For a horse who was advertised to stand at just $12,500 in 2016, Street Boss has done commendably to sire at least one top-class horse in each of his first three Northern Hemispher crops. From his initial runners came the King’s Bishop Stakes (gr. I) scorer, Capo Bastone; Danza, who took the Arkansas Derby (gr. I) and finished third in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum Brands (gr. I) was a member Street Boss’s second crop; and from the third came Holy Boss, who established him as one of the best three-year-old sprinters of 2014, with a win in the Amsterdam Stakes (gr. II), and a third in the King’s Bishop Stakes (gr. I).  Street Boss’s fourth crop is now three, and it has now already yielded five stakes winners, the most recent of which is Cathryn Sophia, who took her record to five wins in six starts when taking the Kentucky Oaks (Gr. I)

Street Boss is by Street Cry, a horse with a turf pedigree, who never ran on grass, and who debuted like a sprinter at two, but ended up earning a Horse of the Year title at four, after capturing the Dubai World Cup (gr. I) and Stephen Foster Handicap (gr. I). At stud, Street Cry sired group and grade one winners from five furlong to two miles and at almost every distance in between, among them U.S. Champions Zenyatta and Street Sense.

If Street Cry’s background has its contradictions, the distaff side Street Boss’s pedigree is verging on the schizophrenic. Street Boss’s dam is by Ogygian – a brilliant but unsound dirt miler – out of black-type placed Fruhlingshochzeit, a French-raced daughter of Blushing Groom. The third dam, Fruhlingstag, was runner-up in the French 1,000 Guineas (gr. I), and was by the German stallion, Orsini II, from a Marcel Boussac family. It would be hard to have predicted from this background what type of racehorse, Street Boss would be, but the answer was an outstanding sprinter on the all-weather, where he took three graded stakes at four, including the Triple Bend (gr. I) and Bing Crosby Handicaps (gr. I).

Some of Street Cry’s versatility as a stallion seems to have been transmitted to Street Boss, as he has already had graded stakes winners on dirt, turf and all-weather surfaces, and from five to nine furlongs. Her pedigree suggests that Cathryn Sophia may always be at her best on the dirt, the distaff side of her pedigree always hinted at the potential to stretch. Her dam, Sheave, was unraced, but is a daughter of Mineshaft,  the second dam, Unbridled’s daughter, Belterra, won the Golden Rod Stakes (gr. II) at 8½ furlongs, and took third in the Ashland Stakes (gr. I), a position emulated by Cathryn Sophia when she prepped for the Oaks in the same race. Belterra is also dam of the minor stakes winner Take The Odds, a daughter of another Street Cry sire in Street Sense.

As might have been anticipated by his ecletic pedigree, Street Boss has worked with a wide range of bloodlines. There are, however, some interesting patterns in Cathryn Sophia’s background. Firstly, Her male-line ancestor Machiavellian (grandsire of Street Boss) is by Mr. Prospector with a second dam by Hoist the Flag, where Cathryn Sophia’s broodmare sire, Mineshaft is out of Prospector’s Delite, who is by Mr. Prospector out of a Hoist the Flag mare. Street Boss’s own broodmare sire, Ogygian, is out of a half-sister to the dam of Fappiano (whose son, Unbridled, sired the second dam of Cathryn Sophia).