An old gelding wins his second Suburban? Well, there had already been six other dual winners, so nobody will be renaming a stakes for Phileas Fogg (Astern {Aus}) just yet. Maybe if he can go on and emulate one of them, by also becoming Horse of the Year five times, then he might find himself remembered by a Grade III on grass someplace.During a weekend when Americans reflected proudly on their history, it felt blushingly inadequate that one of their greatest Thoroughbreds should nowadays be honored only by a shuffling of cards between Forty Niner and the loser of the trick, Forbidden Apple. (The former took over the Kelso Handicap three years ago; the latter lost “his” race to Kelso, though a dual winner of the Kelso Handicap!)At least the Kelso Stakes produced a finish worthy of its name, resulting in a dead-heat, but the 10-length success of a 6-year-old gelding in the GII Suburban Stakes arguably summoned the spirit of Kelso rather better.The fact that Phileas Fogg was bred and initially campaigned by Godolphin indicates maternal genes that make his castration now feel somewhat regrettable. But the reality is that after winning on debut, as a Fair Grounds winter juvenile, his form the following year dwindled sufficiently for him to be culled for $55,000 at the 2023 Keeneland November Sale. Though he did win three times for his purchasers there, he was then claimed for $62,500 running down the field at Saratoga–and has developed in startling fashion, in two years since, for Gustavo Rodriguez. As intimated, however, there was always latent genetic potential.True, Astern did not prove to be the most glamorous of the partners available on the home roster in 2019 for Phileas Fogg's homebred dam, the unraced More Than Ready mare Merino. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Astern fared rather better shuttling back to his native Australia, but his Kentucky stock really yielded only GII Miss Grillo Stakes winner Sail By to mitigate a failure completed by export to Turkey in 2024.Merino herself, meanwhile, had already been discarded to Saudi horseman Ahmad Alabdullatif for $20,000 at the 2022 Keeneland November Sale, barely a month before Phileas Fogg made his promising debut.Her own dam Cableknit (Unbridled's Song) was actually dumped in the same auction (having meanwhile been acquired by other interests) for just $1,500, aged 15, despite having earlier produced a son by Bernardini, Capezzano, to win a Dubai Group 1. If Cableknit's other foals were admittedly pretty limited, the genes she might transmit can be judged from the $1.7 million originally paid for her in Book 1 of the 2008 September Sale.And actually at that stage Cableknit's pedigree had barely begun to reveal its full glory. Yes, she was half-sister to Speightstown, but for now that strictly remained a matter of his slow-burning brilliance on the racetrack, where he had famously blossomed into champion sprinter at six. While his first crop would ultimately produce four elite scorers, its reputation for now depended on a colt taking a supporting role in some of the big juvenile races of the summer in Europe.Subsequently, of course, Speightstown became a hugely significant brand of Gone West. But the contribution of his dam, Canadian champion juvenile filly Silken Cat (Storm Cat), has also been underscored in the meantime–not only by her ill-fated multiple graded stakes winner Irap (Tiznow), but also by the latter's unraced sister Amour d'Ete as dam of GI Preakness winner Early Voting, himself now making a flying start at stud.Silken Cat's stakes-winning dam Silken Doll was by Chieftain, a wholesome distaff influence whose constitution and speed are filtered, for instance, through the third dam of Giant's Causeway. Silken Doll connects a dense web of black type, as part of the dynasty tracing to Hill Prince's dam Hildene (Bubbling Over). Just in her own right, for example, she also produced a Group 1-placed juvenile in Britain, plus the dams of numerous stakes performers and/or producers, from GI King's Bishop runner-up/GII Indiana Derby winner Star Dabbler (Saint Ballado) to the dam of GI Spinaway Stakes winner Mani Bhavan (Storm Boot).This family was fortified with real teak. After tough guys Storm Cat and Chieftain, Speightstown's next dams are by the metronomic Buckpasser and Bryan G, who made 62 starts. The subsequent interventions that have meanwhile yielded Phileas Fogg-mares by More Than Ready, as noted, and Unbridled's Song (hardly a byword for soundness)-have