Spanish Empiress looked good enough that she went off at 5-1 in a $30,000, nw2l claimer at Keeneland on Saturday, and ran well enough that she ended up in the winner's circle. So owner Ron McCauley may have claimed her for her racing potential. But one could do worse than adding a daughter of Stick to Beauty's stakes-winning daughter Miraloma to a breeding operation.
The problem is that Miraloma has not been a good producer. Even considering Stick to Beauty and not Miraloma, much of Stick to Beauty's punch is through Gold Beauty; Stick to Beauty lived to age 30 but had a pattern of producing very good horses, not monsters (although when you count Gold Beauty's race track achievements in there, perhaps I'm being a little tough).
I did a study looking at mares in the 13-year-old age range, and found their siblings were just about irrelevant to their auction value at that point. So the question for evaluating Spanish Empiress is really whether she is going to be a good producer, and you can weight Stick to Beauty and her clan any way you want in that speculation.
At least the owner of Spanish Empiress the mare will potentially be getting something special. Giving her a shot is a little bit like taking the NFL player with 4.3 speed for the 40-yard dash; there's a path where one can see this working.
This is really here nor there, particularly because Spanish Empiress doesn't trace to Gold Beauty, but Spanish Empiress's foals will show Stick to Beauty as their 3rd dam; Sky Beauty's 3rd dam was also Stick to Beauty. Horses like Pine Island and Tale of Ekati had/have Stick to Beauty as their 4th dam.
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