, for example in looking at Big Jim as a potential sire. And in a recent blog about Overtrick, Tony Dickinson examined his foundation mare Ballie Hanover and her Barbara Direct lineage – but Ballie Hanover also has Big Towner as her damsire, potentially adding quite a bit of value there.

Here is a lovely summary of Big Towner’s contribution, made by another blogger very recently – that’s serendipity!! – (and particularly signals Big Towner’s contribution as an outcross sire/damsire for mares with a lot of Meadow Skipper):

http://viewfromthegrandstand.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/skipper-skipper-everywhere.htm

I’d also like to reference John Bradley’s Modern Pacing Sire Lines for some insight into this great damsire – and give him a tip o’ the hat as an amazing racehorse in his own right :

As a racehorse, Big Towner was a precocious colt right from the start, as was seen when he made his two-year-old debut at Maryland’s Rosecroft Raceway (then a half mile track) on May 7th 1976. Big Towner  drew post four and made a break right before the start. But in a preview of what was to come, the colt got back on stride, made up lost ground and raced second all the way until the stretch when he took command and pulled away to a twelve-length win in 2:09.3.

Bradley goes on to describe this horse as “a tough, game and fast colt”. After his 3yo season, trainer Lee Broglio said, “Big Towner is better than his record – he didn’t have too many opportunities over a big track last season – and definitely a fast horse.”  And he became a brilliant racehorse – winning his last 9 races over 6 different New York tracks, and  in 14 of 16 starts that year having the lead at the three-quarter pole and refusing to give in.

That is speed underscored by a big heart, toughness and a will to win.

Oh, and did I mention his own damsire is Shadow Wave? And his maternal line goes back to Nedda Guy and Nedda? With a good injection of Volomite in that lineage? Well, check back over my past blogs on Shadow Wave and my series of blogs on Nedda to see why I think Big Towner had a fantastic contribution to make to the engine room of many compatible pedigrees, ready to stoke the coals and keep those lines fired up.

He was a top race horse (48 starts, 31 wins) but is making much more of a contribution along the maternal lines of modern standardbreds.

Coming up:

In another blog soon (hopefully this weekend if my chooks behave and I don’t get too distracted by housework and walking on my favourite beach at Raglan), I want to look at out-crossing in the pacing breed, and what it means ‘down under’ i.e. Australia and New Zealand, compared to North America. Because In The Pocket (mentioned in the” Skipper, Skipper everywhere”  blog link above, now deceased and semen no longer available) became a huge influence on our breeding in New Zealand, and his son Christian Cullen is making a longterm impression here as a racehorse, sire, a damsire and potentially as a sire of sires. From a one-season venture as a sire in North America, his subsequent small number of northern hemisphere foals have just had highly successful 2yo season, and they are a hint of what outcrossing can offer different breeding “pools” when such a quality stallion is involved.

If you have ideas to share on that topic, contact me at email: b4breedingblog@xtra.co.nz (sorry this email addresss appears not to be working yet, so use my contact email at bee.raglan@xtra.co.nz

– or just add a comment to this blog.)

Other links on Big Towner, summaries of his career and contribution:

http://oddsonracing.com/docs/LegendHorseoftheMonthNOVEMBER2008BigTowner.cfm

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Out of the shadows

Posted in Harness racing, Horses, Pedigree matching, Standardbred breeding, tagged , , , , on December 23, 2011| 16 Comments »

I want to sing the praises of pacing stallion Shadow Wave, born 1955 and died 18 years later.

Shadow Wave's grave

Shadow Wave's grave

His gravestone records him thus:
SHADOW WAVE P3 1.56 3/5
WORLD CHAMPION THREE YEAR OLD
GREAT SIRE OF SPEED
GENTLE INTELLIGENT STALLION

“Gentle and intelligent” – those words tell us a lot about the horse, and the love and respect he had from those who managed him.

He was a chestnut with distinctive markings – four white socks and a prominent blaze the full length of his face. I’ll come back to that shortly. The only pictures I’ve sourced of Shadow Wave are the two in John Bradley’s wonderful book “Modern Pacing Sire Lines” which also records detail about his racing career, his breeding and his offspring. Bradley describes him as “a lanky, attractive chestnut” who “has added strength to pedigrees and is a very positive influence.”

