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Mating Plans: Sun Valley Farm

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 Barry Butzer of Sun Valley Farm.

WILLA (m, 5, Will Take Charge–Miss Kilroy, by A.P. Indy), to be bred to Blame, and her half-sister KITTY (m, 3, Street Boss–Miss Kilroy, by A.P. Indy), to be bred to Union Rags

Very lucky to have my dad at side the day Miss Kilroy strode into the ring at the 2009 January Keeneland Breeding Stock Sale, an 11-year-old A.P. Indy daughter with one winner. While I thought about it, he bought her. In the next 18 months, she produced her first stakes winner, and yet another daughter became stakes placed in a Group 1 in Ireland.

Fast forward 13 years and she turned out to be one of the best impulse buys of all time for us, a page that has expanded to include five individual stakes-producing daughters. While Miss Kilroy (at age 24) is happily enjoying her retirement, these (two of her last three daughters) are just beginning their careers as broodmares:

Willa, a minor winner from three starts, is expecting her first foal by Gun Runner next month, and heads to Blame this season. I can't think of a better stallion to start a young mare. From a personal perspective, we raised a very talented Blame filly, a wire-to-wire winner in an Oaklawn maiden special last month. Produced from an Unbridled's Song mare, the choice was obvious.

Although unraced, Kitty is a solidly built sprinter-type much like her sire, Street Boss. Thought Union Rags was an excellent choice for her. We have had a number of them and he always provides size, scope and athleticism. Think he is in a great spot to use, having experienced big books filled with quality mares of late, while standing at twice the fee.

COURT APPEAL (m, 11, Candy Ride {Arg}–Rehear, by Coronado's Quest), to be bred to Charlatan

Presently in foal to Frosted, Court Appeal is off to a fast start as a producer. Her first foal is the multiple stakes winner Elle Z (City Zip) and her second foal is the talented GI-stakes placed Ginsburned (Noble Mission {GB}). Hard to imagine, other than both being Lane's End Stallions, two stallions with [such] vastly different profiles, so I kind of think she could be the real deal. Her current 3-year-old, Mrs Whistler (Tonalist), owns some fairly impressive works for owner MyRacehorse.

Charlatan has the goods, and is a slam dunk commercially. Competition was keen to get a nice mare in, so we chose Court Appeal. I always like to double up on important females, and this mating finds Silken Doll (second dam of Speightstown) repeated as Court Appeal's third dam.

BETWIXTING (m, 6, Macho Uno–Between the Clouds, by Sky Classic), to be bred to Quality Road

Homebred Betwixting provided us an exciting 2021, reeling off five straight wins, culminating with a win in the listed Satin and Lace S. She hails from a productive Sam-Son Farm family, her dam being a half-sister to a champion grass horse in Canada.

Betwixting turned out to be a real sprint specialist, with a devastating late kick at five and six furlongs. Quality Road has proven to be a consistent source of two-turn, Saturday afternoon graded stakes winners, so I thought it was a great match. As it turns out, Corniche (Quality Road)'s dam is Blushing Groom/Nijinsky, a pedigree with very strong similarities to our Betwixting.

HIGH STYLE (m, 15, Giant's Causeway–Tout Charmant, by Slewvescant), to be bred to Essential Quality, and her daughter MCNALLY (m, 4, Liam's Map), to be bred to Candy Ride {Arg}

High Style is another mare that has produced a couple of graded stakes horses for us, including New and Improved (Cairo Prince), winner of Belmont's GII Sands Point S. New and Improved made news recently–as the second highest-selling mare in foal to Authentic–at the Keeneland November Sale. Versatile producer with winners at the top level on the dirt, grass and synthetic.

Champion and Classic winner Essential Quality will be High Style's most accomplished mate to date. You can't help becoming enamored with his race record and deep family ties. He was all class as he struck a pose in the Godolphin yard the afternoon we paid a visit; when he went for a walk, he sealed the deal.

