Uncle Chuck, a half-brother to Maclean's Music standing in Florida, was euthanized on Dec. 22 after he was found to have an untreatable form of lymphoma, BloodHorse reports.
The 6-year-old son of Uncle Mo stood two seasons at Journeyman Stud in Ocala, Fla., and he shuttled to Argentina for two Southern Hemisphere breeding seasons. He was among Florida's most active stallions during both of his seasons at stud, and his first foals are yearlings of 2024.
Bred in Kentucky by Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings, Uncle Chuck is out of the Unbridled's Song mare Forest Music, making him a half-brother to the popular sire Maclean's Music.
Uncle Chuck was trained by Bob Baffert for the partnership of Michael Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman. He won on debut by seven lengths in June of his 3-year-old season, then he followed up with a four-length score in the Grade 3 Los Alamitos Derby. He then made one final out-of-the-money start in the G1 Travers Stakes to finish his career.
Mitole, who stands at Spendthrift Farm in Lexington, was represented by two winners on the 10-race New Year's Eve program at Oaklawn Park to solidify leading first-crop honors in North America with $2,614,328 in progeny earnings.
Maximus Mischief, another Spendthrift stallion, finished second with $2,266,229. Rankings are compiled by The Jockey Club Information Systems.
Unbeaten Carbone became Mitole's first Oaklawn-sired winner in the eighth race, a one-mile $140,000 first-level allowance. About a half-hour later, Ice Cold became Mitole's first Oaklawn stakes winner in the $200,000 Year's End for fillies, also run at one-mile.
Carbone, a homebred for Texans William and Corinne Heiligbrodt, was among four winners on the card for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen.
“The last week, we felt like there was no way anybody was going to catch him (Mitole),” Spendthrift stallion sales manager Mark Toothaker said Monday morning. “Steve and Bill both said, 'We've got more stuff to run and we're going to do our part to get him past the finish line.' And they certainly did.”
Carbone's victory carried added significance because the Heiligbrodts and Asmussen campaigned Mitole, who collected an Eclipse Award in 2019 as the nation's champion male sprinter. Mitole, then 4, made his first two starts in 2019 at Oaklawn, winning an allowance race and the Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3) before capping the year, and his racing career, with a victory in the Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) at Santa Anita.
Carbone (2 for 2) and Indiana-bred standout Ice Cold, a two-time stakes winner, helped Mitole become a standout again – in his second career.
“Unbelievably proud of that,” Asmussen said after winning Sunday's final race. “I think it pretty much cinches him being the leading first-year sire. Unbelievably proud of Mitole for that, as good as he was to the Heiligbrodts and me.”
Ice Cold, who is trained by Kenny McPeek, is one of two stakes winners for Mitole. McPeek also trains the other, V V's Dream, who won the one-mile Pocahontas (G3) for fillies Sept. 16 at Churchill Downs. V V's Dream ($433,105) is Mitole's leading earner.
Carbone, after early tutoring at the Asmussen family's El Primero Training Center in Laredo, Texas, dazzled in his debut, scoring by eight lengths Nov. 19 at Churchill Downs. He covered six furlongs in a sharp 1:09.84.
Sunday, in his his two-turn debut, Carbone recorded another front-running victory, drawing off by four lengths under Ricardo Santana Jr. Carbone's winning time over a fast track was 1:38.63.
“All you can hope for, you know what I mean?” Asmussen said. “Big, beautiful horse. A Mitole homebred for the Heiligbrodts. Started at mom and dad's in Laredo. Went (1:09 4/5) in his first race at Churchill and then looks like that in a two-turn race. Of course, you think crazy things, but he's a very good horse.”
Among first-crop sires, Mitole, a 9-year-old son of Eskendereya, also led North America in number of winners (34), had the individual money leader in V V's Dream and tied for first in graded stakes victories (one).
Purchased for $140,000 at the 2017 OBS Spring Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training, Mitole won 10 of 14 lifetime starts and earned $3,104,910 in his racing career. Spendthrift now owns Mitole, but the Heiligbrodts kept breeding rights and further supported him at public auction.
“Bill Heiligbrodt's kind of like Babe Ruth,” Toothaker said. “He called his shot before he ever did the deal. He goes, 'I've had a lot of luck on making these freshman sires and I've made them with horses not near as good as Mitole.' So, he was very much from the beginning believing that this horse could go on and do it.”
