In her latest article tracing the descendants of the legendary Secretariat, Patricia McQueen notes the famous family line is set to be well represented at Churchill Downs
Leading third-crop sire Not This Time (by Giant’s Causeway) has two well-regarded sons headed to the Kentucky Derby on May 7 in the shape of Epicenter and Simplification.
Epicenter – ante-post favorite with European betting firms – took the Louisiana road to the Derby, winning the Risen Star and Louisiana Derby, while Simplification won the Fountain of Youth before finishing third as the favorite in the G1 Florida Derby.
Not This Time’s older half-brother Liam’s Map (by Unbridled’s Song) is currently ranked fifth on the list of leading fourth-crop sires, and already has four G1 winners to his credit, led by top grass runner Colonel Liam. A daughter of Liam’s Map, last year’s Darley Alcibiades winner Juju’s Map, could be a force in the three-year-old filly division this year.
The Secretariat connection
Obviously there’s a Secretariat connection to these two stallions, or they wouldn’t be the lead-in to a story in the Children of Secretariat series. Not This Time and Liam’s Map are both sons of the talented sprinting filly Miss Macy Sue, a multiple stakes winner who set a track record for six furlongs at Presque Isle Downs. She finished third in the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint in 2007.
The third dam of Miss Macy Sue is the Secretariat mare Tweak, a daughter of the incredible Tartan Stable runner Ta Wee. You would be hard pressed to find many mares bred to Secretariat who were more distinguished racetrack performers than that two-time champion sprinter.
One of John Nerud's finest: Remembering the remarkable Ta Wee
Ta Wee won 15 of 21 starts over three years. She won the unique Fall Highweight Handicap against the boys twice – the 1969 edition as a three-year-old carrying 130 pounds, and again the next year with a 140-pound burden.
That wasn’t even the most weight she ever carried – against her own sex, Ta Wee closed out her career with an easy win in the Interborough Handicap with a staggering impost of 142 pounds. Not surprisingly, Ta Wee ended up in racing’s Hall of Fame, where she joined her half-brother, the great Dr. Fager.
Ta Wee brought these credentials to her date with Secretariat in 1975, and the next spring at Tartan Farms in Florida, the mare produced a dark bay filly on April 9, 1976. Named Tweak, this filly began her racing career a little more than two years later in the barn of trainer John Nerud.
She raced five times on the New York circuit as a two-year-old, starting her career with a sixth-place finish at Saratoga on Aug. 21, 1978.
After two seconds that fall at Belmont Park, she broke her maiden in her fourth start. That was a one-mile maiden race at Aqueduct on Oct. 29, 1978, which she won by a neck as the race favorite. After a fourth in a Nov. 22 allowance race, Tweak was shelved until the following June.
She had her best year as a three-year-old in 1979, making the most of a six-month campaign, winning four of 11 appearances with two seconds. She got her only career stakes win that year and finished second in two others; with a little more luck, she could have been a multiple stakes winner.
Things didn’t start out very promising, however. Tweak was unplaced in her first three sprint starts after the layoff, but she suddenly turned it all around. Stretched out to 1 1/16 miles, the filly won an allowance race at Monmouth Park on Aug. 11, and made it two straight when winning a one-mile allowance at the same track on Aug. 23.
Stakes success
Next was her first stakes appearance, the second division of the Boiling Springs Stakes at the Meadowlands on Sept. 13. The 1 1/16-mile race was her first try on a turf course. Heavy favorite Gala Regatta won, but Tweak finished strongly to be just a length behind, dead-heating with Record Acclaim for the second spot.
On Oct. 1, she returned to the Meadowlands for the Fair Lawn Stakes. Originally scheduled for the turf, it was instead run on a sloppy main track at one mile. Regular rider Doug Thomas let her prompt the pace early while racing well outside. On the final turn, she gained the lead and drew away in the stretch to win by 3¼ lengths for the first and only stakes victory of her career.
Less than two weeks later, Tweak made a respectable run in the G2 Cotillion Stakes at Keystone Race Track (now Parx), a significant step up in class. She raced evenly while wide throughout, but weakened a bit to finish fourth in the 1 1/16-mile event. The winner that day, Alada, was also connected to Secretariat; she was Meadow Stable’s daughter of Riva Ridge out of Secretariat’s full-sister Syrian Sea.
Tweak had nothing but bad luck in the Honey Bee Stakes at the Meadowlands on Nov. 8, also at 1 1/16 miles. In the paddock before the race, she reared up and was very difficult to saddle.
