Tag: Chris McGrath

Forte Takes the Blame to Stay Strong

With commercial sires nowadays represented by such enormous cavalries, it's unsurprising that they should encounter random statistical clusters. These tend to even themselves out, so that a stallion that “hits form” with a sudden spate of stakes performers will also endure barren spells that naturally receive rather less attention. What every farm covets, then, is for a horse to get on a roll while there are still mares out there with mating decisions pending for this spring–and there's no better way to do that than making some noise on the Classic trail.

In that context, it was a remarkable weekend. Violence accounted for the dashing winners of two Derby rehearsals; while Practical Joke, who added one for himself, followed through with two other stakes winners, one of which banked 50 starting points for the GI Kentucky Oaks. On that front, however, Girvin was the man of the hour, making a double play with trial winners on opposite coasts. Less feted, meanwhile, but perhaps most significant in the longer term, was another stellar weekend for Blame as an emerging broodmare sire.
Among all these, the obvious imperative is to consider the genetic wiring that must sustain Forte (Violence) as he stretches out in distance. Before doing so, however, it's worth acknowledging that each of these stallions has a wider momentum than mere coincidence.

Girvin had already announced himself so persuasively, in launching talented juveniles like Damon's Mound last year, that he earned an immediate transfer from Florida to Kentucky. Faiza made a key contribution to that breakout, as a spectacular pinhook ($90,000 yearling/$725,000 juvenile) who then won a Grade I on her second start, and she continued her flawless progress in the GIII Santa Ysabel S. on Sunday. Her success was rather more anticipated than that of Dorth Vader the previous day, but a filly homebred at $7,500 has now won four of six starts since stumbling on debut: a maiden, two stakes and now the GII Davona Dale S. Girvin's precocious stock, then, is consolidating in most encouraging fashion–especially given that he has so far been working with material commensurate with his opening fee. Dorth Vader, for instance, is out of a Yonaguska mare who won under a $5,000 tag in Alberta. It's going to be fun to see what Girvin can do with his upgrade at Airdrie.

Practical Joke belongs to the previous intake, meaning that he has had to deal throughout with a fairly epoch-making inconvenience in Gun Runner. As a dual Grade I-winning juvenile by into Into Mischief, he secured significant numerical opportunity at Ashford and has already had a couple of hundred individual starters. But he's taking the chance he was given, reliably slipstreaming Gun Runner in their class and already indebted to this second crop for a first Grade I success in Chocolate Gelato's Frizette last fall.

The flamboyant talent of Practical Move is offering to take his sire to another level, albeit we'll have to see quite how far he can stretch his speed. That kind of question has obviously been answered quite brilliantly by Into Mischief himself, since the elevation of his mares, and Practical Joke is making a promising early “Move” in the intensifying competition among his sons. Little Vic–from Practical Joke's debut crop–is certainly trading unapologetically in speed, and continued his fertile winter campaign with a career best in the GIII Tom Fool H. But Shidabhuti will be another looking to extend, having pried open an Oaks gate in maintaining her unbeaten start in the Busher S.

Blame is obviously a proven operator by this stage, and we've long admired his black-type output at ratios that stack up well against several more expensive covers. Indeed, this spring he has Derby and Oaks contenders himself in Litigate and Wet Paint. As a broodmare sire, however, he has barely started–and is rapidly opening up exciting horizons.

With his beautifully shaped pedigree, lining up his fourth dam Thong against his sire Arch's third dam Courtly Dee (both by sons of Nasrullah, in Nantallah and Never Bend), I've always said Blame looked a great option for someone who wouldn't mind retaining a filly. And his daughters arguably gave us both the leading juveniles of 2022, in Forte himself and Loggins (Ghostzapper); while two others produced sophomore stakes winners to sandwich the champion's comeback win last Saturday. Danse Macabre (Army Mule) won the GIII Herecomesthebride S. on the same card, while Botanical (Medaglia d'Oro) collected 20 Oaks points in the Cincinnati Trophy at Turfway. Note this well: Forte, Loggins, Danse Macabre and Botanical are all the very first foals to represent their dams on the track.

Botanical is bred on a cross akin to the one that gave us Forte, who is by a son of her sire. But while Medaglia d'Oro has long been a byword for versatility, it's conceivable that Violence may need Forte to summon the two-turn influences channelled through his dam to see out the punishing test awaiting on the first Saturday in May.
In winning the GII Fountain of Youth S., Forte was redressing his sire's narrow defeat (by the subsequent Derby winner) in the same race 10 years previously.

True to the Medaglia d'Oro legacy, Violence did prove adaptable even in the span of a career that came to a premature end that day, having won the GI Hollywood Futurity on synthetics after making his name on dirt in New York. He made a flying start at Hill 'n' Dale, missing the 2017 freshman's laurels by cents (to Overanalyze!) and rewarded with 214 mares at a fee hiked from $15,000 to $25,000. With his debut crop thriving as sophomores, he proved all the rage at the yearling sales in 2018 and was raised further to $40,000. But he then mustered just two stakes winners in 2019, sending his yearling average plummeting from over $130,000 to barely $45,000. With his fee retreating to $25,000, he then turned things round with three Grade I winners in 2020, from three different crops. He was back in the game, albeit that hump in the road will tell in a somewhat diminished juvenile footprint this year (graduating from his 2020 book, which slipped to 86 mares).

Overall, after one or two wild swings early in his career, it feels safe to say that Violence has completed a process of consolidation with the emergence of Forte. Always a glossy physical, he's now up to $50,000 and already has Volatile at stud to heighten the sense that the ageing Medaglia d'Oro has belatedly organised his legacy. For quite a while, the dynasty had seemed insecure, with no heir quite matching the status of his daughters Rachel Alexandra and Songbird, or his gelded son Golden Sixty. But now he has Violence competing with a champion freshman in Bolt d'Oro, with Higher Power starting out too. Certainly anyone who consecutively replays the Fountain of Youth and then the GIII Gotham S. will observe a common swagger to Forte and Raise Cain. But that kind of natural speed is consistent with the races won by their sire's most accomplished stock to date: GI Woody Stephens S., GI Alfred G. Vanderbilt S., GI Bing Crosby S.

