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Raise A Native
 Raise a Native was one of the most influential sires of American thoroughbred stallions
over the last 20 years.
Raise a Native, a son of Native Dancer and Case Ace, was undefeated in four
starts as a 2-year-old. He tied or equaled track records three times and won
the Great American and the Belmont Juvenile. He was injured and never raced
again, but left a greater mark on the bloodlines of American thoroughbred
racing as a sire than he could have as a race horse.
Raise a Native sired 74 stakes winners, including Majestic Prince, the 1969
Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner, and Alydar, runner-up in all
three 1978 Triple Crown races. The two leading stallions in the nation this
year, Mr. Prospector and Alydar, are sons of Raise a Native, as is Exclusive
Native, the sire of two Derby winners, Affirmed and Genuine Risk.
Raise a Native was purchased by Louis Wolfson as a yearling for $39,000 in
1962. He was retired to Wolfson's Harbor View Farm in 1963 and moved to
Spendthrift in 1968, where he stood as the property of a breeding syndicate.
Raise a Native is one of only three stallions (Fair Play and Northern Dancer being the other two) to have sired three leading American sires, Alydar, Exclusive Native, and Mr. Prospector, but only Mr. Prospector's line appears likely to survive very far into the 21st century. Foaled in 1970 from Raise a Native's sixth crop, Mr. Prospector was the second foal of Gold Digger, one of the best daughters of the great racehorse and influential broodmare sire Nashua.
Top-priced yearling at the 1971 Keeneland July yearling sale on a $220,000 bid from Abraham I. 'Butch' Savin, Mr. Prospector somewhat justified his purchase price by winning seven of 14 starts, including two stakes victories, and earning $112,171. That bare race record did not reflect his flashes of brilliance, such as when he set a track record in 1:07 4/5 for six furlongs at Gulfstream Park in 1973 that stood unequaled until his great-grandson Artax matched it (in 1:07.89) in the 1999 Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1).
His career shortened by recurring ankle injuries, Mr. Prospector retired to stud in 1975 at Savin Farm near Ocala and made an immediate impact when his first crop of two-year-olds in 1978 included co-champion two-year-old filly It's in the Air. His second, third, and fourth crops were of similar quality and, by the time his first classic-winning son, Conquistador Cielo, romped home in the 1982 Belmont Stakes (G1), Mr. Prospector had been relocated to Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky.
With better mares available to him at Claiborne, Mr. Prospector became the dominant North American sire of the 1980s, leading the general sire list in 1987 and ‘88 and the juvenile list in ‘79 and ‘87.
Almost as soon as Mr. Prospector's early Florida-bred sons began to retire to stud, the son of Raise a Native began to develop a reputation as a sire of sires. Although his first top-caliber son, Hello Gorgeous, flopped badly in Europe, less-talented early sons such as first-crop son Northern Prospect (out of a Northern Dancer mare) and fourth-crop son Distinctive Pro were better sires than their race records would have indicated.
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