Valley Victory And His Offspring Share Many Traits

Last week, we looked at the stunning racing career of Speedy Somolli, and offered an opinion that Speedy Somolli’s own exciting speed and ability was finally realized in his grandson, Valley Victory. Speedy Somolli produced a number of attractive, stakes-winning offspring, but none of his direct offspring made the impact that his grandson did.

This week, we will look at the racing career of Valley Victory, and also the racing careers of several of his accomplished sons, in order to see if there are common variables that might lead us to determine which, if any, of the Valley Victory sons might carry on this valuable bloodline.

Valley Victory was a foal of 1986, and was bred and sold as a yearling by New Jersey breeder Bill Weaver. He was a smallish, rather modest-looking yearling, which fetched a final bid of $60,000 from Arlene Traub. The colt was entrusted to the care of trainer Steve Elliott in the fall of 1987 to be prepared for the racing wars.

Valley Victory seemed beset with problems from the very earliest part of his training. He suffered from bouts with colic, and indeed, he had surgery in January of his two-year-old year to correct these intestinal problems. After surgery, his training did not resume until May, and he did not qualify until August at a time when many of the colts that were racing that year had already contested the Peter Haughton and several other major stakes. Before the end of the year, however, everyone in harness racing would be buzzing about the colt.

VALLEY VICTORY RACED ONLY 14 CAREER STARTS

He raced only seven times at two, and his first major debut was in an overnight event at The Red Mile. Racing for Bill O’Donnell, Valley Victory thundered through the Red Mile homestretch like an aged horse, wheeling the final quarter of an impressive victory in :27 2-5 seconds. Anyone who saw that performance from a colt with literally no racing experience came away convinced that the colt had more potential than any other trotter that season.

This exciting potential was realized later that fall in the Breeders Crown at Pompano Park, where Valley Victory set a world record for colts with a 1:58 1-5f score for O'Donnell. Valley Victory’s time was impressive, but the manner of his victory was dominating. It was convincing enough for the colt to be named Two Year Old Trotter of the Year with only seven starts and just a little over $225,000 earned.

Valley Victory was from the first crop of his sire, Baltic Speed, and together with the splendid filly champion Peace Corps, who also set a world record winning the companion Breeders Crown event for freshmen fillies, Valley Victory’s performance gave Baltic Speed a rare and exciting double. It was a major coup in the siring career of the young Speedy Somolli stallion to not only have two Breeders Crown winners from his first crop, but also for each of them to be world champions in the process.

Valley Victory immediately became the leading contender for three-year-old honors in 1989 and swept into the early part of his three-year-old season like a horse on a mission to atone for his missed opportunities at two. To say he was a dominant horse would be to put it mildly. Driver O’Donnell has said on more than one occasion that Valley Victory “…was so much the best, it did not really matter what you did during the course of the race. He was very easy to drive. You didn’t even have to think about where you were or what else was happening on the track. He was unbeatable and unbelievable. He was devastating.”

However, the real devastation was to befall his owner Arlene Traub, for after rampaging through his New Jersey Sires Stakes competition, and blitzing the field in the Yonkers Trot, Valley Victory fell ill virtually on the eve of the Hambletonian. A virus rolled through trainer Steve Elliott’s barn that year, virtually wiping out a stunning group of young trainees, including Valley Victory. Later that same week, Park Avenue Joe and Probe dead-heated in the raceoff of the Hambletonian, an event they surely would not even have reached a raceoff had Valley Victory been able to carry his pre-Hambletonian form into that race. Prior to the Hambletonian, Valley Victory made seven starts and won them all, bringing his two year total to 11 wins in just 14 lifetime starts, seven at two and seven at three. Valley Victory earned less than $500,000 and retired with a lifetime mark of 3,1:55 3-5, taken at the Meadowlands.

VALLEY VICTORY HAD WONDERFUL UNFULFILLED POTENTIAL

Recalling Valley Victory as a race horse, he was a somewhat smallish horse, but with a great body and substance. He also had a terrifically efficient gait and carriage, and he was able to devour huge chunks of racetrack with very little effort. He was low-headed, as are many of his offspring, and he had a very resolute nature to his racetrack presence. When he put his motor in gear, it was obvious that no trotter of his generation was his racetrack equal.

