#11 TIME FOR TRUTH ($10.40) debuts a winner in R6 at @OaklawnRacing for trainer @RonMoquett and jockey @sambitoperu. This 2YO colt is sired by @spendthriftfarm's Omaha Beach. pic.twitter.com/UMxubfNzBN

— TVG (@TVG) December 31, 2023

The post Son Of Omaha Beach Gives His First-Crop Sire Another Winner At Oaklawn appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

The post Demarchelier Filly Breaks Maiden In Fine Style To Open Aqueduct Sunday Card appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

The post Daughter Of Omaha Beach Storms Home In Debut Win At Churchill appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

After all, the whole point of marking the turn of a year-it's just another leaf in the calendar, really, just one more sunrise in the indefinite (but never infinite!) sequence we are apportioned-is to take a step back and see whether we can discern a fresh footprint in the sands of time. So many trends unfold too gradually to be observed, but so long as this horse is around it seems that we will continue to witness history in the making.

For in bestriding the general sires' list for the fourth consecutive year, Into Mischief gives us a snapshot not just of his own sheer potency, but of the industry we live and work in today. On the one hand, he must again be credited with unprecedented achievement: once again he has beaten his own earnings record, this time soaring to $28.17 million after tipping $25 million in 2021, and miles clear of the $22.51 million that had already raised the bar in 2020. At the same time, however, we must acknowledge the role of sheer quantity alongside the undoubted quality that has both driven and followed the steep elevation of his fee.

Through December 29, Into Mischief had fielded a bewildering 475 individual starters in 2022. Gun Runner–who admittedly started out with the advantages that eluded the young Into Mischief, as a Horse of the Year with mares eligible for a $70,000 fee–has banked just over half as much prizemoney ($14.84 million) from just 137 starters from two crops. That works out at $108,320 per starter, against $59,314 for the champion.

So we must immediately venture a polite question: is the sire who again shattered records in 2022, though indisputably one of the game-changers of the modern breed, even the stallion of the year?

Look, we all understand the numbers game as it is played these days. Gun Runner himself was up to 248 mares last spring; and of the dozen others to have entertained as many as the 202 mares equal to Into Mischief's fee, which had just been increased to $250,000, eight have yet to send a single runner into the gate.

But the fact is that his fertility and libido, indices of prowess almost as remarkable as his genetic effectiveness, have long enabled Into Mischief to maintain industrial turnover even as his fee catapulted from its famously low starting base. Sure enough, 234 individual winners in 2022 exceed the 221 that gave Into Mischief a record in his first year as champion, albeit not quite matching up to the staggering 261 he clocked last year. (No other stallion has ever hit 200.)

But if we are looking at the most prolific champion sire in the story of the breed, the remarkable fact is that his efficiency has never been eroded. In terms of the production of elite stock, his 2022 ratios keep Into Mischief more or less in step with Curlin, whose own sensational year places him third on $19.43 million (from 263 starters, earning an average $73,949). Into Mischief's 26 black-type and 15 graded stakes winners respectively came at 5.5 and 3.2 percent of starters; Curlin had a dozen and 10, at 4.6 and 3.8 percent. (All these figures, by the way, are accessible on the TDN database and correct through December 29; the final record will require some updating with plenty of good sport on New Year's Eve.)

By this kind of gauge, however, nobody can hold a candle to the start made by Gun Runner. With only two crops on the track, he has risen as high as sixth but the real story is here, in his ratio of elite stock. His 28 stakes operators in 2022 represent 20.4 percent of starters; while at the most demanding end of the spectrum, he had 10 horses placed in Grade I races at an incredible 7.3 percent-double his nearest pursuer on those terms, Arrogate, whose four Grade I horses all actually won at that level and represented 3.6 percent of his starters.

