Chris McGrath | Horse Racing Free Tips

Kentucky Sires for 2021: Fourth-Crop Stallions

What a tough game this is. You only get to show the first card in your hand before virtually the whole pile of chips is distributed. One or two players gather up their winnings, whooping triumphantly, and suddenly your own hopes of staying in the game–your hopes of a viable stud career in Kentucky–depend exorbitantly on the next card. Generally speaking, it doesn't matter if you turn out to have had a whole sheaf of aces farther into your hand. By the time you can turn those over, there will be nothing left on the table but empty glasses and a full ashtray.

We noted in the previous instalment that a third crop of juveniles, alongside a first crop of 4-year-olds, typically represents a final chance. Sure enough, compared with 18 Bluegrass stallions approaching that crossroads, we find just six left to review today from the preceding intake.

But whatever sympathy we feel for those meanwhile driven into regional or overseas programs, the nature of the business today means that they have actually delivered as legible and legitimate a sample of their work as we are ever going to get. So many stallions nowadays cover 500 mares across their first three seasons, only to find themselves reduced to a dozen or two within a couple of years. If anything, then, their embarrassment now should prompt us to revisit the vogue they enjoyed when first going to market–and perhaps the contrast might even make us hesitate before rushing to the next lot of rookies off the carousel.

In this group, however, there are a couple who have done something beyond almost all young stallions and created a sustainable niche in the market. Having made a brisk start with his first juveniles in 2018, in fact, GOLDENCENTS (Into Mischief–Golden Works, by Banker's Gold) entertained no fewer than 239 mares at Spendthrift the following spring and another 204 last year–taking him to an aggregate 1,133 through his first six years.

And he will presumably maintain the traffic, his farm having taken such a purposeful lead on fee cuts in the pandemic marketplace: for 2021 he's back down to his original fee of $15,000, from $25,000 last year.

Goldencents topped the third-crop championship in 2020 by nearly all indices, having previously been champion freshman by winners (second to studmate Cross Traffic by prize money) and then headed the second-crop table. Given his fairly industrial output, however, he is nothing like so dominant in percentage terms. It would be pushing things, certainly, to describe nine black-type winners and three graded stakes winners from 255 starters as a wildly exciting yield.

By My Standards has been a standard-bearer for Goldencents | Coady

But then Goldencents, having been one of the first to demonstrate his sire's capacity to upgrade mares, has also been in the vanguard in terms of testing whether that prowess will be recycled by his sons. He was just a $5,500 yearling, remember, out of a $7,000 mare by a stallion who ended up in Cyprus. The family did bring hardiness (next two dams respectively 18-for-45 and 13-for-46), but somehow Into Mischief ignited a spark of quality in Goldencents that burned up consecutive editions of the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. And while his sire was still available at $35,000 when Goldencents joined him at Spendthrift, his relative affordability has obviously been at a growing premium ever since.

Goldencents was blessed that his own first crop produced a couple who did much the same service, in promoting their sire, as he had himself performed for Into Mischief. In fact, By My Standards and Mr. Money remain far and away his biggest earners to date. And while neither has quite broken the Grade I ice, By My Standards certainly neared the top of the handicap division in his third season and has helped to keep his sire's names in lights all the way through.

Arguably it's about time Goldencents produced a new star, but that's precisely what he can hope to do after getting that reboot from his prolific first crop. In the meantime, admittedly, he has been treading water somewhat at the sales: while one daughter did bring $300,000, he averaged a steady $29,069 with his 2020 yearlings, for 52 sold of 68 offered.

That yield, and all the rest cited here, must of course be placed in the context of an exceptionally challenging market. Be that as it may, we will pretty soon have to cease doing what we're doing today–comparing these survivors against other stallions at the same stage of their career–and instead start measuring them against all those established operators who, having shed the commercial allure of novelty, have already chiselled a lasting foothold in the market.

Cairo Prince | Sarah Andrew

Sticking to this group, however, you couldn't ask for a more instructive foil to Goldencents than CAIRO PRINCE (Pioneerof the Nile–Holy Bubbette, by Holy Bull). They have reached this point absolutely in tandem: Goldencents has 384 named foals, Cairo Prince 380; Goldencents has had 256 starters, Cairo Prince 249; Goldencents has 158 winners, Cairo Prince 156; they both, moreover, have 26 black-type horses. Sure enough, they stand for the same fee. But it's the Airdrie stallion who has a slight but consistent edge at the top end: by stakes winners (13 plays nine), graded stakes winners (five plays three) and graded stakes horses (ten plays seven).

Moreover Cairo Prince is one of those rare stallions whose initial market reception was way out of line with the ranking implied by his opening fee. We've seen, throughout this series, how that seldom guarantees anything–whether for better or worse. In this case, however, it has turned out that Cairo Prince was quite rightly “found” as a $10,000 start-up.

His stock was received with such enthusiasm that he actually earned two fee hikes before he had a single runner, an extremely rare accolade. And if he, too, has now required a trim from $25,000, then the buzz he generated with his sales debut in 2017–when he achieved a staggering average yield of 15 times his fee–will only now start to tell in the improved quality of his mares.