McNally will start her new career visiting the court of leading sire Candy Ride {Arg}. Arguably the most accomplished of proven sires, and looks to be establishing a sire-of-sires line few in history can match. Again, when it comes to young mares, the proven sire is the best choice.

Candy Ride provides that in spades, and has a real affinity for the Unbridled's Song line.

DIVINE ESCAPADE (m, 13, A.P. Indy–Madcap Escapade, by Hennessy), to be bred to Candy Ride {Arg}

Presently in foal to Curlin, a multiple stakes-producing A.P. Indy mare, whose first dam was not only a sales topper, but known to put on a show in a Grade I. Her first two stakes horses to date (by Speightstown and by Runhappy), have both shown ability; her 3-year-old (Blame) filly is in Japan; and her Gun Runner (2-year-old) and Good Magic (yearling) are both in good hands.

For reasons stated above, Candy Ride made the most sense in this spot as well. This mare is a typical A.P. Indy (except for her chestnut color), big frame and plenty of bone.

On pedigree, physical presence and the success of this cross, Candy Ride made all the sense in the world. Additionally, her Gun Runner 2-year-old looks to be pretty special.

CHAUSIE (m, 14, Bluegrass Cat--Descapate, by Dehere), to be bred to Omaha Beach, and MARRAKESH EXPRESS (m, 8, Union Rags–Layounne, by Mt. Livermore), to be bred to Improbable

Two other mares share a connection in each having a filly sell at Saratoga last year–a Union Rags and a Munnings [respectively]–two fillies we have high hopes for, in their future racing careers.

Chausie, presently in foal to Munnings, is a graded stakes-winning producer and consistently gets a good sales type. She heads to Omaha Beach this season. Her dam, Descapate, won stakes by as many as seven lengths, a family we believe in. Omaha Beach is a can't miss and comes from one of the best families in the stud book. The opportunity of Dehere 4×3 definitely drove this mating.

Marrakesh Express, presently in foal to Global Campaign, is from a prestigious Harbor View Farm family and is booked to Improbable for 2022. He is the one first-year horse I missed out on in 2021. This mare's Munnings filly was in our top five that year; leggy filly and all quality. One look at this horse, and there is no question that these Improbable foals will make everyone's short list at the sales.

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.

The post Mating Plans: Sun Valley Farm appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Values Sires for 2022, Part 3: First Yearlings

With the global economy tottering in the Covid headwind, last year a lot of stallion farms went out of their way to help breeders with fee cuts. As a result, as I've previously suggested, the market's remarkable rally since means that the present trading environment represents a pretty historic opportunity. And that particularly applies to the next group in our series, as the first to have absorbed those cuts. (Even last year, it felt as though the rookies had been priced with the usual and necessary opportunism.) Especially because one or two of these, from that lowered base, have now received an extra trim of the kind customarily offered, in plainer times, for stallions beginning to lose the priceless commercial advantage of novelty.

His third book is always an early crossroads in a stallion's career. While the second might at least start to reflect the physical impression made by first foals, the third will be responding to some concrete evidence of their reception in the ring. If things have not gone well, in that initial test, then some breeders will tend to back off and wait until stock has been measured more rigorously on the racetrack.

Obviously there's no guarantee that the guy who tops the weanling averages will retain his primacy when finally reaching that stage, and vice versa. But it's no less clear that a depressing number of people will by then have disappeared over the horizon, the job done, meanwhile engaged on the next cycle of sires that remain spared the inconvenience of exposing their ability (or otherwise) actually to come up with runners.

As things stand, then, we must pick a precarious path between trying to harness the undeniable energies of the market-commercial esteem, after all, will hold up book sizes and so fill “the pipeline”–and keeping the faith with those that you think deserve a chance to reward it, once their stock finally gets somewhere near a starting gate. As such, each having come through his first market test in decent shape, we make no apologies for sticking by three stallions we've liked from the get-go.

