12 Pedigree fun facts: Rattle N Roll

Feb 28, 2022 Kellie Reilly/Brisnet.com

Rattle N Roll is the headliner from the first crop of the Curlin stallion Connect, who also has a Kentucky Oaks (G1) candidate in Hidden Connection. 
It’s fitting that Rattle N Roll is trained by Ken McPeek, since the horseman had scouted out Curlin as a yearling and bought him for just $57,000, as an agent. In another interesting connection, Rattle N Roll shares a close ancestor with his stablemate Smile Happy – Pleasant Tap, a factor on their dams’ side. 
Here are the pedigree fun facts for Rattle N Roll:
1. Connect, who beat Gun Runner in the 2016 Pennsylvania Derby (G1), was just reaching his peak when retired due to injury. A May 6 foal, he came along too late for the Triple Crown trail, but rattled off three straight wins in the summer of his sophomore campaign. The Chad Brown trainee scored his first stakes victory, appropriately enough, in the Curlin S. run in honor of his sire at Saratoga. Sixth in Arrogate’s record-setting Travers (G1), Connect never lost again. He followed up his Penn Derby heroics by defeating older horses in the Cigar Mile (G1) and captured his 2017 debut in the Westchester (G3), which turned out to be his last start. 
2. Hall of Famer Curlin held the North American earnings record at the time of his retirement, with $10.5 million in the bank. He famously started out as an unraced sophomore of 2007 and ended the season not only as the best of a deep crop, but as Horse of the Year. After conquering the Rebel (G2) and Arkansas Derby (G2), his inexperience may have played a role in his Kentucky Derby (G1) third. But Curlin rebounded in the Preakness (G1) and was just denied by champion filly Rags to Riches in an epic Belmont S. (G1). Clinching the championship in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1), the powerful chestnut also won the 2008 Dubai World Cup (G1), back-to-back runnings of the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1), and repeated as Horse of the Year at four. 
3. Curlin sired 2013 Belmont hero Palace Malice in his first crop, and his role as a classic influence continues to grow. He joined an exclusive club of Preakness winners to sire a winner of the middle jewel when Exaggerator splashed home at Pimlico in 2016. Exaggerator had been runner-up in the Derby, like another son of Curlin, champion Good Magic (2018). Curlin has also achieved the rare distinction of a Breeders’ Cup Classic winner to have a son emulate him – Vino Rosso, who placed in the 2018 Belmont, became a champion at four when romping in the 2019 Classic. His other major winners include Keen Ice, upsetter of American Pharoah in the 2015 Travers, and champion filly Malathaat, victorious in the 2021 Kentucky Oaks.
4. Curlin is by the Mr. Prospector stallion Smart Strike, who is a half-brother to Hall of Famer Dance Smartly from an excellent family. Smart Strike has carved out his own branch of the “Mr. P” sire line through such sons as two-time champion Lookin at Lucky and turf champ English Channel, both successful at stud themselves. 

5. Connect’s dam, Bullville Belle, is by Hall of Famer Holy Bull. The 1994 Horse of the Year, Holy Bull bounced back from a mystifyingly dull effort as the Kentucky Derby favorite to wire older horses in the Metropolitan H. (G1). He garnered the two major summer prizes in his own division, the Haskell (G1) and Travers, and crowned the year by drubbing elders again in the Woodward (G1). Holy Bull’s son Giacomo would grab the Derby laurel that eluded his sire when pulling a 50-1 upset in 2005. 

6. Connect’s second dam, Barkerville Belle, won or placed in 12 stakes in her 44-race career. Her sire, 1977 Florida Derby (G1) winner Ruthie’s Native, is a lesser-known grandson of Raise a Native. But Ruthie’s Native was produced by a mare who embodied Calumet Farm royalty – his dam, Right About, is by 1948 Triple Crown legend Citation and out of a full sister to 1941 Triple Crown sweeper Whirlaway.

7. Rattle N Roll is out of Jazz Tune, by transatlantic champion Johannesburg. From the line of Storm Cat, Johannesburg was unbeaten through his 2001 campaign highlighted by Group 1 wins in England, France, and Ireland and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1). While Johannesburg secured his legacy as a sire through his son Scat Daddy (sire of 2018 Triple Crown champion Justify among others), he also appears as the broodmare sire of champion Swiss Skydiver, the latest filly to beat the boys in the Preakness (2020), as well as Grade 1 winners Collected and Basin and Irish classic vixens Jet Setting and Seventh Heaven.

8. Jazz Tune’s dam, the stakes-placed Rap and Dance, is by champion Pleasant Tap. By 1981 Kentucky Derby and Preakness champion Pleasant Colony, Pleasant Tap is a half-brother to Go for Gin, who won that 1994 Derby while Holy Bull uncharacteristically disappointed. Effective over a wide range of distances, Pleasant Tap placed second in both the 1991 Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) and 1992 Breeders’ Cup Classic (to A. P. Indy). He factors as the broodmare sire of Smile Happy.

9. Rap and Dance is a half-sister to two Grade 1 winners – No Review, who scored her signature win in the 1989 Santa Barbara H. (G1) on turf, and Another Review, the 1992 Californian (G1) victor. Rap and Dance is a three-quarter sister to notable matron Promenade Colony (by Pleasant Colony), ancestress of the aforementioned Malathaat.

10. Rap and Dance’s dam, Dance Review, is closely related to multiple French Group 1 star and important sire Lyphard. Both are by Northern Dancer, and Dance Review is out of Lyphard’s half-sister Dumfries, by Reviewer (best known as the sire of Hall of Famer Ruffian). Dumfries is the ancestress of Grade 1 winners Urbane, Ashkal Way, and Flower Alley (sire of 2012 Derby and Preakness champion I’ll Have Another).

11. Dumfries and Lyphard are also half-siblings to the outstanding filly Nobiliary, who defeated older males in the 1975 Washington D.C. International (G1) and placed second to Grundy in the coveted Derby (G1) at Epsom. They were all produced by the multiple stakes-winning Goofed, a daughter of British classic winner *Court Martial, hero of the 2000 Guineas and Champion S. in 1945 and a noted sire.

12. This is the family numbered 17-b responsible for three Kentucky Derby winners – Omaha, who swept the 1935 Triple Crown; fellow Hall of Famer Johnstown (1939), who added the Belmont; and Decidedly (1962). That trio descended from *Flambette, the 1921 Coaching Club American Oaks victress. Rattle N Roll traces to a more distant ancestress in common, the French mare Livie (foaled in 1887).

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