His exciting potential drew all sorts of proposals from the breeding community, and there were several deals pending on the horse at once during the latter part of that racing season. Finally, at Lexington that fall, a partnership was struck between prominent breeder George Segal and the late owner Tony Pedone to secure Valley Victory for stud duty. Pedone, unfortunately, never lived to see Valley Victory fulfill his faith in the young trotter as a potential sire of importance. Pedone was one of the most flamboyant owners of that time, but he also had terrific instincts about horses, and he knew how to make a deal. It was Pedone that was the catalyst for the deal, and when Segal entered the picture as well, there was little Arlene Traub could do to say no.

BREEDING PROBLEMS SURFACED EARLY

Valley Victory went to stud at Southwind Farms in New Jersey for the 1990 breeding season, with his first foals to reach the track in the spring of 1993. From the very beginning, Valley Victory experienced frustrating breeding problems. With some mares, he clicked automatically, but with some other mares, the results were very poor. This breeding pattern has continued to this day. It would be more correct to say that there is really no pattern at all to Valley Victory’s breeding woes. A remedy for his problems has been so hard to come by because the exact nature of his breeding difficulty has been difficult to pinpoint. One thing that is not difficult to calculate, however, is that Valley Victory, despite a very poor conception rate, has risen to a level of prominence in racing that few stallions, even the best of previous generations, could ever hope to aspire.

His very first crop of yearlings were well-received, and that first crop included the Hambletonian winner Victory Dream, one of the most courageous champions to ever set foot on an American raceway. Courage in a racehorse, the real, splendid, brave kind is a very rare commodity. Speed is everywhere in the breed, but real courage is still hard to find. Victory Dream had it. He also was a splendid, good-gaited and attractive animal, with one of the nicest heads ever seen on a Standardbred of any background. He was long barreled, had an efficient, but not overpowering gait, and a smart, willing racetrack persona. He was everyone’s choice for the Hambletonian that year, and he did not disappoint, winning for trainer Ronnie Gurfein and driver Mike Lachance.

PROBLEMS SOON RE-SURFACED FOR VICTORY DREAM

After the Hambletonian, a recurring ligament problem which had forced Victory Dream to stop racing at two after only five starts, surfaced again, and the colt did not start again until a full month later in the World Trotting Derby at Du Quoin. In the Hambletonian, he had met and defeated another precocious son of Valley Victory, the tiny, but iron-willed Bullville Victory. The pair splits heats of the World Trotting Derby, and then faced off in an exciting raceoff heat won by Bullville Victory. It was not the last time the two would meet in a demanding third heat of a trotting classic.

One month later, the two met again in the Kentucky Futurity at Lexington, splitting heats of the historic classic, and winding up in another dramatic third-heat raceoff. At Du Quoin, a month earlier, Victory Dream had cut the raceoff mile, with Bullville Victory scooting past him in the long Du Quoin stretch for catch-driver Bill Fahy. In the Futurity, Mike Lachance allowed Victory Dream to settle in behind Bullville Victory, this time driven by John Campbell, hoping to turn the tables on his tenacious foe. The stretch drive of that Futurity was a memorable one because it was very plain to anyone who saw the post parade for that third heat that Victory Dream was a very sore horse. Yet, he never wavered in his attempt to unseat Bullville Victory, straining against his injuries to produce a performance that earned him the lasting accolades of everyone who appreciates a great horse. If it was possible, Victory Dream may have won more points for raw courage that afternoon than did race winner Bullville Victory. Later that season, Victory Dream also gave it one final go in the Breeders Crown at Garden State Park, dropping a narrow decision to Incredible Abe while still racing at far below his earlier capacities. Victory Dream entered the stud at Walnut Hall, Ltd. and produced his first crop of two-year-olds in 1998.

VALLEY VICTORY NEVER LOOKED BACK, AND KEPT ON PRODUCING CHAMPIONS -- DONERAIL WAS NEXT

While Victory Dream was doing his thing, Valley Victory’s second group of two-year-olds hit the track, and this group included the Peter Haughton champion Donerail 2, 1:55 4-5 ($703,049.) Donerail, trained by the Hall of Fame trainer Stanley Dancer, had been a star yearling of the previous fall, and had been acquired by the late Bob Suslow. Even In training in Florida, Donerail was clearly one of the most precocious two-year-olds in history. In his gait and physical appearance, Donerail traveled and looked like Speedy Somolli, his paternal great grandsire. Donerail won 13 of 15 as a two-year-old, brandishing the kind of exciting speed reserved for only the elite of our breed. At three, an early season bout with illness robbed him of his form, and he was retired from racing in a manner eerily similar to his own sire. He made but six starts as a 3-year-old, but was far from the aggressive, accomplished colt of the previous season. An off-season deal between his two and three-year-old season had the colt headed for Hanover Shoe Farms, where he now commands the attention of breeders all over the trotting world. His first crop races in 1999, and there is great anticipation to see if they, too, will finally fulfill the splendid legacy of their sire.

