Central Banker has been on a steady ascent among New York's stallion ranks since entering stud in 2015, and he's halfway toward his goal of making it all the way to the top this season.
With 7 1/2 months of 2021 in the books, the 11-year-old son of Speightstown is currently New York's leading sire by earnings by a comfortable margin, with 79 runners making a combined $2,653,913. The next closest is Big Brown with $1,659,689.
If he should finish the season at the top of the New York sire standings, it would complete a climb up the charts that saw him finish second to Big Brown last year, third to Big Brown and Freud in 2019, and 10th in 2018 with just his freshman crop.
John McMahon, farm manager for McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds, said the key to Central Banker's success was being the right horse at the right time for the New York program, in terms of the profile of his foals and the types of races available where they excel.
This is evident in the stakes runners that Central Banker has put on the track. He is currently New York's leading sire by 2021 stakes winners, with three. Much like the earnings race, he was second among Empire State sires by stakes winners in 2020 and third in 2019.
“He's a very consistent stallion,” McMahon said. “They run well at six furlongs on the dirt, and they tend to run early. There's a lot of races written that they tend to be very competitive in.”
Whether Central Banker tops the sire list this year or not, he is in a prime position to continue being at or near the top of the standings for years to come.
His first crop came out blazing, easily claiming New York's freshman sire title, and finishing fourth nationally in the 2018 freshman race, behind just Cross Traffic, Goldencents, and Cairo Prince.
That group was led by Bankit, who made $329,625 in his juvenile season. Bankit's form has remained consistent into his 5-year-old season in 2021, which includes stakes wins at Belmont Park and Laurel Park, and most recently, a third-place finish in the Grade 3 Monmouth Cup Stakes.
Breeders responded to Central Banker's leading freshman year by packing his book with 130 mares for the 2019 breeding season. He was then New York's second-most active stallion in 2020, with 114 mares visiting him.
The cycle of popularity for a young stallion tends to reach its apex in the first couple years, then drop off in the next two as breeders wait to see if his first foals will be competitive runners. It was a boon to have the breeders come back after his strong freshman season, but many never left. Central Banker has yet to cover less than 76 mares in a season.
“I think McMahon of Saratoga is good at putting a foundation of mares underneath a stallion,” McMahon said. “The important thing is you have a good foundation of mares behind you, and (farm owner) Joe McMahon has a really keen eye for getting good mares and creating a good infrastructure of breeders to help move a stallion along. It's not a one-man show. It's people in our region who own mares, it's people out of our region who own mares. We're all reaping the rewards of a program which is geared toward helping a young stallion get a foothold. We're in the right state at the right time with the right horse.”
Having so many foals on the ground and at the track is a critical part of Central Banker's success, but McMahon said what makes it all work is the stallion making use of those numbers with an assembly line-like uniformity.
“They're very consistent physically, so you know what you're getting into as a breeder when you breed to a horse like Central Banker,” McMahon said. “He tends to put size on a smaller mare and tends to take a bigger mare and put a little more body into her.
“I've never had a bad hind leg on a horse, never had a club foot,” he continued. “There are some things that are just automatic throw-outs when you're looking at horses, and he never has them.”
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