BY LAURIE ROSS
A bargain buy who built a six-figure career out of pure early speed, Sweetontheladies (Twirling Candy – Whataclassybroad, by Yankee Gentleman) is making good on that same precocity at stud, with a third crop that already shows a particular fondness for Florida’s all-weather track at Gulfstream Park.
AT THE RACES
Bred in Florida by English Range Farm, Sweetontheladies sold for just $25,000 at the 2016 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Spring Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale and campaigned for The Four Horsemen Racing Stable, Inc. and Lady Lindsay Racing Stables.
Under the care of trainer Henry Collazo, Sweetontheladies showed precocity out of the gate, winning three of four starts, including the $100,000 Juvenile Sprint Stakes by three lengths. He competed for an additional four years as a sprinter and finished in the money in nine stakes, five of them graded, including the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap. The pretty gray colt retired sound as a 6-year-old after 31 starts, with a record four wins with five seconds and six thirds and $408,012 in earnings.
PEDIGREE
With soundness on both sides, Sweetontheladies’ pedigree carries his sire’s Grade 1 winning class and his distaff line’s Florida-bred speed and precocity.
“Sweetontheladies is very muscular, well built,” The Four Horsemen Racing Stable manager John Kasbar said. “He’s a little on the shorter side and temperament-wise, he’s like a puppy. He’s normally calm and agreeable on a day-to-day basis.”
Twirling Candy (Candy Ride (Arg) – House of Danzing, by Chester House) adds middle-distance class to the pedigree. He won four straight to begin his career, taking the Grade 2 Del Mar Derby at a mile-and-an-eighth and $112,500 Oceanside Stakes at a mile, both over the lawn at Del Mar.
He delivered his defining performance in the Grade 1 Malibu in 2010, running down Smiling Tiger by a nose in 1:19.70 to shatter a track record Spectacular Bid had held for three decades. He followed that with a commanding four-and-a-half-length win in the Grade 2 Strub at a mile-and-one-eighth, then closed his racing days with a pair of close-up efforts at ten furlongs on synthetic, finishing second by a head to eventual champion Acclamation in the Grade 1 Pacific Classic and third in the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup. Twirling Candy retired with seven wins from 11 starts and earned $944,900.
At stud, Twirling Candy has cemented himself among the most productive sons of the unbeaten Argentine champion Candy Ride, trailing only Gun Runner and Vekoma in average price among his stallion sons.
From 896 foals to race, he has sired 679 winners, 68 of them black-type performers, a strike rate that includes several standouts out of Storm Cat-line mares: Grade 1-winners AG Bullet and Fionn; and Del Mar Futurity (G1) hero Pinehurst.
There is a direct line of stakes class through Sweetontheladies’ first two dams.
Sweetontheladies is the lone black-type earner out of the Florida-bred mare, Whataclassybroad (Yankee Gentleman – Livermore Lady, by Mt. Livermore). Two of his three half-siblings made it to the track and both won or placed in their sprint debuts, carrying on the win-early tradition of their distaff line.
Whataclassybroad was in the money in 11 of 16 starts, with a third-place finish in Hawthorne’s six-furlong Regal Rumor Stakes after a wide trip.
Sweetontheladies’ second dam, Livermore Lady (Mt. Livermore – Dagian, by Vigors), was in the money a remarkable 25 of 37 starts, and reeling off five straight wins to open her career, including a victory in the one-mile Sangre De Cristo at Santa Fe Downs, and a runner-up finish at the same distance in the La Primavera Handicap at Albuquerque Downs.
The third dam Dagian (Vigors – Amya (Fr), by Sanctus (Fr)), competed at the allowance level at Calder and was a full sister to Air de Cour, who captured France’s prestigious Group 1 Prix du Cadran at Longchamp in 1986.
Sweetontheladies owes his gray coat to his third damsire, Vigors (Grey Dawn II – Relifordie, by El Relicario (FR)), who, like Twirling Candy, competed primarily in California. Affectionately dubbed “The White Tornado,” Vigors was noted for his thrilling come-from-behind running style.
The royally bred Yankee Gentleman (Storm Cat – Key Phrase, by Flying Paster), by one of the world’s most prolific stallions out of a Grade 1-winning mare, supplies more of the same speed and precocity that defines this pedigree. A blazing 11-length debut winner at Gulfstream Park, Yankee Gentleman went on to crush the field by five lengths in Santa Anita’s Pirates Bounty Handicap, stopping the clock in 1:07.90 for six furlongs, a sliver off the track record set in 1973. Though his own crop of 22 stakes winners skewed toward listed company, Yankee Gentleman’s greater legacy may be as broodmare sire of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and that colt’s Grade 1-winning half-sister, Chasing Yesterday.
AT STUD
“He has been primarily breeding sprinters that have great affection for Tapeta,” Kasbar said. “His figures on [synthetic] are terrific.” They are indeed, as Sweetontheladies is the second leading third-crop sire over the surface; however, his offspring are competent on all surfaces.
His Florida-bred daughter Tizasweetlady romped by eighth-and-a-quarter lengths in her second start over Gulfstream’s synthetic, zipping five furlongs in :59.09 with a 12.14 closing fraction. In March 2026, she closed three-wide to finish third against the multiple stakes-winning Florida-bred Lennilu in the Leinster Melody of Colors Stakes.
For Florida breeders, that combination of soundness, graded stakes form and a proven sire on top adds up at an accessible price point. Sweetontheladies stands at Solera Farm in Williston for $2,500.
Return to the June 23 issue of Wire to Wire
