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Value Sires For 2024, Part 4: Into The Teens

Today we'll consider some of the sires standing between $10,001 and $19,999. For a long time, I called this the Lookin At Lucky zone. But don't worry, we won't be deploring his neglect yet again: he's staying in Chile, where they evidently appreciate him rather more.

Plenty of horses in this bracket have recently relinquished their brief window of commercial opportunity, and are now hanging around to discover whether they might join the very small group whose first runners generate a fresh vogue. Even with the newcomers out of the equation–we gave them a separate assessment, to open the series–we're left with three groups still untested on the track: those expecting their first foals; those who have just sold their first weanlings; and those actually about to dip a toe in the water with their first runners.

Pending that crossroads, many find themselves somewhat adrift against a bunch of older sires who have survived that test. These fit this tier either because they are losing stature or, more cheerfully, because they have carved out a viable niche as an affordable source of winners.

First the young guns. Of those who sent their first yearlings to auction this year, the ones who really nailed it, unsurprisingly, vaunted the kind of speed that pinhookers crave.

VOLATILE burned brightly in a light career, not seen again after confirming his Grade I caliber against a small but select field in the Vanderbilt. His 112 Beyer in the Aristides S. (1:07.57) was the highest of 2020 and duly secured 181 mares the following spring. Himself an $850,000 yearling, with a GI Test/GI Ballerina winner as granddam, his $125,431 average was boosted by a spectacular $1.15 million docket for a Book 1 filly at Keeneland in September. Nudged back up to $15,000 (from $12,500), Volatile has three hefty books behind him and will be the horse to beat for the freshman title next year.

But not even his median yield of 4.3 on his opening fee ($75,000/ $17,500) could match that of COMPLEXITY, whose $65,000 median (never mind his average $90,400!) multiplied his $12,500 fee by 5.2. Complexity started with some serious volume by the restrained standards of his farm, and then followed through with another three-figure book in his second season. He was clearly in the same vicinity as Volatile as a mature horse (110 Beyer in the GII Kelso) but was the more accomplished juvenile, wiring a Saratoga maiden (90 Beyer) before a decisive success in the GI Champagne S. on his second start. His half-sister ran second in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, so their unraced dam is obviously channelling the good stuff.

VEKOMA is meanwhile working the Spendthrift system with remarkable efficiency, having started out (at $20,000) with staggering volume, entertaining at least 200 mares in each of his first three seasons. This year he processed 102 of his first yearlings at $98,432, albeit was unsurprisingly stretched somewhat thinner by a median of $60,000. Though confined to eight starts across three seasons, he was class from beginning to end, posting big numbers for his Grade I double in the Carter and Met Mile. From a stallion-producing family, he's a horse I've liked all the way through and everything is in place for him to look after many (albeit probably not all!) of his (very many!) clients at $15,000.

Knicks Go | Sarah Andrew

Among those in this intake offering rather more stretch, one or two suffered horrible yearling medians relative to conception fee. But one who made a solid start off $12,500 was Bolt d'Oro's half-brother GLOBAL CAMPAIGN: 74 yearlings sold at $63,195 (median $43,500). This was a more talented animal than generally appreciated and I can see him proving himself a bargain gateway to Curlin. A closer look at his family shows that it tends to produce faster types than are associated with the seeding sires, and Global Campaign's first crop of 126 live foals may surprise a few people with their dash.

Of those who sold their first weanlings this fall, meanwhile, the one that will sort out the sheep and the goats is KNICKS GO. No questioning his talent, it was just never quite obvious where it all came from–albeit his dam maintained stakes speed through four seasons. Those who didn't require a more familiar pedigree were delighted to see a Horse of the Year introduced at just $30,000. Well, now they can get him for half that, even though he's still nearly 18 months away from the opportunity to demonstrate whether or not he can replicate his brilliance! At this money, some people will surely want to roll the dice.

Even as it is, his weanlings sold a little better than those of SILVER STATE. But it's very early days for the latter, whose pedigree in contrast elucidates all the class he manifested as a runner. A friendly clip to $15,000 should hopefully keep him in the game because this horse equipped to prove a really wholesome influence.