In vividly diversifying the legacy of turf monster El Prado (Ire), Medaglia d'Oro can also include sprint speed among his variegated resume: think Astern (Aus), Vancouver (Aus), Warrior's Reward. Quite apart from his sire-line, however, the seeding of Violence's own family also has a strong flavor of chlorophyll: his first two dams are by transatlantic influences in Gone West and Storm Cat, and the next two are by venerable European Classic influences in Blushing Groom (Fr) and Nijinsky. How curious, if these names should end up helping to create a legacy on dirt for Medaglia d'Oro.

With the help of their classic qualities, this well-known family has achieved that elusive balance between speed and stamina. Violence's third dam is Hall of Famer Sky Beauty, whose own dam was Dayjur's Grade I-winning half-sister Maplejinsky, their mother in turn being champion sprinter Gold Beauty. Bearing in mind that you'll also find Maplejinsky as third dam of Point Of Entry (Dynaformer), this maternal background should certainly help Violence stretch the speed he has imparted to his best stock; and he does have a Grade I winner over 10 furlongs in Argentina. Nonetheless it is a comfort for those in Forte's camp for the Derby to know that he can also draw on the resources of his dam Queen Caroline.

Blame | Claiborne Farm

Blame himself obviously offers her a bedrock. Besides extending the doughty Arch-Roberto brand, he also introduces more Nijinsky as sire of his grandam–whose celebrated mother, Special was of course by another sturdy influence in Forli (Arg). Queen Caroline is out of a Forestry mare, but the next dam is by Seattle Slew and soon tapers through three generations of Phipps-Wheatley royalty to a sister of Busher (and then to the Colonel Bradley matriarch Baby League and her legendary dam La Troienne {Fr}). Queen Caroline herself showed plenty of talent, at around a mile on turf, winning four black-type races. A couple of those were restricted to Virginia-breds, but she only missed a graded stakes podium by a neck. (Remarkably, she was the very first purchase made by Amy Moore–as a $170,000 Keeneland September yearling–to found South Gate Farm.)
Queen Caroline's dam was a sharp sort, promptly adding a listed sprint to her maiden win at two, but more importantly she was out of a half-sister to the increasingly important Storm Cat mare Contrive: not only dam of champion juvenile filly Folklore (Tiznow) (herself responsible for the mother of Japanese star Contrail (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) but also second dam of Essential Quality (Tapit).

This all feels like a pretty strong foil to the speed hitherto trademarked by Violence. A similar exercise will be necessary, incidentally, with Raise Cain. He was bred by Rock Ridge Thoroughbreds from a Lemon Drop Kid mare who had won a sprint maiden in a light career, more significantly a half-sister to GI Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic winner Unrivaled Belle (Unbridled's Song). The latter's daughter Unique Bella also had elite talent but remember that she operated very effectively round a single turn, despite being by Tapit.

So we'll have to see how the profile of Violence evolves as these sons seek to adapt their flair to the demands of the Triple Crown trail. Raise Cain certainly exhibited a full armory on Saturday: through the race he exuded contempt for the idea that the traffic around him might be running fast, and then devoured open ground like a horse eager for more. Admittedly his earlier work now seems to require some imaginative reinterpretation, whereas Forte is obviously a proven star already.

As has been well documented by now, as a $110,000 yearling Forte lurked an awfully long way down the list of 2021 purchases by Repole Stable and St Elias. (Certainly it was only a marginal reward for his $80,000 pinhookers, though Reiley McDonald could comfort himself with a trifecta of Eaton graduates in the GI Hopeful S.) Regardless, Violence has now put two sets of connections exactly where thousands of others had dreamed of being when the class of 2020 slithered into the straw. But if it turns out that none of them can outstay Forte, we know who else can share the Blame.

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The Happy Blend Behind Litigate

In an era when it appears that no horse can run twice under the same moon, once again we're going to have plenty of relatively unexposed animals converging on the GI Kentucky Derby. That requires us to fall back on some secondary evidence, in pedigree and upbringing, to estimate what latent resources may be summoned to deal with the startling novelty of a 20-horse stampede.

That's why the handicapping jury should heed the defense attorney for Litigate (Blame), despite a pedestrian 77 Beyer in the GIII Sam F. Davis S. last Saturday. Because everything about this horse tells me that the more he gets tested, the more exemplary he can become.

Before we get to his pedigree, which is copper-bottomed for the job, we need to emphasize that Litigate benefitted from as good a grounding as any Thoroughbred in the crop. All who know and admire John Mayer of Nursery Place are aware of his resolutely self-effacing nature. So let's just put it front and center that this colt was prepared for his vocation at a farm where absolutely no corners are cut, by one of the most respected horsemen in the Bluegrass.

It was typically astute to unearth Litigate's dam, Salsa Diavola (Mineshaft), for just $12,500 down the field in her second (and final) start in maiden claimer at Woodbine in 2016. Her family is saturated with the quality you would expect when Numbered Account (Buckpasser) surfaces as fourth dam; while mating her with Blame, whose third dam is none other than Special (Forli {Arg}), makes Litigate a top-to-bottom aristocrat. He always had a physique to match, too, judging from the $370,000 paid by Centennial Farms as a Keeneland September yearling.

Litigate wins the Sam Davis | SV Photography

Fortunately, Mayer's unyielding modesty will not prevent a due testimonial to his work–and that of his sons Griffin and Walker–from Happy Broadbent, vice-president of Brisnet. He has had a ringside seat to the rise of Litigate, both as Mayer's brother-in-law and as a partner in Salsa Diavola.

“John Mayer is the hardest-working guy I know,” Broadbent says. “Now that the foaling season has started, he won't come off that farm until June, literally until the last mare has foaled. If that means mucking out a 12-stall barn by himself, he'll be doing it to this day. I'm fortunate enough, one, to be his brother-in-law; but also to see first-hand the way he raises these horses. He always does what's best for the horse.”