With this particular intake, most roads have led to Spendthrift. In the first instance, that was simply because so many of its most coveted prospects were herded up there. Even with their reliably competitive pricing strategy, the late B. Wayne Hughes and his team launched the first, second and joint-third most expensive rookies in 2020. That felt like a pretty significant moment in the evolution of the aggressive commercial model that had revolutionised competition for mares in the Bluegrass.

But then, last year, you also had to factor in the characteristic lead taken by Hughes in cutting fees so purposefully. Rival farms will duly have to pardon Spendthrift's central role in the value conversation, at least for this instalment of our series, even though our top pick a) wasn't one of their headline recruits when starting out and b) was already priced too attractively to be one of the 15 of 21 stallions on the farm roster to take a cut last year.

As ever, however, these choices reflect just one person's highly subjective opinions. Different stallions fit different mares; different fees fit different pockets. But what I would say is that it's a good time to stick with any of this group that you do like, as you'll be taking the foals to market after they have actually started to show their wares on the track. That introduces a degree of volatility, and tends to drive nervous breeders elsewhere. But the odds for those who do get it right will certainly be rewarding.

Bubbling under: The $360,000 Audible filly that topped the fifth session at Keeneland November was the most expensive weanling sold by those taking their bow at the sales, but the WinStar stallion's $110,000 median was also outstanding. He was a pathfinder for his sire in stretching out for a Derby podium and, as a classier type, also leads a fresh wave in Into Mischief's career as a sire of sires. He covered over 400 mares in his first two seasons and duly holds his fee at $22,500. He has all the momentum he needs, but he's just competing with another son of Into Mischief who simply can't be dislodged from the podium at a much cheaper service.

Mitole was one of those that took a really businesslike cut at Spendthrift last year, slashed to $15,000 from $25,000. Having followed up his staggering debut book of 230 with one of 208, there will be a lot of people out there gratified that his pedigree has meanwhile received such a lift from the stellar sophomore endeavors of half-brother Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow). That might feel especially useful for a son of the exported Eskendereya, but don't forget that Mitole was his second GI Met Mile winner in three crops. His first weanlings having performed in line with his opening fee, fourth in the averages, this brilliant racehorse finds himself precisely where the program would hope to have placed him at this stage.

Bronze: PRESERVATIONIST (Arch-Flying Dixie by Dixieland Band) Airdrie, $10,000

This guy was always going to require a little patience, so it's no surprise that he couldn't repeat his opening three-figure book. But we can't just allow block-booking of the podium for stallions that churn through industrial numbers, in the idle hope that they will keep jumping through the market hoops until you discover, too late, that they don't sire runners!

A runner is exactly what you are entitled to expect from Preservationist, and I remain adamant that those who keep the faith will ultimately get their due reward. He offers everything we should be looking for in a young sire: a superb physical ($485,000 yearling, when Arch was a $30,000 cover); a pedigree without a single loose rivet, with sire and dam both tracing to King Ranch matriarchs; and elite performance, for instance in thrashing Catholic Boy (More Than Ready) by 4 1/2 lengths in the GII Suburban. (The runner-up went to market at more than twice the fee.)

A lack of precocity is perceived by some as the cardinal sin, but Preservationist's weanlings actually performed perfectly respectably (averaging just under $40,000) and he will run down those commercial hares in the end.

Silver: OMAHA BEACH (War Front-Charming by Seeking The Gold), Spendthrift, $30,000

The loss of Spendthrift's owner this summer has given the poignant look of a parting gift to the characteristically decisive lead he took on fees this time last year. Now the team continuing his work has given Omaha Beach another trim, from $35,000 to $30,000, even though he had appeared sportingly priced (notwithstanding his status as the most expensive of the intake) when starting out at $45,000.

This latest gesture to breeders is one that the horse hardly appeared to need. Last spring he precisely replicated his opening book, at 215 mares, and then did the necessary in his debut at the weanling sales, topping the averages at $142,692.

Bottom line, then, is that Omaha Beach has been given every possible chance to this point. And he really is abundantly equipped to seize it. Winning Grade Is at six and nine furlongs in the same campaign was as compelling a signpost as we could hope to find, nowadays, for the speed-carrying elixir we crave in stallions. As such, he must be counted a vital ambassador on the main track for a son of Danzig whose influence has proved so international.

