Carrying on the Legacy

As Straight No Chaser nears a return to galloping with an eye on resuming breezing, not long after, the journey to get this son of Speightster to the races begins in earnest.

To date, Speightster’s top performer is multiple stakes winner Door Buster, who is the odds-on favorite in an allowance race tomorrow evening (Race 7) at Charles Town in West Virginia. A winner of six races, Door Buster enters this assignment fresh off an allowance race victory, and has won three stakes in the last year (the attached video shows one of the filly’s impressive stakes wins). Another one of Speightster’s progeny, among the 8 who are scheduled to compete at racetracks across the country this weekend, is Nerves of Steel, a stakes-placed runner, who is entered at Santa Anita in an allowance race (Race 5) on Saturday.

For the connections of the stallion Speightster, seeing more progeny arriving at the races is bittersweet, since the young and talented sire lost his life in February after fracturing a leg in a freak stall accident at Northern Dawn Stallions in Canada.

At the time of his passing, Speightster was only 10 years old, and was about to begin his sixth year at stud. The son of the very talented champion sprinter Speightstown had only arrived six weeks earlier at Northern Dawn Stallions, following his relocation from WinStar in Kentucky.

It was a crushing blow for Jay and Christine Hayden, whose purchase of Speightster was their first foray into stallion ownership. At the time of his death, Jay Hayden told the BloodHorse, “He was a stallion that really fit Ontario because his female family is so top heavy with top Canadian horses, the family of Dance Smartly and Smart Strike. Here we were the first week in February and he had north of 40 mares already, which is unheard of in Ontario because breeders want to pick their stallions after their foals are on the ground. It has hardly sunk in.” For the full story from the BloodHorse, please click here.

As a racehorse and a sire, Speightster was something special. On the racetrack, he was undefeated in his first three starts, including a victory in the Grade 3 Dwyer Stakes at Belmont Park, where he made quick work of his rivals with his 2 1/2-length victory. In the breeding shed, the gorgeous chestnut, who strongly resembled his sire, Speightstown, made a splash when his first crop reached the races and he was among the top 10 freshman stallions in North America in 2020. He had an even better year in 2021, cracking the top five as a second-crop sire with his progeny earning more than $4.2 million on the racetrack.

We’re excited to see what Straight No Chaser has in store for his partners when he reaches the races, and look forward to him carrying the banner forward for Speightster and adding to the sire’s legacy.