Raja Baba

Raja Baba
Sire Bold Ruler
Grandsire Nasrullah
Dam Missy Baba
Damsire My Babu
Sex Stallion
Foaled 1968
Country United States
Colour Dark Bay
Breeder Michael G. Phipps
Owner Michael G. Phipps
Trainer Del W. Carroll
Record 41: 7-12-9
Earnings US$123,287
Major wins
Alligator Handicap (1970)
Francis Scott Key Stakes (1971)
Delaware Valley Handicap (1971)
Awards
Leading sire in North America (1980)
Honours
Raja Baba Purse at Aqueduct Racetrack

Raja Baba (April 5, 1968 – October 9, 2002) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse who became the 1980 Champion sire in North America. His sire was Bold Ruler, the leading sire in North America eight times and a National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame inductee. His dam was Missy Baba, a daughter of My Babu, a winner of the British Classic 2,000 Guineas Stakes in 1948 who became the influential sire of forty-seven stakes winners and a damsire sire of ninety-five winners.

Raja Baba was bred and raced by Michael G. Phipps, son of renowned owner and breeder, Ogden Phipps. In 1970, two-year-old Raja Baba soon developed into a good sprint horse who was noted primarily for his speed and mud-running ability.[1] As a three-year-old, he won the Francis Scott Key Stakes at Bowie Race Course [2] followed a week later by a division of the Delaware Valley Handicap at Garden State Park.[3] At age four, Raja Baba won the Bold Ruler Purse at Delaware Park Racetrack [4] and finished second in the Phoenix Handicap at Keeneland, the Japan Racing Association Handicap at Laurel Park, and the Garrison Handicap at Liberty Bell Park Racetrack.

Champion sire and sire of Champions

Near the end of his racing career, Raja Baba was sold to William S. Farish III who in turn sold a half interest to breeder, Warner L. Jones. He was syndicated in 1972 in a 36 share deal at $10,000 per share, a figure that his success as a stallion would see rise to a selling price of $205,000 per share on the open market by 1982.[5] Retired from racing at the end of 1972, he was sent to stand at stud at Warner Jones' Hermitage Farm near Goshen, Kentucky. As a freshman stallion in 1976, Raja Baba was the leading juvenile sire in the United States [6] and four years later both the leading juvenile sire and overall leading sire in the United States. In 1983 the highly successful British horseman Robert Sangster paid $2.6 million for the Raja Baba colt, Side Chapel. [7]

During his career at stud, Raja Baba sired sixty-two stakes winners and two Champions.[8] In 1985, his daughter Summer Mood won the Sovereign Award as the Canadian Champion Sprint Horse of either sex. Another daughter, Sacahuista, won the 1987 Breeders' Cup Distaff and was voted the Eclipse Award as that year's American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly. Sacahuista was the dam of Hussonet who became a highly successful multiple Champion sire in Chile and who in 2002 earned the highest stud fee of any stallion ever to have stood in that country.[9]

Raja Baba's other successful offspring included Is It True , winner of the 1988 Breeders' Cup Juvenile, as well as Grade 1 winners Junius, Well Decorated and Royal Ski, the latter the damsire of the undefeated Japanese runner Agnes Tachyon who became the Leading sire in Japan in 2008.

At the end of the 1987 breeding season Raja Baba was pensioned. He died at Hermitage Farm in 2002 at age thirty-four and was buried in its equine cemetery.

Pedigree of Raja Baba
Sire
Bold Ruler		 Nasrullah Nearco Pharos
Nogara
Mumtaz Begum Blenheim II
Mumtaz Muhal
Miss Disco Discovery Display
Ariadne
Outdone Pompey
Sweep Out
Dam
Missy Baba		 My Babu Djebel Tourbillon
Loika
Perfume Badruddin
Lavendula
Uvira Umidwar Blandford
Uganda
Lady Lawless Son-in-Law
Entanglement

References

  1. ↑ New York Post – April 4, 2001
  2. ↑ New York Times - Apr 11, 1971
  3. ↑ New York Times - April 18, 1971
  4. ↑ The Press-Courier (Oxnard, California) - July 16, 1972
  5. ↑ Calgary Herald (Alberta) – January 13, 1983
  6. ↑ New York Times – July 3, 1977
  7. ↑ Lexington Herald-Leader (Kentucky) - July 21, 1985
  8. ↑ Thoroughbred Times - October 10, 2002
  9. ↑ Bloodhorse.com - February 6, 2003
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