By: Alan Porter
“Eclipse Award winner, and World Highweight Three-Year-Old at Middle-Distances, Will Take Charge is also one of the toughest and most resilient sophomore champions of recent times. By outstanding sire, Unbridled’s Song, Will Take Charge is out of multiple grade one winner and multiple grade one producer Take Charge Lady. With five stakes horse among his first juvenile runners he is prominent among the leading freshman sires of 2018 “
Unbridled’s Song and his sons have also begun to find success when bred back over mares from their own Mr. Prospector sire line, and Will Take Charge has first crop stakes winner Kim K out of a mare by Trippi (a grandson of Forty Niner). The cross of Unbridled’s Song with a mare by Forty Niner son, Distorted Humor, produced World Champion Arrogate, and he can be introduced through Sharp Humor, Flower Alley , Drosselmeyer, Jimmy Creed and Maclean’s Music (who would give inbreeding to Unbridled).
More than twenty of the stakes winners bred on an Unbridled’s Song/Mr. Prospector cross are out of mares from the Gone West line, including via Mr. Greeley and his son, El Corredor; Elusive Quality (sire of Quality Road), Proud Citizen and Came Home, which also suggests Speightstown (sire of Munnings) and Grand Slam. The cross of Unbridled’s Song and sons with mares by Mr. Prospector son Smart Strike has produced a grade one winner and could be tried through Curlin and Lookin At Lucky.
Seeking Gold and his sons has been a productive one, including through daughters of Mutakddim and Cape Town. The cross of Unbridled’s Song with Thunder Gulch line mares has outperformed opportunity, as has the cross with daughters of Not For Love. There is a stakes winner by a son of Unbridled’s Song out of a mare by Fusaichi Pegasus, and he would be particularly interesting here as he is a Mr. Prospector/Danzig cross, like Distorted Humor.
The cross of Unbridled’s Song and his sons with Storm Cat line mares has produce more than 50 stakes winners to date, and as Will Take Charge’s dam is by Champion Two-Year-Old Dehere, a product of the same Northern Dancer/Secretariat cross as Storm Cat, that strain has additional appeal here. Among the broodmare sires of graded stakes winners on this cross are Tale of the Cat (sire of Lion Heart), Storm Boot, Storm Creek, Sea of Secrets, Forestry, Hennessy (sire of Johannesburg, Cactus Ridge and Wiseman’s Ferry, grandsire of Scat Daddy), Forest Wildcat (sire of Wildcat Heir), Sir Cat and Catienus, with other Storm Cat line horses to appear as broodmare sires of Unbridled’s Song stakes winners including Tabasco Cat, Giant’s Causeway (sire of First Samurai), Menifee (by Harlan, also the sire of Harlan’s Holiday, and grandsire of Into Mischief) and Forestry (sire of Discreet Cat and of Shackleford, who is interesting for giving inbreeding to Unbridled) while other possibilities include Stormy Atlantic, Bernstein, Stormin Fever, Freud, Bluegrass Cat, Yankee Gentleman and Pure Prize. Unbridled’s Song also has a grade one winner out of a mare by Summer Squall (a Storm Bird son bred on the same cross as Storm Cat), and a grade one winner out of a mare by Storm Bird son, Ocean Storm.
Another branch of Northern Dancer to thrive under Unbridled’s Song is that of Danzig with Chief’s Crown – another Northern Dancer/Secretariat cross – Polish Numbers, Belong to Me, Langfuhr, Boundary and Pine Bluff having all produced Unbridled’s Song line stakes winners). Unbridled’s Song and sons have also found success with mares descending from Dixieland Band (sire of Dixie Union, Dixie Brass, Hook and Ladder and Citidancer, who is already broodmare sire of an Unbridled’s Song stakes winner, while his son Disco Rico is also broodmare sire of stakes winner on the cross); and Sadler’s Wells (whose son, El Prado, is broodmare sire of an Unrbidled’s Song line stakes winner, and who can be brought in through Medaglia d’Oro, Kitten’s Joy and Artie Schiller).
Will Take Charge himself represents the very successful cross of Unbridled’s Song over mares descending from Northern Dancer through Deputy Minister. We can note that Midnight Lute – like Will Take Charge, a Fappiano line stallion out of a Dehere mare – has already sired four stakes winners, one grade one, with inbreeding to Deputy Minister, and this opens the way for considering mares by Awesome Again (and his son, Ghostzapper), Touch Gold, French Deputy and Service Stripe – all broodmare sires of Unbridled’s Song line stakes winners – and this line could also be brought in through Silver Deputy, Forest Camp, Deputy Commander and Defrere (a brother to Dehere). From the Icecapade branch of the Nearctic (sire of Northern Dancer) line, Unbridled’s Song is sire of the brilliant Zensational out of a mare by Phone Trick (by Clever Trick), a horse who is also broodmare sire of a grade one winner by Unbridled’s Song’s sire, Unbridled.
Given that he is a grandson of Fappiano, the success of Unbridled’s Song and his sons with mares carrying In Reality (giving a double of the influential sire, Rough’ n Tumble) was no surprise. From this line, Unbridled’s Song has grade one winners out of mares by Valid Appeal (broodmare sire of Successful Appeal) and Taylor’s Falls; a graded stakes winner out of a mare by In Reality himself; a graded stakes winner out a mare by Known Fact, and two stakes winners out of mares descending from In Reality through Relaunch , who can be found through Honour and Glory, Skywalker, Bertrando, Officer, Cee’s Tizzy and Tiznow (already broodmare sire of an Unbridled’s Song line graded stakes winner).
Will Take Charge is half-brother to Take Charge Indy, a grade one winning son of A.P. Indy. We can also note that the cross of Unbridled’s Song with an A.P. Indy mare produced a classic placed horse, who was also a Leading Freshman Sire. There are also two stakes winners by Unbridled’s Song sons out of mares by Pulpit, who could be brought in through Tapit (whose daughters would give Champion Rubiano combined with a stakes winning three-quarters sister) and Sky Mesa. Mineshaft, Flatter, Congrats and Malibu Moon are all products of the same cross as Pulpit, and other A.P. Indy line candidates including Bernardini (who looks particularly interesting here), Jump Start, Majestic Warrior and Stephen Got Even.
Unbridled enjoyed a strong affinity with mares by Caro, Unbridled’s Song being an example. In turn, Unbridled’s Song has a grade one winner out of a mare by Dr. Carter (a son of Caro) and there are also stakes winners out of a mares by other Caro line stallions Siberian Express and Indian Charlie (a son of In Excess, and himself sire of Uncle Mo), and there are other Unbridled’s Song line stakes winners out of mares from this line sired by Alphabet Soup and his sire of Cozzene (also sire of Mizzen Mast).
The cross of Unbridled’s Song with mares descending from Blushing Groom, has produced stakes winners out of mares by Mt. Livermore and his sons, Housebuster, Orientate (who is broodmare sire of Jaywalk, a Champion Two-Year-Old Filly by a son of Unbridled’s Song) and Peaks and Valleys, as well as Rahy (broodmare sire of a graded stakes winner by Unbridled) and Runaway Groom (sire of Cherokee Run).