Mitole will stand for an advertisd fee of $15,000 in 2024.
We spend so much time in anticipation with stallions. We wait for them to cover their first mares, then we wait for their first foals to arrive, then we wait for them to sell, then we wait for them to breeze, and after a few years, we wait for them to race. Finally, we wait for enough of them to race and sell that we can come up with a verdict on whether the stallion was worth waiting for in the first place.
Some of the stallions we'll look at in this closing edition of the All-Value Sire Team are in the final stages of that process, which can be a precarious spot in this price bracket. If a stallion has made it far enough to solidify his resume and he's still at the farm where he entered stud, the ideal scenario would see him standing for more than $20,000.
International competition and bankrolls for North American stallions are arguably at an all-time high, and patience for anything less than a star player is arguably as low on the other end of the spectrum. We've seen a lot of stallions that could have had perfectly fine long-term careers in Kentucky, and were covering solid-sized books of mares, get sold overseas or to a regional market. My guess is there's more money in selling high on a middle-tier stallion with some blue sky left on his scouting report, than trying to find a buyer on a proven loser that stuck around too long.
This is all to say, the margin of error for a young stallion standing for $20,000 or less in Kentucky can be razor-thin, but there are also plenty of niches to be carved out. We've covered several veteran sires in the All-Value Sire Team who have spent significant portions of their careers in this price bracket and in turn became some of the most reliable options at any price level.
The sires we'll look at today appear well on their way to joining those ranks, and perhaps even climbing out of the value sire price bracket with a few star runners.
To view who else has made the 2023-24 All-Value Sire Team so far, click here.
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Let's bring it home…
The Future Star:A stallion with two to four crops of racing age in 2024.
We're still waiting for a few late-arriving returns to make it official, but it seems pretty safe to call the freshman sire race in favor of Mitole by both winners and earnings, edging out fellow Spendthrift Farm residents Maximus Mischief, Vino Rosso, and Omaha Beach.
Of that Spendthrift quartet, Mitole is the only one that will be standing for less than $20,000 in 2024. If you believe in taking advantage of soft spots in the market, have I got a horse for you.
Looking beyond the freshman sire race, though, Mitole has done a stellar job settling in among the young veteran sires. His runners are winning 17 percent of their races, which puts him just behind the very top of the qualifying horses in this position. His sample size is admittedly skewed, with only one crop of 2-year-olds, but that early win percentage ranks Mitole higher than the likes of Tapit (15 percent), Curlin and War Front (16 percent) and it ties him with Gun Runner and flagship Spendthrift resident Into Mischief. Most of Mitole's freshman contemporaries can't touch those numbers, even at this early stage in the game.
Though Mitole was himself an Eclipse Award-winning sprinter, his runners have shown a fair bit of versatility. His best runner, V V's Dream, is a Grade 3 winner at a mile and she's Grade 1-placed at 1 1/16 miles. Indiana stakes winner Ice Cold also got the job done at the route distance, while three of his four stakes-placed runners have earned their black type around one turn.
Buyers seem to have gotten the memo about Mitole as well, bumping his median yearling sale price up from $27,500 in 2022 to $32,500 this year. His yearling returns were even more dramatic, rising from a median of $42,000 to $70,000; well above his lifetime weanling median of $50,000. It wouldn't surprise me to see Mitole's yearling price rocket up in 2024, and these early mixed sale returns suggest the weanling-to-yearling pinhook market could propel that momentum.
Looking even deeper into the future, Mitole's pipeline is packed, with 383 registered weanlings, yearlings, and 2-year-olds – by far the most of any North American stallion standing for $20,000 or less in 2024. The next closest is fellow Spendthrift resident Goldencents at 344. A deep bench is never a guarantee of on-track success or that a stallion will stick around in Kentucky for the long-term, but seeing that level of breeder support without a major swoon certainly implies that he'll have every chance to stick around.
When I think about Mitole's pedigree, “champion sprinter” isn't necessarily the first thing that comes to mind. His sire Eskendereya and broodmare sire Indian Charlie were both known for getting two-turn horses with tons of length, and Indian Charlie added bulk to that equation.
Mitole got that combination in some unique ways. He's not overly tall at 16.1 hands, but he's proportioned well enough that he still has a good deal of scope. However, the Indian Charlie power is definitely there, especially in the hindquarters, bolstered by the specters of Giant's Causeway and Storm Cat in his male line. With a tidy frame, a sprinter's resume and a router's pedigree, I'll be interested to see how his debut crop fares stretching their legs as they begin to tackle more two-turn races.
