Calumet Sets Lexitonian’s Fee at $7,500

Grade I winner Lexitonian (Spightstown) will stand the 2024 breeding season at Calumet Farm for a fee of $7,500, live foal, after spending his first two years at stud at Lane's End, the farm announced on Tuesday. The 7-year-old stallion, who won the 2021 GI Alfred G. Vanderbilt H. and finished second in the GI Bing Crosby S., was bred and campaigned by Calumet Farm.

Lexitonian joins Keen Ice (Curlin), Oxbow (Awesome Again), Hightail (Mineshaft) and Channel Cat (English Channel) at $7,500. Bal A Bali (Brz) (Put It Back), Bravazo (Awesome Again), Ransom the Moon (Malibu Moon), Real Solution (Kitten's Joy) and True Timber (Mineshaft) will all stand for a fee of $5,000, live foal. Big Blue Kitten (Kitten's Joy), Hence (Street Boss), Mr. Z (Malibu Moon) and Producer (GB) (Dutch Art {GB}) are all listed as private for 2024.

The post Calumet Sets Lexitonian’s Fee at $7,500 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Kentucky Sires for 2021: Fourth-Crop Stallions

What a tough game this is. You only get to show the first card in your hand before virtually the whole pile of chips is distributed. One or two players gather up their winnings, whooping triumphantly, and suddenly your own hopes of staying in the game–your hopes of a viable stud career in Kentucky–depend exorbitantly on the next card. Generally speaking, it doesn't matter if you turn out to have had a whole sheaf of aces farther into your hand. By the time you can turn those over, there will be nothing left on the table but empty glasses and a full ashtray.

We noted in the previous instalment that a third crop of juveniles, alongside a first crop of 4-year-olds, typically represents a final chance. Sure enough, compared with 18 Bluegrass stallions approaching that crossroads, we find just six left to review today from the preceding intake.

But whatever sympathy we feel for those meanwhile driven into regional or overseas programs, the nature of the business today means that they have actually delivered as legible and legitimate a sample of their work as we are ever going to get. So many stallions nowadays cover 500 mares across their first three seasons, only to find themselves reduced to a dozen or two within a couple of years. If anything, then, their embarrassment now should prompt us to revisit the vogue they enjoyed when first going to market–and perhaps the contrast might even make us hesitate before rushing to the next lot of rookies off the carousel.

In this group, however, there are a couple who have done something beyond almost all young stallions and created a sustainable niche in the market. Having made a brisk start with his first juveniles in 2018, in fact, GOLDENCENTS (Into Mischief–Golden Works, by Banker's Gold) entertained no fewer than 239 mares at Spendthrift the following spring and another 204 last year–taking him to an aggregate 1,133 through his first six years.

And he will presumably maintain the traffic, his farm having taken such a purposeful lead on fee cuts in the pandemic marketplace: for 2021 he's back down to his original fee of $15,000, from $25,000 last year.

Goldencents topped the third-crop championship in 2020 by nearly all indices, having previously been champion freshman by winners (second to studmate Cross Traffic by prize money) and then headed the second-crop table. Given his fairly industrial output, however, he is nothing like so dominant in percentage terms. It would be pushing things, certainly, to describe nine black-type winners and three graded stakes winners from 255 starters as a wildly exciting yield.

By My Standards has been a standard-bearer for Goldencents | Coady

But then Goldencents, having been one of the first to demonstrate his sire's capacity to upgrade mares, has also been in the vanguard in terms of testing whether that prowess will be recycled by his sons. He was just a $5,500 yearling, remember, out of a $7,000 mare by a stallion who ended up in Cyprus. The family did bring hardiness (next two dams respectively 18-for-45 and 13-for-46), but somehow Into Mischief ignited a spark of quality in Goldencents that burned up consecutive editions of the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. And while his sire was still available at $35,000 when Goldencents joined him at Spendthrift, his relative affordability has obviously been at a growing premium ever since.

Goldencents was blessed that his own first crop produced a couple who did much the same service, in promoting their sire, as he had himself performed for Into Mischief. In fact, By My Standards and Mr. Money remain far and away his biggest earners to date. And while neither has quite broken the Grade I ice, By My Standards certainly neared the top of the handicap division in his third season and has helped to keep his sire's names in lights all the way through.