Valley Victory’s third crop produced the wondrous Continentalvictory, and what is there left to say of this great filly that has not already been said or written? She set world records at two and three, won the fastest Hambletonian heats ever, won a Breeders Crown, the World Trotting Derby and most of the important stakes of her day. In the same crop which produced Continentalvictory, Valley Victory also gave us the Beacon Course winner Lindy Lane 3,1:53 and the gifted Act Of Grace 3,1:52 3-5. Never, in the entire history of the breed, had a single sire produced three 1:53 trotters in a single season. Valley Victory had clearly raised the water level again for his competitors.
For a follow-up act,

MOST RECENTLY, MUSCLES YANKEE AND A TRIO OF TOP TWO YEAR OLDS CARRY THE VALLEY VICTORY BANNER

Valley Victory produced the 1998 Three-Year-Old Trotter of the Year in Muscles Yankee 3,1:52.3, his fastest colt performer to date, and in between produced such notables as Peter Haughton winners Dancer’s Victory 2,1:57 and Yankee Glide 2,1:56 as well as the beautifully-bred Mr Vic 3,Q1:54.2., Dancer's Victory will have his first crop of racing two year olds in 1998, and the early training reports are excellent. In 1998, Valley Victory also produced the two-year-old filly stars Rum Boogie and Musical Victory, as well as the promising colt San Pellegrino, showing that Valley Victory has no plans to discontinue his strong siring record.

Valley Victory enjoys the status of a supersire not afforded any other stallion of his generation. His success as a sire is so far ahead of his current competition that it is not really a fair comparison. He is so far ahead, there is little or no debate. The only chink in this seemingly invincible armor is that his colts and fillies do not have the soundness that allows them a long and productive career. His average, high-profile performer makes an average of only 21 lifetime starts.

Valley Victory has now entered a stage in his stallion career where we are focusing not so much on his production, as that of his many accomplished sons. Victory Dream is his oldest, and there is every indication that this horse was meant to be a great one, as his first small crop produced the very good Grand Circuit colt star Self Possessed 2,1:55 4-5, as well as the reliable filly winner Softly Dream 2,1:57 4-5. There is great appeal to the Victory Dream offspring. Many of them have his own wonderful conformation and appearance, and seem to have also inherited some of his remarkable racetrack tenacity. Unfortunately, Victory Dream will be denied a lasting place in history, since he, too, has developed serious fertility problems that has all but ended his promising career.

One of the most interesting angles to the study of the Valley Victory male line is the factor of the so-called “forward bred” status these offspring enjoy. Like many of our great sires, Valley Victory descends from Peter The Great. However, there are ten generations of sires that separate Valley Victory from Peter The Great, who was foaled in 1895. By way of comparison, Supergill, a siring contemporary, is only six generations removed from Peter The Great. The idea of a sire being “forwardly bred” is the notion that the greater the number of generations removed from the founding father, the greater the opportunity to produce faster and better horses. In this example, it is clear that Valley Victory and his sons have a clear advantage if you subscribe to that theory.

The problem with this, of course, is that one of the main criticisms is the level of unsoundness in the Valley Victory offspring, and what factor this will play as we move forward into the new Millennium. It is the only blemish on Valley Victory’s record, and we will simply have to see how it plays out with so many of his sons afforded wonderful opportunities in the stud.

Donerail, Lindy Lane, Mr Vic, Yankee Glide and now Muscles Yankee have been or will be given the opportunity to extend the wonderful legacy of this prepotent sire line. We are not about to predict what interesting twists and turns we will experience in the next decade. Which, if any, of these sons, will emerge as the sire to extend this line? We are not about to offer a prediction on that one either, since all four of these horses have nearly the same pedigree. All four are by Valley Victory and from Speedy Crown dams. Lindy Lane, Mr Vic and Muscles Yankee are bigger than either Donerail or Yankee Glide, and Lindy Lane and Mr Vic always looked more like Speedy Crown than any of Valley Victory’s other successful sons. Yet, Lindy Lane was a step from winning the fastest Hambletonian ever, and has a wonderful, wide opportunity with Hanover Shoe Farms’ mares, and those of their patrons. More importantly, each of these stallions has not evidenced any serious breeding problems. All have handled books of well over 100 mares with high conception rates. These are good signs for a sire line where fertility has become an important issue.