After a lifetime in the business, Broadbent sets three horsemen apart. All happen to share the same first name; and two of them, to Broadbent's immense gratification, are partners in Salsa Diavola (among several other mares) at Nursery Place.

“The three people top of my list, as far as hardboot horsemen, are my brother-in-law John Mayer, my other partner John Donaldson, and John Williams,” Broadbent explains. “I was fortunate enough to work for him [at Spendthrift] back in 1980, when the first crop of Seattle Slew was going through as yearlings. And with the other two, believe it or not, I have now been partners for 30 years: we bought our first mare in 1993, and we've bought and sold and traded horses together ever since.

“John Donaldson moved here [to Kentucky] from Arizona in '79. He told me recently that the best thing that ever happened to him in this business was walking through the door of my dad's office and getting hired to do bloodstock research. That's how he got started on his career, and how I got started with him too–because I always recognized his great eye for a horse, his knowledge of conformation and pedigree. He does a lot of consulting for Stonestreet, he's heavily involved in the matings of all those mares. So along with all the information that comes through Brisnet, the three of us have all been able to add something different.”

Between them they certainly spotted a bargain in Salsa Diavola, a half-sister to dual graded stakes-winning sprinter Pacific Ocean (Ghostzapper) and the stakes-placed dam of Blamed, a dual Grade III winner by Litigate's sire. Their dam is an Unbridled half-sister to Mutakddim (Seeking The Gold), a prolific stallion in Argentina, out of a Seattle Slew half-sister to the Mr. Prospector siblings Rhythm, a champion juvenile, and Not For Love, the lesser racehorse but superior sire of the pair. The next dam is Grade I winner Dance Number (Northern Dancer), a half-sister to Private Account (Damascus) out of the elite runner/producer Numbered Account.

“At the time we bought Salsa Diavola out of Canada, we felt that Mineshaft was going to be a good broodmare sire,” Broadbent recalls. “And with the deep, blue-hen family she had, we thought we'd take a shot with her. When we claim a filly, or buy one privately, typically we'd look to sell them on. But at the time we'd started to keep a few mares ourselves and this one, with her background and looks, was one we decided to be patient with.”

Admittedly they tested the water with her, offering her with a maiden cover by Ghostzapper at the Keeneland November Sale of 2017, but fortunately she failed to meet her reserve at $130,000.

“And this colt, Litigate, when he went through the ring was just an outstanding individual,” Broadbent recalls. “We've been watching him since; weren't quite sure at first, but then all of a sudden he started firing bullet works. We knew he was in great hands, with Centennial and Todd Pletcher, so we were hoping that something like this was going to happen. Because it's the kind of pedigree we liked to see in the olden days, blue blood all the way. And it just screams distance. He should run all day long.”

Which is just what excited many of us about Litigate: the fact that he was able to win a sprint maiden on debut at Aqueduct in November, despite a pedigree tailor made for the first Saturday in May (not to mention Belmont in early June). He did, admittedly, get outgunned by a flashy talent next time out, but Pletcher relied on him from eight nominations to extend his race record when introduced to a second turn at Tampa Bay. Sure enough, Litigate was able to break clear of a wide draw before dropping inside, then sweeping round rivals while still green in delaying a switch of leads. He will need to keep learning new tricks against more potent competition, but he certainly has the pedigree to keep building.

Salsa Diavola's first four dams are by Unbridled, Seattle Slew, Northern Dancer and Buckpasser; and Seattle Slew recurs along her top line, of course, behind Mineshaft's sire A.P. Indy. But it's the sheer, undiluted quality of the families entwined by the mating with Blame that already makes you hope that Litigate can progress sufficiently to earn a chance at stud. Salsa Diavola's own maternal line we have already sketched out (and it's intriguing that the genes have worked even better in the stallion shed than on the track, in the case of Mutakddim and Not For Love). Her sire's granddam is Up The Flagpole (Hoist The Flag). Blame, as mentioned, goes back through Special to Thong (Nantallah) and the associated dynasty; and his sire Arch is a grandson of Courtly Dee's daughter Althea (Alydar). Find me the weak link in that chain.

Broadbent says that no decision has yet been made on Salsa Diavola's next date, but the team are certainly pleased that they sent her back to Blame after his first cover proved so productive.

“John [Mayer] told me Saturday night that the mare's starting to bag up now and probably about 10 days away from foaling a full-brother or sister to Litigate, so fingers crossed,” he says. “John has always loved Blame, since day one, and we've had some luck with his babies before. He was a hard-knocking racehorse, and an underrated stallion in my opinion.”

No dissent to that view here, the Claiborne stallion having featured as high as the top step of our “Value Podium” among established sires. Even before the rise of Litigate he had already made a game-changing step forward with this sophomore crop, in the role of a highly precocious broodmare sire. Both Forte (Violence) and Loggins (Ghostzapper), who ran the champion so close in the fall, are respectively first foals of daughters of Blame.

So this esteem from breeders who can think for themselves is unsurprising. Only the previous weekend, we had seen how Nursery Place can prosper against the tide. Hot Spell (Salt Lake) was already 11 when added to the broodmare band for $85,000 at Keeneland January in 2015. She'd shown stakes talent in a brief career, but little as a producer and was being culled with a cheap cover. Nursery Place sent her to the upwardly mobile Quality Road, then still standing at $35,000, and the resulting colt made $900,000 as a Keeneland September yearling to a partnership of Bob Baffert's patrons. They called him Hopkins and, while he has made them wait, he's putting it all together now and ran out a decisive winner of the GIII Palos Verdes S.

“So that's two weekends in a row the program has produced a graded stakes winner,” Broadbent says. “Hopkins was an absolute beast when we sold him. We never imagined he might bring what he did, but they've handled him the right way. I give credit to Bob, and to Tom Ryan, for being so patient. He's shown along the way in the mornings that he was going be a nice horse and they have given him the time he needed to do that.”