Arguably it's about time Goldencents produced a new star, but that's precisely what he can hope to do after getting that reboot from his prolific first crop. In the meantime, admittedly, he has been treading water somewhat at the sales: while one daughter did bring $300,000, he averaged a steady $29,069 with his 2020 yearlings, for 52 sold of 68 offered.

That yield, and all the rest cited here, must of course be placed in the context of an exceptionally challenging market. Be that as it may, we will pretty soon have to cease doing what we're doing today–comparing these survivors against other stallions at the same stage of their career–and instead start measuring them against all those established operators who, having shed the commercial allure of novelty, have already chiselled a lasting foothold in the market.

Cairo Prince | Sarah Andrew

Sticking to this group, however, you couldn't ask for a more instructive foil to Goldencents than CAIRO PRINCE (Pioneerof the Nile–Holy Bubbette, by Holy Bull). They have reached this point absolutely in tandem: Goldencents has 384 named foals, Cairo Prince 380; Goldencents has had 256 starters, Cairo Prince 249; Goldencents has 158 winners, Cairo Prince 156; they both, moreover, have 26 black-type horses. Sure enough, they stand for the same fee. But it's the Airdrie stallion who has a slight but consistent edge at the top end: by stakes winners (13 plays nine), graded stakes winners (five plays three) and graded stakes horses (ten plays seven).

Moreover Cairo Prince is one of those rare stallions whose initial market reception was way out of line with the ranking implied by his opening fee. We've seen, throughout this series, how that seldom guarantees anything–whether for better or worse. In this case, however, it has turned out that Cairo Prince was quite rightly “found” as a $10,000 start-up.

His stock was received with such enthusiasm that he actually earned two fee hikes before he had a single runner, an extremely rare accolade. And if he, too, has now required a trim from $25,000, then the buzz he generated with his sales debut in 2017–when he achieved a staggering average yield of 15 times his fee–will only now start to tell in the improved quality of his mares.

True, commercial opportunism tends to be finite wherever it occurs in the cycle, and Cairo Prince dropped to 87 mares last spring after being basically fully subscribed to that point. But it's a confident bet that the juveniles heading to the track this year, conceived after that remarkable sales debut, will give fresh commercial kudos to the foals he breeds this time round.

In the meantime, Cairo Prince continues to impress with his sales stock, averaging $47,601 for 57 sold of 78 offered in 2020, confirming him far and away the most resilient and productive sales sire in this group. He just needs his big horse, now, but he's having an excellent winter on the track (three new stakes winners over the past month) and, nationally, only Into Mischief, Tapiture, Not This Time and American Pharoah had more juvenile winners last year. And it certainly does no harm that he now has another productive young stallion so close up, his Grade I-placed half-sister having gained new celebrity as dam of WinStar's thriving rookie Outwork (Uncle Mo).

Mucho Macho Man | EquiSport Photos

In 2020, however, the star turn in this group was MUCHO MACHO MAN (Macho Uno–Ponche de Leona, by Ponche), who inserted himself between Goldencents and Cairo Prince in the third-crop prize money table with two Grade I winners. In previous years, of course, Mucho Gusto's success in the Pegasus World Cup would have been still more lucrative. Moreover that horse was unfortunate to be sidelined after his trip to the desert and only resurfaced when fourth behind Cairo Prince's latest graded stakes winner, Kiss Today Goodbye, in the GII San Antonio S. at Christmas.

Anyhow his sire followed through with an elite success on turf, as well, Rodeo Drive S. winner Mucho Unusual having meanwhile added another two graded stakes even since Christmas. In fact, with a total 51 winners from just 77 starters in 2020, Mucho Macho Man topped the national field last year in earnings-per-foal–and, importantly, we know that his stock is just going to keep thriving. Though precocious enough to contest all three legs of the Triple Crown before his third birthday, he kept filling that great rangy frame of his to win the GI Breeders' Cup Classic at five.

These results are barely filtering through to the commercial market, as he averaged $24,883 for 21 yearling sales of 28 offered, but then he only stands for $7,500. And he goes well at the juvenile sales (Mucho Gusto made no less than $625,000!) just as we should expect of a stallion who relies on deeds not hype. He's a mad outcross but is quietly earning his stripes and hopefully people are beginning to pay attention. His third book had dwindled to just 35, but he has since welcomed 96, 86 and 77 guests to Hill 'n' Dale at Xalapa. Lot of horse for the money, in every way.