True, commercial opportunism tends to be finite wherever it occurs in the cycle, and Cairo Prince dropped to 87 mares last spring after being basically fully subscribed to that point. But it's a confident bet that the juveniles heading to the track this year, conceived after that remarkable sales debut, will give fresh commercial kudos to the foals he breeds this time round.

In the meantime, Cairo Prince continues to impress with his sales stock, averaging $47,601 for 57 sold of 78 offered in 2020, confirming him far and away the most resilient and productive sales sire in this group. He just needs his big horse, now, but he's having an excellent winter on the track (three new stakes winners over the past month) and, nationally, only Into Mischief, Tapiture, Not This Time and American Pharoah had more juvenile winners last year. And it certainly does no harm that he now has another productive young stallion so close up, his Grade I-placed half-sister having gained new celebrity as dam of WinStar's thriving rookie Outwork (Uncle Mo).

Mucho Macho Man | EquiSport Photos

In 2020, however, the star turn in this group was MUCHO MACHO MAN (Macho Uno–Ponche de Leona, by Ponche), who inserted himself between Goldencents and Cairo Prince in the third-crop prize money table with two Grade I winners. In previous years, of course, Mucho Gusto's success in the Pegasus World Cup would have been still more lucrative. Moreover that horse was unfortunate to be sidelined after his trip to the desert and only resurfaced when fourth behind Cairo Prince's latest graded stakes winner, Kiss Today Goodbye, in the GII San Antonio S. at Christmas.

Anyhow his sire followed through with an elite success on turf, as well, Rodeo Drive S. winner Mucho Unusual having meanwhile added another two graded stakes even since Christmas. In fact, with a total 51 winners from just 77 starters in 2020, Mucho Macho Man topped the national field last year in earnings-per-foal–and, importantly, we know that his stock is just going to keep thriving. Though precocious enough to contest all three legs of the Triple Crown before his third birthday, he kept filling that great rangy frame of his to win the GI Breeders' Cup Classic at five.

These results are barely filtering through to the commercial market, as he averaged $24,883 for 21 yearling sales of 28 offered, but then he only stands for $7,500. And he goes well at the juvenile sales (Mucho Gusto made no less than $625,000!) just as we should expect of a stallion who relies on deeds not hype. He's a mad outcross but is quietly earning his stripes and hopefully people are beginning to pay attention. His third book had dwindled to just 35, but he has since welcomed 96, 86 and 77 guests to Hill 'n' Dale at Xalapa. Lot of horse for the money, in every way.

Will Take Charge | Louise Reinagel

The rival Mucho Macho Man nosed out for his greatest success was a barely less imposing creature, but now finds himself on a rather less encouraging tangent. It seems a long time, certainly, since WILL TAKE CHARGE (Unbridled's Song–Take Charge Lady, by Dehere) set out at $30,000 and duly dominated this lot in their sales debut with a $169,190 average. This time round he cashed out 37 of 41 for just $13,712, and he's down to a bargain $5,000 at Three Chimneys after being reduced to a very small book last spring.

Will Take Charge has mustered a handful of stakes winners, notably Grade I-placed sprinter Manny Wah, and maybe he will just prove a slow burner, as will sometimes happen with such a scopey horse. His was an especially fine constitution by the standards of his sire, highlighted by an 11-start sophomore campaign that started in January and ended, 26 days after his huge run at the Breeders' Cup, with success in the GI Clark H. His maternal family, meanwhile, has only become more aristocratic with the rise of Omaha Beach (War Front). Everything seemed to be in place so it would be a mystery, as well as a pity, if he can't turn things round.

Cross Traffic | Sarah Andrew

CROSS TRAFFIC (Unbridled's Song–Stop Traffic, by Cure the Blues) is by the same sire and made a stronger start in contesting the succession, helped to the freshman's title by Breeders' Cup champion Jaywalk but also topping the class by overall stakes winners/ performers.

He has not quite maintained that flying start and Spendthrift, who briefly rewarded his freshman title with a hike to $25,000, will be hoping for a reset after halving him from $15,000 to $7,500 this time round. But there are solid grounds for optimism.

For a start, Cross Traffic is no longer dining out simply on Jaywalk. Among his second crop, Ny Traffic carried his standard very valiantly–never more conspicuously than when running Authentic (Into Mischief) himself to a head in the GI Haskell, while he was previously only beaten a length by Maxfield in the GIII Matt Winn S.

And Cross Traffic can soon expect a healthy spike in the graph, with his post-freshman, 2019 book having soared to 188 mares from 60. True, he promptly sank to 59 last year, but that's how fecklessly the commercial market works nowadays. The thing to remember now is that he will have that big crop of juveniles next year, so he's another who can hope that foals conceived this spring may ride fresh headlines on the track.

True, Cross Traffic stands in need of that revival after averaging just $11,630 for the 16 yearlings of 17 sent into the pandemic market, but at least he has exactly that chance brewing. Let's not forget how naturally talented he was, nailed only on the line in the stallion-making GI Met Mile just four months after his debut (got his Grade I next time).