Actually Broadbent himself is on a particular roll. Because if you go back another weekend, there he was in Palm Beach among the First Row partners collecting an Eclipse Award for their mare Goodnight Olive (Ghostzapper).

“Her winning at the Breeders' Cup was a huge pinnacle for me,” he explains. “I always tell people my blood's not red, but Keeneland green: my mother's grandfather was Hal Price Headley, [co-]founder of Keeneland; and my grandfather Louis Lee Haggin II was president there for many years. So to win a Breeders' Cup race in front of a home crowd, with mom and whole family all there, was very special.”

Broadbent's 87-year-old father-in-law Bill Robbins (along with brothers-in-law Will and Earl Robbins) has also shared the ride with First Row Partners–who had similarly hit the jackpot as co-owners of dual graded stakes winner Nay Lady Nay (Ire) (No Nay Never). She was sold to Juddmonte for $1.7 million at Fasig-Tipton in November 2021, having cost $210,000 as an OBS March juvenile.

“She was the only No Nay Never from his first crop to be sold over here as a 2-year-old,” Broadbent remembers. “I was saying we must be crazy, buying a horse by some no-name sire out of a no-name mare! Next thing you know, he's the hottest young sire in Europe and her full-brother Arizona was winning at Royal Ascot.”

But Broadbent, whose late father Dick founded Bloodstock Research Information Services, knows that such dividends are typically won only by playing the long game.

“My dad revolutionized the horse industry with computerized pedigrees,” he reflects. “It's amazing to think back to what he was doing back in the '70s and '80s, and everything the internet evolved into since. I was fortunate to work for him 23 years, and I'm still with Brisnet after 37 years, doing what I love every day, working in same building, with so many great people.

“When I was young, Dad had me going round every summer learning every aspect of this business, from yearlings to broodmares to stallions to foaling. It's been my passion all the way through, the one thing I really know is to surround myself with good people–which is just what this horse has been all about.

“We've got probably the best group of yearlings we've had in a long time. Salsa Diavola has a Twirling Candy filly that's one of the best on the farm, we think she's going to be a star come September at Keeneland. So let's hope Litigate stays healthy and carries on from here.”

On Monday morning Broadbent telephoned Don Little Jr. of Centennial to offer gratitude and congratulations. He also mentioned how Little's sister Andy, lost to cancer a few years ago, had been at school in Virginia with Broadbent's wife Pattie.

“I told him of that connection, and all the fun the girls had together through college,” Broadbent says. “And Don said, 'Well, we've got an angel looking over the gate, going forward.'

“There's no bigger thrill than to have a horse on the Derby trail. We were fortunate enough, back in 2006, to have a horse we bred, Steppenwolfer (Aptitude), run third. That was just an unbelievable ride he gave us, one of the thrills of my life. The difference in the number of texts and messages you get, between Hopkins and Litigate, is night and day. It just shows you how the Derby captures the imagination. And I know the people around him couldn't be more excited about this horse as he stretches out.”

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Value Sires For ’23: Part VII, Established Sires

It tells you plenty about the business today that this final leg of our quest for value on Kentucky farms should compress together stallions whose various retirements from the racetrack spanned more than decade. In devoting nearly all the previous instalments to individual classes of younger stallions, we've simply mirrored the distribution of mares, which as we all know is massively loaded towards largely unproven sires. To me, then, those few survivors that do establish a viable niche in the Bluegrass are real heroes.

While dozens of their original competitors have been banished to regional or overseas theaters, they have battled their way through and now contest a rather different market. Typically it will be oriented to those rare programs that can either afford to pay the top fees, for the likes of Into Mischief and Tapit, or at least take a longer view on building up families.

So today we must confront head-on the claim that drives so much commercial traffic towards new stallions that will, in the majority of cases, turn out to be standing at career high fees. And that's the idea those few sires that earn the label “proven” tend to become so expensive that investors have no choice but to roll the dice on relatively affordable rookies, hoping to hit a Gun Runner on the way up.

To a degree, of course, that consensus creates its own validity. Commercial breeders know where to anticipate ringside interest and as a result a stallion's debut book, very often, will prove the best he will ever assemble.

Putting that reality to one side, however, I do feel skeptical about the basic premise. For one thing, agents and managers almost invariably back off stallions as soon as they have cycled through their debut crops, long before they have had a meaningful chance to demonstrate whether or not their stock can actually run. But the principal point, and the object of the exercise today, is that there are actually plenty of stallions out there you could describe as both “proven” and affordable.

Despite career stats that will remain far beyond the vast majority of those newcomers annually flooding the gene pool, more likely than not with mediocrity, many of these stalwart operators tend to suffer flagrant commercial neglect. Their books are modest, whether measured by quality or quantity, and unsurprisingly the same then proves true of their sales dividends.

Hence, in turn, their accessible fees. That does mean that some of the horses we highlight today will seldom appeal to a fast-buck commercial breeder. But I'll keep saying it: there should be nothing more commercial than putting a winner under your mare.

So I have every confidence that in this final wrap we're not only looking at some of the worthiest stallions around, but at some of the best value as well. And because of the sheer range of this final group, we'll include rather more than usual in our round-up of near-misses.

The whole process, of course, has represented no more than one more opinion in a massively subjective environment. A ton of deserving stallions will have been overlooked; perhaps even entire farms. But nobody knows better than you what might work for your particular mare, and your particular program.

Many of the choices I've made are based on principles that a lot of people will consider impractical. When I suggest that you can get value from sires whose stock may need time to mature, and a second turn, then I absolutely accept that a lot of people need (and really “need”, as opposed to “prefer”) to get paid sooner and better than that will typically allow. Equally, however, I'm not going to flag up stallions that corral 400 mares in their first two seasons and then get their vaunted black-type action at only a pedestrian rate.

The nature of this particular beast means that we will be revisiting some old pals here. A body of work extending over several years is hardly invalidated by a single quiet one. And, as I've said before, there's no vice harder to overcome than that of being too stubborn!

