Clearly Now
by Avalyn Hunter
When evaluating a stallion as a prospective mate for a mare, the ideal candidate would have shown the ability to win at two plus the toughness, durability, and soundness to train on. Speed is a must, and the astute breeder would also like to see a masculine individual with strength and substance. Finally, a deep pedigree is highly desirable. All that is available to Louisiana breeders for just $2,000, the most recently advertised stud fee for Clear Creek Stud stallion Clearly Now. A hardy individual who raced from ages 2 to 7, Clearly Now holds two track records at major racetracks and has shown promise from a small number of foals of racing age, with 15 winners from 24 starters of 2024.
Bred by Claiborne Farm, Clearly Now is a sixth-generation product of that storied farm’s breeding program. His sire is Horse Greeley, a son of the successful Gone West stallion Mr. Greeley from a successful Chilean-based family. Horse Greeley won the Del Mar Futurity (G2) over Great Hunter, a next-out winner of the Lane’s End Breeders’ Futurity (G1) before running third in the Bessemer Trust Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1), and Stormello, who took the Norfolk Stakes (G2) in his next start and won the Hollywood Futurity (G1) before the end of the season. Injured in his next outing, Horse Greeley made only two starts at 3 but was third in the Malibu Stakes (G1) in his career finale.
A full brother to 2017 Desert Stormer Stakes (G3) winner Bendable, Clearly Now is out of stakes-placed Bend, whose sire Arch was best known as a sire of staying horses but begot two group 1-winning sprinters in Les Arcs and Overarching. Bend is out of stakes-placed Stint, whose half sister Bimini Knot (by Dynaformer) is the dam of 2014 Iowa Derby (G3) winner Jessica’s Star (by Magna Graduate).
Stint, in turn, is out of three-time listed stakes winner Hitch (by Cox’s Ridge), whose half sister Thread (by Topsider) won two listed stakes races before becoming the dam of multiple Grade 2 winner Wend (by Pulpit). Produced from 1984 Debutante Stakes winner Knot (by Majestic Light), Hitch is also a half sister to Cluster (by Danzig), dam of Japanese group 2 winner T M Inazuma (by Black Tide) and stakes winner Urban Warrior (by Cape Town). The next dam in Clearly Now’s tail-female line, Loop, is by Round Table and is one of five stakes winners produced from the Nasrullah mare Lea Moon, a stakes-placed full sister to 1956 American champion 2-year-old filly Leallah.
With stakes winners going long, short, on turf, and on turf coming out of his female family, Clearly Now had a “could be anything” pedigree. What he turned out to be was a very fast seven-furlong specialist. A winner at 2, he had his best years at 3, when he won the Swale Stakes (G3) at Gulfstream Park and the Bold Ruler Stakes (G3) at Belmont, and at 4, when he won the Belmont Sprint Championship Stakes (G3) and set a Belmont track record of 1:19.96 for seven furlongs. He continued racing and winning every year through age 7. In his final victory, this at Gulfstream Park on April 1, 2017, he set another track record of 1:20.17 for seven furlongs. He then retired to Clear Creek Stud, where he stood his first season in 2018. As of September 24, 2024, his overall record is 20 winners from 32 starters, including three 2-year-old winners so far this year.
Clearly Now was represented by his first winner in October 2022, when his gelded son I See Clearly Now (out of Christian County, by Archarcharch) won a maiden claiming race at Delta Downs. Sent up to Fonner Park in March 2023, the gelding captured the Baxter Stakes (a non-black-type race) to become his sire’s first stakes winner. Clearly Now got his first black-type stakes winner later in the year when his daughter Clearly a Test (out of Testing One Two, by Star Guitar) broke her maiden in the Donald L. Ferguson Memorial Stakes at the Fair Grounds. Since then, she has won the Cajun Miss Stakes at Evangeline Downs and the Louisiana Stallion Stakes Presented by Coteau Grove Farms, also at Evangeline, as well as placing in two other stakes races. The filly has bankrolled $240,750 for owner-breeder Brittlyn Stable.
The most recent stakes star for Clearly Now is Clear as a Bele (out of My Friend Bele, by My Friend Max), who claimed his fifth career victory from 12 starts in the Louisiana Cup Sprint Stakes at Louisiana Downs on August 31, 2024. Bred by Delmar Caldwell and owned by Pendleton Larsen Jr., Clear as a Bele is Clearly Now’s second-leading earner with $215,560 to his credit. Clearly Now is also the sire of two juvenile stakes winners in Mexico, C. R. Crown (out of C R Vexora, by Graeme Hall) and Brikell (out of Stars Forever, by Star Guitar), and in addition is the sire of Magnolia Speed (out of Major Ashworth, by Colonel John), the winner of the non-black-type Bobby Q Stakes at Assiniboia Downs in Canada.
Thus far, Clearly Now has two winners from four foals out of daughters of four-time Louisiana champion Star Guitar, a son of Quiet American. Aside from the runners already mentioned, he has winners by Flatter, Bernstein, Giant’s Causeway, Super Saver, Artie Schiller, and Pioneerof the Nile among others, indicating his ability to work with a wide variety of sire lines. A robust, powerfully made individual with impressive substance, he is short-coupled but with fair length of leg and neck, suitable for adding some leg to the foal of a blocky mare or some power and muscle to that of a leggy mare without being too disparate in type for either. His recent successes may help revitalize the stud career of a horse that clearly has the potential to be a useful sire in the Pelican State.
Avalyn Hunter is the author of five books on Thoroughbred pedigrees and history including Dream Derby: The Myth and Legend of Black Gold (2023, University Press of Kentucky) and The Kentucky Oaks: 150 Years of Running for the Lilies (2024, University Press of Kentucky). Her website is www.americanclassicpedigrees.com.