Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association of New Jersey
by Bill Finley
At a racetrack and during a race meet where the entries are loaded with horses by all of the top sires in the sport, you would think that New Jersey-based stallion Sea Wizard would be in over his head. That wasn’t the case last week, as Sea Wizard’s progeny won two races at Gulfstream, an allowance/optional claimer with Dumb Money and an allowance race with Great Navigator.
For those who have been following Sea Wizard that probably wasn’t much of a surprise. From the time he entered stud in 2019, he has, with limited opportunities, produced a slew of horses who are fast, consistent, and have piled up sizeable earnings. But outside of New Jersey, he’s gone largely unnoticed, one of the sport’s most underrated sires. If he has too many more weeks like he had last week, that may finally start to change.
“Mares should be flocking to this horse,” said Doug Nunn, who trains Dumb Money. “He’s not just a Jersey stallion, in my opinion.”
Sea Wizard stands at Pegasus Stud in Colts Neck, and his stud fee is $5,000. He was trained by the late John Mazza, who convinced Sam Fieramosca that he had to stand Sea Wizard at stud. A son of Uncle Mo, Sea Wizard ran just twice breaking his maiden at Belmont in his second career start. At the time, Fieramosca owned and operated Colonial Farm, which was subsequently turned over to Carmine Spinella and renamed Pegasus Stud.
Trained by Eddie Owens Jr., Great Navigator was from the first crop of Sea Wizard, and he wasted little time showing he had quality. He broke his maiden at first asking at Monmouth before running second in the Grade III Sanford Stakes at Saratoga. When he won last week at Gulfstream, he had pushed his earnings to $400,417.
“He’s a very underrated sire,” said Owens, who is the private trainer for Holly Crest Farm. “He had two winners in the same week at Gulfstream and they were in tough races. When we first started breeding to him I never thought he would be this good. He’s been a surprise to me. Most of them have been running pretty good. Among mine, I have some that are not as talented as others. But you’ll never be in a situation where they are all good.”
Dumb Money was making his first start for Nunn after running for Greg Sacco. Running in a five-furlong race over the Tapeta surface, he won by 1 ½ lengths.
“I have been watching Sea Wizard for the last couple of years, and what he has done has been remarkable,” Nunn said. “We haven’t had a top stallion like him here in New Jersey for years. The way he has taken off is pretty unbelievable. This is the only horse I’ve ever had by Sea Wizard, and I’ve trained for a lot of Jersey breeders over the years. This owner changed trainers, and once he came to me, he trained like a good horse. He’s nothing to look at. He gives you no reason to think he’s a race horse. It’s mind boggling. But when you train him, it’s a totally different story.”
Nunn said he hopes to add more Sea Wizards to his barn.
“We are looking for Sea Wizards,” he said. “People have tried to sell us horses by the regular Jersey stallions and we’re trying to find Sea Wizards. I have owners who are breeders and yes, absolutely, they’re booking some of their mares to Sea Wizard. We definitely want to get a little better quality mares to breed to him. What he’s done so far is to produce these horses out of the normal Jersey-bred mares that you see.”
But until now, people haven’t really caught on.
Sea Wizard has had 17 winners from just 25 starters, a remarkable percentage for any stallion. He’s had four black type winners and one black type placed horse or five black type horses in total from those 25 starters. That’s 10% black type winners to foals of racing age, and 16% black type winners to starters.
After Great Navigator, his best horses have been Sea Streak, a two-time stakes winner who beat open company in the Long Branch Stakes, and Ship To Shore, who beat open company in the 2024 Limehouse Stakes at Gulfstream. J J Zo Zo is still another Sea Wizard who has won an open company stakes race, winning the 2024 Smoke Glacken Stakes.
“I remember when Sam Fieramosca at Colonial Farms first got him, and I kind of laughed at it,” Nunn said. “I was wondering what they were doing with a stallion that had only run twice and only broken his maiden. But that he’s by Uncle Mo definitely helps. Sea Wizard’s horses can run on the dirt, the turf, the Tapeta. They can run long or short. Some of these stallions are pretty one-dimensional when it comes to their runners. Not this one. He has a lot of quality to him.”