Gun Runner | Sarah Andrew

It must be acknowledged that Gun Runner's second crop of juveniles has hitherto failed conspicuously to come anywhere near the record returns of their predecessors. His debut crop produced 31 juvenile winners, six in stakes, and banked $4.32 million; this lot stand at 18 winners, none at black-type level, and $1.43 million. Given the way Gun Runner thrived in maturity, of course, his own template would have made that appear a very solid base but for the freakish standards he had set himself. What's really encouraging, either way, is that the surprising precocity of his first crop has indeed proved to be only a foundation.

Gun Runner's first sophomores have included four individual Grade I winners and their collective bank of $13.41 million, from 90 starters earning an average $149,007, puts him clear even of another thriving young stallion, Not This Time, who banked $7.09 million from just 65 sophomore starters (averaging $109,105).

Not This Time, naturally well clear on the third-crop table, is up to 10th in the general sires' list with $12.68 million from 163 starters in 2022, and his ratio of stakes action (14 winners at 8.6 percent of starters; 28 black-type performers at 17.2 percent) remains exceptional. His basic strike-rate of winners-to-starters, tipping 60 percent, was also exemplary.

The stock bequeathed by Gun Runner's tragic classmate Arrogate, after a contrastingly slow start, made exactly the kind of progress anticipated for his rival granted maturity and a second turn, similarly ending the campaign with four elite scorers. Another to match that feat was American Pharoah, consolidating his own reputation among relatively young sires, but in terms of Grade I winners they were all looking up at a stallion who has really stood the test of time.

With six in 2022, including three at the Breeders' Cup, Curlin remains one of the biggest of the big hitters as he turns 19. In 2021, don't forget, he had been the only stallion to muster five Grade I winners. He was third then, too, having been runner-up in 2019 and 2016: over recent years, then, perhaps this is the best champion stallion we've never had. In 2022, moreover, one of his sons sired the GI Kentucky Derby winner; and another, Good Magic, has narrowly missed the freshman crown. Curlin is now priced commensurately with this ever more impressive resume, up to $225,000 from $175,000.

In the general list, however, Curlin finds himself sandwiched between two whose standing partly reflects another aspect of our much changed landscape. Quality Road, runner-up with $20.84 million, and Tonalist, fourth with $16.73 million, respectively owe 48 and 65 percent of their hauls to the desert plunder of a single horse, Emblem Road and Country Grammar being the latest to menace with distortion the longstanding system for identifying the champion sire.

We have had a glimpse of what can happen in 2017, when Unbridled's Song secured a posthumous title exclusively through Arrogate's lucrative wins in the GI Pegasus and G1 Dubai World Cup in the first quarter, but for which he would have finished 44th. One of Into Mischief's principal services, then, has been to restore a correlation between prizemoney and consistent merit. Even when he had Authentic, who banked 32 percent of his total in 2020, he would have been champion without his Horse of the Year; and the same would clearly be true this time round, when his premier earner Life Is Good has contributed 12 percent.

All that said, we are glad to record our esteem for both the Lane's End pair: Quality Road has definitively broken into the elite, on the track as in the ring, actually producing his 2022 black-type winners and performers at a marginally superior rate to both Into Mischief and Curlin; while Tonalist amply deserves his day in the sun, having long punched above weight at a fee that trades 20 Tonalist covers to one by his neighbor. With half a dozen other graded stakes operators besides Country Grammer, in fact, in 2022 Tonalist has had action in that sphere at a ratio that essentially matches even the feted Munnings, who achieves a third consecutive top 10 finish, while comfortably surpassing many other sires commanding much higher fees.

If Into Mischief can avoid a desert ambush-someday a single horse will strike gold in both Saudi Arabia and Dubai to anoint as champion a sire meanwhile discarded to South America-then he must have half an eye on the storied seven-year streak of Bold Ruler himself, now that he has eclipsed the three-year sequences since run up by Tapit (2014-2016) and Danzig (1991-1993).

