With the start of the 2-year-old in training sales just around the corner, a visit to Ocala proved to be informative as we checked in with consignors who are going through the fine-tuning process with their sales horses. Leading up to the OBS March Sale, we will release a series of video features covering the topics everyone is talking about as the sales season approaches.
Watch our first episode on first-season sires with Eddie Woods, Nick de Meric and Susan Montanye here.
In this edition, we spoke with Niall Brennan, Ciaran Dunne and Jimbo Gladwell about the freshman sires whose 2-year-olds have impressed them most throughout the breaking and training process, and we asked them to show us a few of those sires' most promising progeny that we will see at the sales in the coming weeks.
NIALL BRENNAN
With first-year sires, obviously some years you might have several by one stallion and nothing by another, so it can be a little hard to compare, but we do have several by Mendelssohn this year and so far I'm really impressed with them. They were a really consistent group as yearlings and I think that's what impressed people. They're very professional and focused on the racetrack and they're good movers across the board. Most of them are average-sized and they're very athletic. I think he's got a great shot.
I've got one Mendelssohn filly in the OBS March Sale [Hip 125] that is a very nice filly. She's out of a Candy Ride (Arg) mare and is a half-sister to Simplification (Not This Time), who won the Mucho Macho Man S. She's professional with a great pedigree.
We also have several Justifys and again, so far I'm quite impressed with them. Many of them were bigger as yearlings so you figured that they might take a little longer as he was later-developing, but I've got a couple that have been very forward in their training.
We have two Justify colts going to the OBS March Sale. The one colt [Hip 476] is out of a Silver Deputy mare who has already thrown a 2-year-old stakes winner. He is good-sized, strong and balanced. He has given me the impression that he's very quick. The other colt [Hip 501] is actually a half-brother to MGSW Toinette (Scat Daddy), who was a good stakes filly on the grass. He's got a huge stride, but he really covers the ground and is deceivingly quick because he just is so easy over the ground. These colts are a little different, but they're both forward mentally and physically.
I've got a couple of other Justify fillies that are going to go to the April sale. They're bigger, growthier types like him. They're May foals so we just picked the later sale to give them a little more time, but again, I've been quite impressed with how forward they seem to be
We only have one Bolt d'Oro this year, but he's a very impressive colt going to OBS March [Hip 84]. He's mature, very powerful and a great mover on the racetrack. He's out of a Fastnet Rock (Aus) mare, so it's mostly an Australian pedigree which is a great cross. If I had to judge Bolt d'Oro by this one colt, I'm impressed because this colt is very serious.
CIARAN DUNNE: Wavertree Stables
We only have a small sampling of Justifys, but we're really high on the colt out of Appealing Zophie (Successful Appeal) who is going to Gulfstream [Hip 84]. He trains as well a horse can train. If he's a true reflection of what the rest of them are like, I think Justify is in for a big year.
As a group, the Good Magics we have are probably the most solid. We have quite a few of those; I think we have five or six of them. The colt out of Rose Mine (Street Cry {Ire}) who goes to OBS March [Hip 82] is probably one of our highlights. He's a big, strong colt with a super way of going. The thing about the Good Magics is that you forget how good of a 2-year-old he was and these guys have really shown a lot of speed.
City of Light was the hot commodity at the yearling sales. They're very quick and precocious for a horse who was later developing himself. We have a couple of fillies by him that we're high on. The Redbud (Union Rags) filly goes to OBS March [Hip 59] and we have a filly out of Naples Mist (Medaglia d'Oro) going to Gulfstream [Hip 41]. We have high expectations for both of those.
Top Line's Bolt d'Oro colt out of Foolish Cause (Giant's Causeway) sells at the OBS March Sale | Tiborphoto
We probably have as many Bolt d'Oros as we have of any of the first-season stallions. We have a really good sampling going to OBS March. The colt out of Roman Bluff (Roman Ruler) [Hip 81] might just be our fastest horse going in there based on how he has acted at home. We have a filly out of Moment of Speight (Ire) (Speightstown) [Hip 625] who has a beautifully-deep female family. She's more of a two-turn type of filly, but she acts like she's got speed too. Across the board, I think they've got a lot of quality and a future going two turns.