The subsequent intake features some truly frightening books, but I will resist dwelling on that here. Suffice to say that those playing a longer game might quite like a filly by either SPEAKER'S CORNER or MYSTIC GUIDE. Both have taken an early trim at Darley, respectively to $17,500 and $12,500, and their pedigrees shout distaff influence.

We'll have to see how many of the youngsters will endure even in this relatively modest tier, a few years from now. Nor does a flying start bring any guarantees, as UNION RAGS could caution them. The halving of his fee to $15,000 acknowledges the way he has faltered, having stood at $60,000 between 2018 and 2020. Trade for his latest yearlings made this further cut imperative, but he's still the same horse that so quickly came up with five Grade I winners. Hopefully he will find a little oxygen now that he has descended to more accessible altitudes.

Studmate DAREDEVIL has taken his second cut since returning to the U.S., now down to $15,000, but of course it's only in 2024 that we'll get to assess the first juveniles conceived after Swiss Skydiver prompted his urgent repatriation. Their sales performance demanded a mild trim in fee, but he could easily be poised for fresh momentum.

MENDELSSOHN has also taken consecutive cuts, similarly now available at $15,000. He has so far been more about quantity than quality but his supporters will hope that he can still emulate four others, standing at the same fee, who have all done admirably to create a lasting foothold in this most slippery of markets.

The first of these, DIALED IN, is something of a blue-collar hero. He maintains such high volume–corralled 175 mares last spring, his 10th at stud–that it will always be hard, with the raw materials available at this level, to make his ratios “sing”. But Defunded has once again shown the caliber within his competence as his third elite scorer. Dialed In gets his work done at a fair tariff, and will keep plugging away to leave behind many of those now starting at multiples of his fee.

Cairo Prince | Sarah Andrew

CAIRO PRINCE has also created a sustainable brand for himself through six crops, as attested by a solid book of 129 mares last spring. A set-your-clock black-type producer throughout, he's now entering the territory where he can legitimately prove a mare–and of course he gets such a nice type, the average ($54,194) and median ($40,000) of his latest yearlings duly best among this proven quartet.

MIDSHIPMAN is a true yeoman and it's typical of this business that he should have had a quieter year (by his very special standards) both on the track and in the sales ring after finally doubling his fee to $20,000 last year–due recognition for having punched above weight for so long. His lifetime stats remain ridiculous for a stallion who has largely been a four-figure cover: 47 stakes winners at 6.4 percent of named foals, nine at graded stakes level; and 101 black-type performers overall, at 13.7 percent. The trim back to $15,000 brings him back towards the reach of breeders who most appreciate just what he can do for their mares.

KANTHAROS, who has really pulled himself up by his bootstraps, had another very solid year on the track. He has made the same slip in fee, reflecting a tepid book of mares last spring and a challenging yield on yearlings conceived at $30,000. But that was an experience shared by many sires exposed to a porous middle market, and the fact is that Kantharos lurks only just outside the top 10 in the 2023 general sires' list with a dozen stakes winners, including a couple at graded level. His lifetime ratio of stakes runners–11 percent of named foals–remains outstanding for a horse whose first five books were compiled in Florida at just $5,000.

He sired two Grade I winners at that fee, and now has another millionaire in Grade II winner Bay Storm. The first of his two $30,000 books were juveniles this year, and we know how they will keep thriving. That guarantees Kantharos imminently entry into the top 20 active sires on lifetime earnings. All he needs to do is supplant… Lookin At Lucky!

VALUE PODIUM

Bronze Medal: CONNECT
Curlin–Bullville Belle (Holy Bull)
Lane's End $15,000

Connect | Sarah Andrew

Amid all this talk about stud fees being too high, credit is overdue to Lane's End for anticipating the mood in the room. From Flightline down, the farm made 11 cuts across their 2024 roster. All were meaningful, and some nearly brutal, effectively conceding that one or two stallions were drifting into trouble and needed some decisive help. Bravo! The very opposite of burying your head in the sand, and in the present environment I hope it works out both for the farm and its clients.

