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Champion Dirt Sprinter

K'S STORM MAKER

5yo Horse - Empire Maker x Storm Cat x Mr. Prospector

OWNER/TRAINER – Wreckagees (Ledwith)

RECORD: 2009: 8 / 6-0-0
LIFETIME EARNINGS: $2,056,608

2009 Stakes:

WON: The Foregone (G1), The Juan Eduardo Cruz (G1), The No More Mistakes, The Commonwealth (G2), The Strong Leader (G3), The Great King Rat Challenge

 

From Ordinary To Extraordinary

By- Cvbear

It's hard to breed a sprinter. They usually come from the more unlikely sources, like putting together three sires in a pedigree that should be able to run a mile and three-quarters on the dirt. Then, even if you wind up with a sprinter through traditional means, getting them to fire at the highest level of competition with success is pretty tough in itself. But if you're lucky, all the pieces fall into place in short order, and if you're even halfway talented, you can get your horse to ride the wave as far as it will take you.

This is the story of a horse who just made sense across the board in 2009. His name?

K's Storm Maker . He was talented enough to surge into the top echelon of Sim sprinters in 2008, and his momentum has carried him into the pantheon of champions, as 2009's top dirt sprinter. His trainer, wreckagees, operating as part of the Pompeya Thoroughbred Racing Corporation for main message board regular Ledwith, worked wonders with this year's champion, peeling off six wins in a row during 2009, including three consecutive Grade I victories.

A scratch-bred colt, it should be noted that his pedigree isn't as cynical as I laid out earlier. While Empire Maker is his sire, a horse noted for his ability to win classic races like the 2003 Belmont Stakes as well as other popular routes such as the Florida Derby, the fact that the stallion is a solid and productive member of the Mr. Prospector line hints at some potential for speed and some sprinters. Combine his precociousness with the traditional home run of a Storm Cat x Mr. Prospector cross at the bottom of his pedigree, and it makes his sprinting qualities a fascinating notion. And as it has turned out, the pedigree has been magical for short distances in this case. It didn't start out that way, however.

K's Storm Maker started out with a fair bang, earning a maiden win in the slop two days before Christmas in 2006. The speed figure of 74 was pretty modest, even for a two-year-old colt, but the wet conditions were a reasonable explanation for the end result. The promise he showed would get better quickly with a second the next time out, in February 2007 in an entry-level allowance at seven furlongs. He closed from almost nine lengths out to finish only beaten a length and a half, which established his future modus operandi for his career achievements. But the boost, from slop to fast track, from a 74 to a 93, certainly added to his potential luster. Yet it took approximately five months before the next growth spurt into world-class form took place.

The balance of 2007 was spent racing over Japan's racing strip, and the typical experimentation a trainer does with his stock was well underway. Ledwith stretched him out to a mile, without much luck at all. A turf experiment went a little better for the colt, but not enough to finish better than third. Yet after Led went back to what the horse had done best, sprinting, the experiments finally bore some fruit. Between May and September 2007, K's Storm Maker won four of his next five starts, at both six and a half furlongs and seven furlongs, with his speed figures going from a rather common 89, improving to 94, then 102, then 103 (in his only defeat in that stretch), peaking finally at 112 when clearing his final allowance condition in September. It was a meteoric rise through the ranks, and the horse had shown enough potential to take the next step and make his stakes debut at Hong Kong in November, a seven and a half furlong affair called the Gonta's Slew Bonanza. Traiter, a horse also making his stakes debut in the race, took command of the field after a quarter-mile, opening up by five lengths as they turned for home, but K's Storm Maker made a furious rally and cut the deficit to an ever-decreasing half-length before crossing the line a game second. It was an auspicious stakes debut, and not even a flat follow-up effort in another stakes race in Spain just before New Year's Eve 2007 could stem the apparent momentum.

2008 dawned with another stakes attempt, in China's Pro Sword Memorial, a seven-furlong race that saw six stakes winners enter the gate, including a pair of graded winners, Doctor Speight and Lifeforce. Sent off at 9-1, K's Storm Maker had some support, and when they opened the gate, the horse made himself virtually invisible, dropping back to twelfth, more than eight lengths back. But then, the late kick that he had been developing into a weapon was unleashed. Still eleventh turning for home, he picked off the leaders one by one, took the lead late, and drew off in the shadow of the wire for a length and a quarter victory. The 108 speed figure proved his mettle against strong opposition, and set the stage for the rest of his career to date. After he couldn't follow up the win in his next start, a shorter, six and a half furlong stakes where he was game, yet seventh, the focus was changed for K's Storm Maker: only seven furlong races would do. It was a strategy that began to see results instantly, when he stepped up to his first graded race, the Grade II Kentucky BB Sprint, and, in spite of spotting the field more than 13 lengths, rallied furiously to get third in his April 2008 graded debut. The formula in place, he proceeded to go on a winning streak. He took the Grade II Bluegrass Sprint on the Bluegrass Derby undercard for his first graded win, and followed it up with a victory in Spain's Grade II Si' Amigo Sprint Stakes in June. His marquee win in '08, though, was his Grade I run in the The Smokey Project Memorial at China in July, his first Grade I triumph. It fulfilled every bit of promise he began to show at 3, and his trainer, undoubtedly proud, decided to leave the Sim wanting more, keeping him on a conservative schedule for the remainder of 2008; he ran three more times, all in small, listed stakes, and won two of those outings. He finished the year having won six of nine races, all wins at seven furlongs, and better things awaited the next year for K's Storm Maker.

