Studying Blue Hens, one would not immediately recognize Cee’s Song as a promising prospect for a dynasty. Her only win in 18 starts came in a maiden claiming race at Hollywood Park, and although she also finished second in a maiden special weight-and-allowance race eight times, these statistics suggest she may not have a desire to stand out from the pack.
Her sire, Seattle Song, a relatively rare turf star for Seattle Slew, had won the Prix de la Salamandre (G1) at age 2 and the Washington DC International (G1) at age 3, but was not one of Seattle Slew’s more outstanding sires and had only one Grade 1 winner in his 11 offspring.
Cee’s Song’s dam, the Canadian-bred Lonely Dancer (by Northern Dancer’s son Nice Dancer), recorded her only win at Northlands Park. Lonely Dancer was a sister to the tough Mr. Kapacity, who won 22 races, including several minor stakes races in Canada. But the real class comes in Cee’s Song’s third dam, Sulenan, whose stakes-winning daughter Swinging Lizzie produced Swaps Stakes (G1) winner Lively One and Swing Till Dawn, who won the Charles H. Strub Stakes (G1) and Widener Handicap (G1). Sulenan is also the third dam of Digression, a son of Seattle Slew who was a high-weight colt in England at 2. Further back, Cee’s Song’s fourth dam, Blue Canary, was a half-sister to Crimson Satan, the 1961 co-champion two-year-old, and was from the same sire line.
Cee’s Song was purchased for $50,000 at the 1987 Keeneland September Yearling Sale by a partnership that included California breeder Cecilia Straub-Rubens, and it was Straub-Rubens who decided to keep her as a broodmare.
Cee’s song
Register for Bloodhorse Daily
Straub-Rubens also had the relaunch stallion Cee’s Tizzy in the race, who was not a stakes winner but performed brilliantly in a career that was ended by injury. Cee’s Tizzy was successful in three of six starts and won two times in a row Del Mar In the handicap races he ran 1:07 4/5 for six furlongs and 1:33 2/5 for a mile. He was entered in the Super Derby Invitational (G1) and set the pace there before finishing third behind Home At Last and Unbridled, but suffered a broken wrist during the race. He was retired to Harris Farms near Coalinga, California, where he would live for the next 24 years.
Cee’s Tizzy sired nine of Cee’s Song’s first ten foals, and it proved to be a match made in heaven. Four of Cee’s Tizzy’s offspring—Cee’s Song—won black-type events: Tiznow, 2000 Horse of the Year and 2001 Champion Three-Year-Old Colt and 2001 Champion Older Horse, and the only two-time winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1); Budroyale, a five-time graded stakes winner with earnings of more than $2.8 million; Tizdubai, heroine of the Sorrento Stakes (G2); and Tizbud, a California-bred and graded-placed stakes winner.
In addition to Tizdubai, who is the granddam of Graded winners Tarifa and Cabo Spirit, there were four other non-Black Type fillies from the mating of Cee’s Tizzy and Cee’s Song, and remarkably all four are ancestors of Black Type winners. Tizso, who was placed in two starts, produced a trio of stakes winners, led by Counter who won the 2012 Haskell Invitational Stakes (G1) and was narrowly defeated in the Belmont Stakes (G1); the non-racing Tizamazing is the dam of the winner of the 2013 Preakness Stakes (G1) Oxbow and his brother, who won stakes Great Patriot (both, like Paynter, by Awesome Again); and the former racehorse breeder Tizsweet, the ancestor of the family’s youngest star, Sweet Azteca .
We should also note here that while Cee’s Tizzy also sired the 2001 champion mare Gourmet Girl and the Grade 1-winning sprinter Cost of Freedom from other mares, Cee’s Song was successful as a broodmare after her last foal by Cee’s Tizzy. She sold for $2.6 million to Tizamazing and produced four more foals, three by Storm Cat and one by his son Giant’s Causeway. She produced nothing better than minor stakes winner C’Mon Tiger, although another member of that quartet, minor race winner You’re Beautiful, appears as the granddam of the Remington Park Oaks (G3) winner. Lady Mystify .
Sweet Azteca – bred and owned by Straub-Rubens’ daughter Pamela C. Ziebarth – made her debut in May 2023 in a six furlong Churchill Downs maiden special event. She won it by 2 1/4 lengths after sweeping a :20.92 first quarter, but all of her other starts have come in 2024 and on the West Coast. After an eight-month layoff, she dropped to third after setting the pace in the Las Flores Stakes (G3) on Jan. 1, but that would be her only loss to date. She finished 12 lengths clear in a 6 1/2-furlong Allowance/Optional Claiming Test in February. Exactly one month later, Sweet Azteca led from start to finish in the Beholder Mile Stakes (G1), holding the impressive Adare Manor House by three-quarters of a length. In the Great Lady M Stakes (G2), Sweet Azteca pulled away by five lengths and set a track record of 1:14.33 for 6 1/2 furlongs. Los Alamitos RacetrackLast weekend’s Rancho Bernardo Handicap (G3) offered little more than a paid workout, with Sweet Azteca winning by seven lengths over her Las Flores Handicap conqueror Chismosa.
Sweet Azteca is one of five stakes winners from the first crop of Spicy Azteca Sharp Azteca, who is now at the Shizunai Stallion Station in Hokkaido, Japan, where he has just completed his first season, is by the Storm Cat son Freud a full brother to Giant’s Causeway. Sharp Azteca, winner of five black-type events in 17 starts, most notably the 2017 Cigar Mile Handicap (G1), was the leading freshman sire of 2022 with 36 individual wins. The best of his first crop other than Sweet Azteca was the four-time stakes winner Tyler’s Tribe He also has stakes winners Sharp Lorenzo from his second harvest.
Spicy Azteca at Three Chimneys Farm
There are striking similarities between Sharp Azteca’s grandsire Storm Cat and Sweet Azteca’s fifth dam, Lonely Dancer. Both are by sons of Northern Dancer, and Storm Cat’s second dam is by Crimson Satan out of a daughter of First Rose, while Lonely Dancer’s second dam is by a son of Tom Fool out of a half-sister of Crimson Satan. We will note that Storm Cat, with Tiznow – a full brother to Sweet Azteca’s third dam, Tizsweet – has produced nearly 80 stakes winners, including seven at Grade 1, including champion 2-year-old fillies Folklore and the 2022 Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Early voting . In addition, the winner of the H. Allen Jerkens Memorial Stakes (G1) on Saturday Domestic product is by Pranks a stallion from the Storm Cat line out of a mare by Paynter, whose mother, as mentioned, is another full sister of the third mother of Sweet Azteca.
