BEST PERFORMANCE: HIP 795A KEEJAN

One of the best of her generation at two, Grade One placed Best Performance was a graded stakes performer on both dirt and turf and earned black-type from 5½ to 8½ furlongs. She is a daughter of Broken Vow, a highly-successful sire, who is now a fast-emerging broodmare sire, and out of a multiple stakes producing Smart Strike mare.

A $300,000 two-year-old in training purchase, Best Performance was a remarkably consistent runner at two. Racing exclusively in stakes following her maiden victory, Best Performance earned five seconds in five black-type outings as a juvenile. She broke her maiden going five furlongs at Belmont Park on dirt on her racecourse debut, and the promise of that effort was quickly fulfilled with a second in the Astoria Stakes at 5½ furlongs, and second in the six-furlong Schuylerville Stakes (G3) on her next two starts. 

Switching to the turf, Best Performance closed strongly to take second in the seven-furlong Juvenile Fillies Stakes at Kentucky Downs, with graded stakes winner Go Noni Go in third. She again finished with a will to earn runner-up honors behind Significant Form in The Miss Grillo Stakes (G3), beaten just a length.

Continuing her highly impressive development, Best Performance reached a career high in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) where her powerful closing charge fell just ¾ length shy of catching the magnificent Rushing Fall for the win. In doing so, she gained revenge on both Significant Form and the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Fillies Stakes winner Ultima D, and also defeated multiple group one winner Happily, Grade One winners Fatale Bere and Capla Temptress, group winner Juliet Capulet, and stakes winners September, Dixie Moon, Orbolution and Madeline.

Best Performance’s exceptional season was officially recognized on The Jockey Club 2017 Top 2-Year-Old Rankings, where she was rated on 120 lbs., only 3 lbs. below Champion Two-Year-Old Filly Caledonia Road, equal with Grade One winners Dream Tree, Heavenly Love and Separationofpowers, and above such as Champion elect Monomoy Girl, Champion Wonder Gadot, and Grade One winners Lady Ivanka and Capla Temptress.

Best Performance is by the extremely well-bred Unbridled stallion, Broken Vow. The sire of more than 70 stakes winners, Broken Vow has been represented by impressive horses such as Champion Two-Year-Old Filly Champagne Room, and Grade One winners Unbridled Belle, Cotton Blossom, Sassy Image, Rosalind and Emerging Talent. Broken Vow is also making a very promising start to his career as a broodmare sire, his daughters having already produced Champion Sprinter Runhappy, Grade One winners Big World and Hampton Court, and graded scorers Lonely Road, Global Big, Caribou Club and Stays in Vegas.

Best Performance’s dam, the Smart Strike mare Give My Regards, was a maiden special weight winner at Hollywood Park on the second of only two lifetime starts. She is dam of Best Performance and two-year-old stakes placed My California from her first two foals. Give My Regards is dam of a 2018 colt by Champion Older Horse Honor Code and is bred to Quality Road.

Give My Regards is half-sister to Canadian Derby (G3) and Oklahoma Derby (G3) winner Broadway Empire, who is by Empire Maker, a son of Unbridled, like Broken Vow, and so bred on similar lines to Best Performance. Give My Regards is also dam of Cinderella’s Dream, a two-year-old stakes winner who also took second in the Demoiselle Stakes (G2) behind Grade One winner Wonder Lady Anne L, and ahead of Eclipse Award winning champion Wait a While, and graded winner Better Now. Best Performance’s granddam, Broadway Hoofer, is a half-sister to Broadway’s Top Gun and Broadway Chief, both multiple sprint stakes winners. The family goes back to the Spinster Stakes second Aesthetic, a three-quarters sister to the dam of the great racehorse and sire, Sir Ivor, and herself ancestress of no less than 35 individual stakes winners. 

A stakes performer at 5½, 6, 7 and 8½ furlongs, and proven on dirt and turf, Best Performance was undoubtedly among the best juveniles of a talented crop and is a mare that has the potential to be a significant producer anywhere in the world.  

Pedigree Analysis by Alan Porter