The following appeared in The Paulick Report May 21st
Jump Start, the leading sire in the Mid-Atlantic region for the past five years, was euthanized the morning of Sunday, May 19 at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center due to complications from colitis. The dark bay son of A.P. Indy was 20.
Standing at Northview PA in Peach Bottom, Penn., for $10,000, the most expensive stallion in the region, Jump Start has sired 69 stakes winners, 24 graded/group winners, since launching his stud career in 2003 at his birthplace, Overbrook Farm in Kentucky.
He was a success from the start, getting seven stakes winners from 65 runners in his first crop, including three graded winners. His next crop yielded Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup winner Rail Trip, an earner of $1,516,520 and runner-up in the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile; a race another son, Pants On Fire, would finish third in two years later. From the same 2008 crop as Pants On Fire came Prayer for Relief, a four-time graded stakes winner and his richest runner, with $2,277,948 earned.
Sent to Argentina for seven breeding seasons through the mid-2010s, Jump Start has sired three South American champions: 2014 Argentinian Horse of the Year Idolo Porteno, Uruguay’s 2017 champion 3-year-old filly and older mare Sexy Reasons and Argentina’s 2-year-old filly champion of 2015 Seresta.
Jump Start moved from Kentucky to Tarry Bratton’s Ghost Ridge Farms in Felton, Penn., for the 2010 season and relocated to Northview PA in 2012. His Pennsylvania-sired crops include more than 40 stakes performers – his eight stakes winners in the 2011 crop include $790,834-earner Miss Behaviour and $735,250-earner Disco Chick. He’s been the region’s leading sire since 2014, has average annual progeny earnings of more than $5 million since 2009, and was the top U.S. sire standing outside Kentucky by North American earnings in 2011.
Trained by D. Wayne Lukas for his breeder, William T. Young, Jump Start burst on the scene as a 2-year-old, winning two of his first five starts, including the 2001 G2 Saratoga Special Stakes over Heavyweight Champ and Booklet. He also finished second in the G1 Champagne Stakes to division leader Officer at Belmont Park.
An off-the-board finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Belmont Park was to be his final start, as he exited the race with a condylar fracture of his left front cannon bone. He earned $221,265.
Jump Start’s dam, the Overbrook Farm-homebred Steady Cat, is a Storm Cat daughter who earned $224,427 and placed in five stakes, two graded, and is also the granddam of Grade 1 winner Mastery. Jump Start’s second dam, Hopespringsforever, was a full sister to major sire Miswaki.
