My Charmer: A Good Racehorse but a Brilliant Broodmare

Among the five stakes races at Gulfstream Park Dec. 12 is the My Charmer Stakes for fillies and mares 3 years old and up at 1 1/16 miles on the turf. Most often, stakes named for horses honor those whose race records have deemed them memorable enough to be remembered: the Beldame (G2), the Rachel Alexandra (G2), the Zenyatta are among the many races named for outstanding distaffers. Like Churchill Downs' La Troienne (G1), the My Charmer Stakes does not fall within that criteria, honoring instead a career in the paddocks rather than on the track. It's not that My Charmer didn't have above-average racing success. Bred by Ben Castleman and Martin Fiege at Castleman's White Horse Acres Farm in Kentucky, My Charmer was a durable if not consistent runner. She raced for Castleman and at 2 started 18 times from February to October all around the Midwest circuit. She broke her maiden in her ninth start, a May 5 claiming event for $7,500 at Arlington International Racecourse, and added a pair of claiming wins at Hawthorne before moving to Kentucky, where she finished fourth twice at Keeneland in allowance company. My Charmer started her sophomore season at Fair Grounds Racecourse and Slots, where March winds from across Lake Pontchartrain blew more favorable results. Facing 10 other 3-year-old fillies in the seventh edition of the Fair Grounds Oaks, My Charmer, trained by Larry Robideaux and ridden by Larry Melancon, settled in third for the early furlongs before Melancon steered her out of the pocket to position her for a stretch challenge. Inside the final sixteenth, she moved up to catch the leader, Color Me Blue, and post a one-length score. It was her only stakes victory. My Charmer raced eight more times, winning once more, a $25,000 claiming race at Arlington. She retired to Castleman's farm with six wins and six placings from 32 starts and $34,133 in earnings. Even more important than the black type that would catch the eye on the catalog page, My Charmer had a pedigree that set the glands drooling, for it combined inbreeding to two of the most significant broodmares in American pedigrees: Frizette and La Troienne. Her dam, Fair Charmer (Jet Action), carried a 5x4 inbreeding to Frizette's daughter Frizeur through Jet Action, whose sire, Jet Pilot, is a tail-female great-grandson of Frizeur. Fair Charmer's dam, 1948 champion 2-year-old filly Myrtle Charm, is a great granddaughter of Frizeur through champion Myrtlewood. Fair Charmer's mating with Poker (Round Table) brought inbreeding to La Troienne's daughter Baby League through Striking, the granddam of Poker, and champion Busher, the dam of Jet Action. While this depth of pedigree might not have manifested itself on the track, it certainly did in her second career. My Charmer's first foal is 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew (Bold Reasoning). The multiple Eclipse Award winner led all other North American sires in 1984 and was twice leading broodmare sire. He sired 114 stakes winners from 783 starters (14.6%). As if a classic winner in the States weren't enough, My Charmer added a European classic winner with her Northern Dancer son, Lomond, who won the English Two Thousand Guineas (G1) in 1983. To boot, My Charmer holds a record of her own. In 1985, her bay son by English Triple Crown winner Nijinsky II sold for a still-world-record sale price of $13.1 million at the Keeneland July sale. Racing for a group of partners that included Robert Sangster, Vincent O'Brien, Susan Magnier, and Stavros Niarchos, Seattle Dancer won a pair of group 2 stakes in an abbreviated career. She also foaled stakes winner Argosy (Affirmed).