Winning the freshman sire title often comes down to finding several different ways to win races. Mitole has shown he can offer that to breeders.
Sons of Curlin are all the rage at stud right now, and rightfully so. The man himself is still lighting the world on fire, and his sons have proven plenty capable of carrying on his legacy.
Though he might not have been as flashy as his Derby-siring contemporary Good Magic in 2023, Connect has set a foothold as an incredibly reliable sire capable of getting runners to the biggest stages. His nine stakes winners in 2023 is among the best among North American sires standing for $20,000 or less, and his 5.1 percent stakes winners from starters this year was the best in that category among those with over 100 runners.
The Connects are showing they're able to hang on to their form, which is promising to see. Rattle N Roll and Hidden Connection were two of the sire's biggest names during his freshman season in 2021, and both horses won stakes races in 2023 at age four. He also had The Alys Look finish third in this year's Kentucky Oaks, further displaying that Connect can take you to the top races on the calendar.
Connect also got 32 percent winners over the turf in 2023, which is second only to Airdrie Stud's Summer Front among significant North American stallions in this price bracket. Leading the way among his turf runners was Implicated, the winner of G3 Pebbles Stakes in November at Aqueduct.
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The Regional Star:A stallion of any age or surface preference who stands outside of Kentucky.
First Team: Honest Mischief
B. h., 2016, Into Mischief x Honest Lady, by Seattle Slew
Standing at Sequel New York, NY, $6,500
Honest Mischief
Stop me if you've heard this one before: Into Mischief is white-hot, and breeders are flocking to his bloodline practically wherever it's available.
As the only local option for New York breeders to access a son of Into Mischief, Honest Mischief has been very busy in the breeding shed, and his foals have been even busier in the sales ring.
Of course, it's always a gamble placing a stallion this high without a single runner to his name. There are plenty of proven stallions in New York and beyond putting out incredible numbers who have a credible claim to a place on the All-Value Sire Team.
What makes me confident that Honest Mischief will follow through on the promise of his early sale performance has to do with his pedigree, his surroundings, and his pipeline.
Honest Mischief comes from an incredibly productive branch of the Juddmonte Farms breeding program. He's a half-brother to the Grade 1 winner and nice sire First Defence, his dam is a Grade 1 winner, and his second dam is the great Toussaud, putting him in the same orbit as Empire Maker and Chester House. Pair that with the hottest sire of sires in the land in Into Mischief and you've got a stallion's pedigree top-to-bottom.
The New York-bred program is one of the most lucrative in the country, and a good runner can make a stallion look very good in the standings. There are a lot of very good stallions in New York, but there is definitely room at the top for a stallion to come in and dominate those rankings. I expect the Honest Mischiefs will get their fair shake to make noise in the state-bred 2-year-old races in Saratoga and beyond.
Finally, breeders seem to truly believe in him. He's got 117 combined registered weanlings and yearlings, and I expect that number to go up as more breeders register their young foals. With just two crops, he's doing better than a lot of regional sires who count weanlings, yearlings, and 2-year-olds in their pipelines. Succeeding at stud can be a battle of attrition, and Honest Mischief will have a lot of troops to throw at the freshman sire race. If they succeed, Honest Mischief's job will become much easier.
Honest Mischief has a lot of momentum going in his favor. As a major consignor of 2-year-olds, I expect Sequel will have plenty of his foals loaded and ready for the 2-year-old sale season, and if they wow at the breeze shows and land in the right hands, he could end up being the heir to Freud's crown as the king of New York.
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Second Team: Khozan
Dk. b. or br. h., 2012, Distorted Humor x Delta Princess, by A.P. Indy
Standing at Journeyman Stallions, FL, $6,500
Khozan well ahead of the rest in an allowance race at Gulfstream
Speaking of kings of states, the championship belt among Florida sires goes through Khozan, and it has been that way for a long time.
The perennial leading Sunshine State sire gets wins at a 16 percent clip from total progeny starts, which is upper-echelon for all value sires, not just regional ones. His four percent stakes winners from total horses of racing age is also above average among value sires, as well.
