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Tales from the Crib: Catching Freedom

Apr 19, 2024 Kellie Reilly/Brisnet.com

Catching Freedom as a foal at WinStar

Catching Freedom strides out as a foal (Photo by WinStar Farm)

Kenny Troutt’s WinStar Farm has been a force on the Kentucky Derby (G1) trail for more than two decades. Both breeding and racing 2010 Derby hero Super Saver, WinStar has also been involved as the breeder of 2003 champion Funny Cide and co-owner of 2018 Triple Crown sweeper Justify. Other WinStar runners have placed in the Derby, most notably homebred Bluegrass Cat, the runner-up to Barbaro in 2006.

WinStar-bred Catching Freedom is the latest contender to emerge from the Versailles, Kentucky, establishment. If he earns the blanket of roses, WinStar would move up to a joint third on the list of most successful breeders in Derby history, alongside historic Claiborne Farm, with three winners.

Moreover, Catching Freedom would arguably be an even greater accomplishment for WinStar’s breeding program. Unlike Super Saver and Funny Cide, who were both acquired in utero – the result of mating plans devised by the mares’ former owners – Catching Freedom is a totally WinStar production.

“It makes us all excited,” Donnie Preston, WinStar’s yearling manager, said. “We’ve been lucky with all of the horses I’ve been around. I’ve been here 22 years. To have another homebred in the Derby.

“From 2006 to 2010, every year we had a homebred in the Derby…We actually had six homebreds in five years.”

Catching Freedom’s sire, WinStar stallion Constitution, is himself out of a terrific mare by WinStar’s foundation stallion, Distorted Humor (the sire of Funny Cide). Constitution also raced for WinStar, in partnership with Twin Creeks Racing Stable, and stamped himself as a leading hopeful for the 2014 Derby before being sidelined.

The WinStar connection extends to the maternal side of Catching Freedom’s pedigree as well. His mother, Catch My Drift, is by the late Pioneerof the Nile, who likewise stood at WinStar.

Catch My Drift was among the graded stakes performers from Pioneerof the Nile’s first crop. Trained by Chad Brown for Hidden Brook Farm, she placed second in the 2014 Turnback the Alarm H. (G3) during her three-year-old campaign. Catch My Drift enhanced her resume in 2015, romping in the Summer Colony S. at Saratoga and finishing third in the Beldame (G1).

Offered at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky’s November Sale, Catch My Drift was purchased by WinStar for $400,000. She toured the ring one day after Pioneerof the Nile’s Triple Crown-winning son American Pharoah capped his career in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1).

Catch My Drift began her new life as a broodmare and visited a series of high-profile stallions. Her son by Into Mischief became the multiple stakes-placed Strava, and her Uncle Mo colt, Bishops Bay, would earn runner-up honors in a pair of Grade 3 events. Just missing to eventual champion Arcangelo in last year’s Peter Pan (G3), Bishops Bay was second to Two Phil’s in the Ohio Derby (G3).

When Bishops Bay was a foal by her side, Catch My Drift was bred back to Constitution in the spring of 2020. Her next bay colt was born on March 8, 2021 – the one eventually named Catching Freedom.

Preston recalled that Catching Freedom was “probably a similar type” to Bishops Bay.

“Bishop was probably a little stockier, but both were nice, quality, with a good temperament.”

While Preston had been quite taken with Bishops Bay at the comparable point in their young lives, Catching Freedom caught the eye of Ryan Bardin, then serving as WinStar’s assistant yearling manager.

“I was big on Bishops Bay the year before,” Preston revealed. “But he (Bardin) kept saying that (Catching Freedom) was the one.”

“I was a big fan of Catching Freedom early on in his life as a weanling,” said Bardin, who’s now the manager of Twin Creeks Farm.

“At the weanling stage of his life, he was a lighter-framed, beautiful colt with great scope and balance. A very forward moving, light on his feet individual – what I refer to as ‘racehorse’ mentality, on the muscle.”

Catching Freedom showed a pleasingly pliable attitude for Preston throughout his yearling program, as he prepared for the Keeneland September Sale.

