Duran in Melbourne represents today’s pedigree. The 3yo colt is by Tale of the Cat out of legendary broodmare, Circles of Gold. This makes Duran a half brother (or closer) to such champions as Elvstroem and Haradasun. With such big shoes to fill, what does the future hold for Duran. Obviously connections have a reasonable opinion of the colt, debuting in the Group 3 Vain Stakes first up.
Tale of the Cat is a son of Storm Cat, in turn a son of Storm Bird who is a son of Northern Dancer. We must note that Elvstroem was by Danehill, a grandson of Northern Dancer. Significantly we see that the damsire of Tale of the Cat is Mr Prospector who is the sire of Fusaichi Pegasus, the sire of Haradasun. An interesting factor in the pedigree of Duran is that Tulyar is duplicated through the female line of Tale of the Cat, just as we saw Tulyar duplicated through the female line of Fusaichi Pegasus. It seems then that the breeders have spent some time looking to see what factors may have influenced the successes of Circles of Gold when choosing Tale of the Cat.
We need to note that the dosage profile of Duran is [1.20/4.21] [30-3-9-0-4]. In contrast we see that Elvstroem [0.46/2.11] and Haradasun [0.82/2.83] had markedly different profiles. No doubt Duran will have his share of speed, and could well be prominent in this type of race. There does not seem to be the scope of performance though that we saw in the successful progeny of Circles of Gold. It can sometimes be a good strategy to inject speed into the matings of older mares, but in this case there are probably other more important factors to have considered. While it is always difficult to say that such a wonderful family will not produce another champion, I think that Duran will be outclassed today even though the field doesn’t look to have much depth outside of Safegaurd and Fast ‘n’ Rocking..