Annville, PA. Brody’s Cause, one of only two horses to win both of Keeneland’s top races for 2- and 3-year-olds on dirt since Round Table in 1957, has been acquired by Rodney Eckenrode to stand at Equistar Training and Breeding in Annville, Pa., in 2023. A multiple Grade 1 winner and Grade 1 sire, Brody’s Cause will stand for $3,500.
The 9-year-old son of Giant’s Causeway formerly stood at Spendthrift Farm in Kentucky.
Brody’s Cause ranks in the top 20 nationally on the third-crop sires list in 2022, led by his 4-year-old daughter Kalypso. Winner of Santa Anita’s La Brea Stakes-G1 at the end of 2021, Kalypso has won or placed in nine stakes in 14 starts, six graded, for earnings of $601,878.
When his first crop debuted in 2020, Brody’s Cause was represented by five stakes performers, four graded, from 26 starters: Sittin On Go, who captured Churchill Downs’ Grade 3 Iroquois; stakes winner Kalypso, second in the Grade 1 Starlet; Grade 2 Best Pal runner-up Girther at Del Mar; Smiley Sobotka, second in Churchill’s Kentucky Jockey Club-G2; and two-time stakes-placed Gospel Way. In 2021, his 2-year-old son Enbarr broke his maiden in the Capote Stakes at Los Alamitos in his second start. This year, the 2-year-old filly Hurricane Debbie won first out at Keeneland in April by eight lengths. Of his eight black-type runners, seven were 2-year-old stakes performers.
Brody’s Cause has 2022 progeny earnings in excess of $1.6 million, which places him among the top-10 on the Mid-Atlantic sire rankings.
In eight career starts, Brody’s Cause won two Grade 1 races and finished a fast-closing third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile-G1 behind champion Nyquist. Trained by Dale Romans, he got his first win going one mile at Churchill Downs at 2, and came back three weeks later to capture Keeneland’s Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity-G1 at a mile and a sixteenth.
After the Breeders’ Cup, he was aimed for the classics, and won Keeneland’s mile and an eighth Blue Grass Stakes-G1. After finishing seventh of 20 in the Kentucky Derby and sixth of 13 in the Belmont Stakes, he was retired with a record of three wins and a third in eight starts, for earnings of $1,168,138.
A $350,000 Keeneland September sales yearling, Brody’s Cause is from the family of Secretariat and Cure the Blues. His dam, stakes-placed Sweet Breanna, is by the Mr. Prospector stallion Sahm. Second dam, graded winner Sweet Roberta, was second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies-G1. The family traces back to Quick Cure (his fourth dam), dam of Grade 1 winner and sire Cure the Blues. She in turn is out of Speedwell (by Bold Ruler), a half-sister to Somethingroyal, the dam of Secretariat (by Bold Ruler).
Brody’s Cause has 43 current 2-year-olds and in 2021 covered his largest book of 147 mares.
For breeding information, contact Rodney and Sharon Eckenrode at 1-302-236-3886.
