He was still somewhat Gray Abarrio when first coming on the scene, but has by now been around long enough to develop the dazzling coat appropriate to his naming. So long, in fact, that there has even been time for White Abarrio (Race Day) to brighten up his pedigree, as well.Its fundamentals remain familiar: his freakish status in the resume of his own sire, who was exported to South Korea around the time White Abarrio was sold for $7,500 as a yearling; and, conversely, the early marker he laid down for Into Mischief as a broodmare sire. Presumably his unfashionable paternity is one of the reasons White Abarrio has persevered on the racetrack, now approaching $8.5 million in earnings after beating the Horse of the Year in the GII Oaklawn Park Handicap.Yet the hardiness required to be embarked on a sixth campaign is precisely the kind of thing that we should be seeking to replicate in the breeding shed. And plenty of those commercial breeders who might hesitate about a horse of this profile will be cheerfully using stallions with far less genetic substance, as well.For White Abarrio is no longer the only Grade I scorer under his granddam Grand Breeze (Grand Slam), following the success of Eclatant, herself by Into Mischief, in the Madison Stakes a couple of weeks ago. Eclatant is out of Downside Scenario (Scat Daddy), half-sister to White Abarrio's dam Catching Diamonds (Into Mischief), and already dam of GII Bourbon Stakes winner Mutasaabeq, her first foal, also by the champion sire.So Grand Breeze now has two daughters who have produced an elite winner–an outcome that might have startled all parties when she was sold, as a Gulfstream sprint maiden winner in foal to Kodiak Kowboy, for $30,000 to Berkey Bloodstock Services at the 2010 Keeneland November Sale. Purchasers Columbiana Farm got immediately ahead of the game in selling her Kodiak Kowboy colt for $110,000 as a yearling, and as Cool Cowboy he won three black-type races before heading off to Dubai where he added a couple of group sprints. The mare was then most impressively managed, sent to Scat Daddy at $17,500 and a couple of years later Into Mischief at $20,000. (In between she produced a Successful Appeal filly who was stakes-placed in a turf sprint at Woodbine, plus an unraced colt by Dialed In).Grand Breeze's Scat Daddy filly made $290,000 as a yearling and won a turf sprint maiden as Downside Scenario before being sold, for $250,000 at the 2018 Keeneland January Sale, carrying the colt who became Mutasaabeq–whose success then elevated her value, when carrying Eclatant, to $1.15 million from Stonestreet back in the same ring not quite four years later.Eclatant has obviously paid a lot of that back already, though D. J. Stable must be pleased to have secured her Curlin half-sister for no more than $180,000 last September, given that Eclatant had already won the GIII Forward Gal Stakes. This filly has been registered as Don't Suffer Fools.Not many of those at Spendthrift, though they must have asked themselves whether Catching Diamonds was going to prove worth the $425,000 they paid for Grand Breeze's Into Mischief filly as a yearling. She showed very little in three starts and was then deployed to support Race Day and one or two others down their roster. Since the emergence of White Abarrio, she has naturally become rather more of a catch for their chosen stallions.It looks as though Grand Breeze only had one more foal, after Catching Diamonds, which is a shame as Columbiana deserved the chance to follow through on some inspired matings. To be fair, she was never exactly a blank page. Her dam Breeze Lass (It's Freezing) bred no fewer than 11 winners (four stakes-placed or better), including Irmadohomemra (Candy Stripes), an outstanding producer in Brazil as dam of one champion juvenile filly and second dam of another.The next dam, dual graded stakes winner and GI Hollywood Oaks runner-up Faneuil Lass (Somebody II), was granddaughter of a rare specimen in Miss Newcastle, the fragile strand that connects White Abarrio and Eclatant to the poignant tale of Coaltown.This blazing talent, while obliged to yield to his barnmate Citation in the Derby, exploited his absence to win a dozen of 15 starts at four, breaking world and track records for fun. Unfortunately, he proved subfertile and mustered no more than 80 foals, with zero stakes winners, leaving all his eggs in the single basket of Miss Newcastle, who won 15 of 130 starts.Miss