With every black-type winner, the Thoroughbred industry is reminded of the magnitude of the loss when Ashford Stud's Scat Daddy died suddenly in December 2015.
The multiple grade 1-winning son of Johannesburg was represented May 19 by his 100th black-type winner when his son Tap Daddy, a 3-year-old out of the winning Tapit mare Easy Tap, won the James W. Murphy Stakes at Pimlico Race Course.
Tap Daddy is the first black-type winner and second black-type performer produced by Easy Tap out of three horses of racing age. One of those foals is a 2-year-old named Continuum, by Candy Ride , who has not started yet.
Bred and raced by Winchell Thoroughbreds, Tap Daddy improved his record to 3-1-1 out of eight starts with $243,654 in earnings.
Scat Daddy got off to a fast start as a sire, landing atop the North American freshman sire list in 2011, about $11,000 ahead of runner-up Hard Spun . His first crop during its first year at the races included five black-type winners and three graded/group winners. This crop would eventually include seven grade/group winners, led by grade 1-winning turf runner Lady of Shamrock.
The sire was represented by plenty of graded/group winners in his next three crops, but most of them would grace winner's circles in Chile, where he shuttled from 2009-11. Scat Daddy's stud fee slid to $10,000 by 2011.
Fortunes in North America began to turn in 2014 when Scat Daddy was represented by Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes (G2) winner El Kabeir, who went on to finish third in the TwinSpires.com Wood Memorial Stakes (G1). El Kabeir's success on dirt was reinforced in 2015 by Nickname, who became Scat Daddy's first grade 1 dirt winner. LNJ Foxwoods' filly out of Nina Fever won the Frizette Stakes (G1) and went on to place in three other graded stakes, including a second in the Honeybee Stakes (G3) at Oaklawn Park.
Scat Daddy's stud fee was headed to $100,000 for the 2016 breeding season when tragedy struck before the turn of the year.
Since his loss, Scat Daddy has been represented by Royal Ascot winners Lady Aurelia and Caravaggio, multi-continent graded winner Mendelssohn, and now an undefeated dual American classic winner in Justify. He has sired 9% black-type winners from foals, 64 graded/group winners, 25 grade/group 1 winners, and 12 champions.
All eyes will now be on Scat Daddy's 10 sons who are standing at stud in North America and overseas in 2018. In the U.S. and Canada, his sire-sons are Daddy Nose Best (BG Thoroughbred Farm, Calif.), Handsome Mike (Pleasant Acres Stallions, Fla.), Tu Brutus (Crestwood Farm, Ky.), Scatman (Foggy Bottom Farm, N.Y.), Almasty (Pin Oak Lane Farm, Pa.), and Frac Daddy (Park Stud, Ontario). Overseas, his sons at stud are Daddy Long Legs (Haras Cordillera, Chile), Caravaggio and No Nay Never (Coolmore Stud, Ireland), and El Kabeir, (Yeomanstown Stud, Ireland).