BUBBLING UNDER:

I hate to admit it, but commercially the game does appear to be up with my old favorite LOOKIN AT LUCKY. It tells you everything about the unwholesome way the business is skewed that he can sire winners of America's two most iconic races and still be reduced to a fee of just $10,000. His scandalous neglect does have one benefit, however, for breeders far-sighted enough to “prove” a young mare inexpensively.

Even now his neighbor Munnings—launched simultaneously but long a darling of the sales ring, now commanding a fee 10 times higher than Lookin At Lucky–cannot beat his elite footprint. Both have 13 Grade I performers, but it is Lookin At Lucky who has produced them at a superior percentage (and, of course, from far inferior opportunity). “Lucky” should be gold on the value podium every year, but there would clearly be no point by this stage. All we can do is hand over the baton on to his big-value sons Accelerate and Country House.

MIDSHIPMAN, another podium regular, has in contrast finally had his remarkable data acknowledged by the doubling of his fee to $20,000. Somehow he can't quite crack that Grade I ceiling, but maintained his astounding consistency at black-type level in 2022, with 25 such performers representing 10.7 percent of starters. He'll have to work harder to achieve the

same profitability from his new fee, having soared to an average of $65,687 (median $50,000) for yearlings conceived at just $8,500, but hopefully his mares will also be upgrading now. What an exemplary horse! He's been a gift for so long, but I am confident he will keep on giving.

Midnight Lute | Sarah K. Andrew

MIDNIGHT LUTE almost achieved the same stakes footprint last year, at nine percent of starters–just shy of his lifetime clip, which has yielded 41 stakes winners including five at Grade I level. These are obviously headed by Midnight Bisou, but we have long since established that this is no one-trick pony. Midnight Lute really has a tremendous output for a horse standing at $12,500 and is another to mock the notion that there are no “proven” stallions out there within reach of the ordinary breeder. He looks after his clients respectably at the sales, too.

Even better stats back up SKY MESA, another whose resumé will remain far beyond the competence of the vast majority of rookies annually launched at much steeper fees than $10,000. Even among “proven” sires, you'll find quite a few at much higher tariffs that can't better Sky Mesa's lifetime 12.5 percent stakes performers-to-named foals.

Another struggling for due respect at $7,500 is FIRST SAMURAI, who nonetheless got on with business as usual in 2022 with another seven stakes winners. His buddy BLAME did not quite meet his own high standards, and rather feels due another star, but he has long demonstrated an ability to recycle his class at a rate better than his $25,000 fee. With that aristocratic pedigree behind him, I've always thought Blame highly eligible to become a distaff influence and so it is already proving. Two of the very best juveniles of 2022, Forte (Violence) and Loggins (Ghostzapper), are both out of Blame mares—surely a hugely significant straw in the wind.

BRONZE: CROSS TRAFFIC (Unbridled's Song–Stop Traffic by Cure The Blues)
$7,500 Spendthrift

Cross Traffic | Spendthrift Farm

To be honest, this lad is not quite in “proven” territory just yet, belonging as he does to the intake immediately preceding the three we grouped together last time as still “earning their stripes”. Even so, it feels like he has been around for quite some time: in his relatively short career he has managed to squeeze in some dazing fluctuations in fortune. He finds himself at another crossroads now, but the fact is that he has just confirmed (for a second time) his ability to punch above this kind of fee.

As champion freshman by multiple indices in 2018, the gray was hoisted to $25,000 for 2019 and duly received a stampede of 188 mares. The resulting crop were juveniles of 2022 and drove a spirited comeback in the all-comers' table of 2-year-old sires. Though this category was conspicuously dominated by freshmen, his 33 individual winners from 79 starters put him second overall; while his 13 black-type juveniles represented a knockout ratio of starters, surpassed in fact only by his latest successor as champion freshman, Bolt d'Oro, and the six-figure covers Quality Road and Constitution.

His four juvenile stakes winners included one unbeaten in both starts at Saratoga, and a filly that flew late into fourth at the Breeders' Cup. But despite doubling down on a reputation for precocity, Cross Traffic's stock is actually entitled to keep building. His principal earner to date, Ny Traffic, won over $900,000 across four campaigns, and remember that Cross Traffic himself only raced as a 4-year-old, when making up for lost time with a GI Met Mile second and GI Whitney success on only his fourth and fifth starts.

He has some pretty exotic names seeding the bottom line, but that certainly hasn't stopped the big horse on this farm and it felt auspicious that Cross Traffic actually elevated his yearling average in 2022 to $43,250 from $29,019, reversing a bleakly familiar trend at this stage of a stallion's career. Unfortunately his books have quickly dwindled since his renewed vogue in 2019, but his juvenile returns in both 2018 and 2022 show what he can do if given a chance—which is surely just what he deserves at this kind of basement fee.

Incidentally, a word here for his studmate JIMMY CREED, who struggled somewhat commercially with his last yearlings but counted dual Grade I winner Casa Creed and GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint third Private Creed among his seven stakes scorers in 2022. His book numbers have held up healthily over the past couple of years and there's a corresponding sense that he has more to offer at just $10,000.

SILVER: HARD SPUN (Danzig–Turkish Tryst by Turkoman)
$35,000 Darley

Hard Spun | Darley

Okay, so he had no real headliner in 2022—dropping out of the top 10 in the general sires' list for the first time in four years—but his customary foil Street Sense ($75,000) was nonetheless the only stallion standing for under six figures to beat 11 stakes winners. In other words, Hard Spun maintained his customary consistency and, moreover, boosted his yearling average to $109,187 from $80,353 the previous year.

That gives a commercial dimension to his principal appeal as the most accomplished sire of runners around at this kind of fee. Hard Spun stands as high as eighth in the earnings table of active American stallions, just ahead of his longstanding accomplice Street Sense. Their ratios across all indices are uncannily similar, for horses who first crossed swords on the track and at one stage even shared a sojourn in Japan together. As Street Sense himself is widely respected as pretty fair value at $75,000, it's remarkable that you can still get to Hard Spun for less than half that fee.