One stallion who can certainly benefit is Connect, restored from $25,000 to his 2021 fee of $15,000 after the crop conceived that year returned a tepid median (albeit a perfectly acceptable $45,774 average) at the yearling sales. He'd also suffered a real slump in his book last spring, down to 45 from 172 in 2022! But we're accustomed to seeing horses treated like this, once they have served their commercial purpose, and should sooner marvel at the impression he must have made with his first crop to get such a big book (up from 93 in 2021) in his fifth year at stud.

Sure enough, only Gun Runner and Practical Joke banked more prizemoney as freshmen in 2021, and only Gun Runner had more winners. Unfortunately Connect did not then consolidate especially well, but he has made a timely return to form this year with eight stakes winners, three at graded level, plus a GI Kentucky Oaks third in The Alys Look. Moreover, his first-crop flagship, the juvenile Grade I winner Rattle N Roll, failed by just half a length to add another elite score in the GI Stephen Foster S. That horse was a $55,000 weanling but has now banked $1.7 million across three seasons.

Connect's pedigree is not without its challenges but he's another to bring Curlin within range and had real prowess as a racehorse, a blip in the Travers his only defeat in seven starts (four triple-digit Beyers) up the grades after debut. He outkicked none other than Gun Runner in the GII Pennsylvania Derby and, while he won't be doing that again any time soon, he's actually siring winners at a higher percentage of named foals.

With that bumper crop of weanlings in the pipeline, and now a lenient fee, this looks a good time to re-Connect.

Silver Medal: KARAKONTIE (Jpn)
Bernstein–Sun Is Up (Jpn) (Sunday Silence)
Gainesway $15,000

Karakontie | Sarah Andrew

How pleasing to see this undervalued stallion moving his book back up last year, up to 86 from 48. Perhaps his hour has come at last, now that the minority prepared to breed to a quality turf sire in the Bluegrass have been deprived of English Channel and Kitten's Joy.

If you're enlightened enough to see the growing need for turf quality in the U.S., then you might also recognize that you don't always have to fly first class to Tattersalls. With a fifth crop on the track, Karakontie has still only had 174 starters, but seven have won graded stakes. For the second year running, moreover, he had an elite scorer in She Feels Pretty, winner of the GI Natalma S. before failing by barely half a length to overcome a wide trip in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. Karakontie's premier earner Princess Grace meanwhile continued to thrive in Australia, missing Group 1 scores by a neck and half a length.

Even after a hike from $10,000, Karakontie is an awful lot of horse for this fee. He converted some of the most regal blood in the book–his third dam is Miesque herself–into a turn of foot that won him a Group 1 at two and then a mile Classic, before doing all he could to endear the American market in the GI Breeders' Cup Mile. Don't forget that he restores Sunday Silence to the Bluegrass through his dam, herself out of a half-sister to Kingmambo. His international pedigree and participation alike are a measure of our debt to the program that produced him.

The American market has not really grasped its privilege, with this horse, but the elevation in his fee tells you everything you need to know: he's being used by people who want to breed a runner, whether in their own silks or to boost a mare. Actually, Karakontie is perfectly capable of a home run at the sales, including the $525,000 filly at Keeneland in September whose buyers will have been delighted to see her full-sister (who herself made $280,000 the previous year) win the Tepin S. last month. His lesser specimens may struggle commercially, until the environment improves, but that won't trouble those eccentrics who calculate value according to the odds of ending up with a runner.

Gold Medal: MITOLE
Eskendereya–Indian Miss (Indian Charlie)
Spendthrift $15,000

How naïve of me to imagine that all those commercial breeders who flocked to the new sires in 2020 wanted nothing more than to land on the champion freshman of 2023. Because Mitole, as he closes in on those laurels, finds himself the only one of the four Spendthrift sires dominating this table to remain on the same fee in 2024.

