by Debbie Little

All American Harnessbreds — owned by Fred Hertrich III, a member of the prestigious Breeders’ Cup board of directors, and run since 2004 by general manager Rob Tribbett — have a winning pair in their 10-horse hand at Lexington.

“We have two yearlings selling that are from the family of See You At Peelers, which is, I think probably the hottest in the sport right now when you look at Geocentric and It’s A Love Thing, both outstanding 2-year-old fillies,” Tribbett said. “So, we have Hip #76, that’s a Captaintreacherous colt named Captain Love, who’s the first foal out of [Love Game], a sister to See You At Peelers and also to [Love For Sail] the dam of It’s A Love Thing.

“And then we also have Hip #366 [Champagne Room], who is a daughter of See You At Peelers from the first crop of Papi Rob Hanover. Obviously, you have See You At Peelers in that family and West Side Glory, plus those two top 2-year-olds. We’re big believers in the depth of a female family. That’s such a strong family all the way back, so we’re really excited about both of those horses from that pedigree.”

When asked about Champagne Room’s creative name choice, Tribbett said with a laugh: “It was as good as I could get with staying in the rules.”

In addition to their first-crop filly by Papi Rob Hanover, they also have Hip #64 Handsome Stranger, a Tall Dark Stranger colt out of the Somebeachsomewhere mare Silk Beach.

Even though breeding to first-crop sires can be a little risky, Tribbett thinks the situation this year, especially on the pacing side, makes sense with two truly phenomenal first-crop sires.

“There’s always a change over,” Tribbett said. “We’ve had so many of our great sires retired or passed away in the last few years that we’re constantly looking for a sire to kind of take their place.

“Papi Rob Hanover in almost every crop would have been the No. 1 horse, he just happened to run into one of the best horses we’ve seen in a long time in Tall Dark Stranger. But we’re really excited about both of those horses. We have shares in them, and we’ve bred to them all the way through year three now.”

Tribbett also feels good their two pacing colts by Downbytheseaside, Hip #890 Highway Boy and Hip #961 Downbythewater.

“We’ve seen with Pebble Beach, that [Downbytheseaside] is really a horse that can get you a Grand Circuit horse,” Tribbett said. “But, the purses that are available in Ohio are really phenomenal when you look at their championship day and I’m glad that they’ve kept him in Ohio because I think he’s kind of helped stamp that program. It is on par with some of the traditional programs we think about in Pennsylvania or New York or Ontario.”

When deciding on which sire to breed their mares to, Tribbett said there’s not necessarily one state that stands out over the others, it’s more about what fits their plan.

“Well, I would say for us, our goal is to raise the Grand Circuit, Horse of the Year caliber horse like Test Of Faith [bred by Hertrich],” Tribbett said. “That’s what we’re trying to do. So, we’re really focused, number one on what sires work physically with our mares. We’re raising athletes and that’s really our number one consideration.

“And from there it’s obviously availability. There’s a mare cap, so you can’t breed all of your mares to one stallion, even if you’d like to, probably. But really, we’re going to try to aim for the Grand Circuit superstar. But the nice thing is, if you have horses maybe a notch below that, they can just really do well in their state.”