As a parting gift of the breed-changing Danzig, he has duly parlayed that international influence into many different theaters—short, long; dirt, turf—and he is already proving a notable broodmare sire. That's no surprise, when he complements Danzig with all that Darby Dan royalty down the bottom line.

Sure, much like our gold pick, Hard Spun's youngsters tend not to be the most precocious. But they are worth the wait. That capacity to carry speed, after all, is supposedly the grail for breeders. Though he later landed the GI King's Bishop over seven furlongs, Hard Spun held out for second in Street Sense's Derby after setting a pace that left the eventual winner, third and fourth, respectively, in 19th, 13th and 20th after half a mile.

It's a mystery, really: Hard Spun was standing at $60,000 before his year in Hokkaido, and he dominated the fourth-crop sires' table during his absence (ahead of Street Sense, English Channel and Scat Daddy), yet has never since restored his fee to its due level. You wouldn't catch me complaining about that, however, if I had a worthy mare.

GOLD: SPEIGHTSTOWN (Gone West–Silken Cat by Storm Cat)
$80,000 WinStar

Speightstown | Louise Reinagel

So what better way to finish a project like this, where you cannot fail to offend more people than you please, than with a truly provocative pick!?

But while I, too, would love to live in a world where $80,000 feels like a bargain, then we have to accept that value is a relative concept. And, for those folks who really can afford to send a mare to the elite sires, then here's a fee that brings to mind the old advertising slogan: “Hurry while stocks last!”

This is a game of opinion and I absolutely respect your right to share the prejudice against ageing stallions and mares. To me, even so, it has a self-fulfilling quality. The most expensive sires gradually find themselves in competition with their own sons—who start out not only with all the customary freshman fanfare, and a recency bias, but generally at a more accessible fee.  Nonetheless there are copious examples of champion runners and important influences (including the one on the second step of this podium) being delivered very late in the career of their sire and/or dam.

As a very late starter (aged seven) at stud, of course, Speightstown has not had quite as exhausting a love life as his peers: Tapit, for instance, is three years younger but has 1,567 named foals against 1,344 for Speightstown. And the WinStar stalwart evidently remains as potent a genetic influence as ever, with nine new Grade I winners over the last three years.

Take the two most expensive stallions among his established rivals, Into Mischief ($250,000) and Curlin ($225,000). At those fees, they must be man enough to stand comparison. Speightstown has maintained his 130 stakes winners at 9.7 percent of named foals (Into Mischief 8.6 percent, Curlin 8 percent); graded stakes winners at 4.6 percent (Into Mischief 4.1 percent, Curlin 4.5 percent); and his 24 Gråade I winners represent 1.8 percent, exactly the same as Curlin with Into Mischief (obviously started from a lower base of mares) on 0.9 percent.

At this rarefied level, the only pair who can shade Speightstown's ratios are the ever-freakish Tapit, who costs more than twice as much; and War Front, who has always hit incredible percentages but from unusually selective books for this day and age. And while War Front himself arguably now represents value at $100,000, the fact is that some such surgery to his fee had become imperative after his 2022 yearlings, conceived at an eye-watering $250,000, couldn't redeem that sum either by average or median.

Speightstown's latest crop of yearlings, in contrast, averaged $229,450 on a conception fee of $70,000. Having for several years routinely been a six-figure cover, he was hiked back up to $90,000 for 2021 and 2022 as the elite winners just kept on coming. But he has taken a friendly trim this year and, in this giddy context, he looks authentic value for a stallion who now has Olympiad joining half a dozen other sons at stud in Kentucky.

One of those, Munnings, has now overtaken his sire in fee. Pending the testing of Jack Christopher, however, Munnings can hardly be called an established sire of sires as yet; whereas Speightstown has now been in the game long enough to be launching stallions out of his daughters (Vekoma, Laoban, Aloha West) as well.

If this seems an even eccentric way to conclude this series, so be it. But this horse, surely, is an influence that we can all agree on: commercial breeders, pinhookers, end-users. He had the physique and pedigree to cost $2 million as a yearling and duly poured on the speed on the main track. Yet he was also better than ever at the age of six, and has diversified his legacy in terms of distance and surface. His three latest Grade I winners sum him up perfectly, in tests as diverse as the Jockey Club Gold Cup, Dubai Golden Shaheen and Maker's Mark Mile.

The one dimension he has admittedly lacked is precocity, but I would trade that for his old-school soundness. He gets a stellar 83.3 percent of named foals into the starting gate, and narrowly shades even Tapit with 63.5 percent also proceeding to the winner's circle. (To pick on a couple of other stallions standing at fees that require them to face the music: Quality Road ($200,000) gets 56.6 percent winners to named foals; and Uncle Mo ($150,000) 47.1%.)

Speightstown is now 25 and must surely be nearing the final stretch of a storied career. But just think about the great names he compresses to our reach, as a result: first three dams by Storm Cat, Chieftain and Buckpasser. He has retained the vigor to serve 199 mares across the last two seasons and, if you have that kind of money, being granted one of his final audiences would be a privilege beyond price.

The post Value Sires For ’23: Part VII, Established Sires appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Value Sires For ’23: Part VI, Earning Their Stripes

And so we come to the abyss: that giddy phase between launching your first juveniles and being able to claim a viable niche in this most unforgiving of marketplaces.

Yes, for those few young stallions that do manage to seize their fleeting opportunity, a narrow path can rise rapidly towards lucrative heights. Most of the others, however, find themselves clinging to a crumbling ledge. Whatever you do, don't look down!

It's easy to disparage the robotic tendencies of the commercial market. Too easy, certainly, for me to have neglected the opportunity to do so quite regularly during this series. On the other hand, however skewed, it's an environment that creates legitimate values of its own. It may seem ludicrous that young stallions should be written off on the basis of a single crop, but the reality is that they will typically have received their biggest and best books in their rookie year. The freshman who lives by hype must also expect to die by hype.

