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SWEET ON ME:2 B f Sweet Lou - Adore Me

OWNERS: Paul & Mary Kenny, Charlie Roberts

BREEDER: Charlie Roberts

TIME: 2:24.7 Mile Rate: 1-57.5 Last 800m: 57.4 Last 400m: 27.6

Sweet On Me was able to emulate the deeds of her mother in winning herself a Diamond.

In doing so she became just the second ever progeny of a former Jewels winner to win a Jewel of their own.

Pocaro and Missandei were the first to reach this remarkable milestone, meaning Sweet On Me and her champion mother can lay claim to being the first pacing duo to achieve the feat.

Paul Kenny, son in law of the legendary Charlie Roberts was in awe of the daughter of Sweet Lou.

“This is the stuff of dreams, for it to happen so quickly from Adore Me’s first foal is just so wonderful, particularly for Charles. I personally believe this is the bravest horse he has ever bred,” said Kenny.

“When the filly started racing, you dream about what might be, but to have a season like this fulfilled every dream.



”“Mark and I texted backwards and forwards this morning on a couple of things, and my comment to him was it was all credit to them as horsemen and women and to Charles’ breeding knowledge.

”Bad health means Charles is no longer able to travel on raceday, but you can bet your bottom dollar he was glued to his TV watching as alluded to by Paul post-race in his interview. Adore Me’s exploits need little introduction having capped her resume with a New Zealand Cup among her twelve Group One wins here and in Australia.

It was a performance across the ditch however that confirmed her as the greatest female pacer ever produced in New Zealand.

She became the fastest mare in the world . . . yes, the world-breaking a record set by Somwherovrarainbow at Pocono Downs in the US in 2014 at 1:48 with a record-breaking 1:47.7 victory in the Cordina Chicken Farms Ladyship Mile, smashing the Australasian record of Smoken Up’s record by eight-tenths of a second also.

Initial plans for Adore Me to be served by Christian Cullen were halted by fertility issues, and Plan B was put into action, giving new stallion on the books Sweet Lou a date with destiny.

“When we talked about our next stallion at Woodlands, we wanted a stallion that was high class, and fast. Sweet Loumet that criteria in that he was a fast juvenile as well as an aged horse. He met all the criteria.”

“His female line crossed well with Bettor’s Delight, and we recognized the reality that a lot the mares he was going to get, certainly the ones that we were going to be sending were going to be by Bettor’s Delight also.”

“We decided between Mary, Charles and I that out of loyalty to Ian Dobson and particularly Christian Cullen as a proven horse, we would give him at least one go. We had come to realise his fertility the previous season wasn’t particularly good, and when she didn’t hold the first-time round, it made it easy to send him to Sweet Lou.”

“It was a big call to go to what was a first season sire, but she was one that we had a lot of confidence in and had spent a lot of money to secure, so we were very happy to back up our judgement by sending our best mare.

”How much of the successful mating is to do with the sire as much as it is to do with the mother is impossible to gauge. We know the dam brings 50% of the genetics to the table, however Sweet Lou has been off to a fantastic start in Australasia as well as North America.

Sweet Lou has had a fantastic 25% foals to qualifiers in New Zealand with three individual winners from nine starters to sit second behind Bettor’s Delight on the two-year-old sires list of stake earnings.

His pedigree is such that he is an outcross for almost any broodmare in the country.

While we are becoming more familiar with him as a sire, it is interesting to look at the below excerpt from Bee Pears B4breeding.com blog (which we all miss!) about him.

The top half of his pedigree

Sweet Lou. He’s from the Artsplace siring line, which is currently really only represented commercially here by Art Major and Sportswriter, with Grinfromeartoear and his sons in minor supporting role. Interestingly with Sweet Lou the Artsplace sire line is coming via Artiscape who is a sire we tried lightly and couldn’t relate to much in New Zealand (a bit better in Australia and still commercial in North America) in spite of him having a pedigree that would have suited our mares. At the time I think many breeders found the smaller lighter types he often produced just not what buyers wanted, regardless of their potential ability, and we quickly lost the faith.