As noted, many stallions in this group have been sold to regional programs or exported, and we're particularly sorry that Fed Biz (great work, Highfield Farm of Alberta!) and Noble Mission (GB) weren't able to get adequate traction. One or two others, however, appear to have slipped off Kentucky rosters with zero announcements on their relocation. I know the farms in question will have applied impeccable standards in deciding their future but it would be a concern if due candour about their “failure,” after so brief an opportunity, is being viewed as too instructive of the flimsiness of the commercial model.

Real Solution | ThoroStride

The only other member of this intake apparently still operating in the Bluegrass on a commercial basis is REAL SOLUTION (Kitten's Joy–Reachforthe-heavens, by Pulpit). Actually he has reversed the standard procedure, having returned to Calumet after a couple of years in Louisiana early on. But he certainly fits the bill for this farm as a dual Grade I winner on turf, with venerable Classic influences seeding his family: his third dam is a Northern Dancer half-sister to champion Slew o' Gold (Seattle Slew) and Classic winner Coastal (Majestic Prince), as well as to the dam of Aptitude (A.P. Indy).

Real Solution covered just 27 mares last spring and his handful of yearlings couldn't work even a $5,000 fee, but he's had a $675,000 2-year-old and, bottom line, he's there to breed runners. That's just what he produced (thanks to the breeders who made his sire) in Ramsey Solution, who is five-for-nine including a $300,000 stakes at Kentucky Downs last September.

In fact, Real Solution has had 33 winners from just 44 starters overall, including three at black-type level; while $10,000 yearling and six-time winner Queens Embrace earned a Grade II placing at Saratoga last summer. That shows what can be done if your priorities are right, and Real Solution could appeal to enlightened breeders as being well named.

In the long term, after all, the breed will suffer badly if people can only afford to use fast-buck commercial sires who are expelled from the Bluegrass the moment their first yearlings leave the sales ring. With so few stallions surviving in this intake, however, we'll combine them with the preceding class for a composite “value podium” next time.

The post Kentucky Sires for 2021: Fourth-Crop Stallions appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

This Side Up: Honor Abides in Pegasus of Clipped Wings

It's the obvious question in South Florida this week. Back in January 2017, everything was henceforth going to be different. The language was brash, it was immoderate, it certainly wasn't to the taste of traditionalists. But like it or not, it looked a game-changer. Yet here we all are, four years on, asking whether the whole project has failed; or whether, despite its apparent humiliation, it retains enough momentum never to permit a return to the old ways?

No, we're not talking about the latest senior citizen to retire to Palm Beach. True, Donald Trump has sufficient interest in the Turf to have introduced Secretariat to his very first public utterances when embarking, at just the same time, on a revolution of his own. “If Secretariat had come in second,” Trump remarked in his victory speech, “he would not have that big, beautiful bronze bust at the track at Belmont.” Let's leave unexplored the curious choice of the word “bust”. It was simply gratifying to see that Secretariat remained sufficiently in the cultural mainstream to convey Trump's idea of “superstardom.”

As it happens, he had already invoked Big Red on the campaign trail, in the course of a characteristic digression on his own pedigree. “They used to say Secretariat doesn't produce great horses,” he observed. “Actually Secretariat wasn't one of the best, if you want to know the truth.” The incensed reception of this remark was instructive of the automatic virulence of so much political discourse today. In context, he can only have been referencing Secretariat's failure to establish a sire line–presumably an Alabama rally had limited interest in his record as a broodmare sire–yet indignant opponents decided that Trump had pronounced him overrated as a racehorse. Which only went to show, depending on your vantage, either that his enemies would disparage him whatever he said; or what happens if you make a habit of mendacity and disrespect.

Anyway, the point is that Trump returns to civilian life in the same week that a parallel cycle appears to face a Florida crossroads of its own. Because it would be churlish to pretend that the GI Pegasus World Cup has achieved the radical transformation it promised four years ago. And the question now, even as a more traditional presidential style is restored, is whether the departure of Donald should coincide with the return of the Donn?

Arrogate won the inaugural Pegasus in 2017 | Horsephotos

Its own prize fund slashed, and squeezed by one of nearly grotesque size in Riyadh, the Pegasus certainly appears to be in a precarious place. The inaugural running in 2017 offered a $12 million purse, subscribed at $1 million per starting gate, and duly lured Arrogate (Unbridled's Song) and California Chrome (Lucky Pulpit) to a rematch after their Breeders' Cup showdown. In 2018, the prize fund augmented to $16 million, the winners of 43 graded stakes were headed by Gun Runner (Candy Ride {Arg}), Stellar Wind (Curlin) and West Coast (Flatter). But the following year, with entry halved to $500,000 and the prize fund down to $7 million, the field began to lose depth even behind the stellar City of Light (Quality Road) and Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky), with an aggregate 26 graded stakes.