Newcastle was one of eight named foals in Coaltown's final Kentucky crop before shipping to France where Marcel Boussac eked out similarly nugatory dividends. One of these did produce the fourth dam of the wonderful Epsom Derby and Arc winner Sinndar (Ire) (Grand Lodge); while one of the fillies Coaltown left behind in Kentucky fills the same spot in the pedigree of GI Travers Stakes winner Code of Honor (Noble Mission {GB}).Another, Faneuil Girl (Bolinas Boy), produced several stakes winners, including GI Matron Stakes winner Fiesta Lady (Secretariat), and also the aforementioned Faneuil Lass, the fourth dam of White Abarrio and Eclatant.The line is clearly too tenuous to give Miss Newcastle credit for White Abarrio's hardiness, but that won't stop me asking yet again–given that we have already, apparently, entered Triple Crown bashing season–how long we are going to allow trainers to ruin the breed by refusing to discover horses of robust constitution. Keeping to the Triple Crown schedule is not about tradition for tradition's sake. It's about identifying genes deserving of reproduction. If most trainers won't do that, despite very recent evidence that the current schedule is perfectly within the competence of 21st Century Thoroughbreds, then owners should send their horses to the few who will. Because that, in the long term, would actually be more truly in the best interests of the Thoroughbred.Square Shows Angles to DaddyFollowing Eclatant, another big winner out of a Scat Daddy mare at Keeneland this spring is Burnham Square, a revelation as a turf router in the GII Elkhorn Stakes.We explored this gelding's place in the remarkable Whitham Thoroughbreds program when he hit the Derby trail last year, so today we'll just reiterate the diverse contribution of his daughters to the tragically curtailed legacy of Scat Daddy.Because in the meantime another of them, Gossamer Wings, has produced Lambourn (Ire) (Australia {GB}) to gallop 17 pursuers into submission in the G1 Epsom Derby. Gossamer Wings was beaten a short head in the G2 Queen Mary Stakes over five furlongs at Royal Ascot, so logically Lambourn's stamina must be credited to a sire who famously emulated both his parents by also winning a 12-furlong Classic at Epsom. But Scat Daddy's principal heir also made all the running over that distance to complete a Triple Crown that a) is supposed to be cruelly beyond modern Thoroughbreds and b) has duly identified an outstanding stallion.Burnham Square | Coady MediaScat Daddy's granddam, remember, was by Nijinsky. People get so muddled about speed and stamina, mistaking one for precocity and the other for dourness. They are two sides of the same coin, the same denominator of class: the ability to carry speed. Until noticing Justify, European breeders have culpably forfeited precisely this asset by prolonged neglect of dirt stallions. They need to remember the old school English trainer who, in the parade ring before a big race, famously instructed his jockey to “jump off first and keep improving your position.”A Bittersweet SuccessLast week we highlighted how Storm Cat was himself brought to breeders' attention by the kind of juvenile campaign that we would never see risked by trainers today. Separately we also had occasion to note Modernist's plucky attempt to overcome the odds, as a stallion with modest numbers covered at a modest fee.Well, we can revisit both those themes through Not This Time's latest graded stakes winner, Stars and Stripes, in the GIII Ben Ali Stakes. He's another with Storm Cat top and bottom, responsible for both grandsire Giant's Causeway and granddam Ain't She Sweet. And she was an unraced sister to the Breeders' Cup winners Sweet Catomine and Life is Sweet, and therefore half-sister to the dam of Modernist.Ain't She Sweet failed to reward some generous covers. Her daughter by Quality Road, for instance, never made the starting gate. Her name was Pearl River and she was culled from the top-class Wygod program for just $50,000 at the Keeneland November Sale in 2022, in foal to Nyquist, to Puerto Rico. But the Into Mischief yearling filly she had at the time has since turned out to be GIII Pucker Up Stakes winner Waves of Mischief, so this mare–with two graded stakes winners from three starters–looks like one that got away.Stars and Stripes | Coady MediaThe post Breeding Digest: Abarrio and Eclatant Add Coal to the Fire appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.