Blue Larkspur - As A Sire

As A Sire

As a stallion at Idle Hour Stock Farm, Blue Larkspur excelled as he had on the track – especially with his daughters. Among his progeny was Oedipus, the 1950 and 1951 American steeplechase champion. Blue Larkspur made the broodmare sires list every year from 1944 through 1960, with his daughters producing 114 stakes winners and six champions. This may be because he is thought to have been a carrier of the X factor (a genetic trait which causes an extraordinarily large heart, and is only passed on to a stallion's daughters via the x-chromosome).

Blue Larkspur also produced the Hall of Famer Myrtlewood and Blue Denim, a mare who produced six stakes winners. Blue Denim's most important offspring was her daughter Ampola, who never won a stakes race but became one of the Stud Book's most important foundation mares for Gertrude T. Widener.

Blue Larkspur died in 1947, aged 21.