JIMBO GLADWELL: Top Line Sales
We have two Bolt d'Oro colts going to OBS March. I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say both of them are going to go 10 flat or faster. They're both fast, good-moving colts and they're very aggressive in their training. They want to do it so bad. They are two of the faster colts I've got going over there and we're very happy with the Bolt d'Oros right now. We're actually bringing a mare back to him this year.
With the start of the 2-year-old in training sales just around the corner, a visit to Ocala proved to be informative as we checked in with consignors who are starting the fine-tuning process with their sales horses. In the weeks leading up to the OBS March Sale, which starts March 15, we will release a series of video features covering the topics everyone is talking about as the sales season approaches: Who might be this year's top freshman sire? Which freshman sires could be flying under the radar? What horses are these consignors most looking forward to presenting to the market? And speaking of the market, what are consignors' thoughts on the overall health of the 2-year-old market in 2022?
In this first episode, we spoke with Eddie Woods, Nick de Meric and Susan Montanye about the freshman sires whose 2-year-olds have impressed them most throughout the breaking and training process, and we asked them to show us a few of those sires' most promising progeny that we will see at the sales in the coming weeks.
EDDIE WOODS
This year's freshman sires are a good group overall, probably better than average.
The Justifys are way more precocious than I thought they would be. We have a Justify colt out of Runway Doll (Majestic Warrior) who is a lovely colt going to OBS March [Hip 89]. He's all quality and is built like a tank
The Good Magics are very nice horses. They're laid-back, kind of Curlin-y type horses. We have a Good Magic colt out of Jane Says (Tale of Ekati) going to OBS March [Hip 520]. He's a beautiful-looking horse and we're really happy with him. We have several other Good Magic 2-year-olds who are going to the races that are quite nice.
The City of Lights are beautiful, big, strong, strapping horses. We have a City of Light colt out of Forest Gamble (Forest Wildcat) that is going to OBS March [Hip 439] and is a magnificent-looking horse, so we are looking forward to offering him.
The Mendelssohns also have a lot of quality. They look like they might just take a little bit of time. The Accelerates are looking good as well.
NICK DE MERIC
We have a reasonable cross-section of first-year sires this year. I'd say the ones that have impressed me at this point in the game would include Good Magic, for sure, Bolt d'Oro and West Coast. We have a couple of really nice West Coasts. Mendelssohn is another that has really got my attention. I only have one Justify, but she's a lovely filly and I'm hearing good things from other people about the Justifys, so he would definitely be on the list as well. Some of the horses we have by these first-year sires are going to sales and some of them are going straight to the races.
I have two Good Magic colts and they're kind of different types physically. One is a big, husky individual and the other is a little on the smaller, more nimble side, but they're both taking a little bit of added pressure really well. They're eating the bottom out of their feed tubs, they're light on their feet and everything that we've done with them they've done well within themselves with plenty in reserve. We haven't really squeezed on them yet, but we're just getting to a point where we're asking a little bit more from them and they seem to be handling everything so easily.
I've got a Bolt d'Oro filly out of Scorpio Queen (Aus) (Choisir {Aus}) who has been breezing really well. She's another one that is doing, if anything, a little more than she's being asked for. She's going to OBS April. She's a big, rugged filly. She seemed to be all head and no body when she first arrived here, but as she's grown and filled out and her musculature has improved, she's starting to look really balanced and I really like the way she's been breezing. She's looking like she could be a good one. We've had several others Bolt d'Oros as yearlings and we've been noting at the sales that he's consistently getting good individuals, so that's also a good indicator.
Susan Montanye and her OBS March-bound Bolt d'Oro colt out of Queen of May | Katie Petrunyak
SUSAN MONTANYE: SBM Training and Sales
I've been really impressed so far with the Bolt d'Oros. I actually have several of them, one going to the OBS March Sale, one going to the Miami sale, one possibly going to the OBS April Sale and a couple that are going to the races. They've all been light on their feet, very precocious and they love to train. I think it's going to be a big year for Bolt.