Mitole | Louise Reinagel

Now, clearly this farm needs no help in how to make their remarkable machine run smoothly. The Spendthrift team know that Mitole was the one who took the biggest slide of the quartet, in the inevitable slackening of demand for their second crop of yearlings. But they had already ensured that these were conceived more affordably, trimming him from $25,000 in his debut season to $15,000. That was partly a concession to the Covid market, but it also offered such obvious value about a champion sprinter that he maintained the enthusiastic support of 184 mares even last spring, after topping 200 in each of his three previous seasons.

In other words, the system is functioning smoothly and Mitole has played his part so well that he approaches the winning post with a narrow advantage over Maximus Mischief (my serial “gold” pick, I might add, after starting at $7,500!) by prizemoney and also a wafer-thin one by individual winners (32 from 79 starters).

Whether or not he holds out, Mitole is the only one of the four to have a graded stakes scorer–and so joins Flameaway and Solomini in what has been a weirdly unproductive group, by that measure-in GIII Pocahontas S. winner/GI Alcibiades runner-up V V's Dream.

The precocious Maximus Mischief has shown a lot more of his hand (77 starters from 122 named foals) and remember that Mitole (79 from 145) himself only squeezed in a single start at two, in late November. It was as a 4-year-old that he racked up his four Grade Is–including that resonant Met Mile/Breeders' Cup Sprint double, and a stakes record at the intermediate distance in the Forego. So it seems fair to suggest that he has only just got started.

By now Mitole has surely stifled misgivings about his sire, himself after all a brilliant performer and a conduit of corresponding genes. Eskendereya's fifth dam is Cosmah, and doubles up her half-sister's son Northern Dancer top and bottom. It was presumably his unfashionable sire that confined Mitole to $20,000 as a yearling–but then along came kid brother Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow), himself a $17,000 short yearling, to reiterate the merit of a family cultivated by the late Edward A. Cox Jr.

Hot Rod Charlie has now followed Eskendereya to Japan, where they have made a habit of exposing crass commercial trends in Kentucky. But here's a horse making the family assets work even in this less imaginative environment, and his debut at the 2-year-old sales–behind only Omaha Beach in the key freshman medians–suggest that Mitole will be taking out a long lease on the attention of pinhookers.

Sires In The Teens: Breeder Selections

Aidan O'Meara, Stonehaven Steadings

Aidan O'Meara | Keeneland

Gold Medal: Volatile
One of the best angles for success in the commercial breeding field is identifying a future leading stallion in the early stages and this sometimes requires taking a leap of faith breeding when their first runners are about to run. Volatile has been the breakout star at the yearling sales this year, mirroring his sire's first crop results a few years back. He's a beautifully built horse himself and passed his physique on with remarkable consistency. He's been very well supported by breeders and will have plenty of ammo in his first few crops to give him every opportunity. If his offspring have legitimate ability, he will skyrocket up the stallion ranks and $15,000 will look like the deal of the decade.

Silver Medal: Connect
The crop of 2021 has all been overshadowed by Gun Runner's incredible achievements, but Connect has been quietly developing a very solid career for himself. He has shown consistency with three graded stakes winners again this year and a strong supporting cast of stakes horses. He has also shown the ability to get the all-important high-class horse with Rattle N Roll. He measures well in all statistical categories and looks to be a stallion that can establish himself long term in the mold of a Midshipman/First Samurai/Blame type.

Bronze Medal: Audible
The Spendthrift quartet has garnered most of the attention from this year's freshmen and rightly so but one horse is simmering just below these and that horse is Audible. His 14% stakes horses with his first 2-year-olds cannot be ignored and his own racing career suggests there is more improvement to be had as they mature. He's a beautiful horse that can throw the right kind as witnessed by his first crop of yearlings. $15,000 is very intriguing for a horse with some potential future upswing and worst-case scenario has shown plenty of ability for longer term success at this price point.

Peter O'Callaghan, Woods Edge Farm

Peter O'Callaghan | Fasig-Tipton

Gold Medal: Midshipman
This stallion has been very good to us both on the track and in the sales ring. We recently bred first-time-out 2-year-old winner Midshipman's Dance; pinhooked Grade II winner Special Reserve; bred Leucothea and co-bred Amidst Waves, both of whom are multiple stakes winning 2-year-olds. He is a very consistent and well-respected sire, standing for an affordable $15,000. You can sell one well at the sales and he produces winners every weekend at the track.