It's not hard to figure out where he has found the genes to do that. He's a half-brother to champion Take Charge Brandi (Giant's Causeway) out of a half-sister to two other Grade I winners in Will Take Charge (Unbridled's Song) and Take Charge Indy (A.P. Indy), their dam Take Charge Lady (Dehere) herself a multiple elite scorer. He also doubles up War Front's damsire Rubiano behind his third dam. We know how Rubiano's half-sister gave us a monster dirt influence in Tapit, while the other three sires seeding the bottom half of Omaha Beach's third generation are Raise A Native, Buckpasser and Deputy Minister.

Omaha Beach looked pretty good value at his opening fee, as the market has immediately confirmed. He looked great value, last year, at $35,000. So what can we call him at $30,000? Even those who can afford to play at this level of the market appreciate that kind of saving. In relative terms, then, this is a very generous fee.

Gold: MAXIMUS MISCHIEF (Into Mischief-Reina Maria by Songandaprayer), Spendthrift, $7,500

We couldn't really offer a greater contrast to Preservationist than this blatant commercial formula. But from the outset Maximus Mischief had the look of a horse that could bring back memories for those clients of the farm who got his sire started, and everything has so far been functioning like clockwork. In this day and age, in fact, I find it mildly surprising that he could muster “only” 171 mares last spring after receiving 198 in his debut book.

His first weanlings sold every bit as briskly as one would hope, 26 of 31 finding a new home for an average $42,153–approaching six times his covering fee. With his record of precocity, Maximus Mischief looks tailormade for pinhookers and his yearlings will surely be high on the list for a winter in Florida. (Remember he was himself a $340,000 2-year-old at Timonium.)

Having disappeared after his first defeat, on his sophomore debut, Maximus Mischief went to market with a seamless juvenile record, beaten to a single call in three starts while opening up by an aggregate 17 lengths, the visuals underpinned by the fastest Beyer of the crop. We're familiar with Into Mischief upgrading his early mares, not least in producing some of his first sons to stud, so it counts for plenty that this guy's second dam also produced the tragic juvenile Grade I winner Secret Compass (Discreet Cat) from only three foals.

It's the easiest thing in the world to picture all this translating into a run at the 2023 freshman championship. If that happens, not only will this fee soon recede in the rear-view mirror: it will be those who stay aboard now who reap the benefits at ringside.

There really is a limit to how many horses like this, flaring brightly but briefly, we want to see shaping the breed. But if the purpose of this exercise is to identify value, then the modest stakes–and the potential odds of reward–are just too tempting to resist.

The post Values Sires for 2022, Part 3: First Yearlings appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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This Side Up: A Gift That Keeps On Giving

Hang on a minute. Weren't the seven fat years supposed to be followed by seven lean years? The way the market has gone in 2021, we have barely had seven lean minutes. Nothing, certainly, approaching the kind of reset required, logically and historically, for the cyclical functioning of capitalism.

The prospect of some such “correction” had been the only latent comfort, cold as it was, for a bloodstock market confronted by the global economic shock of the pandemic. Because a decade of almost relentless growth wasn't even ending due to any inherent weakness of the industry: we were just being broadsided, out of nowhere, by something that nobody could ever have factored into their calculations. (Not, at any rate, without Pharoah summoning Joseph from the dungeon). If we took our medicine, at least we knew that the graph now had more space to accommodate a fresh spike in the profit line.

In the event, the market barely wobbled. There were some terrifying days for the 2-year-old sector, admittedly, while clearance rates often suggested a nervous pragmatism, notably in the European market. But overall demand on both sides of the Atlantic proved far more resilient than anticipated. And we have all seen-with due relief, among those who had felt trapped by the slow cycles of our business-how values have come roaring back in 2021.

