Bruce and Mary Ryan’s blue hen mare and multiple stakes producer Kiosk died Dec. 21 after developing laminitis, the Ohio owner/breeders reported. The mare was 23.
Kiosk, a daughter of Left Banker out of the winning Phone Trick mare Phone Switch, is the dam of two-time Ohio Horse of the Year Needmore Flattery and two other stakes winners. Needmore Flattery became the dam of multiple grade 1 winner Taiba .
Kiosk was one of Bruce Ryan’s first Thoroughbreds. He bought her privately from Eutrophia Farms at the 2001 Ohio Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Fall Mixed Sale after she was bought back on a final bid of $6,700. When Ryan went looking for a trainer, he and Tim Hamm decided to race Kiosk together and launched a partnership that lasted for 15 years.
As a racehorse, Kiosk won four times while racing from 2 to 5 and placed in five black-type stakes. She retired with a 4-9-5 record from 31 starts and earned $115,649.
As a broodmare, Kiosk’s first three foals were all winners and included multiple stakes-placed Monetary Reward . Her fourth foal, Needmore Flattery, would be her star performer.
Co-bred and raced by Ryan and Hamm, Needmore Flattery won four stakes at 2, taking the Hoover Stakes, Miss Ohio Stakes, Cleveland Kindergarten Stakes, and Tah Dah Stakes on her way to her first Ohio Horse of the Year title for 2013. At 3, the daughter of Flatter won or placed nine times out of 10 starts and captured the Norm Barron Queen City Oaks and the Royal North Stakes. She would win a second consecutive title as 2014 Ohio Horse of the Year and be named champion 3-year-old filly and champion handicap mare. At 4, Needmore Flattery lost little momentum and notched another three stakes victories, including the $150,000 Best of Ohio Distaff Stakes. She would be retired at 5 with a 17-4-6 record from 39 starts and earned $732,103.
“Kiosk was a hard-knocking runner, Ohio stakes-placed and a winner on dirt and turf,” said Ryan. “Needmore Flattery inherited Kiosk’s hard-knocking heart, with 17 wins on dirt and turf, including 15 Ohio stakes, of which nine were black-type.”
Needmore Flattery (L) and her dam Kiosk (R)
Kiosk would be represented by eight winners from eight to race out of 10 foals. Besides Needmore Flattery, she produced stakes winners Kiosk’s Cause and Flatter Her Again . Her progeny collectively earned $1,112,654.
At the end of Needmore Flattery’s racing career in 2016, Ryan started scaling back on his breeding and racing operation. He and Hamm divided up some of the horses they owned and bought each other out on others. Ryan retained Needmore Flattery as a broodmare. She produced a colt by multiple leading sire Uncle Mo for her first foal, who was named Need More Mo. The colt never made it to the racetrack but is getting a shot at stud at the Buckeye Stallion Station near Hubbard, Ohio.
The mare’s second foal would raise Need More Mo’s status appreciably. Banking on what appeared to be a statistically strong match, Ryan bred Needmore Flattery to Three Chimneys Farm’s then-first-year sire Gun Runner and got Taiba. The striking chestnut colt became Ryan’s first grade 1 winner as a breeder after he captured the Santa Anita Derby (G1), Pennsylvania Derby (G1), and Malibu Stakes (G1). Owned by Zedan Racing Stables and trained by Bob Baffert and Tim Yakteen, Taiba also ran second in the Haskell Stakes (G1) and was third in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1). He won or placed in six of eight lifetime starts and earned $2,356,200. Taiba enters stud next year at Spendthrift Farm for $35,000.
Ryan does not own Needmore Flattery anymore, having sold her for $195,000 at the 2019 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale to Yeguada Centurion, a farm owned by Leopoldo Fernández Pujals. The Uncle Mo filly the mare was carrying when she was sold was born in Ireland and named Tita Mimosa . The filly won her racing debut as a Centurion Thoroughbreds Racing homebred at 3 in February at Tampa Bay Downs with trainer Darien Rodriguez. Needmore Flattery is reportedly in foal to Gun Runner.