A costly dropped whip
Once jockey Thomas got aboard she settled down and went out with her focus on racing. keeping close to the pace early before engaging leader Heavenly Ade through the stretch. The pair raced together, and then Thomas dropped his whip around the eighth pole. Heavenly Ade got the better of her rival, winning by three-quarters of a length. Three lengths behind was race favorite Jameela, who would become a multiple G1 winner.
Later, when talking about the race in Doug McCoy’s Daily Racing Form column, Thomas said that her pre-race exertion in the paddock had shifted the saddlecloth a bit. He explained that the filly was responding well to the whip in the stretch, but at one point the saddlecloth material “flipped around the stick and just pulled it right out of my hand. I’m not saying we were any cinch to keep Heavenly Ade from winning anyhow, but I’d still liked to have had the whip with me in the last part.”
Trainer Bob Papania, under whose tutelage Tweak raced throughout 1979, added: “The Honey Bee has to be one of her best races to date. She moved to the leaders like a good horse and never stropped trying to hold the winner back without the whip.”
He noted that longer distances made Tweak a better filly. “I know Ta Wee was thought of as basically a sprinter but this filly didn’t really start to come around until I ran her at a route.”
In the Miss Liberty Handicap at the Meadowlands on Nov. 21, her third straight run at 1 1/16 miles, Tweak faced another royally-bred Secretariat stakes winner, Six Crowns. While neither filly won, Six Crowns finished second to Skipat, while Tweak raced wide and finished fifth.
Back in allowance company for a confidence booster, and shortened to six furlongs, Tweak won at Aqueduct on Dec. 7. Carrying jockey Angel Cordero Jr., the filly won by a length and three-quarters on a muddy track.
After that effort, she was off until the following May. Now in trainer Jan Nerud’s barn, she was kept busy in 1980, but didn’t have the same spark that she had as a three-year-old. Tweak won just two of 12 starts, and only faced stakes company once, finishing fourth in the Saddlebrook Stakes at the Meadowlands on Sept. 18.
Her 1980 victories were a pair of consecutive allowance races at seven furlongs. On Aug. 17 at Saratoga, she won by a neck over G1 winner Mongo Queen, then had an easier time of it at Belmont Park on Sept. 6, when she wore down multiple graded-stakes winner Lady Lonsdale to win by a length and a half going away. Frank Lovato Jr. was aboard for both wins.
After the Saddlebrook, Tweak made four more starts, all at Aqueduct, with two seconds and a fourth before ending her career with a third on Nov. 29.
In total, she won seven of 28 starts, with four seconds and three thirds, for earnings of $148,597. She was retired to the Tartan broodmare band.
A prolific producer
Unlike her dam Ta Wee, whose broodmare career was cut short by an untimely early death at age 14, Tweak produced a remarkable 18 foals. Perhaps even more remarkably, 17 of them made it to the races, with 14 winning at least once. Even her last foal Streamline, born when the mare was 25 in 2001, won three races.
Tweak was sold at the Tartan dispersal in November 1987, bringing $365,000 in foal to Roberto. In 1996, she was sold again; as a 20-year-old broodmare without any stakes horses among her foals, she brought $65,000 in foal to Crafty Prospector. There was one more sale, this time for just $25,000 in 2000, and the resulting foal by Real Quiet was the winner Streamline. Tweak died in 2001.
Despite all the winners, it was disappointing that none of her foals developed into stakes winners – but the family class eventually showed up through several of her daughters. The most important was her first foal Stem, a winner of one race in 11 starts. Descending from Stem’s female line are at least 10 black-type stakes winners through three generations, including the aforementioned Miss Macy Sue.
Stem produced two stakes winners herself, Reporter and Dinner Affair, but it’s through her unplaced daughter Yada Yada that the Ta Wee and Dr. Fager blood started reasserting itself.
Yada Yada produced 13 foals and every one of them made it to the races, with 11 winners; Miss Macy Sue was her fourth foal. After the mare was later sent to Saudi Arabia, Yada Yada produced G1 winner Alnajim Almodeea, who was that country’s champion three-year-old in 2011.
As for Miss Macy Sue, in addition to Not This Time and Liam’s Map, she produced the stakes winners Matera and Taylor S; they were all by different stallions. Other daughters of Tweak also have black-type winners among their descendants, and there may be more to come from this family.
Regardless, the two young stallions who started this discussion have promising futures that keep yet another daughter of Secretariat in today’s pedigrees, even though she’s a few generations back.
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