Pedigree

Big Truck is from the first crop of Grade 2-winning sprinter Hook and Ladder, whose maximum trip was seven furlongs. Considering the world of stamina that Big Truck inherits from his dam, however, he should not be judged by his sire's distance limitations. Hook and Ladder flashed brilliant speed at times, especially in the 2001 Gulfstream Park Sprint Championship H. (G2), where he set blistering fractions before holding on by a half-length. After placing in the Carter H. (G1) and Forest Hills H. (G2) that season, he went on to capture the Mr. Prospector H. (G3) in 2002. Hook and Ladder has gotten off to a fast start at stud. In addition to Big Truck, he is also represented by Spanky Fischbein, the winner of the Great White Way division of the New York Stallion S. and runner-up in five other stakes, and I Promise, a near-miss second in the Schuylerville S. (G3) at Saratoga last summer. Hook and Ladder is by the outstanding stallion Dixieland Band, who has another emerging son at stud in Dixie Union.

Big Truck's dam, three-time winner Just a Ginny, campaigned at the opposite end of the distance spectrum. A daughter of 1994 Kentucky Derby (G1) hero Go for Gin, Just a Ginny never raced at less than one mile and won at up to 1 1/4 miles. She has transmitted that staying power to her first two foals to race -- the stakes-placed Logic Way (Freud), a turf router who came within a head of landing a 1 1/4-mile allowance, and Big Truck, who has already exceeded his sire's distance capacity. Just a Ginny's stamina may be amplified by the repetitive presence of *Princequillo in her bloodlines. One of the most seminal staying influences of the second half of the 20th century, Princequillo appears three times within five generations of Just a Ginny's pedigree. Just a Ginny receives one of those doses from Go for Gin, who followed up his Run for the Roses score with a pair of commendable runner-up efforts in the Preakness S. (G1) and Belmont S. (G1). He has not been a raging success as a stallion, but he did sire one top-class individual in $3 million earner Albert the Great, an impressive winner of the 2000 Jockey Club Gold Cup S. (G1). It would be no surprise if Go for Gin ultimately achieves better results as a broodmare sire.

Just a Ginny is a half-sister to Goodbye Doeny (Storm Cat), runner-up in the 1993 Breeders' Futurity (G2) at Keeneland. They are out of the winning Evangelic, by noted classic stallion Halo, who has sired a pair of Kentucky Derby victors in Sunny's Halo (1983) and Sunday Silence (1989). Evangelic's dam, My Room, is closely inbred (3 x 3) to Princequillo. With such a stamina-drenched female line, Big Truck should have enough horsepower to stay 1 1/4 miles.