Dahlia’s Best Friend

        As all of you no doubt know, mares like to “buddy up”.  Just why these ladies pick each other is known only to them.  Sometimes it appears they work by color.  Other times two very strong-willed (alpha) mares will choose each other.

        But in the case of Dahlia and Estrapade, circumstances thrust these two lovely daughters of Vaguely Noble together when neither could produce enough milk for their foals.  So what they had in common was the tragedy of losing their little ones to a nurse mare right after birth.  How sad they must both have been!

        From experience, we know how very feminine Dahlia was.  But we only saw Estrapade with her once.  And Estrapade did not like it when we took Dahlia out of the paddock so we could spend time with her.  Finally, we went over and gave Estrapade a pat and a carrot, too, and she calmed down.  But she kept a watchful eye on us, and did not truly relax until her friend returned to her.

        We were told at the time that the farm worried about what would happen to Estrapade when Dahlia died since the pair had become so close.  And we have no idea what did happen that sad day, but Estrapade outlived Dahlia by only four years and she never had a live foal after her buddy died.  Perhaps she saw no reason to produce a foal she could not mother and knew that she would no longer even be comforted by her dear friend.

        Estrapade was a wonderful racehorse, winning Group and Graded stakes in both France and the U. S.  She was champion grass mare in the U. S. in 1986 the year she beat colts in the Arlington Million and Oak Tree Invitational.  Other major wins she racked up included the G1 Yellow Ribbon and the Gamely, Santa Ana and Beverly Hills Handicaps.  Overall, she earned nearly $2 million in her 30 starts.

        Estrapade’s produce record looks spotty, too, but it’s not really all that bad.  She was a hard-luck mare.  In 10 of her years at stud, she had dead twins, was barren, aborted or had dead single foals. 

        Given what was left to work with, she actually did quite well.  Estrapade produced the minor stakes placed runner Rice, a gelding by Blushing John who ran second in the G2 Red Smith Handicap and set or equaled a couple of 1 3/8 mile track records – one at the Meadowlands and the other at Gulfstream.

        As of this writing, Estrapade has four producing daughters:

        Estrabug by Nijinsky II was unraced and did everything by halves:  Half of her foals (four) ran, and half of those, the gelding Escor’s Hope and the gelding Doug, won.  To date, none of Estrabug’s daughters have produced anything.  Salina City by Smart Strike is now five and has placed in France, running both on the flat and over fences.

        Deelitefully by Afternoon Deelites, is unraced and has not produced any runners from four foals by Moms From Dixie, Justinfamous and Faculty – all very minor regional sires in California.  The two by Faculty are not yet old enough to race.  Deelitefully’s half sister, Plaza Recoleta by Blushing John, was unplaced and was subsequently exported to Peru.  She has no reported winners from her four meetings with the Forty Niner stallion Apprentice.

        Vilka, Estrapade’s unraced Nureyev daughter, died in 2000, but not before producing three winners including the minor stakes placed Jade Hunter filly Ayres Hall who has a two-year-old colt of 2008 by Horse Chestnut (SAf) named Tillman Hall.  Her yearling colt by Stormy Atlantic died.

        The winning Strawberry Road (AUS) filly Troika is another of Estrapade’s producing daughters and to date she has given the line the most hope in the form of Miss Mambo, a 2001 filly by Kingmambo who won minor stakes in the U. S. but who ran third in the French One Thousand Guineas and second in the Group 2 Prix de Sandringham.

        Miss Mambo had her first foal, a filly by Bernstein, this spring and of course she is inbred to Mr. Prospector.  Troika shows no other female offspring, only an unraced colt by Deputy Minister named Deputy Dakota who would be six years old if he is alive.  No report of Troika’s death appears on her latest printout, but since she is a foal of 1994, it is likely that she is either dead or has gone completely barren.

        Finally, there is the 1995 filly Rima, an unraced Jade Hunter filly out of Estrapade.  She produced the solid Theatrical filly Shadow Play who won $67,995 and in turn produced a Johar filly who is now a two-year-old.  Named French Madness, this granddaughter of Estrapade will try to carry on in France.  Johar is a personal favorite, so we’re cheering for this one even if she is inbred to Mr. Prospector.

        One of the things we will always remember about Estrapade is that Trevor Denman, Santa Anita’s master announcer, used to call her “a little grasshopper”.  And she was an elegant little thing – plus Vaguely Noble really did put a polished, Arab head on his kids, didn’t he?

        Sadly, Estrapade was on her way to be pensioned at the “Old Friends” facility when she died of a heart attack.  Or was it a broken heart?  She will be buried on that portion of the Hurstland property devoted to “Old Friends”.  And while she might have preferred to be buried next to her beloved friend, Dahlia, we have no doubt they are galloping in the same paddock in that portion of heaven reserved for the bravest and most beautiful of God’s creatures. 

        They are free from the demands of man and the expectations of a market gone too speed conscious for their bloodlines.  But they have left an enormous void in the breed.  They may be mourned nowhere else as they are mourned right here, for it was their very ability to run against males as far and as fast as they could that made them the kind of mares we count as the world’s best ever.  They will not pass this way again.