Even now, remember, Into Mischief remains on a rising tide. The extra “stretch” bestowed by his classier mares has already produced consecutive Derby winners conceived at $45,000 and $75,000, and the latter fee also sufficed to conceive Life Is Good, himself now retiring as a six-figure cover. Into Mischief's next two crops of juveniles emerge from books of 250 mares at $175,000 in 2020, and 214 at $225,000 in 2021.

It feels inevitable, then, that Into Mischief will ultimately overhaul Tapit as the leading North American stallion of all time, by earnings; at the present rate, indeed, he might still do so even if he suddenly decided tomorrow morning that he doesn't like girls anymore. In the meantime, however, having endured his first ever year without a Grade I winner in 2021, Tapit resumed business as usual with three in 2022, Flightline and friends taking him to seventh on $14.7 million (from 229 starters at $64,219 apiece).

Mention of Danzig obliges us to remind ourselves how he became champion freshman in 1984 with 11 winners from 13 starters. These included nine stakes horses and three Grade I winners including the champion juvenile. Two made the Derby podium the following May. How the world has changed. But there's little point dwelling here, yet again, on the inundation of the modern marketplace with stock by unproven sires. We know most will prove duds; while we also know that some first books, being typically the biggest and best a stallion will ever have, will duly maintain the cycle of demand by producing top runners.

This year's rookies have certainly played their part, no fewer than six of them featuring among the top 10 in the overall juvenile sires' table. Their internal competition has been fiercely contested, but Bolt D'Oro has closed out the year strongest of the three protagonists and appears poised to claim the title. Good Magic and Justify have both beaten him to a fourth graded stakes winner, and the former also has an elite scorer to his credit in Blazing Sevens, but 15 black-type performers overall for Bolt d'Oro represent an outstanding 19 percent of starters.

Bolt d'Oro | Spendthrift

His $2.76 million obviously doesn't measure up to the freakish tally posted by Gun Runner in 2021, but would have beaten the runner-up and has also surpassed Nyquist in 2020. Obviously Bolt d'Oro had plenty of volume to work with, so the likes of Army Mule and Girvin meanwhile deserve much credit for excelling from a narrower base. Similarly, Oscar Performance, an intriguing prospect with so much room at the top on grass right now.

Leading North American stallion by 2022 turf earnings worldwide is Medaglia d'Oro, though it must be said that he owes around half his tally to his personal ATM in Hong Kong, Golden Sixty. Confined to North American and European theaters, the leading grass stallion would instead be the late English Channel for the third year running-just one more measure of the poignant vacancy created by his loss, along with that of his old rival Kitten's Joy.

Dollars and cents only tell us so much, of course, and the perennial mysteries of this game will abide in 2023. Into Mischief himself initially seized his crown from finishes of 35th, 13th and fourth, earning his stripes as he went, with a little help from some pioneering incentive schemes. The man who presided over his rise, the late B. Wayne Hughes, knew that no champion (even Flightline) is ever 100 percent guaranteed to make it; and equally that not even the most neglected young stallion, like Into Mischief when reduced to 50 mares at $7,500, ever has zero chance. And that, whatever the biggest spenders think they can learn from the Old Year, is also what gives us all some kind of chance as we start a new one.

The post Mischief’s Fourth Title Again Raises the Bar appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

It was a busy weekend for one of the top three stallions battling it out for the crown as the best first-crop sire of 2022 as Justify was represented by a pair of winners and another two to hit the board, leaving Bolt d'Oro (Medaglia d'Oro) and Good Magic (Curlin) winless from just a single runner each.

Justify's two winners on American soil both came on Sunday and started with Don Alberto Stable's homebred Alpha Bella, who graduated with a hard-fought victory by a head at Gulfstream Park, surviving a lengthy steward's inquiry/jockey's objection. She earned $36,000 for the win, which helped her sire close some ground on the top two. Several hundred miles to the north, Prove Right picked up a $32,400 check for his one-length victory in an allowance/optional claiming event at Laurel Park for trainer James Chapman and co-owner Stuart Tsujimoto. And in addition to Lap Star's third at at Nakayama in Japan on Saturday, Justify's daughter, Dona Sweat, also contributed to her sire's totals with her runner-up finish in a maiden event at Hanshin on Sunday.