My Bolt d'Oro colt going to the OBS March Sale is out of Queen of May (Bernardini) [Hip 51]. If I were rich, he wouldn't be for sale. I just absolutely love him. He is all business. He looks like he'll be fast and want to stretch. There really isn't anything to knock on him. I can't wait to see who ends up getting him and then root him on in his career because I think he's going to be special.
The other colt out of Platinum Song (My Golden Song) is actually a May foal, but he's a big boy. We are taking him down to the Miami sale [Hip 44]. He's a little bit different that the Queen of May colt. I think he's going to be maybe just a tad bit of a later bloomer than Queen of May, but he's going to be a phenomenal individual on the racetrack.
I also have a couple City of Lights. I have a filly out of Edith Court (Pomeroy) going to the OBS March Sale [Hip 405]. She's super fun and classy. I think she's going to be really fast early, more of a sprinter type.
With the 2022 breeding season right around the corner, we will feature a series of breeders' mating plans over the coming weeks. Today we have Jason Hall.
“My partners and I typically breed to sell, primarily at the 2-year-old sales,” said Hall, “but if we have one that looks the part, we'll sell the occasional weanling at Keeneland November. That being said, if we feel like the market is being overly critical and we see some blue sky by going to the races with one, we're not afraid to go that route. We like mares that demonstrated some degree of talent, and we focus heavily on physical compatibility between the stallion and mare.”
AFFIANCED (m, 5, More Than Ready–All Star Heart, by Arch), to be bred to Authentic
We purchased Affianced at the recent Keeneland November Sale from Claiborne Farm for $50,000 in foal to First Samurai. A former $410,000 Keeneland September yearling, Affianced is a stellar physical with exceptional balance. While she doesn't have the type of racing credentials we typically pursue, she flashed enough talent in her Santa Anita maiden score to prompt our interest. She's out of a GII-winning Arch mare and is a half-sister to California stakes horse Eccentric Spinster (Distorted Humor). Her progeny will catalog well, so we decided to swing hard and send her to Authentic, who will undoubtedly be a source of commercial home runs. Authentic adds a lot of leg to the equation, something you always have to be mindful of with the More Than Ready influence. As tremendous as he's been as a sire, More Than Ready isn't known for adding leg to his mares.
BACK AT THE RANCH (m, 9, Artie Schiller–Major Allie, by Officer), to be bred to Justify
We purchased Back At the Ranch very inexpensively at the conclusion of her career shortly before her half-brother, Cistron (The Factor), won the GI Bing Crosby S. at Del Mar. She herself won early sprinting at Belmont for Wesley Ward, and went on to win four of 14 and earn $103,185. With the Grade I update under her first dam, we felt like she warranted a season with Improbable last year, and Justify this year. At this stage, I don't think we have to remedy any physical shortcomings while planning her matings, but of course, that could change when her first foals arrive. She's a big, strong mare with lots of balance and curb appeal, so we can go in a lot of directions with her. Justify is as good a physical specimen as we've ever laid eyes on, so on paper at least, this foal should be a standout individual.
BE A LADY (m, 9, Cindago–Storm Hearted, by Lion Hearted), to be bred to More Than Ready
Be a Lady is probably the tallest horse we've ever owned. I believe the farm measured her out at 17.1 after we purchased her for $35,000 at the 2019 Keeneland November Sale. She earned $186,995 sprinting in Southern California, comes from an active family (she's a full-sister to California stakes winner and track record holder Wake Up Nick), and her sire is off to a stellar beginning as a broodmare sire. We kept her with a bigger stallion her first season (Violence), as even big mares can throw a pony their first year. But since then, we've kept her with small/medium types. Given the quality we've seen in her Violence and Jimmy Creed foals, we felt like she warranted an opportunity with an elite sire like More Than Ready, who usually benefits from mares with a lot of leg and scope.