Silver Medal: Mitole
Obviously a brilliant racehorse and looks to be turning out some good 2-year-old winners this second half of the year. Must be a horse worth a punt at $15,000. We are breeding to him again this year.

Bronze Medal: Vekoma
A brilliant racehorse, a high class 2-year-old who trained on, winning some high-profile races in the GII Bluegrass S. going two turns at three. Then winning the GI Carter H. and GI Met Mile at four in impressive fashion. Furthermore, he is a very well-bred son of Candy Ride (Arg), out of the GISW Speightstown mare Mona De Momma from the family of Mr. Greeley.

He is a good-looking horse who seems to sire plenty of good-looking stock. We have bred to him each year and have bought foals by him in each crop, he has not let us down so far.

I think he is a horse with a legitimate shot to be a sire standing at an affordable fee of $15,000.

The post Value Sires For 2024, Part 4: Into The Teens appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Implicated ‘Connect’-s In the Pebbles

Chad Brown had three chances to record a sixth victory in the last eight runnings of the GIII Pebbles S., and it was the 10-1 longest priced of the trio Implicated (Connect) who parlayed a perfect trip into a first black-type success Saturday at the Big A.

Drawn the fence with Manny Franco at the controls for the first time, the $125,000 Fasig-Tipton October yearling purchase was away without incident and raced a touch keen into the first turn as 53-1 Precious Avary (Divining Rod) showed the way at a moderate pace. Saving every inch of ground down the back, Franco went for Implicated midway on the turn and rode for some luck as Precious Avary was still going well enough up front. But the pacesetter rolled away from the fence in upper stretch, giving Implicated the room she required and she punched through before holding Sacred Wish (Not This Time) at bay. Startup Mentality (Ire) (Kingman {GB}) was second-last to make the stretch and might have caught Sacred Wish for second but for having to steady when off that one's heels a sixteenth of a mile from home.

A distant third on main-track debut at Saratoga last August, Implicated won her maiden in her grass debut and closed the season with a victory in this track's Chelsey Flower S. Oct. 28. Away nearly a year thereafter, the gray ran out of fitness late when fourth in a nine-furlong allowance Oct. 19.

“Last year when she ran covered up, she was better,” said Brown. “I told Manny in the paddock, 'You drew a nice, cozy post here. If you can get a pocket trip, let's test her out.' I thought I had her ready last time but sure enough, a covered trip worked for her and Manny did a great job.”

Pedigree Notes:

Implicated is the third graded winner for Connect, who has now been represented by graded scorers on dirt (Rattle N Roll), synthetic (Witwatersrand) and now the grass.

Somewhere Stable Kentucky paid $200,000 at the 2017 Keeneland September sale for Wysteria, a half-sister to Kallio (Scat Daddy), a Grade III winner on turf, SW Clear the Runway (Broken Vow) and MSP Sallisaw (Exchange Rate). The mare is represented by a yearling The Factor colt that sold for $155,000 at last year's Keeneland November sale, and her weanling colt by Knicks Go was bought back for $75,000 Friday at KEENOV. Wysteria was most recently bred to Golden Pal.

