Benoit photo
Bloodlines Presented By Walmac Farm: Barnes, The Known, And The Unknown
The known and the unknown showed up in stakes this first week of the New Year. What pedigree could be more “in the know” than Barnes, a high-priced yearling by leading sire Into Mischief (by Harlan’s Holiday) and out of a young daughter of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile)?
Having wrapped up a sixth national leading sire title, Into Mischief did not lie back and wait for wine and song to be brought to him. No, indeed. His indomitable hordes were right back in the starting and right up in the bridle, and Barnes became his sire’s 168th stakes winner, as well as the first of 2025.
Bred in Kentucky by Jeff Drown and Don Rachel LLC, Barnes was brought to the 2023 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale as part of the Indian Creek consignment and looked the part of a future racing star. The strongly made bay brought $3.2 million from Zedan Racing. That was the second-highest price of the sale, and Zedan Racing bought the higher one too, the $4 million Curlin colt out of champion Beholder (Henny Hughes). Donato Lanni signed for both colts on behalf of Zedan.
From his workout pattern, Barnes has been a marvel of speed and consistency for trainer Bob Baffert. The colt has been showing good speed in weekly works, then bullets when sent from the gate, and that pattern was interrupted only by the colt’s previous start, a maiden special success at Churchill Downs on Nov. 27.
In the colt’s debut, he lay up close to a withering pace, came on in the stretch, and just managed to defeat second-choice Innovator (Authentic) by a head on the wire. The favorite’s final time was 1:02.97 for 5 ½ furlongs, and the third horse was 10 ½ lengths farther back.
Perhaps time will tell that was an extraordinary maiden.
Certainly, both colts have returned to win their subsequent starts. The previously stakes-placed Innovator won a maiden next out, and Barnes is now a stakes winner.
The colt is the first foal and first stakes winner for his dam, the now 8-year-old All American Dream. She was bred in Kentucky by Kinsman Farm and raced for Drown and Rachel, finishing unplaced in a pair of maiden specials at Belmont Park as a 3-year-old in 2020.
All American Dream is a half-sister to Wind Fire (Distorted Humor), winner of a pair of listed stakes in England, second in the G2 Flying Childers Stakes, and third in the G2 Lowther, Temple, and Norfolk Stakes. Both these were produced from the A.P. Indy mare A.P. Dream, a full sister to G1 winner Majestic Warrior and stakes winner Crystal Current.
So, the first dam is by Triple Crown winner, Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, and Horse of the Year American Pharoah; the second dam by Belmont Stakes winner, Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, and Horse of the Year A.P. Indy, and the next two dams are G1 winners Dream Supreme (Seeking the Gold) and Spinning Round (Dixieland Band).
That is the known. The unknown was half a continent away.
At Delta Downs in Louisiana, the 5-year-old Luyv won for the fifth time in 20 starts in the Orleans Stakes on the third day of the New Year. Bred and raced by Garland Goins, Luyv had twice been stakes-placed last year but won her first stakes in the Orleans and became the first stakes winner for her sire Yockey’s Warrior (Warrior’s Reward).
The latter was a $140,000 Keeneland September yearling who became a three-time stakes winner. Trainer Al Stall sent the horse out to win the Thanksgiving Handicap at the Fair Grounds in 2016 and in 2017. Then Yockey’s Warrior signed off with a victory in the 2018 Duncan F. Kenner Stakes at the Fair Grounds.
Yockey’s Warrior entered stud in 2019, and Luyv is from his first crop. The sire stands at Holly Hill Farm in Benton, La., for $1,000 live foal.
Luyv is out of stakes-placed Southpine (Laabity), and then it is a step back to fourth dam Spotty Bond (Negroni), who won the 1971 Pan Zareta Stakes at Sunland Park, as well as the New Mexico Futurity the previous year.
The sires of the mares in Luyv’s dam line are the sons of recognizable or well-known Kentucky stallions such as Mr. Prospector, Elocutionist, Jacinto, Determine, Bimelech, and Supremus. On reaching the eighth dam, however, we get into some really fascinating pedigree material.
The eighth dam is Du Sallie, by a son of the high-class racehorse and good sire Luke McLuke. That part follows the general pattern of this female line, but Du Sallie (foaled 1928), as well as her dam Arma L C (1917) and granddam Arma (1905), are listed as “buckskin.” Other sources have them as “light bay,” “chestnut,” and no color, which only means that nobody officially noted it down.
The American Stud Book carries the first two colors, as well as “bay” for Arma. Since buckskin is usually described as a heavily diluted bay, with black points and a tawny or light tan body color, it is possible that the name fits this series of mares.
Whatever the color history of this unusual female line, they seem to have possessed some uncommon genetic traits, and some of those have come down to us in one of 2025’s newest stakes winners.
