Pontiff first two crops are sensational!!
​
Pontiff, a winning half-brother to major sire Pulpit, and an earner of $126,481, is by the hot sire-of-sires, Giant's Causeway!! Like the 2020 season, Pontiff will stand one more season at Warlock Stables in Spokane, Washington.
​
A son of European Horse of the Year and three-time leading North American sire Giant’s Causeway, Pontiff was bred by Claiborne Farm and sold for $310,000 from their consignment to the 2011 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. The price was the ninth highest of the 62 Giant’s Causeway yearlings sold that year.
​
Giant’s Causeway is one of 177 stakes winners sired by 1999-2000 North American leading sire and sire dynasty maker Storm Cat (i.e., Bernstein, Forestry, Harlan, Hennessy, Hold That Tiger, Stormy Atlantic). His current first-crop sons are among the leaders in the freshman sire race, Not This Time and Brody's Cause.
​
As a racehorse, Giant’s Causeway – a chestnut powerhouse – was almost invincible, never finishing farther back then second and with six of his eight group wins coming at the highest level.
​
Giant’s Causeway’s female line is equally as class “encumbered,” as evidenced by his Group 2-winning full sister You’resothrilling and their six stakes-placed half or full siblings, all but one who was group-placed. Plus, two new multiple Group 1 winners – Happily, a full sister to Group I winners Gleneagles (Ire) (champion) and Marvellous (Ire), and Decorated Knight (GB) – emerged from this same high class reservoir this year.
​
As a sire Giant’s Causeway, now 20, has world-wide sired the earners of over $161-million with 138 stakes winners, including at least nine champions.
​
Among Giant’s Causeway’s sons who are already making a mark at stud are First Samurai, Creative Cause, Shamardal, Eskendereya, Carpe Diem, Giant Oak, Footstepsinthesand, Not This Time and Brody's Cause
​
Pontiff is one of a dozen winners produced out of Frizette Stakes (G1) winner Preach, whose first foal was Pulpit.
Pulpit excelled both at the track and in the breeding shed. At three he conquered the Grade 2 Blue Grass and Fountain of Youth stakes and ran second in the Florida Derby (G1). In his abbreviated career at stud Pulpit sired 72 stakes winners (seven percent). Among his many successful sons at stud are three-time leading sire Tapit, Sky Mesa and Lucky Pulpit (sire of two-time Horse of the Year California Chrome).
​
Preach is also the dam of Group 3-placed and sire Urban Poet, stakes-placed stakes producer Tell It and three other daughters that are stakes producers.
Pontiff’s second dam Narrate, was also a graded stakes winner, and in addition to Preach and three other stakes-placed runners, the daughter of Honest Pleasure is the dam of Yarn. Yarn, by Mr. Prospector, goes down in the stud books as the dam of English and Irish champion Minardi and Grade 2 winner and sire Tale of the Cat. Yarn’s daughter Myth in turn produced champion and sire Johannesburg.
Pontiff’s third dam, State, by Nijinsky II, produced three other graded stakes winners besides Narrate.
While his fourth dam Monarchy, a stakes-winning full sister to the great racehorse and sire Round Table, had two stakes winners and she is also the dam of good sires Blade and Envoy, and in New Zealand, Imperialist, all sons of Bold Ruler.
Pedigree pundits will also note that this Family No. 2 branch of Industry (the 1838 winner of the Epsom Oaks) is also responsible for leading Argentine sire Sideral.
Unraced at two, Pontiff won three races and finished second or third in 13 others with earnings of $126,481. Pontiff’s first tally came at Sam Houston Park in 1 1/16-mile turf a maiden special weight race which he took nearly gate-to-wire by 2 1/2 lengths. He also won an allowance at a flat mile over Will Rogers Downs dirt track. His final win came at Canterbury Park last June where he took an about 7 1/2-furlong turf allowance/$25.000 optional claiming (N) race by one length.
Pontiff’s pedigree features a 4S x 5D cross to Northern Dancer and a 5S x 5D cross to Bold Ruler. He only has one cross of Mr. Prospector (3D) and is free from Seattle Slew, the two most common crosses found in Pacific Northwest pedigrees.
​
The bay Pontiff stands 16.1 hands and will stand the 2021 breeding season for $2,500 live foal with no booking fee. There will also be a multiple mares discount and special consideration given to stakes-winning or stakes-producing mares. His first two crops of mares bred are a very strong group of mares with many stakes winners and producers and includes a Midnight Lute filly that is a FULL sister to Kelly's Humor, a Grade 1 placed 3 year old filly that ran in the Kentucky Oaks.
WTBOA Press Release
​
​
​