Will Take Charge | Louise Reinagel

The rival Mucho Macho Man nosed out for his greatest success was a barely less imposing creature, but now finds himself on a rather less encouraging tangent. It seems a long time, certainly, since WILL TAKE CHARGE (Unbridled's Song–Take Charge Lady, by Dehere) set out at $30,000 and duly dominated this lot in their sales debut with a $169,190 average. This time round he cashed out 37 of 41 for just $13,712, and he's down to a bargain $5,000 at Three Chimneys after being reduced to a very small book last spring.

Will Take Charge has mustered a handful of stakes winners, notably Grade I-placed sprinter Manny Wah, and maybe he will just prove a slow burner, as will sometimes happen with such a scopey horse. His was an especially fine constitution by the standards of his sire, highlighted by an 11-start sophomore campaign that started in January and ended, 26 days after his huge run at the Breeders' Cup, with success in the GI Clark H. His maternal family, meanwhile, has only become more aristocratic with the rise of Omaha Beach (War Front). Everything seemed to be in place so it would be a mystery, as well as a pity, if he can't turn things round.

Cross Traffic | Sarah Andrew

CROSS TRAFFIC (Unbridled's Song–Stop Traffic, by Cure the Blues) is by the same sire and made a stronger start in contesting the succession, helped to the freshman's title by Breeders' Cup champion Jaywalk but also topping the class by overall stakes winners/ performers.

He has not quite maintained that flying start and Spendthrift, who briefly rewarded his freshman title with a hike to $25,000, will be hoping for a reset after halving him from $15,000 to $7,500 this time round. But there are solid grounds for optimism.

For a start, Cross Traffic is no longer dining out simply on Jaywalk. Among his second crop, Ny Traffic carried his standard very valiantly–never more conspicuously than when running Authentic (Into Mischief) himself to a head in the GI Haskell, while he was previously only beaten a length by Maxfield in the GIII Matt Winn S.

And Cross Traffic can soon expect a healthy spike in the graph, with his post-freshman, 2019 book having soared to 188 mares from 60. True, he promptly sank to 59 last year, but that's how fecklessly the commercial market works nowadays. The thing to remember now is that he will have that big crop of juveniles next year, so he's another who can hope that foals conceived this spring may ride fresh headlines on the track.

True, Cross Traffic stands in need of that revival after averaging just $11,630 for the 16 yearlings of 17 sent into the pandemic market, but at least he has exactly that chance brewing. Let's not forget how naturally talented he was, nailed only on the line in the stallion-making GI Met Mile just four months after his debut (got his Grade I next time).

As noted, many stallions in this group have been sold to regional programs or exported, and we're particularly sorry that Fed Biz (great work, Highfield Farm of Alberta!) and Noble Mission (GB) weren't able to get adequate traction. One or two others, however, appear to have slipped off Kentucky rosters with zero announcements on their relocation. I know the farms in question will have applied impeccable standards in deciding their future but it would be a concern if due candour about their “failure,” after so brief an opportunity, is being viewed as too instructive of the flimsiness of the commercial model.

Real Solution | ThoroStride

The only other member of this intake apparently still operating in the Bluegrass on a commercial basis is REAL SOLUTION (Kitten's Joy–Reachforthe-heavens, by Pulpit). Actually he has reversed the standard procedure, having returned to Calumet after a couple of years in Louisiana early on. But he certainly fits the bill for this farm as a dual Grade I winner on turf, with venerable Classic influences seeding his family: his third dam is a Northern Dancer half-sister to champion Slew o' Gold (Seattle Slew) and Classic winner Coastal (Majestic Prince), as well as to the dam of Aptitude (A.P. Indy).

Real Solution covered just 27 mares last spring and his handful of yearlings couldn't work even a $5,000 fee, but he's had a $675,000 2-year-old and, bottom line, he's there to breed runners. That's just what he produced (thanks to the breeders who made his sire) in Ramsey Solution, who is five-for-nine including a $300,000 stakes at Kentucky Downs last September.

In fact, Real Solution has had 33 winners from just 44 starters overall, including three at black-type level; while $10,000 yearling and six-time winner Queens Embrace earned a Grade II placing at Saratoga last summer. That shows what can be done if your priorities are right, and Real Solution could appeal to enlightened breeders as being well named.

In the long term, after all, the breed will suffer badly if people can only afford to use fast-buck commercial sires who are expelled from the Bluegrass the moment their first yearlings leave the sales ring. With so few stallions surviving in this intake, however, we'll combine them with the preceding class for a composite “value podium” next time.