As a result, having hitherto reviewed five intakes individually, today we combine three different classes at various stages of the same process: “earning their stripes”, as we've called it.

In the previous instalment, the first to deal with sires that have actually had some initial racetrack exposure, we felt able to persevere with our high hopes for a horse like Accelerate on the basis that it plainly remains far too soon to reach any conclusions about whether his stock can emulate his own, slow-maturing template. But sires that are only a little farther along the road have, in varying degrees, at least had a more meaningful test of their competence to recycle their prowess.

In each of the three groups combined today, a single horse has broken out immediately before consolidating to become a member of the six-figure club: Gun Runner, Not This Time and Constitution. They have respectively had one, two and three crops show what they can do round a second turn with sophomore maturity. The difficulty is that while few commercial breeders can afford the kind of fees now commanded by these three, even fewer will persevere with those other sires whose fees and reputations have begun to slide. Because everybody knows that those governing ringside investment will be timidly following the herd–and if things are already starting to look ominous for a stallion, then it certainly takes plenty of courage to persevere in the hope of a major turnaround before the 2025 yearling sales.

For the agents and managers, a terrifying risk isn't the unproven new stallion, no matter how flimsy his credentials. It's the horse that everyone else has abandoned, on however cursory a basis. Of course, if you still fervently believe in such a horse, you get the same genetic package for far less money. But that will only represent “value” to the few who remain prepared to play a longer game: either as end users, or as breeders farsighted enough to understand that there should be nothing more commercial than putting a winner under your mare. For everyone else, wanting or needing to trouser a profit as soon as possible, “value” can only be found in anticipating demand.

As I've repeatedly acknowledged in this series, that demand is partly predicated on its self-fulfilling nature. If so many mares are simply moved from one rookie to the next, then it's unsurprising if you get the kind of dividends we saw with the freshmen of 2022–who accounted for seven of the top 14 in the all-comers' juvenile prize money table.

But there's another side to the same coin. There's a stallion out there right now who was launched at a very fair fee by an outstanding farm, and duly filled his first book before looking after commercial breeders beautifully on his sales debut. Everybody, me included, thought he looked a smash. Unfortunately, he had a very quiet time with his first juveniles—and the following spring he covered SEVEN mares. Nobody, it seemed, was prepared to see whether maturity and two turns would vindicate the impression many of us had formed of his prospects. Okay, so that first crop made only mild improvement as sophomores. But who, now, would dare to roll the dice on what is now a giveaway fee? It really does seem that nowadays you get one chance, and only one, or face commercial extinction overnight.

Already, then, many of the horses we consider today look gone beyond recall: either to the rarefied fee levels achieved by Gun Runner, Not This Time and Constitution, or preparing to pack their bags during the next couple of years for overseas or regional programs. That's why we have to combine three different classes for a single podium: once you have lost the freshman limelight, you are in an open market and it's every stallion for himself.

Sometimes even those who survive this brutal process must ride out a small bump in the road. Even our old friend Not This Time–we have been on his side throughout, but can hardly keep him on a value podium at this kind of fee–was quieter with his juveniles in 2022, despite again maintaining his overall stakes action at a terrific rate. That's because they graduate from a crop of 64 live foals, conceived pending his first runners. (His mare upgrade will start to kick in with his 2024 juveniles, conceived at $40,000 from $12,500.)

Gun Runner will endure no such hiatus, albeit his second crop of juveniles understandably couldn't get anywhere near repeating the record-breaking pace set by his first. Perhaps the freshmen of 2022 will prove a stronger group than those he dominated in 2021. That's the kind of calculation required in making our choice for a combined podium, embracing stallions at different phases of consolidation.

It's a tricky undertaking, for sure, but let's see whether we can turn up some residual value somewhere.

BUBBLING UNDER:

Growing momentum for CONNECT did not really reach the sales ring in 2022, but he has some really significant reinforcements on the horizon after a bright start on the track. No fewer than 172 breeders (very much a full book by the restrained standards of his farm) thought him value at $25,000, up from 93 pending his first runners the previous year. That stampede reflects his third place in the freshman table, and growing evidence that he can get you a very good runner for that kind of money.

Connect had two “Derby” winners among his first sophomores, juvenile Grade I winner Rattle N Roll winning the GIII Oklahoma version and High Connection the one at Los Alamitos. Among his daughters, Hidden Connection has more than once flashed elite caliber; while The Alys Look, among the next crop, has already laid down a feasible Oaks marker of her own.

Having been so impressed last year with the ratios achieved by KARAKONTIE (Jpn), I was disappointed that his excellent start on the track earned him no more than 48 mares in 2022, his smallest book in four years. Still, he has a big opportunity now that the enlightened minority prepared to breed to turf stallions in Kentucky has been deprived of both Kitten's Joy and Englis Channel.

Karakontie made his Grade I breakthrough in 2022, through Spendarella in the GI Del Mar Oaks, while his overall stakes/graded stakes action has come at a superior ratio to several more expensive peers. He has also proved more versatile, in terms of surface, than many will have expected–but then he does have a very cosmopolitan pedigree. If his third dam is turf legend Miesque (Nureyev), then his mother was by Sunday Silence while his sire has dirt royalty along his maternal line.

TAPITURE has had to sieve more quantity than quality into his stats, and sure enough only has a solitary graded stakes winner (albeit a good one in millionaire Jesus' Team). Nonetheless he gets black-type action at basically 10% of named foals, no mean effort at just $7,500.

CUPID has had some pretty crazy highs and lows, in his books, but there's no arguing with a fee of $5,000 for a stallion beating 40% winners-to-named foals, including a couple at graded stakes level. Smaller breeders are really being offered quite a lot of horse for their buck here.

BRONZE: UPSTART (Flatter–Party Silks, by Touch Gold)
$30,000 Airdrie
It's the obvious stuff that has earned this fellow a hike in fee: most obviously of all, one of the most talented sophomores of the crop in Zandon, albeit the GI Blue Grass S. winner repeatedly suggested there was better to come even than third in the Derby and Travers. Among Upstart's 10 other stakes winners to date (20 black-type performers overall, representing 11% of named foals), dual Grade II winner Kathleen O. disappeared after her Oaks bid, only to make a most promising resumption in the fall. But the clincher, for me, are the ratios that most people don't consider enough.