The immediate sire of Sweet Lou is Yankee Cruiser who is even less familiar to us – he was a very consistent race performer finishing on the board in 26 of 35 career starts, winning $1,150,123. He established his lifetime mark of 1:49.3s in winning the $1 million North America Cup. But he was probably one of those very good performers that was slightly off the radar downunder. Sweet Lou and the filly Darena Hanover are by far his best performers to date, but he’s no slug in his Ohio siring barn. He had two yearlings in the very recent Lexington Sale, a colt who sold for a good $42,000 and a filly who went for just $10,000. Yankee Cruiser’s damsire is Jate Lobell whose presence as an “engine room” damsire is now almost a requirement of top pedigrees, and back further in Yankee Cruiser’s maternal line the presence of Poplar Byrd, who also pops up in the pedigree of Artiscape.

The bottom half of his pedigree

So now a look at Sweet Lou’s maternal line – it is one of those that has a good foundation and seems to be getting better, but it still flies well below the highly commercial, well known families and branches like Golden Miss, K Nora, Romola Hal, Breath O Spring et al. On his damsire line the mares all have really good records for their day, not spectacular perhaps, but solid times and really good earnings. Starting with his damsire line – his dam Sweet Future is a Falcon’s Future mare. So he brings the familiar Falcon Seelster elements in here, but Falcon Future’s damline has not really kicked on apart from his great-grandam Dell

Siskiyou’s daughter Gogo Playtime, who turned out to also be the great-grandam of No Nukes and TMI. Many other branches have been a lot weaker. Of course if you go back further than Dell Siskiyou, you see Falcon Future’s maternal line is the family of Roya McKinney/Princess Royal and then Estabella and Jessie Pepper.

Sweet Lou’s grandam Sweet Darhlin was a well-performed race filly by Nero. Again, Nero is not a sire that we find much in our siring line or mare’s lines these days. Yet he brings a lot to the party, including another dose of Poplar Byrd and a strong liking for Adios blood. By the by, there is a branch of Nero’s family that we do know well, and that is through his half-sister Skipper’s Romance. Amongst the descendants in New Zealand are the families of Smooth Ice (dam of Classy Filly) and also Sokys Legend (dam of Bit Of A Legend). Nero was pretty much an outcross sire himself, the two closest double ups were a 4×4 to Volomite and 4×4 to Billy Direct. One of his sons, Nero’s B B stood here as a sire for 5 years from 1984 and left over 600 live foals, some of the best being Bee Bee Cee, Neroship, Nevermore and Nutwood. But would I see Nero’s B B being relevant to which mare I put to Sweet Lou? To be honest its quite a long bow to draw.

Sweet Lou’s great-grandam Fly Fly Darhlin is a daughter of Fly Fly Byrd who is a siring son of Poplar Byrd. Yes, that’s the fourth link to Poplar Byrd in Sweet Lou’s pedigree.

The strength in Sweet Lou’s pedigree is undoubtedly his maternal line.

His half-brother by Bettor’s Delight won over $2,000,000 in stakes.

His half-sister, Sweet Lady Jane (Somebeachsomewhere) has left the stakes winning filly Youaremycandygirl by American ideal.

His other half-sister Sweet Paprika by Artiscape has left last seasons boom two-year-old in Captain Crunch (Captaintreacherous) who was good enough to pace 1:49 as a juvenile and win the Breeders Crown. Enough to see him crowned Two-Year-old of the Year.
His first run back at three was run in 1:48 with the plugs still in on a slushy track which suggests if he continues on his current projection, he could well be Captaintreacherous’ first son at stud next season.

Sweet Lou himself was good enough to finish third in money earned in his juvenile season in North America and is the sire of nine $100,000 earners. 45 already in 1:55 or better.

The best of his progeny in America like Sweet On Me is a filly in Warawee Ubeaut who is out of the Apaches Fame mare Great Memories. She was the fastest two-year-old pacer in North America last season winning filly of the year after her impressive Breeders Crown victory took her stakes earnings to north of $650,000.

Sweet Lou is known for stamping his progeny with a blaze, however while Sweet On Me failed to inherit this trait she has definitely inherited his juvenile speed, remembering Adore Me never raced at two herself.

“Adore Me has been the perfect mother, she has been great in raising all of her foals thus far,” said Kenny.

“Sweet On Me was a beautiful looking individual, very striking and in many ways the spitting image of her mother.

”As much Adore Me was a freak on the track, the deeds of great race mares have not always transpired to the breeding barn.

Delightful Lady couldn’t get in foal from four attempts spanning seven seasons.

Bonnies Chance had two to the races from eight live foals for a single race win as a broodmare.