CHU AND YOU (m, 11, You and I–Bronze Charmer, by Volponi), to be bred to Temple City
My wife purchased this mare's Temple City yearling for $27,000 at Keeneland September in 2020. Now named Boise, he won the Gold Rush S. at Golden Gate in December and will run in the El Camino Real on Feb. 12. We were really high on him from the start. So much so that we reached out to his breeders and purchased his dam privately. Rather than overthink things, we decided to send her back to Temple City this year to get a full-sibling to Boise. Chu and You isn't very big, but of course, Temple City and the Dynaformer influence usually compliment smaller mares quite well. You couldn't ask for a better physical than Boise, so we're bullish on going to the well again. At the recent Keeneland January sale, we acquired Chu and You's half-sister, Attyia (Dialed In), who will also visit Temple City this year.
PATTITUDE (m, 10, City Zip–Dancinandsingin, by A.P. Indy), to be bred to War of Will
Within months of acquiring her at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Mixed Sale, two new stakes winners emerged in her immediate family: Army Wife (Declaration of War), who won the GII Black-Eyed Susan S., and Ellamira (Street Boss), who won the Golden Gate Debutante. Pattitude was already a half to [GSW & MGISP] Scherzinger (Tiz Wonderful) and to the dam of [GSW & GISP] Kitten's Roar (Kitten's Joy), so it's an extremely active family that will really light up a catalog page. Like a lot of City Zips, it's usually best to keep them with stallions that are solid through the hindquarters and have plenty of size/leg, which is why we sent her to Flatter last year and will send her back to War of Will in 2022.
ROLL YOUR EYES (m, 13, Popular–Officer Lea, by Nodouble), to be bred to Mineshaft
At the very end of her career, we acquired Roll Your Eyes for nothing more than a ham sandwich. She was a smallish mare with a top line that had gotten progressively softer during her racing days, but we liked her California stakes form early in her career (she had finished second in the Wine Country Debutante S. at Santa Rosa as a 2-year-old), and she was particularly strong through her forearm, gaskins, and hindquarters. We've gotten nothing but stunning foals from her thus far including a stakes horse (Film Study {Custom for Carlos}) and recent maiden special weight winner in California, Fascinated (Majesticperfection). She's currently in foal to Vekoma and will visit Mineshaft in 2022. Mineshaft is a sire that is well respected in all circles and usually benefits from more powerfully built mares like Roll Your Eyes.
Let us know who you're breeding your mares to in 2022, and why. We will print a selection of your responses in TDN over the coming weeks. Please send details to: garyking@thetdn.com.
In “Making Claims,” Paulick Report bloodstock editor Joe Nevills shares his opinions on the Thoroughbred industry from the breeding and sales arenas to the racing world and beyond.
The bloodstock market of 2021 seemed as though it would be easier to forecast compared with the unprecedented turbulence of the prior year, but no one could have foreseen the level of gusto with which certain sections of the market would bounce back.
A starving buying bench took auction returns to record highs last year, while Gun Runner's freshman class of runners put their sire in the history books. Pleasant surprises can be hard to come by in the Thoroughbred business, and last year was full of them.
After a year that went better than expected for many, will that momentum keep up the pace, or will it stall? Which stallions will see their stocks rise and fall in the coming year? I try to answer those questions with five predictions for how the year will play out in the bloodstock market.
1. Into Mischief Will Repeat As Leading General Sire…Again
Into Mischief will stand the 2022 breeding season at Spendthrift Farm for $250,000 live foal stands and nurses
You can't hit the Pick 5 without getting the first leg, so we'll start off with a safe one.
For a second consecutive year, the Spendthrift Farm resident set North America's single-season record for progeny earnings. The $24.4 million his runners earned in 2021 was more than $8.1 million higher than next-closest Ghostzapper at $16.2 million. If that $8.1-million difference were an actual stallion, it would have finished in the top 20 on the general list. That's quite the chasm for any horse to overcome.
In 2020, Into Mischief reached the top of the heap on the strength of Horse of the Year Authentic's Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic triumphs, and the success of champion sprinter Gamine. Last year, Gamine was back to add a pair of Grade 1 wins and $851,900 to the pot, joined by a pair of electric 3-year-olds in Grade 1 Haskell Stakes winner and Kentucky Derby runner-up (at the time of publishing) Mandaloun and Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile winner Life Is Good. G1 Carter Handicap winner Mischevious Alex completed Into Mischief's quartet of Grade 1 winners in 2021 and highlighted his 13 graded or group stakes winners on the year.