Kohzan is the highest-ranking member of the 2023 general sire list by earnings, among horses standing outside of Kentucky. What makes Khozan stand out is that his foals were not restricted to just winning inside the Florida state lines. This year saw Foggy Night take the G3 Delaware Oaks and the Cathryn Sophia Stakes in the Mid-Atlantic, while Me and Mr. C took multiple stakes races in Kentucky and the Midwest.
However, for owners that elect to keep their Khozan runners at Gulfstream Park and Tampa Bay Downs, they can look at horses like stakes winners Shaq Diesel, Squints, and R Harper Rose for inspiration.
Florida breeders can't get enough of the guy, either. Khozan's pipeline of 214 juveniles, yearlings, and weanlings is by farm the most for any sire standing outside of Kentucky, and it eclipses a lot of horses standing in the Bluegrass State. It's doubtful he'll be hurting for support anytime soon, and as long as he keeps producing on the racetrack, end-users should continue to clamor for them.
Pleasant Acres Stallions in Morriston, Fla., announces the arrival of graded stakes winner and Grade 1-placed Verifying (Justify out of Diva Delite, by Repent) for the 2024 breeding season. He will stand his first season for a $10,000 fee.
“We are very excited to introduce this talented son of Triple Crown Winner Justify into our stallion barn at Pleasant Acres Stallions,” said Director of Stallion Services Christine Jones. “There is only one other son of Justify at stud currently in the USA and his fee is $30,000. Verifying's pedigree is one of the finest available, and at $10,000 he will certainly be a positive influence for Florida breeders with his future crops.”
Trained by Brad Cox, Verifying began his career at two with a win at first asking at Saratoga. He entered the Champagne Stakes (G1) at Belmont at the Big A in his second career start, running a solid second place. At three, he won the Indiana Derby (G3) and placed second in the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (G1),H. Allen Jerkens Memorial Stakes (G1), and Matt Winn Stakes (G3). He was on the board seven out of 11 career starts – 64% – with career earnings of nearly $853,000.
“We are always looking for stallions we know will raise the bar in Florida,” said Pleasant Acres Stallions owner Joe Barbazon. “We've had our eye on Verifying since he ran in the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes at Belmont. Not only has he shown athleticism and talent during his career, he has also lived up to his impeccable pedigree.”
Regally bred, Verifying was produced by Diva Delite, a Florida-bred mare who showed sufficient class and stamina to win the Florida Oaks (G3), racing 1 1/16 miles on dirt. She also won the Gasparilla and Suncoast Stakes. She is a daughter of Repent, winner of the Kentucky Jockey Club (G2), Louisiana Derby (G2), Risen Star (G3), and Kentucky Cup Juvenile Stakes (G3). He was runner up in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) and Travers Stakes (G1).
“We jumped at the opportunity to be part of Florida's most exciting new stallion,” said Jeff Bloom of Bloom Racing Stable. “A 2-year-old debut sprint winner at Saratoga and a two-turn graded stakes winner at three, Verifying has a stunning pedigree and is by leading second crop sire Justify. Being a half brother to our champion mare Midnight Bisou is simply icing on the cake!”
Diva also produced Verifying's half sister, Midnight Bisou, the 2019 Eclipse Award winner as champion older dirt female. In four seasons, she won 13 graded stakes – including five Grade 1 events and earned nearly $7.5 million. In the 2022 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, Midnight Bisou sold for an impressive $5.5 million.
In 2019, Diva Delite was purchased at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Mixed Sale for $1.2 million with Verifying in utero.
Verifying's sire, Justify, scored nearly $3.8 million and retired unbeaten with six firsts from six starts – including four Grade 1 events. He won the Triple Crown in 2018 and earned the year's Eclipse Awards as Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old male. With an outstanding $633,000 average earnings per start and five triple digit Beyer Speed Figures to his credit, Justify retired to stud in 2019. His yearlings in 2023 sold for up to $850,000. By early November 2023, he was the leading second-crop sire by SWs (13), GSWs (10) and G1SWs (6) and was the leading juvenile sire by a substantial amount.
For more information on Pleasant Acres Stallions, visit www.pleasantacresstallions.com. Pleasant Acres Stallions, owned by Joe and Helen Barbazon, is located at 2153 S.E. HWY-41, Morriston, FL 32668. Owners: Joe Barbazon and Helen Barbazon
Pleasant Acres Stallions contact: Christine Jones, director of stallion services: 352-804-6618, christine@pleasantacresstallions.com.
