Offspring of Cee’s Tizzy Are Becoming a Special Breed

COALINGA, Calif. —  His old trainer, John Russell, might have difficulty recognizing Cee’s Tizzy now. He raced as a gray during a short career of six races in 1990, but he has turned completely white, save for dozens of small flecks of black all over his enormous body. It looks as though someone stood next to Cee’s Tizzy with a ballpoint pen that exploded.

You can also color Cee’s Tizzy green, as in greenbacks. At 14, in the prime of a stud career that had bottomed out four years ago, Cee’s Tizzy is now one of California’s hottest stallions, though still a bargain by Kentucky standards at a one-time breeding fee of $15,000.

“His fee has had more movement than the stock market in the last five years,” said John Harris, owner of Harris Farms here, where Cee’s Tizzy arrived as a boarder in 1995. “His first year with us, you could have bred to him for $1,500. In 1996 and 1997, his advertised fee was $2,500. Then in 1998, some of the [breeding] contracts were for $2,000. In 1999, the fee was $2,500. In 2000, it was between $4,000 and $10,000.”

In 1996, there were only 16 foals sired by Cee’s Tizzy.

“Let’s face it, he wasn’t very popular then,” said Dave McGlothlin, manager of Harris Farms.

In fact, as recently as 1998, to lure breeders to Cee’s Tizzy, some were given two breedings for only $2,000.

First Budroyale, and now Tiznow, changed all that. They are the Cee’s Tizzy offspring that have transmogrified the frog of a stallion into a prince of a stud.

In 1999 at Gulfstream Park, Budroyale ran second to Cat Thief in the $4-million Breeders’ Cup Classic. His career is currently on hold because of a shoulder injury, but the 8-year-old gelding’s earnings are up to $2.8 million, which ranks him seventh among California-breds.

Budroyale and Tiznow are both from matings of Cee’s Tizzy to the broodmare Cee’s Song. Tiznow has done even better than his full brother Budroyale. Supplemented into the 2000 Breeders’ Cup Classic for $360,000, Tiznow won the race last November at Churchill Downs, beating older horses and Fusaichi Pegasus, the Kentucky Derby winner. Tiznow has earned $3.4 million--second only to Best Pal on the money list of Cal-breds--and is a heavy favorite to be named horse of the year when the announcement is made in New Orleans on Jan. 30. Before Tiznow, no Cal-bred had won a Breeders’ Cup race, and there hasn’t been a state-bred horse of the year since Swaps in 1956.

In 1999, when the 2-year-old Tiznow, having been broken at Harris Farms, was being loaded on a van that would take him to trainer Jay Robbins at Santa Anita for the start of his racing career, veterinarian Jeanne Bowers-Lepore had his picture taken. Bowers-Lepore said that she doesn’t photograph many horses that way, but the unraced Tiznow had the look of a horse that might turn out to be something.

Cee’s Tizzy and Cee’s Song are both owned by Pamela Ziebarth, Kevin Cochrane and Mike Cooper. Ziebarth and Cochrane, who trains horses, are the daughter and son of Cecilia “Cee” Straub-Rubens, who watched her Tiznow win the Breeders’ Cup race in Kentucky, then died two days later in a Newport Beach hospital. Her battle with cancer ended at 83. Cooper, a close friend and business associate of Straub-Rubens’ late husband, Bud Straub, is trustee for the estate.

After being bred to 52 mares in 1999--33 of which he got in foal--Cee’s Tizzy was one of 82 stallions around the country that were bred to 100 or more mares in 2000. Cee’s Tizzy, who will be bred to about 100 mares--same as last year--when the season starts on Feb. 15, has a high sperm production, says the veterinarian Bowers-Lepore, and is a willing breeder, McGlothlin attests.

“He’s on the aggressive side,” McGlothlin said. “He gets his business done quickly. You might say that he’s a very excitable boy.”

Cooper said that the first 40 breedings to Cee’s Tizzy were sold in two or three weeks. Those investors paid $7,500 apiece, that part of the stallion’s book closing last September. The price then went to $10,000, with 15 more breeders coming in. The $10,000 window closed at midnight the night before the Breeders’ Cup; the price shot up to $15,000 after Tiznow’s victory in the Classic.

The Straub-Rubens family and Cooper will breed four of their own mares to Cee’s Tizzy. Naturally, one of those will be Cee’s Song, who is due to drop a Cee’s Tizzy foal next week. She will be bred back to Cee’s Tizzy, for the ninth time, in mid-February.

In concert with Paul Webber, a British bloodstock agent, Cooper bought Cee’s Tizzy, a son of Relaunch and the Lyphard mare Tizly, for $72,000 at a Keeneland September yearling sale in 1988. At the same sale the year before, Webber had helped Cooper buy Cee’s Song, a daughter of Seattle Song, the 1984 winner of the Washington D.C. International, for $50,000. Seattle Song, as you might expect, is a son of Seattle Slew, the 1977 Triple Crown champion.

Straub-Rubens was so excited about buying the colt that her friends said she was “in a tizzy,” and that was enough of an idea to name him Cee’s Tizzy. Russell, who has since retired, was training for Straub-Rubens then.

Cee’s Song, like Budroyale, raced in claiming company, winning her only race in 18 starts when she ran for a $40,000 tag. Russell had to train Cee’s Tizzy gingerly, because of a shoulder injury he suffered before he left the farm.

Cee’s Tizzy made the most of his six races. He won three times, earning $173,150. In 1990, as a 3-year-old, he ran six furlongs in 1:07 4/5 and his 1:33 2/5 mile at Del Mar just missed breaking the track record. But his next race was his last. A confident Russell shipped him to Louisiana Downs for the $1-million Super Derby.

The 1 1/4-mile race featured Unbridled, the Kentucky Derby winner and a horse who would soon win the Breeders’ Cup Classic as well. Neither of them won. Cee’s Tizzy, almost upended when a horse outside him swerved in at the start, still led the race for six furlongs before finishing third. Home At Last, at 15-1, sent a sheepish Carl Nafzger to the winner’s circle. The veteran trainer had expected to be there with stablemate Unbridled, a badly beaten second at 9-10 odds.

Cee’s Tizzy was retired after fracturing a knee in the race. His stud career at Lakeview Thoroughbred Farm, in Riverside County, ended when Cooper moved him to Harris Farms five years ago.

“We were trying to find the best possible stallion station in the state,” Cooper said. “We had three farms on our list, and decided on Harris Farms because of their serious commitment to the California breeding business.”

Budroyale, foaled in 1993, was lost by Straub-Rubens on a $32,000 claim the first time Robbins ran him. A daughter of Cee’s Tizzy, Gourmet Girl, won the Grade I Milady Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Hollywood Park in 1999.

Tiznow was foaled by Cee’s Song on March 12, 1997. Bowers-Lepore remembers the arrival, at 4 o’clock in the morning.

“He was a big foal,” she said. “He weighed 144 pounds. The average is about 115 pounds. Most of Cee’s Tizzy’s foals are precocious, but I had a special feeling about Tiznow. The day we sent him on his way, I said to everybody, ‘That’s a great horse leaving this farm.’ ”

Less than three weeks after the Cee’s Tizzy-Cee’s Song breeding that produced Tiznow, an ultrasound examination showed that the mare would be having twins. In the equine world, if both twins are allowed to survive, they’re usually undersized and not likely to develop as racehorses. To avoid twins, Bowers-Lepore “pinched” one of Cee’s Song’s vesicles, allowing the remaining embryo to develop fully.