On the face of it, then, some will be wondering whether we should also renew their anxiety that the market, at some point, remains bound to overheat? The long bull run up to 2020, after all, had been driven by fiscal responses to the last emergency in 2008: continuous doping of the economy with cash, via low interest rates and quantitative easing. This recovery already has a very different feel. It must negotiate rising inflation and fractured supply chains, while the panic of stock markets Friday betrayed an ongoing instability.

Well, whatever happens, our own particular niche of the economy should not overlook a “correction” that did actually take place, this time last year. At that point, even volatility felt like a remote prospect. Everything was stuck. Whether on moral or business grounds–or both, which should perhaps always be the case for capitalism to operate healthily–many stud farms felt obliged to show breeders that they were “all in this together” and took a scythe to their fees.

Nor were they just talking a good game. Sure, even at the best of times they will always trim a few stallions that need a little help. But this time the top dozen Bluegrass farms collectively cut sires with their first foals due, for instance, by 16.2%. In 2020, they had eased the preceding intake by just 0.5%. Stallions about to present their first yearlings were slashed by 19.9%, compared with 8.33% for their predecessors in 2020. And those launching their first juveniles came down fully 22.8%, again more than double the 10.2% squeeze on the equivalent group the previous year. Moreover many senior, proven stallions–who should really have been at a premium, as a relatively safe harbor in turbulent times–also took generous cuts.

Now that the boom times seem to have returned so quickly, however, it is hardly as though stud accountants can turn round to breeders and say: “Well, thank goodness the storm seems to be abating. We do hope you guys will remember how we stood by y'all in an hour of need. But you will understand that we must now restore our prices to the levels we felt competitive, and mutually viable, before last year.”

Instead they have obliged breeders with the kind of selective cuts customary in a normal trading environment–only this time, of course, from a much lower base. And that has to mean one of two things. Either stallion fees were way too high, up until last year; or they are now pitched at such a level, in a humming market, that breeders have a pretty historic opportunity.

Take Omaha Beach, who looked very fairly priced when retiring to Spendthrift at $45,000 and duly welcomed 215 mares in 2020. The one and only reason to cut him to $35,000 for 2021 was that the late B. Wayne Hughes–leading the way, as so often, and promptly emulated by most rival farms–had responded to the crisis by reducing 15 of the farm's 21 stallions. Remember that when Bolt d'Oro had similarly started with 214 mares, in 2019, Spendthrift had left his 2020 fee unchanged.

Omaha Beach promptly replicated his debut book precisely, with another 215 covers, and has made a spectacular debut at the sales, dominating the freshmen weanling averages at $144,692. Nonetheless the Spendthrift team, respectful of the Hughes legacy, have indulged clients by giving him an extra trim to $30,000. This is the type of gesture often made by commercial farms when a young stallion, whose early supporters are demonstrably disposed to use new sires, must compete with the rookies meanwhile brought into play on two subsequent turns of the carousel. It's an incentive to keep the faith, in anticipation of continued momentum at the yearling sales and then on the racetrack. So it's a coherent and familiar strategy, albeit not one that every farm would consider particularly necessary after a sire has passed his first tests (book sizes/sales debut) as well as Omaha Beach. Without the pandemic, however, Spendthrift would surely have been cutting him from $45,000 to $40,000. So, in effect, we're getting a 25% saving on one of the most plausible prospects in Kentucky–even though the market for the sale of his foals has basically retrieved its 2019 values.

Now we all know that our industry faces some uncomfortable challenges; and that it isn't addressing some of them terribly well. But there are another 51 weeks in the year to gnash our teeth over those. For once, let's recognize some positives. A lot of people out there seem to be eager to buy themselves a Thoroughbred, just at the moment when breeding one has become more affordable. Perhaps, after the frustrations of lockdown, the affluent have been reminded that life is for living. If not, well, purse money at some tracks is even threatening to give their investment an air of viability.

So whatever twists and turns await, the initial road out of the pandemic has proved straight and smooth. And let's not forget that we were all given some free gas in the tank.