Upstart has got over 80% of his named foals onto the track; and over 60% of them into the winner's circle. Among his most accomplished young peers, that compares to 71 and 53% respectively for Constitution; 71 and 42% for American Pharoah; 69 and 46% for Not This Time; and 64 and 36% for Nyquist. Just what is this creature made of? Tungsten?

Sure enough, in his own track career, Upstart achieved two Grade I placings in each of his three campaigns, finishing up with $1.75 million across 15 starts. (While having been forward enough for a 102 Beyer at two, some achievement for a son of Flatter.)

Upstart is cleverly named, if you look at his parentage (and damsire), but now he is clearly rising in stallion society as well. Admittedly he will do well to maintain quite so steep a climb this year, as his sophomores (including impressive recent Fair Grounds scorer Cagliostro) graduate from a book of just 38 covers. But if that is a pathetic commentary on the neurosis of the commercial market, then remember that the momentum behind this guy began even before he could show his wares on the racetrack. His first yearlings averaged six times his $10,000 starting fee, renewing traffic to 90 mares the next spring; while his first two crops both pinhooked to a six-figure average at the 2-year-old sales.

Having seen his stock on the track—and remember that his stellar 2022 sophomores emerged from no more than 86 covers–breeders were quick to fill his book last spring. His latest yearling returns, with an average soaring back up to $90,900 from $25,115 the previous year, will not discourage them from returning at his revised fee.

A fee hike doesn't automatically put a stop to value, and there's a sense that Upstart is only just getting started. With quantity already on its way, he will now have an upgrade in quality too. So here's a rare chance to enter the elevator just a level up from the lobby. Next stop is the penthouse.

SILVER: KEEN ICE (Curlin–Medomak, by Awesome Again)
$12,500 Calumet
Now this suggestion clearly comes with a few neon caveats. He's had a fairly unorthodox career to date and it tells you plenty about his commercial credibility that his latest yearlings, “boosted” by a GI Kentucky Derby winner at the first attempt, bumped along at No. 199 in the national sales averages! But I would love to have one of his daughters for a breeding program, and Rich Strike has at least made it legitimate to wonder what he might yet achieve with an upgrade in his mares.

Keen Ice always had old school appeal, in constitution and pedigree, right from when he started out.

Arguably he was never really priced to entice commercial breeders, at $20,000, and presumably had to settle primarily for plain weight of numbers from the home herd. Yet he has nonetheless proved a really prolific sire of winners (78 from 136 starters to date)—and, setting aside the ifs and buts of the Derby meltdown, Rich Strike has certainly shown a trademark durability at the top level. With the Gun Runner S. on Boxing Day the effective start of his sophomore campaign, he took in 10 starts in 11 months.

A rise to $12,500 from $7,500 hardly helps Keen Ice, in terms of overcoming commercial doubt, but I'd still say that kind of money is value for access to his sheer teak ($3.4 million across 24 starts). Remember that his maternal line extends to matriarch Too Chic (Blushing Groom {Fr}) while his eligibility as a potential broodmare sire is surely reinforced by replication of Deputy Minister: that iconic distaff influence accounts both for Keen Ice's own damsire, Awesome Again, and for the mother of his sire Curlin.

Maybe he's not the answer to everybody's prayers, but his percentage of named foals to make the starting gate, and then to win, are way ahead of the most glamorous names in his intake (with their far superior books). That shows how he's trading in the kind of stuff that any breeding program should appreciate, and it would be nice if he were granted some overdue respect after all the faint praise for his exotic Derby score.

GOLD: TONALIST (Tapit–Settling Mist, by Pleasant Colony)
Lane's End $10,000
Okay, so I understand that the megabucks earned by a single horse distort his status in the earnings table, and various associated averages. (Not dissimilar, as such, to the horse on the second step of the podium.) But I have been too loyal to Tonalist, for too long, to desert him after the year when he plundered all those desert riches with Country Grammer.

Having a poster boy like that has certainly done Tonalist no harm: he was back up to 87 mares last spring, having the previous year slumped to just 54 from 122; and he elevated his yearling average to $53,413 (for an excellent 29 sold of 31 offered) from $32,505. That's really impressive in any stallion at this awkward stage, never mind one who had been so consistently unfashionable that he had taken a fee cut every single year to 2022. His neglect always seemed mysterious to me: I loved the package at the outset (banked $3.6 million via 11 triple-digit Beyers, just as one would hope from a son of Tapit out of a Pleasant Colony granddaughter of Toll Booth) and I have loved the corresponding dependability of his output since.

He has punched above his fee throughout, especially measured by graded stakes action. In this intake Constitution has been hitting pretty mad numbers, but otherwise Tonalist's 4.5% of graded stakes operators-to-named foals is basically in step with American Pharoah and ahead of everyone else.

His template, for those who want horses that run, and keep running, is just so wholesome. Take the thriving Betsy Blue, just turned five but better than ever. It's a long time now since she broke her maiden under a $25,000 tag: on her 19th, 20th and 21st starts this winter, she placed on her graded stakes debut before winning consecutive black type prizes. Her record now reads 21-10-7-2 for $659,510. Another from the same crop, Who's The Star, took six starts to break his maiden back in 2018 but is similarly on a roll now, running up three consecutive graded stakes on his last three starts. If this guy gets in contention, you're in trouble: the only minor placings in his 17-7-1-2 record trace way back to his first maidens.

This is the kind of stuff we need to be putting into the breed: heart, resilience and “run”. Everything, in other words, we associate with Tonalist's sire and damsire. Imagine what he could do with better mares. Of course, if you happen to own one, you don't have to just imagine. You can find out, and for a near-basement fee. For everyone else trading at this kind of money, however, there aren't many better ways of affordably putting a winner under your mare.

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