Last year, entry suddenly became free for invitees but the purse duly shrank to $3 million. And, on the day, only Seeking the Soul (Perfect Soul) and Higher Power (Medaglia d'Oro) could bring a solitary Grade I apiece. In fairness, the race lost its headline act only through a late injury to Omaha Beach (War Front). But Maximum Security (New Year's Day) was diverted to plunder the riches of the sands, just like Charlatan (Speightstown) this time round. If that still leaves three Grade I winners on Saturday, in Knicks Go (Paynter), Code of Honor (Noble Mission {GB}) and Math Wizard (Algorithms), this is not the race that had caused valuable stallion prospects to relay their retirement. The companion race on grass, meanwhile, is now down to $1 million from $7 million.

Yes, the hosts have retained a valid place for the Pegasus in our elite program. For a start, the purse still ranks very highly–not least now that it's a bet-to-nothing. More important, perhaps, is the one entry requirement that was introduced with the changed format last year. After all the industry's talk about raceday medication, participants in the Pegasus would be obliged to walk the walk.

So the race is still trying to light a way ahead. But its original path has implicitly been abandoned. It has evidently been perceived that even the wealthiest would become reluctant to buy a gate at so exorbitant a cost, at least for a horse only with an outside chance–and especially now that there was a magic carpet to ride into the desert. Any hopes of a media rights frenzy had faded and it began to feel as though stakes would be paid simply to make the richest horses richer.

Admittedly a similar model appears to have been more sustainably adapted by the Everest in Australia. Maybe that's partly because sprint races tend to be more of a crapshoot; but perhaps it's principally because there isn't a $20-million alternative for the same pool of horses four weeks later.

Mucho Gusto captured last year's edition of the Pegasus | Zoe Metz

I must admit I have never been comfortable with any of these “super races”. Almost invariably they set out to challenge and dilute a calendar that has evolved, generation by generation, by testing what works best for a) the horse population and b) the racefans. They are casinos opened in the middle of nowhere. Nobody drove that way before but now, seeing those neon lights flashing gaudily in the empty night, people fill up the tank and make a special journey.

But Thoroughbreds don't refuel like motor cars. Putting on extra mileage to go flat out in January, February and March, whether in Florida or halfway round the world, is bound to cause wear and tear–and will duly cost depth and quality in historic prizes through the year.

Nor did fans really gain much even when the Pegasus was able to seduce newly minted champions into one more lap of honor, literally hours before disappearing to the rural Bluegrass. I'm sure many fans would have preferred investment in cherished old races that have lost some of their luster in recent years, like the Big Cap at Santa Anita–ironically, of course, one of the first “super races” when inaugurated as “the Hundred-Grander”–or the Gold Cup since its transfer there from Hollywood Park.

As it is, fans might look at this Pegasus field and think how nice it would be to have the Donn back. That race served its purpose beautifully over the years, advertising the hardiness and class required of any future stallion setting out on so arduous a domestic campaign. True, the gelded Forego, the infertile Cigar and the tragic Saint Liam could not recycle those assets; but those that did included Deputy Minister, Medaglia d'Oro, Quality Road and now Constitution, who won the penultimate running.

The Donn honored the family who presided over Gulfstream in its pomp, and now we must all wait and see quite what the Stronach legacy will ultimately prove to be. We may not do so very complacently, but who knows? Perhaps posterity will acknowledge most gratefully the welfare innovations introduced to the Pegasus.

Code of Honor schooling ahead of the Pegasus this week | Coglianese

In the meantime, while we're taking the longer view, I'd certainly be gratified to see Code of Honor make everyone ask themselves afresh how they allowed his sire to slip through their grasp. A full brother to Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}), exported to Japan! Both Noble Mission and Frankel carried their speed in a manner that was always going to adapt to dirt, given the chance, and sure enough Code of Honor emerged from his sire's first crop to claim second in the Derby.

Okay, he should have remained third according to the 45th President, who denounced the disqualification of Maximum Security as political correctness. But Code of Honor–typically of the chlorophyll allergy that has doomed his sire, a $70,000 RNA at Keeneland September–went on to win historic dirt prizes in the Travers and Jockey Club Gold Cup. Trying to turn him into a pure miler last year didn't really work, but he's the one horse in this field that has unfailingly kept the best of company throughout his career. He'd be an old-school winner that might help–not least by thriving on a raceday regime of hay, oats and water–to restore the bearings of a 21st Century pioneer that otherwise seems to be losing its way.

Because it's time we sought true grandeur, not grandiosity. Biggest doesn't always mean best, nor even does richest. And no President, any time soon, will be invoking that gargantuan statue of a mythical creature, looming over the Gulfstream parking lot, ahead of the modest one depicting a real Pegasus in the Belmont paddock.

The post This Side Up: Honor Abides in Pegasus of Clipped Wings appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Kentucky Sires for 2021: Third-Crop Sires, Part I

It's now or never, guys!

The deeper we go into our survey of Kentucky covering options for 2021, the fewer stallions remain standing. And those we reach today, about to launch a third crop of juveniles, have entered a decisive stage of their climb. Two or three are ascending confidently toward the next ridge; a handful are clinging tenaciously to a ledge; but many are now slithering unhappily down through the scree.

