Natalma

Most of us know the name of the the Virginia-bred Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame mare as the momma of Northern Dancer; perhaps the most influential sire in Thoroughbred history. As a runner this mare did not light the world on fire with 3 wins from 7 starts and a career bankroll of just over 16k. She never won a stakes race although at two she did finish first in the Wheelaway before being D.Q.ed to third. In fact most of us would never have given this horse a second thought if not for her amazing production as a broodmare.

Bloodlines:

Natalma’s sire Native Dancer was one of the greatest race horses of all time and rivals his grand son Northern Dancer as a sire of sires. Amongst his sons are Raise a Native (Mr. Prospector line), Atan (Sharpen Up line). Native Dancer has many other daughters of impact as well. Natalma’s broodmare Almahmoud is also legendary having also brought forth Cosmah mother of the legendary Halo, and another Natlama half sister, Bubbling Beauty is the dam of Arctic Tern who sired the great Bering. The boys in her family were not influential. Two were gelded and her full brother Ramadan clearly did not inherit Natalma’s greatness in the shed.  

Progeny

We already know Natalma is the mother of the great Northern Dancer but she also gave us a lesser known daughter who plays a huge role in current Thoroughbred breeding. Raise the Standard, Natalma’s daughter was unraced but still made a huge impact. Raise the Standard was sired by the great Hoist The Flag. Raise the Standard’s progeny include Bonita Francita (the dam of Jules sire of Peace Rules) and Coup De Folie (dam of Machiavellian whose highly influential career as sire includes Street Cry, Storming Home and Medician amongst many others). Interestingly Coup De Folie is a cross of  Cosmah and Natlma and yields a 3 x 3 cross to Natlama’s dam Almahmoud. Raise the Standard’s son El Moxie sired two millionaire geldings, Joyful Winner (over 2 million in purses) a multiple group 1 winner and the great Silent Witness (over 8 million in purses) who won an amazing 17 races in a row including multiple Grade 1’s.

Breeding

It is hard to breed in the sim without crossing Natalma through her multiple sons of Northern Dancer, but some other interesting methods for bringing this great dam into play also exist. Crossing Machiavellian or his sons to a Northern Dancer son has been very effective perhaps in part due to the Natalma cross. Peace Rules is another sire who when crossed through Northern Dancer would also bring a lesser used Natalma cross. Using Jules at DS and a grandson of ND at the sire position also yields a different type of Natalma cross. Street Cry carries his second dam’s (Raise the Standard) cross to Almahmoud and would naturally pair nicely with sons, grand sons and even great grandsons of Northern Dancer where the foal would wind up with potentially 3 to 6 crosses of Almahmoud and multiple incarnations of Natlama as well. It has worked in real life too. One look at the pedigree of 2007 Kentucky Derby winner and freshman sire Street Sense proves it. Street Sense has a 4 x 5 cross to Natlama via his Dixieland Band mare and a 5 x 6 x 6 cross to Almahmoud.  These crosses undoubtedly exist throughout the Thoroughbred world and looking for ways to cross Natlama without using multiple sources of Northern Dancer have yielded great results in the sim (of course they have worked very well WITH multiple Northern Dancer sources as well).  Hopefully this has given you a few new ideas for breeding and I hope you get excellent results with crossing the great Natlama’s bloodlines.

If you want to follow along the great Natalma’s heritage I suggest doing what I did. Go to http://www.pedigreequery.com and look her up and follow her progeny reports. It is a fascinating way to waste a couple of hours. Good luck and happy breeding!