plainly not soured the kind of maturing wine we associate with Speightstown.Being ineligible to disseminate those flavors himself, Phileas Fogg has nothing to do but run. So who knows where his progress may end? Even to become one-fifth of a Kelso, however, most horses would find it easier to gallop round the world in 80 days. Another Mare Sold at the Turning PointNot that anyone should be denigrating the Kelso Stakes protagonists, with the flourishing 4-year-old Mi Bago (Vekoma) reaching a new peak in sharing the prize with Zulu Kingdom (Ten Sovereigns {Ire}), already a dual Grade I winner.In becoming a ninth graded stakes winner out of his debut crop, Mi Bago nourishes the hope that Vekoma will draw on his damsire Speightstown in helping his stock flourish with maturity. And that factor also augurs well for the winner of a race intended to identify one of the more precocious juvenile fillies of the crop.For Schuylerville Stakes winner Harper's Corner, a breakout talent for rookie Speaker's Corner, is also out of a Speightstown mare. Her name was Toscana, and while she beat only two rivals across three starts, no less a program than Stonestreet once deemed her worthy of $390,000 as a weanling.Harper's Corner | Sarah AndrewSending her dam Nikkis Smartypants, winner of a graded stakes sprint on Woodbine grass, to Speightstown had combined a second Gone West line with that running through her sire Smarty Jones. Nikkis Smartypants was out of an unraced Red Ransom half-sister to dual Grade I winner Diamondrella (GB) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}) and dual Grade I-placed Bonnie Blue Flag (Mineshaft).Understandably that was not quite enough to keep Toscana at Stonestreet, after her failure on the track, and she was culled with a maiden cover by Kantharos for $70,000 in the 2020 November Sale. Just days later, however, a winning debut by a grandson of Bonnie Blue Flag introduced a new glamor to the page. His name was Life Is Good (Into Mischief).Yet his ongoing deeds seemed lost on the market when Toscana returned to the equivalent sale three years later. True, her Kantharos foal had then only been placed in Italy, while she had blanked the next year; but she had a More Than Ready colt on the ground and was being discarded, still just seven, in foal to Speaker's Corner. Step forward agent Sean Perl, who signed for her at just $23,000.Registered breeder Bishop Racing didn't realize much of an immediate dividend when selling the in utero filly for $30,000 as a yearling (pinhooked for $70,000 at OBS the following spring), but as Harper's Corner she's rapidly making her dam look a remarkable bargain. The filly in Italy is meanwhile a Listed-placed winner; the More Than Ready colt was last seen breaking his maiden for Chad Brown at Aqueduct; and Harper's Corner has yet to see another horse in wiring her maiden and now a storied Saratoga stakes by an aggregate 13 lengths.…AND A THIRD!The race that similarly sets the standard for juvenile colts arriving at Saratoga, the GIII Sanford Stakes, prompted an equivalent case of vendor's remorse. Illinois-bred Booked (Yaupon) is out of the unraced 9-year-old Fingerprint (Competitive Edge), who was sold in a Fasig-Tipton Digital Sale to Versatile Thoroughbreds in March last year for just $20,000.Yet her son by Yaupon must have been shaping up pretty well to bring $325,000, less than six months later, at the September Sale. Moreover her first foal, Zadorsky (Tapiture), had become a stakes performer after realizing no more than $25,000 as a weanling.Fingerprint is out of a stakes-placed Rock Hard Ten half-sister to GI Las Virgenes Stakes winner Callback (Street Sense). And their dam is none other than Supercharger (A.P. Indy), full-sister to three graded stakes scorers including GI Vosburgh winner Girolamo and dam of three others, headed by GI Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver (Maria's Mon). And Super Saver, of course, gave us Fingerprint's sire Competitive Edge, meaning that Supercharger is duly replicated 3×3 in Booked's dam.That's a lot of pedigree for 20 grand. Just as with Toscana, however, these things are all too easy to rationalize with hindsight. So let's just salute the foresight of the three speculators who picked up these suddenly valuable mares-the dams of Phileas Fogg, Harper's Corner and Booked-for an aggregate $63,000!The post Breeding Digest: Fogg Draws on Same Well as Speightstown appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.