Several have already disappeared into regional or overseas programs. For now, the leading Bluegrass farms are persevering with 18 stallions from this group. It's a safe bet, however, that by this time next year, half of them will have been moved on. In each of the three preceding intakes, the same farms now retain no more than seven or eight.

In the course of this series, we've repeatedly remarked how unproven stallions are first supported and then abandoned with equal haste. But the foals conceived by these stallions this spring will have a far more legible value at the yearling sales of 2023. With a fifth crop on the track, their sires will by then have given us a legitimate sense of how their stock develop with maturity. There will be no more excuses.

The stakes, then, are now extremely steep. The rewards are potentially high, with fees generally tumbling, but the risk for the majority is clear. As such, it's no surprise that many commercial stallions should find their books virtually evaporating. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword. If you launch your stallion to appeal to short-term opportunists, you can't complain when they quit the scene in the same tearing rush as they first arrived.

Unless you're talking about a two-turn horse under restrained management–with the scope to become another Blame, say–these stallions tend to require immediate momentum from their first couple of crops. There can be no stalling as the lights go green. It's extremely rare, certainly, that the more commercial types get a reprieve after the remarkable fashion, in this group, of Daredevil.

Among those drinking in the last-chance saloon, then, who deserves the funding to go back up to the bar and order one more round? Who deserves one final opportunity to secure a viable stud career in Kentucky? At a time when generous fee cuts are being made across the roster, there will surely be a bargain or two for those bold enough to take a gamble.

Harvey's Lil Goil is one of two scorers at the top level for American Pharoah Coady

Naturally we start with AMERICAN PHAROAH (Pioneerof the Nile–Littleprincess-emma, by Yankee Gentlemen), who continues to do everything required by his stellar status and six-figure fee: champion freshman, now champion second-crop sire and once again well clear with his yearling averages too. But bold gambles need not be confined to the strugglers, and I do hope that someday his owners might think about giving this horse at least a year on their farm in Ireland.

The fact is that only one of American Pharoah's six graded stakes winners in 2020 came on dirt (and that was in Japan). Partly this reflects the fact that he already has quite good representation in Europe–not least through the homebred Van Gogh, among the favorites for Epsom after rounding off his first season at Ballydoyle with a four-length Group 1 success in France. American Pharoah's other elite scorer, however, is Harvey's Lil Goil, who left the main track to win the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup and then got within half a length in the Filly & Mare Turf at the Breeders' Cup. The slightly startling bottom line is that American Pharoah, by North American dirt earnings, finished behind nine other second-crop stallions with two black-type winners from 82 starters in 2020.

Ashford is offering him at $100,000 for 2020, having soon listed him as “private” after launching him at $200,000, and he's not going to lack either quality or quantity any time soon. After a Breeders' Cup winner from his first crop of juveniles, he welcomed another 153 mares last spring, following nearly 800 across his first four years. And he had two outstanding sophomores on dirt in Japan, so we're plainly talking about a versatile sire rather than any kind of strict specialist.

In this day and age, after all, it should only be an increasing asset–including in the domestic market–for a Triple Crown winner to parlay his class into different environments. (His own sire, remember, broke his maiden on turf and took a synthetic route to the Kentucky Derby where he finished second in the slop.)

A sojourn in Europe would give breeders there a thrilling opportunity. But American breeders will doubtless remain so jealous of this historic achiever that the Europeans will just have to keep shipping mares if they want competition for Galileo (Ire) and his sons. Certainly it's none of my business to tell the best in the business how to run their business. They will know the English expression, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.” And American Pharoah's third crop of yearlings averaged $227,820 for 49 sold of 68 into the ring, including a couple of seven-figure sales.

That was admittedly well down on his first couple of crops, which both exceeded $400,000. But it's a very solid yield compared with most of these stallions. The market for third-crop yearlings, remember, is notoriously porous at the best of times; and this cycle, collectively, was under freakish additional pressure in the pandemic economy. To be broadsided in this fashion, precisely when most commercially vulnerable, demands an invisible asterisk for every yearling they sold in 2020.

Constitution | Sarah Andrew

The one who has bucked that trend most comprehensively is CONSTITUTION (Tapit–Baffled, by Distorted Humor). With his flagship Tiz the Law continuing to thrive as a sophomore, WinStar's comet advanced his third crop of yearlings to $137,351, up again from $95,314 after a big debut crop had been rather coolly received at $71,424. His fee has taken parallel steps, having been cut to $15,000 from an opening $25,000 before earning hikes to $40,000 and now $85,000. Last year, similarly, having slipped to 85 mares in his fourth season, he broke into the top five books in the nation with no fewer than 231 covers.

Besides the stellar Tiz the Law, in 2020 Constitution admittedly mustered just one other graded stakes winner in Laura's Light (scored at both Grade II and III level). But no fewer than 19 black-type performers represented nearly 14% of starters, building on the unarguable breadth of impact (eight graded stakes horses) made by his first juveniles the previous year. For what it may be worth, his sojourn in Chile has been no less productive with three youngsters winning Group 1s.

