Pedigree fun facts: Disco Time

Jan 28, 2025 Kellie Reilly/Brisnet.com

Disco Time hopes to succeed on the Kentucky Derby (G1) trail that his sire and maternal grandfather unfortunately never had the opportunity to pursue.

Sire Not This Time flaunted his talent with an 8 3/4-length romp in the 2016 Iroquois (G3), propelling himself into favoritism for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1). Unfortunately, after coming up a neck shy of Classic Empire, Not This Time was retired due to injury.

Disco Time’s maternal grandfather, Jump Start, had a broadly similar career trajectory. The hero of the 2001 Saratoga Special (G2) and runner-up in the Champagne (G1), Jump Start sustained a career-ending injury when 11th in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Like Not This Time, Jump Start had the pedigree to develop into a Derby contender, leaving a sense of what might have been.

Here are Disco Time’s pedigree fun facts:

Not This Time sired champion Epicenter, runner-up as the 2022 Derby favorite.

Rapidly becoming a top sire, Not This Time came close to Kentucky Derby glory when his son Epicenter finished second as the favorite in 2022. Epicenter, who was also runner-up in the Preakness (G1), clinched the champion three-year-old male title in the Travers (G1), and his other major wins include the Louisiana Derby (G2) in track-record time.

Not This Time has sired outstanding turf horses as well, most notably champion Up to the Mark and world record-setting sprinter Cogburn. His genetic power extends to the opposite end of the distance spectrum too; Not This Time is also responsible for dirt marathon star Next.

Not This Time’s sire is the celebrated “Iron Horse” Giant’s Causeway.

Not This Time is continuing the versatile legacy of his late sire, Giant’s Causeway, who was a superstar on the European turf for Aidan O’Brien. Branded the “Iron Horse” after sweeping five Group 1 races in a row in the summer of 2000, Giant’s Causeway switched to the dirt and missed by a neck to Tiznow in an epic Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) at Churchill Downs.

Not This Time’s mother, Miss Macy Sue, placed in the inaugural Filly & Mare Sprint.

Not This Time likewise inherits surface versatility from his dam (mother), Grade 3-winning sprinter Miss Macy Sue, who was effective on both dirt and synthetic tracks. The six-time stakes winner earned her most lucrative victory in the 2007 Presque Isle Downs Masters in track-record time. She placed in seven more stakes, most notably taking third in that fall’s inaugural Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint.

Miss Macy Sue is by a 2000 Kentucky Derby also-ran who excelled in sprints.

Miss Macy Sue’s sire, Trippi, was a perfect 4-for-4 at Gulfstream Park before finding the 1 1/4-mile distance of the Kentucky Derby beyond him. Eleventh behind Fusaichi Pegasus at Churchill Downs, Trippi rebounded promptly back in sprints. He crushed fellow sophomores by nine lengths in the Riva Ridge (G2) and toppled elders in the Tom Fool H. (G2) and Vosburgh (G1).

Miss Macy Sue descends from Hall of Famer Ta Wee – twice.

Miss Macy Sue is a direct female-line descendant of the Hall of Fame sprinter Ta Wee. Herself a half-sister to the legendary Dr. Fager, Ta Wee was famous for beating males and carrying big weights. When winning the Fall Highweight H. for the second straight year in 1970, she lugged 140 pounds. Ta Wee concluded her career by toting 142 pounds to victory over fellow distaffers in the Interborough H.

Ta Wee transmitted some degree of her talent as a broodmare, producing four stakes winners led by Grade 3 victor Great Above. One of her stakes-winning daughters, Tweak (by Secretariat), is the ancestress of Miss Macy Sue. But note that Miss Macy Sue’s mother, Yada Yada, is by Great Above! Thus Yada Yada is closely inbred to Ta Wee, via her most important son and a daughter.

Not This Time is a half-brother to Breeders’ Cup-winning sire Liam’s Map.

Miss Macy Sue has turned out to be a stellar producer, perhaps benefiting from that inbreeding pattern in her own mother’s pedigree. Aside from Not This Time, she has foaled Liam’s Map, winner of the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1) and Woodward (G1) and a successful sire himself. Miss Macy Sue’s accomplished daughters are graded-placed stakes winners Taylor S and Matera.