“He was really straightforward, an easy doer,” Preston noted. “He was the yearling I like to prep – handled everything, never missed a day.

“I knew that he would sell well and be received really well.”

Catching Freedom as a yearling

Catching Freedom as a yearling in August 2022 (Photo by ThoroStride)

Catching Freedom was consigned on WinStar’s behalf by Warrendale Sales, whose Hunter Simms remembered the colt as an unflappable type amid the hoopla of the sales environment.

“While he was at the sales, he was such a cool horse,” Simms reported. “He never turned a hair and had the best demeanor. He had been vetted by some of the best judges on the ground, as he had a ton of pre-sale vet work. WinStar has such a great program of breeding and raising horses which always shows by their graduates being the winner’s circle.”

Among those astute judges was the Albaugh Family Stables team, which has consistently managed to find yearlings who develop into Derby qualifiers.

“Mr. (Dennis) Albaugh and his team do their homework when at the yearling sales,” Simms observed, “and their results show that. They even bought last year’s leading Kentucky Derby contender Angel of Empire off us, so they have had good luck buying from Warrendale Sales.”

Indeed, Angel of Empire furnished the stable’s best result so far when third as the favorite in the 2023 Derby. Catching Freedom has other points in common with Angel of Empire, beyond being a Warrendale grad and fellow Brad Cox trainee.

“There’s a lot of similarities – growth, development, running style,” noted Albaugh’s racing manager and son-in-law, Jason Loutsch.

Both have the Albaugh Family’s prerequisite of classic-oriented bloodlines, designed to blossom with time and distance. Both are grandsons of Pioneerof the Nile, with an A.P. Indy-line sire on the other half of the pedigree.

Catching Freedom’s sire Constitution was especially appealing, as an accomplished son of the patriarch Tapit.

“On the racetrack he was just such a tremendous horse,” Loutsch said of Constitution, whose marquee wins came in the 2014 Florida Derby (G1) and 2015 Donn H. (G1). “One of those horses that was so strong, and looked like he could get a distance; a tremendous physique.

“With Constitution on top, and Pioneerof the Nile on the bottom, out of a quality mare, there were a lot of positives.”

Other prospective buyers saw the same positives, and the bidding spiraled up to $575,000. At that price, the gavel came down, and Albaugh secured the colt through bloodstock agent Barry Berkelhammer, who teaches the youngsters their early lessons at his Ocala, Florida, farm.

Given the name Catching Freedom, a clever play on parents Constitution and Catch My Drift, the colt was never going to be the precocious juvenile who blitzes through his training. But he went through school capably.

“He’s bred to get two turns; he didn’t show the speed of a May or June type (of two-year-old),” Loutsch said. “He had talent, and he was doing well at the farm. They develop from the time they leave Barry’s, and just get better.”

That’s been the watchword for Catching Freedom ever since he joined Cox at the racetrack. Although he won two of his first four starts, and ran well the other times, he was racing greenly, lugging in, or not changing leads readily. It was a sign of his raw ability that he won the Smarty Jones S. and placed third in the Risen Star (G2) while still a work in progress.

Catching Freedom turned the proverbial corner in the Louisiana Derby (G2). Touting himself in his morning breezes going into the final prep, he uncorked a professional rally from last to prevail at Fair Grounds.

“His two works before the Louisiana Derby were his two best works,” Loutsch commented, adding that the colt is continuing his upward curve ahead of the first Saturday in May.

“He’s happy, healthy, improving every day. I’m confident that the distance isn’t going to be an issue. He’ll break a lot sharper in the Derby,” ensuring better early position.

Loutsch credits Albaugh’s sales team for unearthing such talented prospects – “They’re on the sales grounds from opening to when they close” – and Cox’s team for patiently developing Catching Freedom into a serious Derby contender.

“We feel like we’re getting closer and closer to the ultimate goal.”

As the Kentucky Derby celebrates its 150th running, a Constitution colt named Catching Freedom suits this time-honored piece of Americana.

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