Constitution has put himself in the vanguard of those sons of Tapit contesting the eventual succession, and his own profile–unraced at two, clocked a 111 Beyer in the GI Donn at four–suggests that his stock should continue to consolidate from here. Like American Pharoah, his family has been seeded by one or two quirky names, but there are good horses close up on his page and, one way or another, everything is falling into place. He is becoming a model of what farms hope to achieve with a young commercial stallion.

Daredevil | Louise Reinagel

This time last year, the game already appeared to be up for Constitution's former studmate DAREDEVIL (More Than Ready–Chasethewildwind, by Forty Niner). We should congratulate The Jockey Club of Turkey, in fact, for profiting from the panicky temperament of the American commercial market. Having imported a modest but presentable freshman sire, with 13 winners from 41 starters, they saw two of his first sophomores improve into Grade I winners and were immediately able to repatriate Daredevil to Lane's End to stand at $25,000.

Of course, it may yet prove that everyone has now overreacted to his triumph no less than they did in dismissing him as a $7,500 dud. In percentage terms, none of these stallions owes so much to their principal earner as does Daredevil to his extraordinary GI Preakness winner Swiss Skydiver–and we know that any sire can come up with one freaky good horse. Hence the vital importance of Shedaresthedevil beating Swiss Skydiver in their stunning GI Kentucky Oaks one-two; moreover, Daredevil's only other black-type winner of 2020 graduated from Ohio-bred company to chase home Vequist (Nyquist), albeit at a respectful distance, in the GI Spinaway S.

So Daredevil had 'only' three black-type horses. And he had 'as many as' three Grade I horses. You decide. He has been priced strictly for believers, but let's remember that he did all this from not quite half as many starters as American Pharoah. Naturally, Daredevil was another of the few to drive up his third crop of yearlings, who rallied to $42,403 for 28 sales (of 42 offered) from $14,260 for his second.

After such a wild ride to date, it'll be fascinating to see how he stabilizes from here. If Daredevil himself couldn't go on from a juvenile Grade I success, it's encouraging that he's half-brother to an older campaigner as hard-knocking as Albertus Maximus (Albert the Great). His big problem will be the looming bump in the road resulting from just 21 covers in 2019.

Tapiture | EquiSport Photos

There will be no break in the traffic for TAPITURE (Tapit–Free Spin, by Olympio) at Darby Dan, where he significantly secured marginally his biggest book to date in his fifth year, up to 186 from 114 the previous year (after 525 covers across his first three seasons). He made the most of that footprint in 2020, with 16 black-type horses, albeit only one–Hopeful Growth in the GIII Monmouth Oaks–actually achieved graded stakes success. His principal earner was instead the $30,000 yearling Jesus' Team, who achieved a Classic podium in the GI Preakness S. and also emulated his sire as runner-up in the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.

His prolific output secured Tapiture third place in the second-crop prize money table, albeit his percentages can duly be matched by a number of sires apparently struggling in his wake; and even he endured a declining yield at the yearling sales, down to $20,605 for 44 sold (from 67 into the ring) from $39,101 the previous year. (But that, as already noted, is pretty standard at the best of times–never mind in a pandemic market.)

In the round, he has done enough actually to advance his fee to $10,000 from $7,500, a rare distinction for a stallion at this stage of his career. His damsire introduces a backwater of the Nasrullah line but, judging from serial graded stakes performance or production by siblings, something is functioning consistently well. And, relative to many commercial sires, his key advantage is that his precocious returns could yet be consolidated by maturing stock: he won graded stakes at two, three and four.

Liam's Map | Asuncion Pineyrua

That should also prove true of LIAM'S MAP (Unbridled's Song–Miss Macy Sue, by Trippi), who was a late starter on the track but clocked 114 Beyers for both his Grade Is at four, and arguably surpassed even those performances when run down by Honor Code in a Whitney for the ages.

The first three home in that epic all ended up at Lane's End and, while I retain no less faith in the other two, it is Liam's Map who seems to have caught a following wind to this point. He first prospered from a very useful opportunism: the two stakes winners in his first crop of juveniles did the job properly, both scoring at Grade I level. Now Liam's Map has followed through with a solid fifth in the second-crop table, with seven stakes winners at essentially the same clip as American Pharoah and Constitution. If eking a second Grade I win out of Basin was candidly a bonus, the easy winner being later disqualified, then the GII Pat Day Mile success of Rushie was a validly fresh string to their sire's bow.

By the prudent standards of his farm, 156 mares in his fifth book–despite a hike from $20,000 to $35,000–represented a return to full subscription after Liam's Map had eased slightly, in familiar fashion, to 114 the previous year. A trim back to $30,000 will doubtless help to maintain momentum, and overall he appears to be in good shape. His third crop of yearlings averaged $80,435 for 39 sold of 54, holding up their value very well (second crop $118,801) relative to most in this intake.

That can be no surprise in one who himself cost $800,000 as a yearling, and whose pedigree has only grown more aristocratic with the flying start made at stud by half-brother Not This Time (Giant's Causeway). A family like theirs, combined with six triple-digit Beyers in eight starts, meant that Liam's Map always seemed destined to make the grade. And he could not be in better hands to stay on course now.