The post Kentucky Sires for 2021: Fourth-Crop Stallions appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Calumet Farm’s 2021 Stallion Roster Features Newcomer Bravazo

Calumet Farm in Lexington, Ky., has released the advertised fees for its 2021 stallion roster, including newcomer Bravazo.

Bravazo, a son of leading sire Awesome Again, will stand for $6,000 LFSN with discounts given for multiple mare packages and quality mares. A homebred runner for Calumet Farm, the D. Wayne Lukas trainee was an honest racehorse who danced every dance.

Bravazo accumulated over $2 million in career earnings. At two, he was second in the Grade 1 Claiborne Breeders' Futurity Stakes. Early in his 3-year-old season he won the G2 Risen Star Stakes, which propelled him into the Triple Crown, where he finished a close second in the Preakness Stakes, only beaten a half-length by Justify, the eventual Triple Crown Winner and Horse of the Year.

Bravazo continued his 3-year-old summer campaign with a second-place finish in the G1 Betfair.com Haskell Invitational Stakes followed by a third in the G1 Runhappy Travers Stakes. Bravazo went on to run for a third place finish in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile and a second in the G1 Clark Handicap.

“Bravazo was an iron horse on the track,” said Calumet Farm's Eddie Kane. “He was a fierce competitor with great resolve and determination. I'm confident he will establish this toughness in his progeny.”

Bravazo joins the Calumet roster headlined by perennial leading turf sire English Channel, a six time Grade 1 winner and Breeders' Cup Turf champion.

English Channel continues to experience great success as a sire with proven runners on both the turf and dirt. In 2020, English Channel is the #1 turf sire by earnings with eight individual black type winners, five graded stakes winners and one Grade 1 winner in Channel Maker.

Ransom the Moon, the only Grade 1-winning sprinting son of Malibu Moon to go to stud, offers breeders with a dirt-speed option on an incredible sire line and is off to a strong stud career having covered 162 mares in his first two years at stud.

After breeding 298 and 221 mares through their first three years at stud respectively, G1 Travers Stakes winner Keen Ice (Curlin) and Brazilian Triple Crown winner Bal a Bali (Put It Back) will have first-crop 2-year-olds in 2021.

Oxbow continues to show great potential, with his biggest and best crops yet to come. He has bred bigger and better crops each year at stud, with next year's 3-year-old crop coming from 153 bred and his following crop coming from 187 bred. Hot Rod Charlie, a 2-year-old son of Oxbow, most recently finished second in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

“Our roster features a wide variety of bloodlines possessing soundness, quality conformation, and a propensity to winning classic two-turn races on both dirt and turf,” said Calumet's Bryna Reeves. “We are focused not only on building long-term relationships with breeders but also sharing in the commercial and racing success of our stallions. I am certain we will have something to fit the needs of almost any breeder.”

Following is the complete list of advertised fees for Calumet Farm's 2021 stallion roster.

English Channel – $27,500
Keen Ice – $12,500
Oxbow – $7,500
Ransom The Moon – $7,500
Bravazo – $6,000
Bal a Bali – $5,000
Big Blue Kitten – $5,000
Real Solution – $5,000
War Correspondent – $5,000
Hightail – $4,000
Mr. Z – $2,500
Optimizer – $2,500
Producer – $2,500
Raison D'Etat – $2,500

The post Calumet Farm’s 2021 Stallion Roster Features Newcomer Bravazo appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Summer Sunday To Defend Her Title In Woodbine’s Royal North Stakes

Summer Sunday, one of two Stuart Simon trainees in the field, seeks to defend her crown in Saturday's co-featured Grade 2 $175,000 Royal North Stakes, at Woodbine.

Bred in Ontario by Trinity West Stables and owned by Anne and William Scott, five-year-old Summer Sunday will look to make a return to the winner's circle for the first time since her victory in the Royal North last July.

Her stablemate, multiple stakes champion Sister Peacock, will also go postward in the six-furlong turf event, part of a card that also includes the $125,000 Trillium Stakes (Grade 3, 1 1/16 miles on the Tapeta) for fillies & mares, three-year-olds and up.

A daughter of Silent Name (JPN) out of the Millennium Allstar mare Dancing Allstar, Summer Sunday heads into the Royal North off a third-place effort in the six-furlong main track Whimsical (Grade 3) on June 21 at Woodbine.

Simon is hoping the bay mare, named Canada's champion female sprinter in 2019, builds off that first start of her campaign.