Armalight wasn’t much better from her 10 foals but did produce the tail lines of millionaire Ohoka Punter.

Hilarious Guest only had four to the races from 15 foals.

Time will tell whether Adore Me will be more of a Blossom Lady than Mainland Banner in the broodmare barn, but given her pedigree and strength of the maternal family developed by Charles Roberts, you would have to think that Sweet On Me is far from a flash in a pan, particularly given the current yearling filly is said to be better.

“We are not getting ahead of ourselves there,” said Kenny.

“We know in racing that a lot of things can happen and Mary and I, as well as Mark and his team like to take things one day at a time,” he said.

Not a bad adage given the hiccups that can occur with breeding standardbreds. Something the Kenny’s had to endure recently when the DNA sample for the Somebeachsomewhere weanling from Adore Me returned quite the surprise.

“The DNA came back that Somebeachsomewhere was not the father, and that we would have to do quite an advanced test to see who the sire could in fact be. The foal is gorgeous and that helped keep the tensions down, but looking at the head it was the spitting image of Captaintreacherous in his photographs.

“The tests returned he was in fact the father. It’s quite fortunate because at the time, he was in a very dangerous year being his third season at stud but fortunately it has all worked out for the best,” said Kenny.

While a Somebeachsomewhere filly would have been great given his sudden passing last season, it’s hardly a bad outcome highlighting where the fortunes are right now.

“We are just blessed to be enjoying this wonderful ride,” said Kenny.

And if the rumours are true about Adore Me’s second foal, Darling Me, that ride might get a whole lot sweeter.

Credit: Brad Reid

Dream About Me further cemented her status as the queen of New Zealand harness racing with a crushing win in the Group 1 New Zealand Standardbred Breeders Stakes at Addington on Friday night.

The Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen-trained millionaire ran her rivals in to the deck to claim her eighth top level title in the $100,000 feature.

The win sealed an incredible evening for the wonder mare’s owners, Aucklanders Charles Roberts and Paul and Mary Kenny.

The father, daughter and son-in-law also enjoyed success at Alexandra Park when Adore Me’s first foal, Sweet On Me, won her debut.

The blueblood two-year-old filly registered the second New Zealand victory for sire, Sweet Lou, who stands at Roberts’ Woodlands Stud.

The stallion’s first New Zealand win came earlier in the night, when the Purdon and Rasmussen-trained two-year-old, Virgil, scored in maiden company.

Paul Kenny said his family’s success at both ends of the country made for an incredible evening.

“It was a big deal for us with Sweet Lou, we have invested a lot in the Southern Hemisphere rights for Sweet Lou and to have a colt and a filly win tonight, on the eve of the yearling sales, is just enormous for us through our connection with Woodlands.

“It is a big celebration all around.”

Kenny said his camp were hopeful, but not overly confident, about Dream About Me’s chances of turning around her below-par effort at Addington in the Premier Mares Championship at Addington two weeks ago.

“I think knowing the horse – and we had a talk to Mark and Natalie and we had a talk to Tim after she last raced – we were hopeful.

“It was great to see her do that at Addington.”

The Kennys shared their good fortune by donating $500 to Harness Racing New Zealand’s teal campaign after Dream About Me’s win.

Driver Tim Williams made Dream About Me’s rivals work to beat her when applying pressure in the back straight the final time.

And they were simply not up to the task.

“Especially over 2600m tonight, I wanted to make sure that I had everyone off the bridle at the 500.

“And credit to the horse, she was able to do it.

“She was out of the early burn and she was able to catch her breath early and work in to the race nicely and she was good enough to take advantage.”

While Williams and Dream About Me were about to ramp up the pressure from the half-mile, her stablemate Elle Mac was dropping out of contention.

The hot favourite produced the shock of the race when struggling to keep up when starting the last lap of the race.

Driver Natalie Rasmussen was forced to ease Elle Mac out of contention after the tube of one of her sulky wheels came off its rim.

Stewards found that was caused by Dream About Me hitting the wheel, when racing fiercely earlier in the race.

The win was Williams’ 13th at Group 1 level and fourth with Dream About Me over a period of nearly four years.

Williams was quite clear about how he rates the star mare’s impact on his career after their win.

“I think other than my family, she might be the next love of my life.”

Visiting Auckland mare Step Up ran on better than any other horse back in the field to run second to Dream About Me.

Enchantee took inside runs to grab third.

Credit: NZ Harness News, 16 Feb 2019