Disco Time’s pedigree doubles down on Storm Cat.

Disco Time himself features a prominent repetition of supersire Storm Cat. Not only does he claim Storm Cat as his male-line ancestor via Giant’s Causeway, but Disco Time receives an extra cross from his mother, Disco Chick. Her sire, Jump Start, is out of a Storm Cat mare.

Not This Time and Jump Start both carry duplications of Secretariat.

Storm Cat’s mother, Terlingua, was a brilliant daughter of Secretariat who captured such major races as the Hollywood Juvenile Championship (G2) and Del Mar Debutante (G2). But Secretariat, the 1973 Triple Crown legend, factors elsewhere in the ancestry of Not This Time and Jump Start through other daughters.

Not This Time gets a second cross from his aforementioned matrilineal ancestress Tweak. Jump Start’s sire, Hall of Famer A.P. Indy (by Seattle Slew), is out of multiple Grade 3 queen Weekend Surprise, by Secretariat.

Disco Chick finished in the top three in 30 of 42 starts.

Pennsylvania-bred Disco Chick bankrolled $735,250 as a mainstay in sprint stakes in the Mid-Atlantic region. She won four stakes and placed in 14 more, including a handful on the New York circuit. Chief among them was her third-place effort in the 2016 Honorable Miss H. (G2) at Saratoga.

As her stakes resume suggests, Disco Chick was a tough, hardy campaigner. She made 42 starts over five seasons of racing, winning 10 times, finishing second in 14 races, and taking third in another six. Her narrowest loss came in a photo-finish as a juvenile at Parx, where she was just denied by Vero Amore – the future dam of champion filly Vequist.

Ancestor Disco Rico scored his richest win on 2001 Preakness Day.

Disco Chick’s mother, Disco Flirt, was a New Jersey-bred sprinter. But she had strong pedigree ties to Maryland as a daughter of Disco Rico and an Allen’s Prospect mare.

The blazingly fast Disco Rico was a Maryland-bred standout who fittingly scored his marquee win on the Preakness undercard at Pimlico. That laurel came in his trademark front-running fashion in the 2001 Maryland Breeders’ Cup H. (G3).

Ancestor *Grey Dawn II is the only horse to beat all-time great *Sea Bird.

Disco Time’s great-great granddam (fourth dam) in the female line, Kentucky-bred Gratinee, is by French champion two-year-old colt *Grey Dawn II. His claim to fame on the racecourse was handing *Sea-Bird the only loss of his illustrious career in the 1964 Grand Criterium. But in time, *Sea-Bird proved far superior with soaring performances in the 1965 Epsom Derby, Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe to rank near the top of Europe’s all-time greats.

Disco Time’s female line descends from champion sprinter Chou Croute.

Gratinee’s mother, Chou Croute, was voted champion sprinter of 1972 after defeating males in the Fall Highweight H. She also beat the boys in that year’s 1 1/16-mile Fayette H. at Keeneland, where she had wired the 1971 Spinster. Chou Croute settled for second in her Spinster title defense to champion Numbered Account.

Disco Time traces to the same ancestress as Northern Dancer.

Following the maternal line much further back in time, one finds Mother Goose, the co-champion juvenile filly of 1924 who landed the Futurity S. over males. Mother Goose’s younger brother, Whichone, would also be recognized as the champion two-year-old colt of 1929.

But Mother Goose is more memorable for her descendants, chief among them 1964 Derby and Preakness winner Northern Dancer. It’s interesting that Disco Time comes from the same maternal clan as Northern Dancer, since he also belongs to the prolific sire line established by Northern Dancer.

Three other Derby winners can claim some degree of matrilineal relationship. Cannonade, hero of the 100th Derby in 1974, hails from Northern Dancer’s immediate family.

Spectacular Bid (1979) is a member of the tribe as well, descending not from Mother Goose herself but from her granddam, Fly By Night. Giacomo (2005) belongs to the same overall family labeled 2-d, although his is a different branch based in Europe until his granddam, French import Valseuse, arrived stateside in 1986.