Honor Code | Lane's End

Somehow things don't seem to have fallen quite so obligingly for HONOR CODE (A.P. Indy–Serena's Cat, by Storm Cat) on the same roster, but I believe he remains well qualified to succeed in the long term. He was unlucky that fate restricted his flagship Honor A. P. to a single performance that did justice of his true merit, in the GI Santa Anita Derby. Moreover, the odds against Honor Code are potentially now compounded by the arrival of his physically stunning son as a rival in the same stallion shed–and a rival, moreover, priced as the outstanding value of Kentucky's entire new intake.

Honor Code's quiet start with his first juveniles left him chasing the pace somewhat, and he was cut to $30,000 from an opening $40,000 to receive 85 mares last spring, following four basically full books of around 150. Half a dozen stakes horses in 2020 represented a steady gain, Honor A. P. finding his best support from the GIII Withers success/GI Travers podium of Max Player, and another cut (to $20,000) should help to maintain his appeal to more patient breeders. He certainly throws a seductive foal and $50,068 for 51 (of 73) yearlings sold from his third crop was a familiar kind of slip–for this vulnerable group, in this market–from $75,494.

He should certainly retain his appeal to anyone who might be disposed to retain a filly. The maternal line is obviously regal, while the cross between sire and damsire combines twin bulwarks of Secretariat's broodmare prowess. With plenty of maturing talent on stream, Honor Code could yet replicate his Whitney performance, when taking off from the rear and running down the trail-blazing Liam's Map. But there's no denying this looks an important year for him.

The second half of this instalment in our ongoing series will appear [in tomorrow's edition], among others featuring the likes of Tonalist, Karakontie (Jpn), Summer Front and Palace Malice, as well as our latest value podium.

The post Kentucky Sires for 2021: Third-Crop Sires, Part I appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

This Side Up: Manners Maketh Mandaloun

How ironic, that a man with a nearly anguished instinct for self-effacement should have left so indelible an impression on our walk of life–one he strolled so quietly that he insisted on registering his silks, with The Jockey Club in Britain, simply in the name of Mr. K. Abdullah. How many others who covet the Turf’s great prizes, in contrast, elbow their way through the crowd in preening advertisement of their wealth and acuity?

If we learn much about such people from their presumption of some deeper dignity, from a status they cannot sustain even by a royal title, so we can surmise something of those human qualities–generally so inscrutable–that were extinguished with the loss of Prince Khalid this week. For he plainly considered “Mr.” an ample prompt to our general obligation of mutual civility; above all, perhaps, among those who constantly witness the egalitarianism that persists between Thoroughbreds themselves. Whatever advantages we seek in pedigree–the foundation, after all, of his entire Juddmonte empire–even the Prince will have seen the most regal foals reduced to the claiming ranks, or denied the throne by blue-collar upstarts.

Admittedly the courteous lineaments of his public appearances so confined his inner nature that we should perhaps hesitate before discovering some third dimension barely exposed even to those in our community who spent years in his service. For their tributes have been in much the same register as those made from a more superficial vantage. Even from the outside, any of us might ascribe to him attributes of ‘the perfect gentleman’. First and foremost, precisely that freedom from self-importance; but also his distaste for the kind of hiring and firing that we see in the Turf’s coarser patrons.

So perhaps we actually knew him better than we realized. Certainly his striking fidelities suggest an unshakable respect for those qualities that abide within those who might not appear, to more fickle judgements, in a deserving state of grace. He was just about the last man standing when Sir Henry Cecil paid with the contempt of fashion for a human brittleness in the face of adversity. And while Bobby Frankel never lost professional esteem in the same way, you suspect that few who share the Prince’s antecedents would have become quite so devoted to a cantankerous Jewish gambler from Brooklyn.

The Prince with Sir Henry Cecil in 2011 | Racing Post

The sheer breadth of humanity encompassed by those two trainers, their wildly divergent personalities united by a slender strand of genius, attested to a tolerance and empathy in the Prince that would serve us all well, not least in these rancorous times. A tragic destiny, of course, reserved for Frankel and Cecil a cruel extra bond, in their premature loss to cancer. But a happier clause in the unforgiving terms of fate was the arrival of a champion, named in memory of one, to redeem the darkest hour of the other.

Arguably the Prince surrendered something even of Juddmonte’s defining achievement to the needs of his suffering trainer. Even with his own time probably short, he delayed Frankel’s retirement as the apogee of his breeding program so that Cecil would retain a spur to his fortitude every time he went out onto the gallops. And the Prince also indulged the rather parochial priorities that somewhat hampered Cecil even in his pomp, never mind at a time when personal travel had become impractical.

The Prince must surely have asked himself, as did some of us mere bystanders, what capacities remained unexplored in Frankel as Cecil kept him, almost to the end, in the same domestic pool of outclassed milers. Constantly compared with specters of the past, Frankel was never given the chance to measure himself even against his contemporaries overseas. The Prince had a mansion just beside the Bois de Boulogne, and first became enchanted by the Turf when taken by friends to Longchamp in 1956. And he adored the Breeders’ Cup. Hopefully his enjoyment of Frankel’s wonderful start at stud was not too poignantly tempered by the reflection that the speed-carrying capacity he imparts to his stock really should have been examined either in the Arc or at the Breeders’ Cup.

