Tag: Value Sires

Value Sires For 2024 Part 6: Reaching The Snowline

Now we're really entering nosebleed altitudes for most breeders, between $30,000 and $50,000: a zone where you should feel that you're improving the odds of coming up with an elite horse.

It tells you a lot about our business that the majority of the two dozen stallions operating at this level can only do so because they have yet to send a single runner into the starting gate. A quarter of these we immediately set to one side, as absolute beginners, because those received separate consideration in the opening instalment of this series. Of the remaining 18, another eight belong to those preceding intakes that remain untested by runners.

Some of these have been taking the precautionary clips often necessary to keep young sires in the game, as commercial breeders maintain as safe a distance as possible from the dangers that accompany racetrack exposure.

You can see that template magnified in one of the two sires who are closest to the moment of truth. AUTHENTIC started out in 2021 as the most expensive in his intake, at $75,000. This year he takes his third consecutive cut, down to $50,000 (from $60,000 and previously $70,000). Yet has he become any less likely to sire racehorses, if you send him a mare this spring, relative to when he retired as Horse of the Year? Far from it, if the market reception is any guide: he duly looked after investors by processing 91 yearlings (120 offered) at a median $235,000 (average $286,076), clear at the top of the class.

Authentic | Sarah Andrew

We all know how the system works. But if you genuinely thought Authentic good value at $75,000, well, you'd better get right back to him now that his fee is down by one-third. After all, a true commercial opportunist should be anticipating a rising tide from all the juvenile winners that will surely be emerging from a debut book of 229 mares, just a couple short of making him the busiest stallion in North America that year!

Of course, Spendthrift operates the model so dexterously that Authentic has meanwhile maintained demand, at his more lenient fees, with books of 202 and 198 mares. With 165 live foals to go to war, he surely gives the farm every chance of a third consecutive champion freshman.

MCKINZIE has bucked the trend by retaining his initial fee of $30,000 for a fourth year. He starred at the sales, sending no fewer than 144 into the ring-a staggering percentage of his 174 live foals. That's expressive of the commercial package he had offered in combining knockout looks with 11 triple-digit Beyers, plus Grade Is at two, three and four. He duly sold 110 at a median $90,000, reaching an average of $149,157 after blowing the doors off with a $1.2 million colt at the September Sale. (Both indices beaten only by Authentic in the class.) We've all seen market discoveries sink without trace, over the years, but McKinzie has certainly raised expectations and duly maintained numbers in the meantime, with books of 171 and 168.

The next intake is also represented by two sires, now preparing their first yearlings for auction. One of their peers, Essential Quality, actually remains beyond even this level and duly topped the weanling averages, but CHARLATAN filled second place in selling 19 of 22 at a median $175,000 and average $206,052. That was what he had to do, having similarly starting out behind only Essential Quality in terms of fee, and he's another whose original investors have been spared a depreciation: he remains $50,000 for 2024.

Charlatan emerged from the same crop and barn as Authentic to emulate the GI Arkansas Derby-GI Malibu S. double of Omaha Beach the previous year, and was only narrowly outstayed when stretching his speed again in the G1 Saudi Cup. Unfortunately he then suffered another setback, but nobody forgot his talent and he started with books of 222 and 223. Breeders evidently recalled that he had himself been a $700,000 yearling out of a genuine Grade I mare.

Maxfield | Sarah Andrew

MAXFIELD takes a mild trim, to $35,000 from $40,000, despite selling 11 of a dozen weanlings at a median $110,000/average $165,181. His farm tends to be more conservative with its books, so 165 mares for his first year looked like a full subscription, with another 134 in his second. Maxfield was beaten by just four horses across 11 starts, won a Grade I as a juvenile by five and a half lengths, and above all is out of a Bernardini half-sister to the admirable stallion Sky Mesa (very fine family overall).

Four youngsters who covered their first mares last spring assembled books that appeared, after the mare cap debacle, to be making a point of some kind-albeit one that may be lost on anyone who ends up with only an average specimen to bring to saturated catalogues.

With 262 partners, EPICENTER was behind only his frenzied studmate Golden Pal among American sires, his championship campaign having featured a standout GI Travers (112 Beyer). His sire has gone beyond reach, for most, and I love the sturdy European influences sowing his deeper family-though I can't imagine that those names were front and central for many others!

