Sonic By Name, Sonic By Nature…

Good morning all,

I'm delighted that Caroline has written her first full piece for the Daily Punt today, and it's a case of her first true love! I hope you find it as enjoyable as I did to read, and I'm already looking forward to her next article! You'll find it on today's main piece.

Sonic by Name, Sonic by Nature

Good morning all,

Firstly I hope you all continue to keep safe and well in these difficult times. We are another week into lockdown and, on a more trivial level, without our beloved racing to sustain us. I fear we have a fair few more of these to go before at least that level of normality is restored; meanwhile we continue to try and make the best of it.

As you can see, I have managed to make it past week one on the writing front: a minor triumph! Thank you all for the lovely response to my initial offering last week, here in the comments and on Twitter. This was both unexpected and very kind, as well as suitably encouraging to the amateur scribe. Some really interesting thoughts and anecdotes in those comments too, which I plan on returning to for some future articles. So thanks also for the inspiration!

However, for my first foray down memory lane I feel it’s only appropriate we begin with a horse who was very significant in my racing history. Anyone who follows me on Twitter will be unsurprised to hear that this is Sonic Lady. Not only was she good enough to be crowned champion miler of Europe in her 3yo season, she was significantly responsible for me developing a monumental and all-consuming crush on her jockey, Walter Swinburn, which sustained me throughout my teenage years!

I don’t have access to Sonic Lady’s full race record, it’s too long ago for the Racing Post archive sadly, but she is somewhat synonymous with the Post as she featured on the front cover of their very first print edition in the spring of 1986 (see pic below). This coincided with her eagerly-awaited 3yo debut in the Nell Gwyn Stakes, in which she duly scooted up, racing prominently before quickening clear in the style of a high class filly.

After this she was a hot favourite for the 1,000 Guineas but this proved to be a rare reverse on her CV that year. Her keenness got the better of her, she got worked up beforehand, pulled far too hard in the early stages and was collared late in the piece by both Midway Lady, the subsequent Oaks winner, and her lesser-fancied stablemate Maysoon. Their superior stamina trumped her speed that day but one felt that her connections hadn’t lost any faith in her ability. They just needed to find a way to better harness it.

I think this is where the genius of the Stoute/Swinburn partnership was brought to bear on Sonic Lady’s career. That year the yard at Beech Hurst boasted an embarrassment of riches, including among her stablemates the likes of G1 winners Shahrastani, Shardari, Green Desert, Untold, Colorspin and the 2yo Ajdal, but you always had the impression she was #1 in the pecking order, at least among the fillies. When “Stumpy” (as I believe she was known in the stable, somewhat unflatteringly – taken from her dam’s name Stumped!) reappeared in the Irish 1,000 Guineas, she was sporting a very unusual bridle. I have seen this referred to as both a “Northern Perfection” and a “Citation” bridle, presumably after the US horses who sported it successfully before. But it was pretty much an unknown in Europe and, to be honest, I’m not sure I’ve seen one used since either. How Sir Michael had found it I’ve no idea, but it worked the oracle on his headstrong charge. Combined with Swinburn’s famed good hands, it helped her to preserve enough energy to last out the mile at the Curragh and avenge her Newmarket defeat, winning comfortably.

Now a G1 and Classic winner, anything else was a bonus, surely? But Stumpy went on to collect another four successive Pattern wins that season, notching up the Coronation and Falmouth Stakes (both G2 in those days but now G1s of course) against her peers before setting forth to conquer all comers in the Sussex Stakes and Prix du Moulin. It was during his post-race interview with Julian Wilson after the Sussex that I had my OMG Moment with Walter…and life was never quite the same again! I think that’s why this mare has always had a special place in my heart, linked as she is to an entirely one-sided but very sustaining “relationship” which dominated my teenage heart! It’s probably best that he never knew, bless him… The Sussex fell in the school holidays, hence I had got to watch live and in glorious technicolour! For many of her races which fell during term time, I had to make do with subsequent highlights as we didn’t yet have a video recorder…look it up, kids! Sad times indeed…

Anyway, it mattered not, as Sonic Lady was now undisputed champion miler of Europe and I was bursting with pride. She only just hung on in the Moulin though, having pulled like stink again in the first few furlongs, despite her wonder bridle and her jockey’s best efforts. In the olden days, that might have been her season done but this was at the dawn of the Breeders’ Cup era, and a final challenge awaited: to try and rule in the USA too. Whilst she ran respectably in 3rd, I remember being deeply depressed for days that she’d failed to show her dazzle – I knew she was better than the French-trained upstart winner, Last Tycoon. On the same day that Dancing Brave was also humbled in the Turf, us Brits came away with tails between our legs. To this day, prepping a horse for the Breeders’ Cup remains a huge challenge for the Europeans at the end of a long season here.

Sonic Lady stayed in training in 1987 and ran a number of excellent races as a 4yo but she didn’t quite regain the heights of her Classic year. I believe she had training niggles that season; maybe it was that, increased competition or she wasn’t quite as good by then: who knows? She repeated her win in the Falmouth but only just, scraping home against inferior opponents, but went on to be placed in the newly-elevated G1 QEII (behind her stablemate Milligram and the great Miesque) and then repeated her 3rd place in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, with Miesque her latest French-trained nemesis Stateside. Both times Walter stayed loyal to her and picked her over Milligram, despite the latter having arguably the better recent form. I don’t think he wanted to desert her after all they’d achieved together, plus a vague memory that Sir Michael felt the partnerships of Sonic/Swinburn and Milligram/Pat Eddery should stick together after the latter pair triumphed at Ascot. Those fillies absolutely trolled poor Walter in 86/87; I think he missed at least three G1 wins by being on the wrong one in various races, much to my angst! I took it very personally if he missed a big win, and thus also the accompanying screen time devoted to the victorious jockey, on these occasions!

I have wondered whilst researching this piece what would have happened if Sonic Lady had been presented with the opportunity to go sprinting as a 3yo. In the modern day programme book, a golden opportunity now exists for a possible Guineas non-stayer to drop down for the Commonwealth Cup, rather than continue over a mile. Given her Nell Gwyn performance over 7f, I can’t help thinking she might have been dynamite at 6f… Of course Stoute had Green Desert to fulfil that role in 1986, and after Newmarket he found a way to eke her stamina out to last the mile, so it would not have been deemed necessary. But it doesn’t take the greatest leap to imagine her being even better at shorter distances, a route which her trainer ploughed so successfully just a year later with Ajdal of course.

Her racing career complete, Sonic Lady retired to stud and stayed in the States to commence life as a broodmare. As a daughter of Nureyev, she was mated with the best Northern Dancer-line outcrosses of that time, Blushing Groom twice and then Mr Prospector. When you’re a multiple G1 winning champion, you deserve a crack at the old adage of “put the best to the best and hope for the best”! Subsequently she returned to Europe and had liaisons with Blushing Groom’s sons Nashwan and Rainbow Quest plus two visits to Mr Prospector’s son Machiavellian. From what I can glean of her stud record online (and you’ll have to forgive me if this is incomplete), she had seven named foals in total, five colts in a row and then finally two fillies. Several ran to a very respectable level, most notably her first foal Hazaam (89 Blushing Groom – I always felt he should have been named Shotgun Wedding!) He was a durable and consistent stakes performer, initially for Stoute and Swinburn again, before he continued racing in Dubai and eventually found a place at stud himself. Sadly Blushing Groom has not proved a prepotent influence as a sire of sires and Hazaam produced nothing of obvious note from the opportunities given.

Perhaps Sonic Lady’s more lasting genetic influence will be via her daughter Lady Icarus (95 Rainbow Quest). Unraced herself, she has produced four very decent offspring, all trained by Aiden O’Brien. Two have been Classic-placed, Lady Lupus (High Chaparral) in the 2010 Irish Oaks behind Snow Fairy and the ill-fated Furner’s Green (Dylan Thomas) in the 2012 Poulains. Meanwhile Bravery (Galileo) ran regularly for both Aiden and then David O’Meara in more recent seasons, whilst Palace (Fastnet Rock) won at Listed level and has produced as her second foal the very promising current 3yo Innisfree. Another by Galileo, he won the G2 Beresford Stakes at the Curragh last autumn before taking 2nd behind Kameko in the rescheduled Vertem Futurity at Newcastle, coming out best of the Ballydoyle battalions there.

So here is a great-grandson of Sonic Lady showing a ton of class a whole 33 years after she wowed us with her own pace. I will definitely be cheering him on if and when we ever do manage to get the 2020 Flat season underway. Which I guess is a neat way of summarising why I love pedigrees: they link us through the ages, from stars past to stars present, and following that long and winding road is one of the real treats of this game. Stumpy must have passed on by now but she has left behind a strong legacy: both the great memories of what she achieved scorching the turf in the 80s, and the genes of her descendants still doing battle today.

Caroline
aka @Sonic_Lady