by Alan Leavitt

Seeing her picture as she won her Breeders Crown elimination on Thursday (Oct. 19) seemed like a good enough reason to look into Warrawee Michelle’s pedigree.

Warrawee Michelle, now with a record of 2, 1:53.2 and earnings of $128,125, is by Walner, and out of Sound Check, by Yankee Glide. Both of those numbers — record and earnings — are subject to change in less than a week when she competes in the Breeders Crown final.

Michelle is trained and driven by Ake Svanstedt, who also is an owner in partnership with Santandrea Inc. and Young Guns. Svanstedt is one of the sharpest operators in our business, coming up with top horses every year and picking up a lot of money with the use of multiple entries in the high-purse stakes.

For this kid, always on the lookout for close pedigree crosses, this lovely filly doesn’t help that cause. She’s a total outcross, meaning no double crosses anywhere in her first four generations.

Were I to be asked for a proposed mating, one name jumps out at me in Michelle’s extended pedigree, Muscle Mass, the sire of Sound Check’s dam. That cross would provide a “touch-up” of the same good blood already flowing in her veins. (That term, touch-up, is plagiarized from the smartest man I ever knew, in our business or out, Jim Harrison).

Warrawee Michelle’s pedigree does provide a strong proof of my belief, and others, including the greatest thoroughbred breeder of all time, Federico Tesio, that a horse’s 2-year-old brilliance on the racetrack is the best indicator of his future success in the stud.

Here we’re talking about Walner, who was devastating as a 2-year-old for two good friends, Linda Toscano and Timmy Tetrick, but only made two starts for money at 3.

Walner is rapidly coming to the fore as one of the dominant trotting sires of the present day, and he’ll only get better and better.

By the bye, Walner’s name is a misspelled tribute to the great horseman, Hakan Wallner. For those with short memories, Hakan Wallner, Jan Johnson, and Berndt Lindstedt were a very successful partnership, both training and driving, throughout the ‘90s.

Another recurring name in Michelle’s pedigree that brings back warm memories is the word “Yankee.” There are four different Yankee dams in her fourth generation, and they all played a role in producing this top filly.

All of them were bred by Charlie Keller, a great outfielder for the New York Yankees. Keller played next to Joe DiMaggio, and for several years he was the superior batter, but he never got the recognition he deserved.

When he retired, to a little farm in Thurmont, MD, he started visiting a nearby neighbor, Joe Eyler. Eyler was a good trainer, and he let Keller sit behind some of his horses.

From that friendship, Keller bought two Titan Hanover full sisters as yearlings, and Eyler trained and raced them. They both earned around $70,000, good money for those days, and as Keller said, they paved all the roads and put in all the fences at Yankeeland Farm, as Keller named his place.

Yankeeland grew into a successful breeding operation, and for me it has always been an honor that Keller and I were good friends.

Now it’s back again to my quest to create a protected sire stake for Kentucky, like every other state and province in North America already has.

I’m beginning to feel like a character in the movie Groundhog Day, where every day I wake up to find a new bureaucrat standing in my way.

The current roadblock is probably a nice enough guy, but he’s been given the financial control over the Kentucky breeders program, and he’s never owned or bred a harness horse. While it’s true we do have a few stallions already standing here, they are world class horses that have no need of a sire stakes to promote their availability.

If we had the same kind of sire stakes program most other jurisdictions have, more stallions would be standing here by next season. That could only be good for both the breeding industry in Kentucky and our business in general.