Sure, maybe stallion fees were too steep before. But they do represent a critical variable, when other base costs–such as keep and labor–are pretty constant, and sufficient to make skimping on your choice of stallion a false economy. Given how marginal a “correction” we had to absorb, in ringside demand, we should count ourselves fortunate that the stallion farms volunteered to substitute one of their own.

The post This Side Up: A Gift That Keeps On Giving appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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A Way-Too-Early Look At The First-Crop Weanling Sire Race At Kentucky’s November Sales

Any reasonable person would acknowledge that it's far too early in the game to be declaring winners and losers in a first-crop stallion race among those with first weanlings this year.

There have been exactly two days of selling at the major Kentucky fall mixed sales, prefaced by a few smaller sales around the country – hardly enough to provide an accurate projection of long-term commercial or on-track success for this year's class of young stallions.

However, the context behind those two days of selling in Kentucky make it worth noting who performed well.

The Fasig-Tipton November sale and Book 1 of the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale are the pinnacle of North America's mixed auction calendar. The quantity of foals cataloged in each session says a lot about a first-year stallion's perceived spot on the high-end pecking order, and the performance of their foals when the hammer falls is a major dress rehearsal for the elite yearling sales to come. How a new stallion performs in these boutique sessions won't make or break a commercial legacy, but it's good information to have.

By that standard, the first jump out of the gate went to Spendthrift Farm's Omaha Beach, who was the leading first-crop weanling sire by average sale price, combining the Fasig-Tipton November sale on Tuesday and Book 1 of Keeneland November on Wednesday.

The Grade 1-winning son of War Front had five weanlings change hands through the ring over the two days for an average of $160,000.

Leading the way for Omaha Beach was a colt who sold Wednesday at Keeneland to Freya Stables for $300,000.

The dark bay or brown colt, offered as Hip 176, is out of the unraced Bellamy Road mare Achalaya, whose three foals of racing age are all winners, including Grade 1 winner Casa Creed and Grade 3 winner Chess's Dream. Gainesway consigned the colt, as agent.

Omaha Beach sent the most expensive first-crop weanling through the Fasig-Tipton ring on Tuesday, when Hip 46, a filly out of the Medaglia d'Oro mare Glory Gold, sold to Sewanne Investments for $220,000.

The New York-bred filly is a sister to stakes winners Espresso Shot and Venti Valentine, and she was consigned by Ballysax Bloodstock, agent.

Spendthrift Farm general manager Ned Toffey said he knew expectations were high for Omaha Beach's first foals. When an incoming stallion enters the marketplace with a $45,000 stud fee, a strong commercial reception is supposed to be a feature, not a pleasant surprise. Toffey said he was satisfied with how the Omaha Beach weanlings met their first challenge.

“They're just classy, elegant looking foals, very much like him,” Toffey said. “They're really good mentally. The stallion is wonderful mentally, and that's something that we're hearing from breeders is how good-minded these foals are.”

A fellow Spendthrift Farm resident wasn't far behind Omaha Beach among the early leaders in the first-crop race.

Champion Vino Rosso had five weanlings bring an average of $135,000, led by the most expensive first-crop weanling of Keeneland November's first book.

That was Hip 112, a dark bay or brown colt out of the unraced Tiznow mare Fair Huntress who sold to Bolter Bloodstock for $340,000.

The colt hails from the family of Grade 1 winner Competitionofideas and Grade 3 winner Devil by Design.

He was consigned by Glennwood Farm, which also bred Vino Rosso and consigned the Breeders' Cup Classic-winning son of Curlin as a yearling.

Vino Rosso's second-leading weanling came at the Fasig-Tipton November sale, when BW Stables went to $150,000 for Hip 114, a colt out of the Bodemeister mare Storm Raven. Ballysax Bloodstock consigned him, as agent.

“He's just been incredibly consistent,” Toffey said about Vino Rosso. “We get one breeder after another giving us this great feedback on how much they like their foal; things like 'best foal this mare's ever thrown,' 'best foal on the farm.' The rest of the market's starting to see that as well. They're very athletic, very well-balanced, everything you want to see.”

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