Tabasco Cat, pictured at Overbrook in 1995.
Japanese newspaper Sankei Sports reported that the Japan Bloodstock Breeders' Association has purchased dual classic winner Tabasco Cat for stallion duty for $7 million and will stand the 9-year-old son of Storm Cat at the organization's Shizunai Stallion Station. Winner of the 1994 Preakness (gr. I) and Belmont (gr. I) Stakes, Tabasco Cat raced as a homebred for William T. Young's Overbrook Farm in partnership with David P. Reynolds and stood at the farm for the two parties starting in 1996. He is scheduled to leave for Japan the end of November.Overbrook official Ric Waldman would not confirm the sale, saying certain technicalities need to be ironed out. The farm was approached by international bloodstock consultant Emmanuel de Seroux.Tabasco Cat, who was produced from the Sauce Boat mare Barbicue Sauce, has sired four stakes winners from his two crops of racing. All four are males, and all are stakes winners this year. Tabasco Cat's first yearlings, sold in 1998, averaged $206,487. The stallion's average dropped to $153,800 the following year and have averaged $62,978 in 2000.Sankei Sports also reported the purchase of Irish stallion Croco Rouge by the JBBA for $7 million. Croco Rouge, by Rainbow Quest out of the Alleged mare Alligatrix, ran third in the 1999 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (Fr-I) and earned $678,673. He stood the 2000 season at the Irish National Stud.