Shadow Wave, from John Bradley's book

Shadow Wave

Shadow Wave was a son of Adios. He was unraced as a 2yo but went on to be a top performer at 3yo – the winner 20 races including The Little Brown Jug and named World Champion. He left plenty of good, fast horses, but no sires that carried on his line, which is how sires are judged. However his legacy really comes as a damsire and as a source of quality genes that, given the right conditions, can carry his influence over an extended number of generations.

He’s not Mr Fixit. But he is a strong integral part of a lovely fair-isle knitting pattern of breeding I am trying to create (I say “try” because there are no instant guarantees, given the nature of nature). He is a strong coloured yarn held behind the pattern and ready to be introduced to make an impact. Hang onto your knitting needles!

Shadow Wave’s strong white blaze is unusual in top sires, and distinctive white face markings pop up in some of his top progeny and their descendants. Is this a sign of the strength of his influence, sometimes over several generations?

New York Motoring, distinctive star to blaze to snip markings

Take a look at these sires and offspring who have become part of the outstanding Zenover family and its different branches in recent times – they all have Shadow Wave genes – speed and strength. This family really appreciates Shadow Wave – and the feeling is mutual.

New York Motoring (sire of Interchange and Zenola Star) Shadow Wave is his damsire.
Payson’s Brother (mated with Interchange and grandsire of Copper Beach) Shadow Wave link through the sire line of No Nukes.

Payson's Brother

Payson's Brother - his sire is No Nukes who is by Oil Burner out of Shadow Wave mare

Elsu (son of Interchange). New York Motoring is his damsire.
Destination Moon (Grinfromeartoear son of Zenterfold). Shadow Wave appears twice in his  pedigree, once in his sire’s and once – via New York Motoring – in his dam’s.

Just to highlight Shadow Wave’s influence on the world-wide stage, amongst his filly foals were Dottie Shadow (dam of Oil Burner, $535,541), Tiny Wave (dam of Big Towner, $547,126), Ingenue (dam of Falcon Almahurst, $400,776), Real Hilarious (grandam of Die Laughing ($2,164,386) and also of Go for Grins ($302,003)), and Resourceful (grandam of Armbro Operative ($1,012,712).
Elsu

Elsu - son of Interchange

Shadow Wave is also the sire of Peaches N Cream, who is the dam of New York Motoring ($230,492) and Happy Motoring ($538.495), two well performed brothers by Most Happy Fella who are influential as sires and damsires in their own right. Happy Motoring pops up as the sire of On the Road Again ($2,819,102), and the grand-damsire of Pacific Rocket ($2,333,401). New York Motoring is the damsire of Elsu ($2,083,352), and the grand-damsire of Tintin in America ($934, 305).

Of course Oil Burner turned out to be the sire of No Nukes, and so brought Shadow Wave’s influence into many modern pedigrees.

Destination Moon as a foal - Grinfromeartoear from Zenterfold

New York Motoring was a prominent sire in New Zealand through the 1990s and therefore Shadow Wave is included in many mares’ pedigrees in New Zealand.

Shadow Wave’s appearance in the pedigrees of Panorama and Safely Kept means he is also poking his white-blazed nose into many quality Australian pedigrees as well.

More recently, Shadow Wave has appeared though Shifting Sands and Blue Horizon and Tiny Wave in the maternal lines of sires available in New Zealand, Australia and North America – Real Desire, Red River Hanover, Mach Three and of course Grinformeartoear. New sires with double ups of Shadow Wave include Artistic Fella and Shadow Play. You can see from all these sires that the white face and sock markings are often not present, but having Shadow Wave in the background may mean they pop up in some of these sires’ progeny in a “where on earth did that come from?” moment.

So while Shadow Wave may not have ‘created waves’ as a sire of sires, he has been – and is still – a very positive influence in the pedigrees of many horses today.

He is one of those sires whose genes seem to “punch above their weight” and blend well with other influential (not necessarily the most obvious or modern) genes. He was known for working well with mares of his time from trotting lines. He seems to love finding his own sire Adios and some of the great old bloodlines that New Zealand breeders access through Tar Heel, Albatross, Good Time and others.

I don’t believe in double ups for their own sake, but Shadow Wave is a sire who thrives on meeting himself in a pedigree, and can influence through maternal and sire lines equally.

If he’s there, he adds value. And this can be reinforced by breeding choices.

Those white markings are a lovely reminder of  the continuing influence of this gentle and intelligent stallion.

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