Which trainers produce the most successful stallions? The logical answer is that it's the trainers who have the most successful racehorses. the classic and Grade 1 winners with good pedigrees who are sought by stud farm owners.
But not all Grade 1 winners are created equally and success on the racetrack does not guarantee similar results in the breeding shed.
Over the last 25 years, six trainers have led the year-end earnings list in North America: Todd Pletcher, 10 times; Chad Brown, 4; Steve Asmussen, Bob Baffert, and the late Robert Frankel, 3 each; Brad Cox, 1. Brown holds a narrow advantage over Asmussen and Pletcher in 2022, with a lot of money still to be earned in the final 10 weeks of the racing year.
Of those six trainers, Baffert is the leader by Grade 1 wins, with 235 since his first G1 victory in 1991. Pletcher has won 183 G1 since 1998; Frankel 171 since 1979; Brown 133 since 2011; Asmussen 76 since 1999; and Cox 33 since 2018.
Not on the list of year-end money leaders since 1998 but worth mentioning are three horsemen with more than 100 Grade 1 wins each: D. Wayne Lukas (leading money winner in 14 of 15 years from 1983-'97) with 220 G1 wins; William Mott, 135 G1; and Shug McGaughey, 130 G1.
With those accomplishments as prologue, let's look at which trainers have produced the most successful sires with current runners.
To compile a list of the most successful sires, I used three sire lists from Bloodhorse.com. Included are the top 50 sires by Average-Earnings Index, the top 50 sires on the current-year earnings list, and the top 10 from the list of leading sires of 2-year-olds of 2022.
After duplicates were removed, the list comprises 79 sires that stand or stood in North America and have current-year runners.
Twelve of those 79 stallions (15 percent) were trained by Pletcher, the all-time leading money-winning trainer whose clients supply him annually with a steady stream of elite homebreds and high-priced auction graduates. It's 14 if you include Quality Road and Keen Ice, who began their careers and won major stakes for James Jerkens and Dale Romans, respectively, before joining the Pletcher stable.
Ten of those 14 are in the top 50 leading sires by 2022 earnings, including Quality Road (2), Uncle Mo (5), Munnings (7), Speightstown (9), Constitution (11), and Violence (20).
By 2022 stud fees, eight of the Pletcher 14 (including Quality Road) stood for $25,000 or higher, led by Uncle Mo ($160,000). The others are Quality Road ($150,000), Speightstown ($90,000), Constitution ($85,000), Munnings ($85,000), Liam's Map ($40,000), Daredevil ($25,000) and Violence ($25,000).
Baffert, who also has deep-pocketed clients with their sights set on classic races, is next with 10 of the 79 sires in our hybrid list of leading stallions, including current freshman sire leader Justify and the late Arrogate, second behind the sensational Gun Runner on the second-crop list.
Of the Baffert 10, five are among the top 50 leading sires by 2022 earnings: American Pharoah (12), Pioneerof the Nile (13), Midshipman (22), Arrogate (38) and The Factor (41).
Baffert graduates Justify ($100,000) and American Pharoah ($80,000) stand for stud fees of $25,000 or higher.
Asmussen is next with five on our hybrid list of 79 leading sires, all five of them in the top 50 by 2022 earnings.
The leader of that group is Curlin, ranked fourth by 2022 earnings and who stood for $175,000. Gun Runner, with just two crops to race, is No. 6, standing for a private fee; Maclean's Music, No. 17, stood for $50,000. Kantharos ($20,000 stud fee) is 26th and Tapiture ($10,000), 29th.
Note that Curlin began his career for Helen Pitts and was purchased and transferred to Asmussen before his second start.
Nine other trainers each have two horses on our hybrid list of 79 leading sires: Chad Brown, Robert Frankel, D. Wayne Lukas, Richard Mandella, William Mott, Aidan O'Brien, Doug O'Neill, Dale Romans (three if Keen Ice is included), and Al Stall Jr.
Brown is relatively new to having former runners standing at stud. His two entries on the hybrid list of 79 leading sires, Good Magic and Practical Joke (with one and two crops to race, respectively), made our list by virtue of being top 10 sires of 2-year-old runners in 2022. Unlike Pletcher and Baffert, Brown's program has tilted more toward fillies and turf racing but seems to be evolving.
Brad Cox is an even later arrival to the supply chain for stallion farms, having not won his first Grade 1 race until 2018. It will be several years before we have any indication of how well his former runners perform at stud.
The post Pletcher Stable Graduates Excel On List Of Leading North American Sires appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
