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Taking Stock: First-Crop Success in Classics

Did you notice that Mishriff (Ire) (Make Believe {GB}), the big Saudi Cup winner on Saturday, is a member of his sire's first crop?

A 4-year-old homebred for Prince A. A. Faisal's Nawara Stud, Mishriff is by the Faisal-raced Make Believe, a Dubawi (Ire)-line stallion at Ballylinch Stud in Ireland. Last year, Mishriff won the G1 Prix du Jockey-Club, the French Derby equivalent, and is one of three first-crop winners of that Classic in the last five years, along with Brametot (Ire) (Rajsaman {Fr}) in 2017 and Almanzor (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}) in 2016. In between these first-crop colts were winners by proven sires: Sottsass (Fr), by Siyouni (Fr), in 2019, and Study of Man (Ire), by Deep Impact (Jpn), in 2018.

What is it about first-crop Classic winners? Mishriff's sire Make Believe, for example, is a first-crop son of Makfi (GB) and won the G1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains, the 2000 Guineas equivalent. And Makfi, a first-crop son of G1 Irish 2000 Guineas winner Dubawi, accounted for the G1 2000 Guineas itself. Dubawi, of course, was from the first and only crop of Dubai Millennium (GB).

Last year in the U.S., two of the three Classics fell to first-crop runners: Gl Belmont S. winner Tiz the Law by Constitution; and Gl Preakness S. winner Swiss Skydiver is by Daredevil.

First-crop Classic success isn't a fluke, at least in recent times, and here's why: first-year stallions are the most popular horses at stud outside of elite proven sires and there's competition to get to them, which means that breeders will nominate some their best mares to them to secure spots. And stud managers, flooded with applications, are more discriminating in accepting these mares to their books than at any other times in these horses' careers, except for if they become elite proven sires after five-plus crops. It's the reason first-season sires, along with the best elite proven sires, frequently have large books.

Because, pound for pound, these stallions frequently get their best mares in their first crops–whether by pedigree, race record, physique, or a combination thereof–they tend to have more successes with this crop than others, especially if they are any kind of horse. I wrote of this here on July 12, 2019, in “First Crops of Sires Are Potent,” noting that of the top 20 active leading sires of 2018 by earnings standing in N. America, “almost half (nine, or 45%) of these 20 stallions' first crops have been their best to date by percentage of black-type winners to named foals.”

The accompanying chart listing the winners (and their sires) of each of the three U.S. Classics over the past 20 years, 2001 to 2020, adds some heft to this line of thought. There were 48 individual horses that accounted for these 60 races, and they were sired by 39 unique sires (Maria's Mon, Distorted Humor, A.P. Indy, Smart Strike, Birdstone, Awesome Again, and Curlin sired two each, and Tapit sired three). Eleven of these 39 stallions, or 28%–Daredevil, Constitution, Bodemeister, Maclean's Music, Uncle Mo, Curlin, Birdstone, Medaglia d'Oro, Street Cry (Ire), Distorted Humor, and Maria's Mon–were represented by first-crop Classic winners, with Birdstone astonishingly represented by two, Gl Kentucky Derby winner Mind That Bird and Belmont S. winner Summer Bird in 2009. If you add the seven Classic winners from second crops to this total, then 18 of 39 sires, or 46%, were successful. These are big numbers for unproven horses, and it helps to explain in part why first-crop yearlings–and some from second crops–are in demand at the sales.

Keep in mind that we're only looking at first-crop Grade I Classic successes in this chart, but if you consider other races, you'll find significant examples of similar success. Take 3-year-old Pink Kamehameha (Jpn), the Japanese-trained winner of the Saudi Derby, who is from the first crop of his sire Leontes (Jpn), just as last season's champion 2-year-old filly Vequist is a member of her sire Nyquist's first crop and recent 4-year-old Japanese Group 1 winner Cafe Pharoah is one of three top-level first-crop winners for American Pharoah, and so on.

Commercial Breeding Paradigm

To better process first-crop success, first understand that commercial breeders now dominate the industry, particularly in Kentucky. Note from the chart that 32 of the 48 Classic winners, or 67%, went through the sales ring, and this figure includes homebred winners American Pharoah, Union Rags, and Animal Kingdom. Even counting these three in both categories, there were only 17 homebred Classic winners from 48, or 35%. War Emblem was a homebred sold privately before the Classics, and Funny Cide, a $22,000 yearling, was sold privately before he raced.

Contrast this to 50 years ago over the 20-year period of 1951 to 1970 when 30 of 49 Classic winners, or 61%, were homebreds, with only one these, Northern Dancer, offered for sale at auction, at E.P. Taylor's annual yearling sale. During this time frame, only 17, or 35%, went through a ring. It's not an urban legend that there's been a significant shift to the commercial marketplace from breeding to race, and these numbers illustrate this, inter alia, as lawyers would say.

The savviest of commercial breeders primarily tend to patronize two types of stallions: first-year horses (and to a lesser extent, some second-year sires) and proven stallions with more than five crops. Homebreeders who race their stock are more likely to mostly use proven horses (unless they had something to do with an unproven horse, as Prince Faisal did with Mishriff's sire), and this is illustrated well in the chart. When first-crop stallions weren't involved, most of the Classic winners were by proven sires, such as Lookin At Lucky, War Front, Awesome Again, Scat Daddy, Tapit, Curlin, Malibu Moon, Dixie Union, Smart Strike, A.P. Indy, Dynaformer, etc., for commercial and homebreeders alike. But note that of the 17 homebred Classic winners, only two–Street Sense and Summer Bird–were by first-year sires.

Commercial breeders prefer first-year sires because there's less downside risk selling their yearlings compared to second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-year stallions. For example, as I've written here previously, a second-crop yearling will come to market when the sire's first crop is two, and if those first 2-year-olds fail to perform by sales time, the second-crop yearlings will get punished in the ring. Likewise, a breeder bringing a third-crop yearling to the sale will have to contend with the success or failure of the sire's 3-year-olds and 2-year-olds, and so on. For most commercial breeders, this is a level of risk they are not willing to assume, because what they breed is designated for the sales ring and a healthy return on investment with minimum risk is paramount to their survival.

It's for this reason that stallions specifically in their third, fourth, and fifth years at stud see their patronage drop. There's also a commensurate drop in the quality of their mares, too, and stud managers, instead of being picky about who gets in, actively solicit mares and are all open arms to anyone that can pay the fee–which is usually significantly reduced by this time from when the horse first entered stud.

Homebreeders, however, aren't averse to using stallions in their third, fourth, and fifth years at stud – Birdstone (4th crop), California Chrome (4th crop), and Country House (5th crop)–because selling isn't their priority. However, because their numbers have decreased through the years as noted, so, too, has patronage for these horses.

And because commercial breeders now dominate the business and control many of the best mares at each stud-fee range, first-crop runners (and some from second crops) should continue to do well, in line with the trends we're seeing.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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Life Only Gets Better for Mischief

Call it the year of authentication. After sealing his giddy rise with a first sires’ championship last year, Into Mischief has retained his title in 2020 with spectacular ease. Indeed, while several of his predecessors have required a single outstanding earner to elevate them above their rivals, this most remarkable of stallions would have secured the laurels even without the $7.17 million banked by a son on the point of formal anointment as Horse of the Year.

As it is, we can instead treat his latest champion, Authentic, as immediate and priceless confirmation that an upgrade in Into Mischief’s mares–and remember he was still only a $45,000 cover when Peter Blum sent Flawless (Mr Greeley) to the Spendthrift phenomenon in 2016–would enable him to draw out his trademark speed through a second turn.

There had, admittedly, already been auspicious glimpses of this capacity: Owendale and Audible, for instance, had both emerged from much cheaper books to finish strongly for Classic placings. But the emergence of a GI Kentucky Derby and GI Breeders’ Cup Classic winner is not a matter of mere consolidation for Into Mischief. Authentic represents a neon validation of his competence to produce the kind of Triple Crown stock commensurate with a fee that has now soared, even as tariffs are being slashed at his own and virtually every other farm, to $225,000.

And if Authentic proved to be aptly named, then how about Life Is Good as a potential flagship for their sire’s next crop, which was conceived at $75,000? It’s obviously early days for a colt who only made his debut last month, but their trainer is eyeing the GIII Sham S. on Saturday–the very race he used to launch Authentic as a similarly raw sophomore prospect.