A trifling quibble, by now, in a legacy that has long been secure–and will long continue to evolve. Indeed, just as Juddmonte once gave a cherished friend a critical transfusion of vitality, perhaps those grieving the Prince now will themselves find some timely succour from its bloodlines.

Mandaloun | Coady

Because none of us, surely, will be able to resist a frisson that some benign force may assist the Juddmonte colt who finds himself, on this of all weekends, dipping a toe into the Triple Crown water in the GIII Lecomte S.

The Kentucky Derby was one of the few great ambitions to elude the Prince, albeit he managed two seconds (Aptitude and Empire Maker) from only five starters. Mandaloun is by the same extraordinary sire that has just settled any doubt as to his competence to stretch his trademark speed, with the improvement in his mares, to the demands of the Derby.

The upgrading of Into Mischief‘s books was aptly measured when the Prince favored him with a visit from Mandaloun’s dam, Empire Maker’s daughter Brooch, a Group 2 and 3 winner in Ireland. Judicious introduction of external blood has been key to the constant invigoration of the Prince’s families. In this case, however, the first three dams are all by homebred stallions: Empire Maker, Dansili (GB) and Distant View. But the fourth dam is Queen of Song (His Majesty), a sister to Cormorant added to the expanding Juddmonte band for $700,000 at the 1989 Keeneland November Sale.

Brad Cox also saddles an exciting sophomore filly for Juddmonte in the Silverbulletday S. Already No. 2 in colleague Bill Finley’s TDN Oaks Top 10, Sun Path is by another commercial stallion in Munnings. In her case, however, her first three dams are all by other outside sires: Tapit, Nureyev and Nijinsky. The third is champion Chris Evert’s daughter Nijinsky Star, acquired (from the Carl Rosen dispersal) in the same ring as Queen of Song, and for the same price, two years previously.

Whereas Queen Of Song had won 14 of 58 starts for Parrish Hill Farm, Nijinsky Star appeared a very different proposition: in fact, she had a tube exiting a lung, draining fluid from a bout of pleurisy in her younger days. But that did not put off the Prince and his team, and his investment paid off with Nijinsky Star’s emergence as foundation mare. Two daughters by Nureyev did especially well: Viviana produced multiple Grade I winners Sightseek (Distant View) and Tates Creek (Rahy), while Willstar gave us not only Group 1 winner Etoile Montante (Miswaki) but Touch the Star, who has already produced Bonny South by Tapit to win the GII Fair Grounds Oaks last year; and now Sun Path.

Sun Path | Hodges Photography

So both these Classic prospects exemplify the Prince’s patient refinement of families, an artistry and precision spanning three decades. Though their breeder actually started out by breaking the European record for a yearling almost immediately–giving 264,000gns for a Grundy colt at the 1978 Houghton Sale, ultimately to little avail–he showed great discrimination in his choice of talent, both human and equine, once deciding to build up his own program. It might seem easy for a member of the Saudi royal family to buy the right quality, but it’s worth recording that wealthy rivals spent even more on 37 other mares at the sale where the Prince bought Nijinsky Star. Needless to say, few proved anything like as good an investment.

In recent times the Prince had become frail, rather than just elegantly slender, and was rarely seen even as his last champion Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) prolonged her exuberant reign. But he had already long guaranteed a vibrant legacy to generations of horsemen to come.

For whenever they pore over pedigrees–renewing the perennial puzzle of what works and why–they will find themselves clinging gratefully to the footholds chiselled by this dignified, recessive figure. He will loom over the 21st Century breed much as Federico Tesio or the 17th Earl of Derby did before, paradoxically dragged by his own, understated passion into the applause of posterity from the anonymity he cherished.

Frankel | Juddmonte photo

Tesio’s exotic personality and beliefs were vividly chronicled, both by his own pen and others; while Derby’s public career in wartime gave him much wider profile. But this temperate Prince we respected, as much as anything, for the respect he exuded: whether in his personal bearing, or in the things he did (or, more importantly, the things he didn’t do) with the horses and horsemen in his service. In the old axiom, ‘manners maketh man’.

Sometimes a man becomes most truly distinguished by camouflage. I love to think of the young Prince, not yet 20, at Longchamp in 1956. People must have looked straight through him then, immaculately dapper though he surely must have been, unwitting of the transformational ambitions stirring in this captivated young Arab. That must have suited him just fine. But however little we really knew ‘the Prince’, and whatever complicated shades of humanity remained ever beyond our reach, we bid farewell to ‘Mr. Abdullah’ with much respect. And we will all duly celebrate success for Mandaloun, or Sun Path, simply as an immediate assurance that his bequest to the breed, whatever happens to Juddmonte now, will outlive us all.

The post This Side Up: Manners Maketh Mandaloun appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post