Saturday, Aqueduct
PEBBLES S.-GIII, $200,000, Aqueduct, 11-11, 3yo, f, 1mT, 1:35.82, fm.
1–IMPLICATED, 120, f, 3, by Connect
1st Dam: Wysteria, by Tale of the Cat
2nd Dam: Smokey Diplomacy, by Dynaformer
3rd Dam: Attractive Missile, by Relaunch
1ST GRADED STAKES WIN. ($125,000 Ylg '21 FTKOCT). O-Bradley Thoroughbreds, Belmar Racing and Breeding, LLC, Cambron Equine, LLC and Laura Leigh Stable; B-Somewhere Stables KY, LLC (KY); T-Chad C. Brown; J-Manuel Franco. $110,000. Lifetime Record: 5-3-0-1, $246,970. Werk Nick Rating: A+. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Click for the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Sacred Wish, 122, f, 3, Not This Time–Indian Wish, by Indian Charlie. ($80,000 Wlg '20 KEENOV; $70,000 RNA Ylg '21 KEESEP; $50,000 2yo '22 EASMAY). O-Black Type Thoroughbreds, Swinbank Stables, Steve Adkisson, Christopher T. Dunn and Anthony Spinazzola; B-John R. Penn (KY); T-George Weaver. $40,000.
3–Startup Mentality (Ire), 118, f, 3, Kingman (GB)–Fine Time (GB), by Dansili (GB). 1ST BLACK TYPE, 1ST GRADED BLACK TYPE. (300,000gns Ylg '21 TATOCT). O-Klaravich Stables, Inc.; B-Mount Armstrong Stud. (IRE); T-Chad C. Brown. $24,000.
Margins: HF, NK, NO. Odds: 10.80, 3.25, 3.80.
Also Ran: Silver Skillet, Rhiannon, On the Shortlist, Plentitude, Precious Avary, Stephanie's Charm. Scratched: Just Katherine.
Click for the Equibase.com chart and the TJCIS.com PPs. VIDEO, sponsored by FanDuel TV.

IMPLICATED, by @LanesEndFarms stallion Connect, shows off down the stretch to take the Pebbles Stakes (G3) under @jockeyfranco! pic.twitter.com/pUERUpVp8t

— NYRA () (@TheNYRA) November 11, 2023

The post Implicated ‘Connect’-s In the Pebbles appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Stephen Foster Preview Day Headlines Saturday’s Graded Action

Lucky Seven Stable's Rattle N Roll (Connect), winner of this term's GIII Ben Ali S. Apr. 22 and GIII Pimlico Special S. May 19, is the horse to beat returning on short notice in Saturday's GIII Blame S., the featured race on “Stephen Foster Preview Day” at Churchill Downs. The $1-million GI Stephen Foster will now be held four weeks later at Ellis Park.

The Ken McPeek-trained 2021 GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity winner will face seven rivals from his rail draw, including the re-opposing Ben Ali second and third-place finishers Call Me Fast (Dialed In) and Pioneer of Medina (Pioneerof the Nile); and grassy MGISW Santin (Distorted Humor), who makes his first career start on dirt.

The 11-race Churchill Downs program also includes: the GIII Arlington S., led by 8-5 morning-line favorite and MGSW 7-year-old gelding Set Piece (GB) (Dansili {GB}); the GIII Shawnee S., featuring the streaking Frost Point (Frosted) and GISW Pauline's Pearl (Tapit); a field of six 3-year-old fillies in the grassy GIII Regret S.; the return of last out G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen winner Sibelius (Not This Time) in the $225,000 Aristides S.; and the $225,000 Audubon S. for 3-year-olds on grass.

Silver Knott (GB) (Lope de Vega {Ire}) and 'TDN Rising Star' Far Bridge (English Channel), meanwhile, figure to vie for favoritism in Belmont's GII Pennine Ridge S. The former, 11th in the G1 Qipco 2000 Guineas May 6, came within a nose as the favorite in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf at Keeneland Nov. 4. Far Bridge suffered his first career defeat falling just a nose short while making his stakes debut in the GII American Turf S. on the GI Kentucky Derby undercard.

The Alys Look (Connect), a respectable third at 30-1 for trainer Brad Cox in the GI Kentucky Oaks, makes her first start for Chris Davis in the GII Summertime Oaks at Santa Anita. The Ike and Dawn Thrash colorbearer faces six rivals, including GII Santa Anita Oaks second and third-place finishers And Tell Me Nolies (Arrogate) and Window Shopping (American Pharoah); and last-out seven-furlong optional claiming winners Anywho (Bolt d'Oro) and Doinitthehardway (Street Sense).

A pair of graded stakes will also take place at Woodbine–the GIII Belle Mahone S., highlighted by the return of Canadian Horse of the Year and Queen's Plate S. heroine Moira (Ghostzapper); and a field of 11 for the GII Royal North S.

The post Stephen Foster Preview Day Headlines Saturday’s Graded Action 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.

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

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