His neighbor JACK CHRISTOPHER was nearly as hectic with 247 mares. He must have been an easy sell, even his solitary defeat in the GI Haskell counting in his favor as confirming him to be all speed. He'd have had plenty of support had he retired on the spot after a daylight debut success at Saratoga, and beat a good one when returning for what proved his final start a year later. Both he and Epicenter take the customary trim, from $45,000 to $40,000, to help keep the door revolving.

Jack Christopher | Sara Gordon

Jack Christopher represents Munnings, of course, and it's good to see some of Speightstown's later sons contesting the legacy.

Just like Charlatan, OLYMPIAD was a $700,000 yearling. His debut book of 228, making him the busiest stallion outside Ashford, shows that plenty of other farms are prepared to go all out for numbers, given the chance. He matured through the grades with eight triple-figure Beyers, but the clincher is Chic Shirine as third dam. By this stage of the series, you probably won't be surprised that proven stallions populate the Value Podium, but this guy looks a profoundly wholesome prospect in retaining a fee of $35,0000.

Though JACKIE'S WARRIOR had to settle for “just” 182 mares, he could comfort himself that they included Beholder! He's another to take a clip, to $45,000 from $50,000, but still finds himself standing for more than his own sire. Even so, he will remain in demand as a Grade I winner at Saratoga three years running, an unprecedented achievement gilded by a 28-year-old stakes record in the Hopeful.

Right, now let's get onto some sires that have actually demonstrated some competence to replicate the genetic prowess we should be looking for at this kind of fee.

Of these, the one who has barely started is OMAHA BEACH. He's just completed his freshman season with fourth place in a table dominated by Spendthrift sires, on the face of it hardly measuring up to his status as the most expensive of the quartet. But I'm not alone in retaining high hopes, judged from the fact that his fee has moved back up to $40,000 for 2024, having been allowed to slide from an opening $45,000 to $30,000.

Because while he has only had a couple of stakes winners, he has a class-high 11 black-type performers from 64 starters–a much smaller footprint than his three studmates (Vino Rosso, late bloomer though he was, has fielded 92!)–and these include four at graded stakes level. Omaha Beach presumably received rather more Classic/two-turn mares than his peers, and it's reasonable to expect consolidation from here. It's a rare horse nowadays that can win Grade Is at both six and nine furlongs, and his family overflows with quality.

Obviously, he has volume behind him, standing where he does, but that was partly a function of what seemed pretty lenient pricing throughout. His second crop of yearlings held up very well, at a median $105,000/average $156,508 for 95 sold (116 offered). That keeps Omaha Beach miles clear of his intake, some of whom have been quickly embarrassed by their opening fees. Those who kept the faith in the meantime (185 mares in his fourth book last spring) are entitled remain optimistic, the only caveat being the overall underperformance of this particular class of freshmen, judged by graded stakes winners. It's now over to Omaha Beach to convert his promise into a headliner or two.

City of Light | Lane's End

A similar remark might have been made, this time last year, about CITY OF LIGHT–and, heading into the Breeders' Cup, he had still not justified an against-the-tide hike from $40,000 to $60,000 in 2022. That was the reward for a sensational debut (average $337,698/median $260,000) at the yearling sales. With his book down to 85 last spring, from 132, he was slashed to $35,000 for 2024. But then along came Fierceness, and suddenly everything is looking much more cheerful.

City Of Light may have a few later developers, but 18 black-type performers from no more than 127 to have made the starting gate is a very fair ratio. His fee cut was among several such gestures by his farm after polarisation at the sales (where his third crop were down to a median $75,000/average $126,269 for 63 sold of 75) made it feel as though fees generally remain too high.

In his (very competitive) intake, one who has only elevated his reputation is GIRVIN, who started in Florida at $7,500 and is up to $30,000 (from $20,000) after consolidating the breakout that earned him a ticket to Kentucky. From limited materials, he is so far operating at 6 percent stakes winners (including Grade I scorer Faiza) to named foals, narrowly bettered only by Good Magic and Army Mule in his class.

Girvin's tragic sibling Midnight Bourbon showed what their unraced dam Catch the Moon must be contributing to the equation, and this year Catch the Moon's sister produced Brightwork to lend further Grade I luster to the page. Everyone should duly be fully reconciled by now to Girvin's unfashionable (but superbly-bred) sire. Those who bred to Girvin in his second year in Ocala, at $6,000, certainly can't complain about a yearling average of $92,411 (stretched by a $475,000 colt, but a $41,000 median itself very respectable) for 17 sold from 21 offered. Girvin is firmly on his way, through the roof by the restrained standards of his farm with 181 mares (up from 86) last spring, and only an even more upwardly mobile studmate has kept him off the Value Podium.

