Broodmare of the year Oatsee dies at 27

My Meadowview Farm's star broodmare Oatsee has died due to the infirmities of old age, according to the farm's longtime adviser Lincoln Collins. 

The 2011 broodmare of the year, who was pensioned at the farm on Long Island, New York, was 27.

"She was a plain but tough mare and remarkable in that she was successful with all sorts of different stallions," said Collins. "She was important, too, in that she produced several successful daughters."

Out of the 17 foals, Oatsee produced 14 starters, of whom 11 became winners and four were Graded stakes winners. Her progeny have earned more than $6 million. 

Her best runners included 2011 Grade 1 Preakness Stakes winner Shackleford, by Forestry; 2007 Grade 1 Alabama Stakes winner Lady Joanne (Orientate); Grade 2 Falls City Handicap winner Afleeting Lady (Afleet Alex); multiple Grade 3 winner Baghdaria (Royal Academy); and Grade 2-placed stakes winner Stephanoatsee (A.P. Indy). 

Oatsee, a daughter of Unbridled out of the stakes-placed Lear Fan winner With Every Wish, raced as a homebred for Bentley Smith. She became a stakes-placed winner who earned $110,143 for trainer Carl Nafzger. 

Smith retained her as a broodmare and got three winners from her first three foals, who included Lady Joanne and Baghdaria.

Smith, however, sold Oatsee during the second session of the 2006 Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sales for $135,000 to Belvedere Farm, which bought the mare as agent for Mike Lauffer and Bill Cubbedge, who had been participants in Belvedere racing partnerships and were making their first broodmare purchase.

Four days after the January sale, Baghdaria won her first stakes in the Grade 3 Silverbulletday Stakes at Louisiana Downs. During the autumn of the same year, Lady Joanne won the Grade 2 Golden Rod Stakes and would go on in 2007 to win three more stakes and be runner-up in the Mother Goose Stakes and Spinster Stakes, both Grade 1.

In 2008, Lauffer and Cubbedge sold Oatsee in foal to leading sire A.P. Indy for $1.55m to My Meadowview during the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. 

The partners also retained ownership of the three foals they got out of Oatsee that included Grade 2 winner Afleeting Lady and Shackleford, who won or placed in seven Grade 1s, including wins in the Preakness, Metropolitan Handicap and Clark Handicap, all Grade 1. Shackleford also ran fourth in the Kentucky Derby.

The first foal produced for My Meadowview was multiple Graded-placed stakes winner Stephanoatsee, who would stand at stud in New York for five seasons before being relocated to Arkansas.

As for the legacy of Oatsee's daughters, her oldest, Grand Portege, is the dam of multiple Grade 3 winner Florida Won and the granddam of Grade 3-placed stakes winner Happy Is A Choice. 

Baghdaria is the dam of stakes-placed winner Dancing Brave Bear and the granddam of Turkish 2022 champion three-year-old Final Dance and United States stakes winner Mohs. 

Oatsee's unraced daughter Haysee, by Orientate, is the dam of Uncle Lino, who set a track record at Los Alamitos in the California Chrome Stakes and was second in the Grade 3 Robert B Lewis Stakes and third in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby.

Oatsee's last eight foals included six who raced and five who became winners. Of the last eight foals, five are fillies and three have already produced winners. The legacy of these My Meadowview-bred Oatsee daughters is still unfolding, with five of their foals either yearlings or weanlings by sires such as American Pharoah, Constitution, Curlin, Ghostzapper and Maclean’s Music.

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