Good Magic's only runner over the weekend was Delusively, who finished fourth at Golden Gate Fields on Saturday. Chiringo, Bolt d'Oro's runner on Sunday, was fourth behind Prove Right at Laurel.

Despite Justify's big weekend, he still trails Bolt d'Oro in total progeny earnings by $196,361, with Good Magic in second and behind by $92,499 with 20 days left in 2022. All three stallions will be represented by multiple runners this week.

Note that Japanese earnings are added every Sunday night, and there may be delayed reporting from other countries, which could postpone the final results in a very tight race into early January. We will also be providing a preview of 2-year-olds entered the next day in North America and beyond.

Current Earnings Standings through racing of Dec. 7:

1st—Bolt d'Oro, $2,546,116

2nd—Good Magic, $2,446,087

3rd—Justify, $2,349,755

The TDN sire lists contain full-dollar earnings of Northern Hemisphere foals winning anywhere in the world. To view the current standings updated overnight, click here.

The post Dec. 13: Despite Big Weekend For Justify, Bolt d’Oro Holds Big Lead appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

The post Seahenge Colt Struts His Stuff In Meydan Debut appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

2nd-Chepstow, £6,800, Nov, 9-8, 2yo, 6f 16yT, 1:12.76, g/s.
ANCESTRAL LAND (GB) (c, 2, Sioux Nation–Swing Out Sister {Ire}, by Kodiac {GB}), a June 20 first-up second over six furlongs at Windsor last time, was well away from the far-side stall and asserted for an early lead in this return. In command throughout, the 2-5 lock was shaken up when threatened approaching the final quarter mile and kept on strongly under mild coaxing in the closing stages to easily account for Majestic Newlaw (GB) (New Bay {GB}) by the lengths, becoming the 32nd winner for his freshman sire (by Scat Daddy). Ancestral Land is the first of three foals produced by winning half to Listed Flying Fillies S. runner-up Online Alexander (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}), herself the dam of Listed Cammidge Trophy winner Royal Commando (Ire) (No Nay Never) and G2 July S. and G2 Richmond S. runner-up Yazaman (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}). His second dam Dance Club (Ire) (Fasliyev) is a winning half-sister to G1 Haydock Sprint Cup-winning sire Red Clubs (Ire) (Red Ransom). The February-foaled dark bay is half to a yearling filly by Advertise (GB) and a weanling colt by Oasis Dream (GB). Sales history: 140,000gns Ylg '21 TATOCT. Lifetime Record: 2-1-1-0, $6,652.
O-Isa Salman Al Khalifa; B-Aston Mullins Stud & S Barrow Esq (GB); T-Clive Cox.

Sioux Nation colt impresses! Ancestral Land gives Clive Cox an across the card double under @Rossaryan15 at @Chepstow_Racing… pic.twitter.com/7PYL5Xz0cK

— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) September 8, 2022

The post Sioux Nation Sires 32nd Winner Of The Season appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

By most accounts, the son of Candy Ride (Arg) has not done a thing wrong in his early stud career and yet, as his first crop was building a foundation in training early on this year, they were pigeonholed into the theory that they might take some time to develop into top form.

After all, Gun Runner was competitive at the highest level in his early career, but it wasn't until late November of his sophomore campaign that he scored his first of six Grade I victories in the Clark H. and from there, was nearly unbeatable against top company as he earned his Horse of the Year title at four, capped off with a GI Pegasus World Cup win at five.

The stereotype doesn't go without strong reasoning then, so the Gun Runners will just have to prove the doubters wrong.

Perhaps no one can provide more insight on how Gun Runner's first crop is progressing than the one who trained the dual champion.

Steve Asmussen currently has seven Gun Runner 2-year-olds in training at Keeneland, many of which he is pointing to debut once the Churchill Downs Spring Meet is underway. He said that each of these juveniles received glowing praise from his father Keith when they were first put under saddle at the family's training center in Laredo, Texas.

“We're very interested in wanting Gun Runner to succeed because of all he's done for us from an emotional aspect, but from all the conversations I've had from my father, he consistently talks about how good their attitude is about taking what you're doing with them. They're very businesslike, they keep their appetite and continue to get stronger. Straightforward is how he describes them.”

Asmussen stressed that the most common thread found in all of the Gun Runners is their mentality.

“They have very good minds about them,” he said. “They're extremely sound and mentally mature. They're showing some talent, so we're more than a little excited about them.”

On Monday, three of Asmussen's Gun Runner trainees, all Winchell Thoroughbred homebreds, had their first timed gate works at Keeneland. The first, a colt out of SW Louisville First (Girolamo) named Under the Gun went a half mile in :47.40 (5/38). Asmussen said he told his team to slow down the next set. Red Run, a colt out of the Tapit mare Red House, breezed in :47.80 (8/38) while Gunite, the son of 2015 Bolton Landing S. winner Simple Surprise (Cowboy Cal), worked in 49.20 (19/38).

“It's not hard on them to move fast,” Asmussen noted. “Gun Runner was that way too. We had Gun Runner at Keeneland at a similar time when he was a 2-year-old, and it was the same thing-very intelligent, athletic and forward in his training. He was capable of working and training and racing as fast as horses can do.”

$1.7 million Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Gun Runner colt is now settling into training at Santa Anita. | Fasig-Tipton

Another Gun Runner that may not be too far off from debut made headlines a few weeks ago at the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale. Selling as Hip 181, the colt out of the stakes-winning Ohio-bred mare Needmore Flattery (Flatter) brought $1.7 million as the second-highest purchase of the sale. Agent Gary Young purchased the April foal on behalf of Zedan Racing Stable to train under the tutelage of Bob Baffert.

“He was the spitting image of Gun Runner,” Young recalled. “There was no DNA test necessary for him. I loved his work on the track and then I went to see him and I thought him and the Nyquist [Hip 28, $2.6 million sale topper] were two very, very nice colts. Between Baffert, Mr. Zedan and I, we decided that the Gun Runner would be the one we would go for and we were very happy to get him.”

Young reported that the colt is now thriving in training at Santa Anita.

“He's galloping there and Bob is very happy with him,” he said. “His barn habits are terrific. He goes to the track and trains and then goes back in his stall and lies down and relaxes all day. So there's absolutely no buyer's remorse so far.”

Young explained that he has always expected Gun Runner's progeny to progress early on in their career.

“Gun Runner was built like a fast horse and he was a very athletic horse,” he said. “I wasn't surprised that the Gun Runners are showing precocity, but the people who are more surprised probably base that on how Gun Runner got better as his career progressed. He wasn't a bad two-year-old or three-year-old, he just wasn't dominating as much as he was later on when he was practically unbeatable.”

Young recalled watching Gun Runner train in California leading up to his memorable victory in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic.

“This horse trained like there was no way he could lose that race. You could tell by watching him train that it was going to take one hell of a horse to beat him. He definitely got better as he got older, but he was a good 2-year-old too, which is a very good combination.”

Speaking from his hotel in Ocala, Young said he has his eye on a few more juveniles by the same sire at the upcoming OBS Spring Sale.

“I'm very bullish on Gun Runner,” he said. “I could foresee myself buying more of them maybe even this year. It would be no surprise if he turned out to be a very good sire. Candy Ride hasn't had a whole lot of sons at stud yet, but he was a freak of a racehorse that turned out to be a very good sire, so you would expect his sons to make good sires.”

On the first day of the OBS breeze show on Monday, a Gun Runner colt selling as Hip 118 from the Eisaman Equine consignment and out stakes winner Salamera (Successful Appeal) fired a :10 bullet.

Consignor Barry Eisaman said he was not surprised by the speedy work.

“His breezes had been showing us that kind of speed any time you asked him,” he said. “He's a really big colt and a classy mover. It's astonishing that he has as much speed as he does because he doesn't look like a sprinter at all; he looks like a classic, two-turn sort of creature.”

Eisaman said that he has worked with roughly half a dozen Gun Runner juveniles at his farm this spring.

Hip 118 is one of nine Gun Runner juveniles currently entered in the OBS Spring Sale. | Tiborphoto, courtesy Barry Eisaman

“All of them have excellent minds, including this colt,” he noted. “This colt will work like that and then come back and act like a sensible 3-year-old. Nothing rattles him. If I was rooting for Gun Runner's success with his first crop, I would think he has a pretty good chance.”

Eisaman said he was once a believer that Gun Runner might not see a fast start at stud with his first 2-year-olds, but that working with them this year has proven him otherwise.

“All the Gun Runners that I have act precocious,” he said. “When I was looking at them as yearlings or when we were first breaking them and watching them gallop, I would have agreed wholeheartedly that they're probably going to be later. But as I started to do little baby breezes with them, they all displayed plenty of speed.”

A winner in his first two starts as a juvenile, Gun Runner should have all the potential to produce the same with his first runners. But even so, just as the best was still to come for Gun Runner's career, the same may be said someday for his progeny.

“He was a special talent,” Asmussen said. “As we all know, he was very good at two and three against good company, but he was Horse of the Year as a 4-year-old. Who he was at four and five is as good as it gets, so it's hard to measure that. We were pleasantly surprised that his progeny are showing plenty of ability now, like him, but the exciting part is the fact that his last four to five starts were so phenomenal and when he retired at five, he was still trending up.”

The post Don’t Jump the Gun, His Runners Are Coming On Fast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

In 2017, WinStar welcomed their graded stakes-winning homebred Speightster into the same stud barn as his prodigious sire.

With an initial stud fee set at $10,000, a price that has stayed in place since, Speightster has been supported with a grand total of 464 mares in his first three books.

Now into his fourth year at stud, the former ‘TDN Rising Star’ is presenting himself as a freshman sire to watch as his first 2-year-olds go through the sales ring and make their initial appearances in the starting gate.

A $1.1-million dollar juvenile that sold late on Friday at the OBS Spring Sale is sure to help ensure a strong start for the young stallion, but perhaps an even more promising indicator of future success could be the people signing the tickets.

“A great benchmark for a freshman sire with his first crop is the agents, trainers, and owners buying those horses,” said Sean Tugel, director of bloodstock services at WinStar. “We’ve seen early on that top agents like Steve Young, Jacob West, and Mike Ryan are buying sons and daughters of Speightster. To do that as a freshman sire, obviously they’re making a great impact on people, both physically and as they’re training.”

Although the OBS March Sale generally reflected the economic uncertainty as the Coronavirus pandemic was just reaching the U.S., three Speightster juveniles sold for six figures.

His top-priced youngster at that sale breezed in :21 2/5 and sold to Steve Young for $200,000. Consigned by Eddie Woods, the colt is out of the Smoke Glacken mare Done Smoking, who is herself a half to two graded-stakes winners.

Two more Speightster babies made headlines at this week’s OBS Spring Sale.

A filly out of the stakes-winning Souper Miss (Alphabet Soup) worked :10 1/5 for the Grassroots Training and Sales Consignment. She sold for $185,000 on the second day of the sale to John Kimmel as agent for Sean Flanagan.

“She’s got tremendous overall balance,” John Kimmel said of his purchase. “She has a beautiful topline and a nice walk with good over-reach. Her mind is very good for a horse that’s been through the rigors of a 2-year-old sale.”

Kimmel said that he has been impressed with several Speightsters this year.

“The Speightsters weren’t really ones I was pointing my attention towards going into the sales, but a combination of their racetrack performance and physical presentation really caught my attention,” he said. “There are handfuls of these Speightsters that have a very good physical presence and breeze well. If I had to be selecting a freshman sire, I would put Speightster, Not This Time, and either Nyquist or Frosted as my top three.”

A second of the Speightsters stole the show as one of the last five horses to go through the ring at this week’s OBS Spring Sale. A New York-bred colt named Fortunate Son sold for $1.1-million late on Friday afternoon to agent Christina Jelm, agent for Larry Best’s OXO Equine LLC.

Out of the stakes placed Indian Charlie mare Auspicious, the juvenile worked in :20 4/5 for consignor Tom McCrocklin, who purchased the speedy colt last year for $110,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-Bred Yearling Sale.

The successful pinhook placed the colt as the third-highest selling juvenile of the sale, and one of only three horses to reach seven-figures.

After an exciting week for the freshman sire, Tugel reflected on Speightster’s fast start in the sales ring.

“Even in the limited exposure he’s had at the 2-year-old sales, he’s been very well supported by buyers and has averaged 10 times his stud fee. The 2-year-olds we’ve seen are showing the class that Speightster had during his career.”

Unraced at two, Speightster broke his maiden on debut as a sophomore for trainer Bill Mott. The seven length-winning romp at Keeneland earned the colt ‘Rising Star’ status. Next he would take an allowance at Belmont over future Grade I winner Joking (Distorted Humor). One month later, he scored a 104 Beyer in his stakes debut in the GIII Dwyer S. over GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile champion Texas Red (Afleet Alex) and Tommy Macho (Macho Uno), who would go on to become a four-time graded stakes winner later in his career.

“All three of his wins were very impressionable races that really made an impact on people,” Tugel said. “Just showing his brilliance and his talent carried over to the breeding shed where he’s been well supported in all four years.”

Speightster returned to his home farm in 2017 to stand alongside his sire, an Eclipse champion sprinter with over a million dollars in earnings and 18 Grade I winners to his credit.

“Speightstown is a horse that really passes on that class and intelligence, and that’s what we have seen in Speightster himself,” Tugel said. “I think the ability to pass on that excellent quality of class is what really separates your top notch horses from the rest of the group.”

Speightster hails from a prolific female family that includes several champions. He is out of the unraced Danzig mare Dance Swiftly,  a sister to Hall of Fame inductee and Canadian Horse of the Year Dance Smartly (Danzig), as well as the late champion sire Smart Strike (Mr. Prospector).

Tugel said that Speightster represents the best of both sides of the pedigree.

“From day one, he was a standout physically,” he said. “When you see him come out of his stall, you can see all the great qualities that Speightstown passes on to him. But then you get to see the great qualitites his mother gave him through that Sam-Son family. He’s a scopey horse, he stands over some ground, he’s got plenty of leg, and he has really passed that on to his offspring.”

Speightster checked another box as a freshman sire on May 29 when his daughter Queen Arella broke her maiden at first asking for connections Rudy Rodriguez and J Stables LLC.

Following a rough start where she was bumped and squeezed between horses, the juvenile filly rallied from the back of the pack and went four wide approaching the stretch, then drew clear late to win by four lengths.

Queen Arella was bred in New York by WinStar and is out of the winning mare Unbridled Sonya (Unbridled’s Song), who hails from the same family as GI Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Volponi (Cryptoclearance).

A quick start for Speightster both on the track and at the sales has done nothing but increase demand from breeders sending mares to the popular young sire.

“I think that’s a great acknowledgment for a young horse when you haven’t got the racetrack past performances to work off to give people that confidence,” Tugel said. “But you’re presenting good physicals, and you’re presenting a horse that breeders like to be around. We know this horse is making a great impression on breeders and they’re coming back year after year. And I think it’s going to be well paid off for all the breeders here in Kentucky and around the country who have supported Speightster.”

The post Speedy First Two-Year-Olds for WinStar’s Speightster appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post