The reason why Into Mischief is my pick to repeat again as leading general sire is the same one I had last year, and the same one I'll use every year for the foreseeable future: he's got the pipeline set for life.
The commercial market is firmly in Into Mischief's corner, putting him on the conveyor belt of success that includes sending him big-time mares, which produce expensive sale horses that have proven to become serious runners, and the cycle begins again. Once that conveyor belt gets going, it tends to only pick up momentum, as it has here. When one set of elite horses leaves the racetrack, another generation quickly takes its place, and perhaps goes even farther.
Into Mischief is perennially one of North America's most active stallions by mares bred, meaning he'll have a unique foundation of blue-collar earners to support the flashy graded stakes horses, the likes of which few of his rivals can muster. Looking to the future, Into Mischief has 195 newly-turned 2-year-olds of 2022; once again from the strongest book of mares he'd seen to date. They'll be given every shot to take home lucrative maiden special weight purses at the country's biggest meets, then become the next class of major stakes winners to keep their sire at the top of the list for years to come.
Get comfortable. The top of the list doesn't look to be changing anytime soon.
2. The North American Foal Crop Will Rise In 2023
This might seem out of place on a list of predictions for 2022, but stay with me, here.
Many pearls have been clutched over North America's shrinking foal crop, and it's certainly harrowing to see that number get slashed by more than half from 44,000 in 1990 to a projected 18,700 in 2022. Assuming The Jockey Club's projections for 2021 and 2022 hold true, the foal crop will have posted a decline in seven consecutive seasons, and the last time it grew by more than one percent was 2005.
However, this is a business that loves to chase a trend, and after an auction season that saw incredible depth and record-setting returns, it's not hard to imagine present and potential breeders eyeing that landscape and seeking out their own piece of it. The November breeding stock sales were strong to the last day, suggesting there is a commercial craving for broodmares that might not yet be quenched by the sale ring. If there is demand, the supply will catch up, whether that means bringing mares back into production that might have gotten time off or retiring fillies from the racetrack to enter the breeding shed. This is not a business of people who happily accept not getting what they want.
Assuming that demand is met with enough horseflesh, one would assume more mares would be bred than in previous years, with the hope that the market will remain just as electric when the ensuing foals enter the commercial space a few years down the road. Since the foals would be conceived in 2022 and born in 2023, this is a long-term prediction that hinges on the short-term.
With all of that being said, I don't expect the 2022 Report of Mares Bred to be bursting at the seams like it's the 1980s again, or even the post-recession upturn of the mid-2010s. Even if breeders are as enthusiastic as they've been in years, there are only so many mares out there to be bred. Save for a mass exodus of broodmares from other countries, any rise in the foal crop is going to have to be a gradual crawl by design. A percentage point or two of growth, though, would be a giant morale boost for an industry that desperately needs horses to fill starting gates around the country.
3. Justify Will Be The Leading Freshman Sire By Earnings
Justify
The 2018 Triple Crown winner tied with fellow Ashford Stud Mendelssohn as North America's most active stallion of the 2019 breeding season with 252 mares bred, and he attracted an absolute murderer's row of mares to fill his first book. There is little excuse for anyone but Justify to finish at the top of the freshman sire list.
If he is successful in that assignment, Justify will take a familiar path to the top employed by Ashford Stud to get the likes of Uncle Mo and American Pharoah to the head of the freshman list: Get as many foals on the ground and into the starting gates as possible, and use the deep class from that first book of mares to propel the foals into the biggest races. It's the plan that every stallion manager draws up for their rookies, but only a chosen few are able to execute it to perfection.
The commercial market seems willing to go on this ride with Justify. He finished fourth among North American-based sires by average yearling sale price ($357,387) and second by yearling gross ($26,804,000). We'll learn more about whether those looks and pages can run when we get into this year's juvenile sale season, but that kind of early endorsement is critical for a stallion with expectations as big as Justify's.