“I think she was pretty ready the first time,” said Simon. “She hooked a really tough horse [sprint star Jean Elizabeth]. The way the race unfolded, with nobody else going with that filly, I thought she ran a pretty adequate race for her first time this year.”

Debuting in July 2017, Summer Sunday wowed in winning a 5 1/2-furlong Tapeta race by five lengths. She then stepped up to the stakes ranks, notching victories in the Nandi and Muskoka, finishing her campaign a perfect three-for-three.

After a ninth-place finish in the Beaumont (Grade 3) at Keeneland in April 2018 to begin her three-year-old season, Summer Sunday rhymed off wins in four of her next five starts, from April 2018-July 2019.

Summer Sunday, 7-1-1 in 12 starts, closed the curtain on her 2019 season with a runner-up finish in the Seaway Stakes (Grade 3) and a fourth in the Ontario Fashion (Grade 3).

“She's coming into this race in really good shape,” noted Simon. “She seems to be herself. She didn't run badly the first time. I think she'll run that much better this time. With her turf form – she's run once and won this race last year – she should run well on Saturday. I always thought she'd like the turf, I just never had the chance to fit a race in until last year, and after the Royal North, I never had a chance to run her on it again until now.”

A four-year-old daughter of Real Solution, Sister Peacock, co-owned by Simon (along with Brent and Russell McLellan) comes into the Royal North off a sharp score on June 13 at the Toronto oval. The Kentucky-bred took a seven-furlong main track race by three-quarters-of-a-length.

The win was the fifth in 11 starts for the bay filly, who won last year's editions of the Star Shoot Stakes and William D. Graham Memorial.

Bred by Ken and Sarah Ramsey, Sister Peacock sports a record of 1-2-2 in five turf tries.

“I think she'll run well, too,” said Simon. “She's really strong on the turf and won on it here last year. She just got beat on the turf at Saratoga [third, a neck back of winner Eyeinthesky, in the Galway Stakes] last year. She's going into the race in really good shape as well.”

Expect Summer Sunday and Sister Peacock to be prominent early.

“Both of the horses don't need the lead, but they're usually both up close. They have similar running styles that way, but they are both good, honest fillies.”

Other entrants include Gary Barber's four-year-old Eyeinthesky, and Barbara Minshall trainee Another Time (cross-entered in the Trillium), who finished second, a neck back of Elizabeth Way, in the Nassau (Grade 2) on June 27.

The Trillium Stakes has attracted eight starters, including 2019 multiple Sovereign Award finalist Amalfi Coast, graded stakes-placed Painting, who rallied impressively to finish second to Jean Elizabeth in the Whimsical (Grade 3), and Live Oak Plantation's multiple stakes winner Souper Escape.

The Royal North is scheduled as the ninth race on Saturday's 10-race program. The Trillium goes as race eight. First post is 1 p.m. Fans can watch and wager on all the action via HPIBet.com.

$175,000 ROYAL NORTH STAKES

Post – Horse – Jockey – Trainer

1 – Foxxy Belle – Justin Stein – Norm McKnight

2 – Bohemian Bourbon – Leo Salles – Ian Wilkes

3 – Summer Sunday – Rafael Hernandez – Stuart Simon

4 – Another Time – Jerome Lermyte – Barbara Minshall

5 – Sister Peacock – Emma-Jayne Wilson – Stuart Simon

6 – Eyeinthesky – Patrick Husbands – Mark Casse

7 – Gamble's Candy – Luis Contreras – Josie Carroll

8 – Lady Grace – Kazushi Kimura – Mark Casse

9 – Charmaine's Mia – Steven Bahen – Michael McDonald

$125,000 TRILLIUM STAKES

Post – Horse – Jockey – Trainer

1 – Souper Escape – Luis Contreras – Michael McDonald

2 – Amalfi Coast – Justin Stein – Kevin Attard

3 – Art of Almost – Emma-Jayne Wilson – Roger Attfield

4 – Theodora B. – Patrick Husbands – Michael Dickinson

5 – Nantucket Red – Steve Bahen – Ashlee Brnjas

6 – Painting – Kazushi Kimura – Josie Carroll

7 – Another Time – Jerome Lermyte – Barbara Minshall

8 – Wings of Dawn – Rafael Hernandez – Mark Casse

The post Summer Sunday To Defend Her Title In Woodbine’s Royal North Stakes appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights