City of Light got off on the right foot commercially with a strong performance from his first weanlings during last year's November mixed sales in Kentucky. Now that we're on the other side of the flipped calendar, the Lane's End resident has continued to show up at the top of the lists with his debut yearlings at the Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale, completed earlier this week.
The 7-year-old son of Quality Road was the leading first-crop yearling sire of the Keeneland January sale by both gross and average sale price.
Over the course of the four-day sale, City of Light saw eight newly-turned yearlings change hands for revenues of $1,225,500 and an average of $153,188. His average was more than double the next-closest first-year sire with more than one horse sold during the January sale: Mendelssohn, who moved five yearlings for an average of $67,800.
The most expensive offering of City of Light's January draft was Hip 660, a bay filly out of the unplaced Bernardini filly I'll Show Me who sold to Larry Best's OXO Equine for $400,000. She was the second-most expensive yearling of the overall sale, and she was the highest-priced youngster of the auction's second session.
I'll Show Me is a half-sister to champion Proud Spell, stakes winner No Distortion, and Grade 3-placed Proud Pearl. Lane's End consigned the top filly, as agent.
Best's purchase displayed continued high-level support for City of Light after he bought the stallion's most expensive offering during last fall's November sales, as well. At the Fasig-Tipton November sale, Best landed a colt out of the winning Into Mischief mare Breaking Beauty for $600,000.
The commercial performance by City of Light's foals so far is a strong endorsement from a marketplace that has been high on the stallion since he was just a stallion prospect. He was booked full for his debut season at stud prior to his farewell victory in the 2019 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes, and Bill Farish of Lane's End said the farm had to turn away another book's worth of mares after the window closed.
Bloodstock agent Mike Ryan, speaking at the Lane's End Press Pass event earlier this month, said he has a share in City of Light as a breeder, and he was happy with the two homebreds he had by the 7-year-old stallion.
“It wasn't a surprise to me that his foals looked so good because I have found through the years that these magnificent-looking stallions like Alydar, Secretariat, Deputy Minister, they have the gene strength to reproduce themselves,” Ryan said. “When they're really good physicals, it seems to be pretty common that they all transmit that to their offspring and this was no exception in this horse. His foals were very well-grown. They have size, substance, quality, strength, and they had an aura of class and presence about them.”
Between the initial mare bookings and the Keeneland January sale, breeders showed their respect for City of Light by making him one of the top weanling sires of 2020, first-crop or otherwise.
City of Light saw 23 weanlings go through the ring last year for revenues of $2,592,000 and an average of $216,000. That placed him fifth among all North American sires by average weanling sale price, and second only to Triple Crown winner Justify among first-crop sires. He was also second to Justify by weanling gross among all sires.
“It wasn't a fluke, it wasn't just that one or two were big-selling horses,” Ryan said. “They were consistently well-made, well-conformed, quality horses.”
Bred in Kentucky by Ann Marie Farm, City of Light is out of the unraced Dehere mare Paris Notion, whose runners also include stakes-placed Pointsman and Exotic Notion. Champion turf mare Fiji is in his extended family, along with Irish filly classic winner and Grade 1 winners Java's War, Careless Jewel, Subordination, Cacoethes, and Fabulously Fast.
Racing for Mr. and Mrs. William K. Warren Jr. and trained by Michael McCarthy, City of Light won six of 11 starts during his on-track career, earning $5,662,600, and he picked up Grade 1 wins in each of his campaigns from ages three to five. He took home the G1 Malibu Stakes as a 3-year-old, then won the G2 Oaklawn Handicap and G1 Triple Bend Stakes before capping off his 4-year-old season with a triumph in the G1 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile at Churchill Downs. His swan song came in the 2019, G1 Pegasus World Cup, where he prevailed through stormy weather and sloppy footing to go out on a high note.
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