If Justify is somehow unable to get the job done, the logical next guess would be Lane's End resident City of Light. The stallion himself is a specimen, and his yearlings were received astoundingly well during last year's sales. I get the impression the City of Lights (Cities of Light?) are going to do their best work around two turns, which might preclude them from the early prizes on the juvenile stakes calendar, but I thought the same of Gun Runner, and we all saw how that turned out.
4. Arrogate Rebounds From His Rough Freshman Season
One of the biggest surprises of last year's sire races was the highly-touted champion Arrogate finishing out of the top 10 by earnings among freshman sires. After his brilliant racing career, strong debut book of mares, and fevered support at auction – hastened by his untimely demise – the dominoes appeared to be set for him to contend for the top spot, but his first crop left more questions than answers.
The late resident of Juddmonte Farms finished the year in 12th on the freshman earnings list, and without a North American stakes winner. His first winner didn't come until September at the tail end of the Saratoga meet, and his only stakes-placed runner on the year ran second in a restricted stakes at Delaware Park. Arrogate's freshman season might not have been a worst-case scenario when put up against his lofty expectations, but it certainly teetered on the edge of it.
A year earlier, we were saying a lot of the same things about Runhappy, a much-hyped stallion who limped to a 15th-place finish on the freshman sire chart in 2020 without a stakes winner to his name. A year changed a lot for Runhappy, who leapt to fourth among second-crop sires by earnings in 2021, powered by Grade 2 winners Following Sea and Smile Happy.
Runhappy rewarded patience during his own on-track career, not truly hitting his stride until the summer of his 3-year-old campaign. Arrogate had a similar trajectory, vaulting himself into graded stakes competition during the Saratoga meet of his 3-year-old season, and winning the world's most expensive races later that year and into age four. He didn't even make his first start until April of his sophomore year, so we still don't have an apples-to-apples comparison of what the Arrogates should be doing at this stage based on their sire's own racing career.
The Arrogate foals always had the two-turn look to them as young horses, suggesting they might relish the opportunities to go longer that will be afforded to them as they get older. Any runners that make noise on the Triple Crown trail would be late to the party, but the longer races later in the spring and beyond should play to their advantage if they have the talent to match their pedigrees. One or two of those could change the entire trajectory of a stud career cut short.
The tide has already started to turn for Arrogate, who picked up his first stakes winner on Jan. 1 when Alittleloveandluck took the Ginger Brew Stakes on the turf at Gulfstream Park. Arrogate left himself a lot of ground to make up on the leaders in his class, but he fits the profile of a stallion that's got it in him to pull it off.
5. The Auction Market Cools Off A Bit
I never felt like I got an acceptable answer for the question I kept asking throughout a cracking 2021 auction season: “Why is the market THIS good?”
Were people with gobs of money excited to spend it and blow off some COVID-related steam? I'm sure they were. Are purses up at some of the sport's biggest meets, making it more appealing to race horses? Definitely. Were there some other forces in play? Probably. Even so, it's hard to fathom how even a combination of these factors led major buyers to stick around until Books 5 and 6 of the Keeneland September sale when they'd have normally been home for days.
Personally, I think a lot of key players held on to their money and horses during the 2020 auction season, and once it was clear there was going to be a Thoroughbred industry to come back to in 2021, they had more capital than they normally would. With more money in reserve, that pushed everyone down a book or two in order to buy horses in their price range.
If I'm right about that, it means the end users out there might have spent a big chunk of their surplus in 2021, and they might enter this year's auctions with budgets closer to a typical year.
When a good thing appears suddenly, it can vanish just as quickly. However, the Thoroughbred industry is not known for suddenness, barring some kind of global-scale economic event. I don't expect the market to grow from the fever-dream season it saw in 2021, but I don't expect it to plummet, either.
Record paces are hard to keep up, but a slight downturn can still result in an all-time renewal of a particular sale. That's where I see us headed in 2022, probably for reasons as scattered as the ones that got us here in the first place.
This piece originally appeared in The Back Ring, the Paulick Report's bloodstock newsletter. To learn more about the Back Ring, click here.