2009 started off in the same low-profile fashion as he ended the previous year, in listed events to keep him sharp. His January 17 debut was his first race in two months, and the rust showed more than was intended, when he rallied from more than ten lengths out, only to fall a length and a half short in Montana's Seven River Cap. He didn't disgrace himself at all, finishing behind winner Saint Alley, graded victor De Fu and stakes winner Hellbilly, and yet it was a slow way to return from a layoff. Despite that effort, there were no excuses offered, and as it would turn out for the next ten months, he didn't need any excuses.

Now back in a routine, his form began to return, and also started to advance higher than ever before. He would win another listed stakes in South Carolina, showing his class by hanging much closer to the pace than had been the norm for him, then taking over at will for a two-length victory versus another solid batch of opponents. And Ledwith, sufficiently satisfied that the low-profile approach to his horse's schedule had made him fit again, started to let the horse challenge himself again. The next start would be the Grade II Commonwealth at Eastern Kentucky, versus the strongest field he had faced since 2008's graded slate of races. He again fell back to twelfth, about ten lengths from the pacesetters, and he waited. He moved early, though, to snake through the field and cut the deficit to about five lengths by the time they were turning for home, and when the leaders had sufficiently weakened, he took over, and he drew away, winning his first graded race in nine lengths by just under two lengths. The Storm Maker was back, on top of his game once again. And having turned into a long-sprint specialist, he would begin to dominate.

K's Storm Maker was kept in Eastern Kentucky into the early summer, Ledwith preferring the home cooking the track had begun to provide in terms of the stakes events coming their way. The next start was the Grade I No More Mistakes at the end of May, which drew a stellar field for another $500,000 purse. He let them get away with a lead of almost twelve lengths, and as usual, he began to slice and dice the deficit in the latter stages, remaining about eight lengths in the hole into the stretch, before using that exceptional late kick to take the lead late and pull away to another win of a length and a half. K's Storm Maker never seemed to leave much margin for error, but what he did always was consistent, letting the tactical speed go through their paces before kicking hard and closing strong in the lane. Lots of horses have strong late kicks, but to rely on that strong late rally each time in a sprint showed tremendous fortitude, and that kind of heart led him to continue his winning ways at Eastern Kentucky, next time in July's Grade I Juan Eduardo Cruz. The pace was a touch more modest, the deficit to overcome a relatively modest ten-length gap, but with workmanlike precision, once more he started his magic, entering the stretch six lengths out and finishing with a victory margin of a length and a half. K's Storm Maker was becoming darn near unbeatable at seven furlongs, and he seemed to love Eastern Kentucky.

The next logical step in his 2009 campaign was to go where the big races were, which meant Ledwith put him on the road to upstate New York. The late-summer Grade I Foregone featured stars galore, including another meeting against the talented 2008 Eclipse Champion Dirt Sprinter Mr Toms River NJ. Their paths had crossed before, back in the spring of 2008, and each time K's Storm Maker came out slightly ahead: the Storm Maker was third, and Tom fourth, in the Kentucky BB Sprint, then K got the upper hand when they finished 1-2 in the Bluegrass Sprint. But they hadn't met since then, and by this time Tom had taken the Breeders Bowl Sprint en route to his championship, and become one of the more imposing sprinters around. When the King of Seven meets an Eclipse champion, who would budge, and who would roll?

K's Storm Maker rolled. First he had to endure a ten-length deficit. Then he had to negotiate traffic, as the large, full field of graded winners provided stumbling blocks to the lead, and by the stretch he still needed to close six more lengths. But in the lane, he still found more, and stuck all the right notes en route to another hard-earned length and a half win, defeating the defending Sprint champion who had given way late and wound up ninth. Above all else, with a career-best speed figure of 119 for the Foregone, he produced the best speed figure at seven furlongs in the Sim in 2009. This was his fourth graded win in a row, all at seven furlongs, and there seemed little doubt as to his dominance against the division at that distance. Following up the Foregone was another stakes win in New York, in the Grade III Strong Leader, his final victory of the season and one where he closed from more than ten lengths out to win by 2. Even though in December he tossed in an uncharacteristic middling effort in the Grade I Ireneo Leguisamo on his favored Eastern Kentucky oval to wrap up 2009, finishing fifth behind the talented Tabasco Physics, by the end of the year, the King Of Seven had been crowned.

K's Storm Maker won six races in eight starts in 2009, and produced three of the ten top speed figures at seven furlongs in the Sim in 2009. He captured three Grade I's, a Grade II , and a Grade III stakes race, all in a row in the heart of the 2009 campaign, and defeated some of the finest sprinters in the Sim en route to being one of the best long sprinters the Sim has seen at some time. In a Sim where a lot of the time it takes an extensive series of tests, trial and error just to find the right conditions under which a horse can go from ordinary to extraordinary, Ledwith is to be congratulated for his handling of a fine horse, and the Eclipse Award winner for Top Dirt Sprinter of 2009, K's Storm Maker.