Claiborne sire BLAME is currently ranked the leading 3rd-crop sire… both in the sales ring AND on the racetrack. With 11 lifetime Graded Stakes Horses, Blame ranks #1 among his crop. And his commercial appeal is just as strong as his proclivity to produce black-type runners. Again, among 3rd-crop stallions, Blame stands atop the list in the public auction arena, ranked #1 by both sales average and median.
Most recently, Blame has been represented well by his talented daughter QUEEN CAROLINE. A three-year-old filly out of the Forestry mare Queens Plaza, she was bred in Virginia by Morgan’s Ford Farm. She was catalogued as Hip 179 in Keeneland’s 2014 September Sale and purchased by Amy Moore for $170,000. It was the first racehorse she ever purchased.
Sent to trainer Michael Matz, Queen Caroline got off to a rough start. In her two-year-old bow at Saratoga, she broke slow and finished last in a field of 10 lead by Tap To It, who would finish runner-up in the Grade 1 Spinaway less than three weeks later.
To begin her three-year-old campaign, Queen Caroline completed a pair of runner-up efforts against maidens at Gulfstream and Keeneland. Then, she found her groove. On May 21st at Pimlico, she broke her maiden going 1 1/16 miles on the turf. At this point, trainer Michael Matz readied his filly for stakes competition.
Queen Caroline responded well, handily defeating her contemporaries in the Nellie Mae Cox Stakes over the same track where she had broke her maiden just a month prior.
She had won two in a row entering the starting gate of the one mile turf TaWee Stakes. Racing inside, she went three wide down the stretch and prevailed by nearly two lengths.
With momentum on her side, Matz entered Queen Caroline in the Indiana Grand Stakes Sept 7th. Once again she raced inside, vied three wide and overcame the leader to win by a length. It was her 4th win in a row and third in stakes company.