Other Into Mischief youngsters already astir include Mandaloun, who has won both starts to date for Brad Cox and may head to the GIII Lecomte S. a couple of weeks later; and Highly Motivated, whose track record at Keeneland was admittedly one of several to fall Breeders’ Cup weekend but nonetheless attests to his abundant natural speed. As a sprinter who must show how far he can stretch, Highly Motivated sets a familiar challenge. But Mandaloun certainly measures the changing complexion of the genetic material nowadays complementing Into Mischief’s own contribution: he is a Juddmonte homebred, out of an Empire Maker mare who won a Group race over just short of 10 furlongs in Ireland.

Authentic was his sire’s flagship runner this year | Coady

The momentum behind Into Mischief, as such, looks inexorable for the next few years. His rise has been sustained by unusually reliable libido and fertility, and he remains assured of undiminished quantity to support the improving quality of his mares. His books have proved invulnerable to fee increases: his 2021 juveniles, conceived at $100,000, emerge from a book of 245; the next crop, at $150,000, from one of 241; and this year he covered 248 mares at $175,000. Obviously he has his home herd to service, gratis, but the turnover being generated by outside mares is still eye-watering.

Famously, of course, there are nine breeders out there who wouldn’t have to pay a cent–though presumably they will mostly have cashed out by now, having secured a lifetime breeding right by committing a mare to Into Mischief’s first two seasons. It was launching a couple of rookies into the backdraft of the 2008 financial crisis that inspired Spendthrift’s owner B. Wayne Hughes to develop Share the Upside, pioneer among many the incentive schemes that have meanwhile transformed the stallion industry in the Bluegrass. (A process, admittedly, that has discomfited many a farm; and, in candour, made some rivals resent the rise of Into Mischief as poster boy for a whole new culture.)

The kind of elite stallion Hughes is now managing to bring to the farm won’t need that kind of extra support. Both Spendthrift and its flagship stallion have come a long way since Into Mischief covered 50 mares at $7,500 in 2012, just as his first runners were about to reach the track.

Those first years earning his stripes do mean that Into Mischief is now in his prime, about to turn 16. He already has some promising sons at stud, even from his cheaper books, and breeders at all levels duly have more accessible alternatives: from those who sent 196 mares to Maximus Mischief at $7,500 in his debut book, to those who will pay 10 times that sum to reach Authentic this coming spring.

Nonetheless, after finishing 35th, 13th and fourth in the three years prior to his first title, Into Mischief is clearly going to take a lot of shifting from the summit for the time being. Yes, it remains possible for a handful of disproportionate purses in the international calendar to distort the validity of a pecking order determined by prize money. In fact, it had come to seem imperative to find a more instructive gauge after Unbridled’s Song won a posthumous championship in 2017 exclusively through the lucrative endeavors of Arrogate, who won the GI Pegasus and G1 Dubai World Cup in the first three months of the year. Otherwise Unbridled’s Song would have finished 44th. (Not that the horse so denied the title, Candy Ride {Arg}, could throw stones from his glass house: without Gun Runner, he would have finished 20th.)

Into Mischief at home at Spendthrift | Sarah Andrew

Hats off, then, to Into Mischief for restoring a helpful correlation between prize money and consistent merit. Last year, his top earner Covfefe contributed just $1,052,425 to an overall haul of $19,179,389. This time round, his progeny earned well over $15 million even without the bank vault filled by Authentic. That would still have put him $3 million clear of a runner-up, in Medaglia d’Oro, who himself owes very nearly half his 2020 earnings to his prolific Hong Kong star Golden Sixty (Aus).

And that’s in terms of global earnings. If measured by North American and European purses only, Into Mischief has doubled the tally of his nearest pursuer, Uncle Mo ($21.7 million against $10.6 million). To be fair, whatever else he is, he is not yet a stallion of intercontinental reach: his overseas earnings are marginal. But he is certainly restoring the good name of the championship he has retained.

This consistency of output is partly a function of the industrial Spendthrift model–which is driven by opportunity, to put it positively; or numbers, to put it more plainly. Even in a year where the pandemic devoured much of the springtime program, and in particular delayed the advent of the juveniles, Into Mischief has had 420 starters. (This and all other numbers cited remain subject to mild overnight updates, being correct to Dec. 30.) In the top 10 only Uncle Mo, standing on another farm that will not take kindly to the impending restriction on books to 140, has had even 300 starters.

So yes, there have been plenty of stallions in 2020 with a superior ratio of winners to starters. But the witting, willing trade-off made by these big commercial farms, who believe a stallion gets more momentum from headline horses than small-print percentages, does not actually weaken the credentials of the champion. Because his 15% black-type performers-to-starters is the best of the year; narrowly exceeding a rival, in War Front, who has always operated with quality ahead of quantity. His 29 black-type winners, moreover, were assembled at a clip matched among Kentucky rivals only by Speightstown and, in another significant endorsement for the numbers game, Uncle Mo.

Other Top Proven Sires
We’ll be crediting several who have performed well behind Into Mischief in our ongoing series previewing covering options for 2021. For now, it’s worth giving honourable mentions to a handful. Multiple previous champion Tapit remains a wonder of consistency, once again on the podium; the splendid veteran Speightstown was unique in managing four individual Grade I winners; Munnings, in breaking into the top ten, has stopped smouldering and is now sparking at last, as high as fourth in the North American/European table; Hard Spun, following through on fourth last year with another excellent show in ninth, continues to outpunch his fee; and likewise The Factor, still only $17,500 despite only just missing the top 10 active Kentucky stallions.

Uncle Mo | Coolmore photo

But perhaps the most conspicuous achiever behind Into Mischief has been Uncle Mo–not just after ascending to fourth from 13th, but as the sire of three of the top four in the freshmen’s championship. That makes 2020 a game-changing year for Ashford’s linchpin of the Caro line, who is only turning 13.

Among his current racing stock, consistency was the key: while he didn’t muster a single Grade I winner, none could match Uncle Mo’s 14 individual graded stakes winners. But for a stallion with just six racing crops to have emerged virtually overnight as a sire of sires is quite extraordinary.

First-Crop Sires
Just as Nyquist emerged from Uncle Mo’s first crop to emulate his 2-year-old championship, so he has in turn become champion freshman sire (by prize money) with a GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner of his own. Vequist accounts for half the earnings banked by Nyquist’s 17 winners from 45 starters. He has not messed around: he only has two stakes winners, but both had the opportunism to win at Grade I level (Vequist plus Summer S. winner Gretzky the Great). Of five black-type performers overall, moreover, Nyquist has had two others placed at the elite level.

If Nyquist has jumped through the same hoops as his sire, Laoban came out of left field–or at least out of New York, where he had started at $5,000. After pulling fairytale GI Alcibiades S. winner Simply Ravishing out of his hat, Laoban is on his way to WinStar in Kentucky where he will join Outwork, their sire’s other fast starter with 19 winners.

Not This Time | Jon Siegel

Intruding on Uncle Mo’s private party was Not This Time, far and away the most prolific with no fewer than 28 individual winners from 54 starters. He has proved he can get a good one, too, with the charismatic OBS Spring Sale-topper Princess Noor a runaway winner of the GI Del Mar Debutante (unfortunately since retired with a soft tissue injury).

Second-Crop Sires
These young guns will now look to consolidate after the fashion of American Pharoah and Constitution, who finished first and second in the freshmen’s table last year and fill the same positions in the second-crop championship. The big mover in this group was obviously Daredevil, whose star filly Swiss Skydiver helped him up to fourth, and back to the Bluegrass from Turkey, after her anonymous debut last year.

Third-Crop Sires and Beyond
Top of the preceding intake remains Goldencents, who finished second as a freshman and first last year. This was the first racehorse to show that Into Mischief might become a more potent sire than had been expected. Who can say, then, which unheralded young stallion may commence some equivalent rags-to-riches rise in 2021? That’s the whole beauty of this business. We’re always seeing stallions who seem to have the world at their feet, falling flat on their faces; and the converse, too.

As Hughes constantly reminds his team at Spendthrift: “Nobody knows.” That may seem a disadvantage, if you’re trying to put together any kind of coherent business plan with Thoroughbreds. But actually it’s what gives us all a chance–and the reason why Into Mischief, for all the uncomfortable challenges Hughes has set more conventional competitors, deserves a universal toast on concluding another remarkable chapter in his epic tale.

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Mehmas Entering Elite Territory

The annual race to sire the most individual first-crop 2-year-old winners always fascinates us. This year in Europe it isn’t much of a contest as the leader Mehmas (Ire)–with his 39 winners–is in no danger whatsoever of being caught by any of his contemporaries. However, 39 winners is hugely significant in that it breaks the European record for the most individual first-crop 2-year-old winners putting him one clear of the previous holder, Darley stalwart Iffraaj. And there are more than enough racing days left in the calendar for Mehmas to push well beyond the 40-winner mark.

You may wonder why the best British and Irish stallions produce so many winners compared to other regions. It’s primarily due to how racing is organized in that 12% of all winners in Britain and Ireland and in America are juvenile winners, compared to only 5.8% in Australia. Moreover, there are differences to the competitiveness of stallion rosters in each region. A smaller, more select population exists in Britain and Ireland than in America and Australia, both of which have big regional markets which encourage the retirement to stud of colts with lesser credentials.

Retiring a Timeform 115-rated 2-year-old with no 3-year-old record to stud may not be the way to go on most occasions in Britain and Ireland, but with Mehmas the gamble has paid off handsomely. As a G2 July S. and G2 Richmond S. winner who’d once beaten future champion sprinter Blue Point (Ire), Mehmas was always going to find fans at stud. One aspect of his profile that favoured him was that another successful sire, Dark Angel (Ire)–who also retired to stud at the end of his juvenile season–shared the same sire/maternal grandsire combination of Acclamation and Machiavellian. And whereas Dark Angel may have been a Group 1 winner, Timeform assessed him at 113, two pounds lower than Group 2 winner Mehmas.

Their early dispatch to stud, though controversial in some quarters, has proven the correct decision. There is little doubt that an unsuccessful 3-year-old campaign by either of these colts would have ruined or at least severely dented their appeal to the type of commercial breeders they needed in order to succeed. Mehmas may have just eclipsed Iffraaj’s tally of winners, but he’d already posted more stakes winners than the Darley stallion, whose own first crop featured the G1 Jean-Luc Lagardere hero Wootton Bassett (GB), recently in the news with his transfer to Coolmore.

Certainly, Mehmas’s first runners seem to be combining precocity and class in a pleasing blend. The top four runners by Mehmas have so far achieved Timeform ratings of 118, 112p, 109 and 103, compared to the 119p, 109p, 102 and 96 of the best four by Iffraaj at the end of his first season ten years ago. Clearly, there is plenty of quality among Mehmas’s first youngsters and he has unearthed a trio of very smart 2-year-olds in G1 Middle Park S. and G2 Richmond S. winner Supremacy (Ire) (TFR 118), G2 Gimcrack hero and G1 Middle Park third Minzaal (Ire) (109), plus listed scorer and Group 3-placed Method (Ire) (112p).

Mehmas’s tally of four stakes winners is already quite impressive, so much so that only nine stallions in the past 20 years have ever finished their first year with more. Moreover, since 2000, only Fasliyev, Oasis Dream (GB), Lope de Vega (Ire) and Frankel (GB) among European first-crop sires have had more year-one juveniles rated 110 or more. That’s the sort of company Mehmas is keeping at the moment.

Many will point to Mehmas’s lower strike rate of 41% winners to runners–Iffraaj had 53%–but with such a big first book with a wide variety of mares it’s perhaps inevitable that there will be plenty of lower-grade runners among his stock. His tally of four stakes winners also needs to be seen in the context of the seven stakes winners sired by Night Of Thunder (Ire) a year earlier–the best on any sire since the pattern began.

The question now is: can he maintain this great start? Will his stock train on and sustain him through what will inevitably be leaner years, at least until the offspring of the good mares he will now inevitably attract get to the racecourse? His second crop, produced like his first at a fee of €12,500, contained a healthy number of mares, 177 in total, but there is a marked fall in quality with only nine elite mares-identified as the top 15% of the broodmare population according to my calculations–compared to 16 from 180 in his first. The same goes for his third crop, produced at a fee of €10,000, which contained five elite mares from a total of 83. Mehmas’s mare numbers rebounded to 113 in 2020 but contained only four elite mares. Put together, his second, third and fourth crops contain just two more elite mares than his first.

When all is said and done though, there is something about the way the good Mehmas colts perform that encourages you to believe that they will indeed make good 3-year-olds. It would be no surprise to see the Clive Cox-trained Supremacy develop into one of Europe’s best 3-year-old sprinters next year. He’ll need to go some way to match the best by Iffraaj, the 129-rated Ribchester (Ire).

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