Violence | Sarah Andrew

Before we get to that, we have three horses that have by now had ample opportunity to show where they fit in the marketplace: Liam's Map, Maclean's Music and VIOLENCE.

Not that the latter has remotely settled, in terms of pricing! Initially elevated to $60,000 for 2024, he has meanwhile slipped back into this bracket at $40,000. The reasons have been cogently explained, and leave him looking big value as the sire of two new stallions in Kentucky this year, not to mention one with an obvious shot at the freshman title in Volatile. Violence is actually cheaper than his champion son Forte, a rookie whose supporters would surely be delighted if he can produce as many fast horses by the time he reaches the equivalent point of his career. Violence's book will be managed appropriately to his circumstances, but purely in terms of value he looks of imperative interest to eligible mares. For this is a proven achiever at this level–both on the track and in the ring, where he moved his yearling yield up to a median of $80,000 (from $60,000) and average $121,642 (from $97,614). That's impressive for a stallion with seven crops in play. Violence was No. 13 on the general sires' list and the caveats sound very manageable.

His studmate MACLEAN'S MUSIC also looks a fair price at $40,000, after a couple of years at $50,000, considering that he has four sons at stud in the Bluegrass. We've already noted one of them, Jackie's Warrior, getting plenty of trade at a higher fee, while Drain The Clock served no fewer than 199 mares in his debut season. Maclean's Music himself had to settle for 144 last spring, but covered 421 over the previous two seasons after dwindling to 57 in 2020, so the good old “pipeline” is well and truly loaded. In fact, no fewer than 183 live foals in 2022 give him the single biggest battalion of juveniles for the forthcoming campaign. So this looks a pretty shrewd time to stay aboard with a horse who processed as many as 104 of 131 yearlings at an average $118,739 ($70,000 median sound enough, against a $25,000 conception fee).

LIAM'S MAP also maintained his sales performance, selling 80 of 102 offered at a $100,000 median/$124,024 average–conceived at $30,000–albeit down somewhat on the previous crop, who had knocked it out of the park ($130,000/$166,724). Standing at $40,000 for a third year running, he once again proved a reliable source of stakes action this year, chiefly with maturing stock. His next task is to emulate the Hill 'n' Dale pair, who have been in the game rather longer, as a sire of sires.

VALUE PODIUM

Bronze: HARD SPUN
Danzig–Turkish Tryst (Turkoman)
Darley $35,000

So I guess he's not going to change the world, at this stage–but I really don't see much better value to prove your mare, or just to get yourself a racehorse. I know that's not everyone's priority, but the fact is that the last big son of Danzig has now turned 20 and that leaves us diminishing access to the great patriarch.

Hard Spun | Darley

Hard Spun missed a return to the top 10 sires only by cents, relatively speaking, and it was a measure of what he can do for a mare that a horse with as plain a page as Two Phil's could break into the elite of his crop, and now become Hard Spun's fourth son at stud in Kentucky.

It's incredible that a horse with a dozen domestic Grade I winners has never gone higher than $45,000 in the decade since he made the sojourn in Japan that (in hindsight) cost him vital momentum. In that time, he has finished as high as fourth in the general sires' list, but he doesn't get precocious horses and has settled at a median $67,500 (strong six-figure average) with his last couple of yearling crops.

Hard Spun nonetheless produced another 26 black-type performers in 2023, and cumulatively stands at No. 7 among active sires with several ratios (for instance, graded stakes winners/performers at 2.7/5.7 percent of named foals) uncannily in step with his old buddy Street Sense, who maintains a fee of $60,000.

It's gratifying to see that he remains fully subscribed, 151 mares last year showing that there are still plenty of breeders out there who recognise the importance not just of getting a winner under their mare, but a high-class winner. Hard Spun's stock goes on all surfaces, at all distances, and with those storied Darby Dan bloodlines behind him, it's no surprise that he should meanwhile be emerging as a broodmare influence. His daughters have lately produced a top-class miler in Europe in Alcohol Free (Ire) (No Nay Never), and no less an animal than Good Magic.

Somehow the world has spun against this horse, but it's very hard to see why.

Silver: AMERICAN PHAROAH
Pioneerof The Nile–Littleprincessemma (Yankee Gentleman)
Ashford Stud $50,000

Well, you can't win them all–even if you're Coolmore. Who could have said, for certain, which of their two Triple Crown winners would best replicate the talent that had confirmed the series to remain within the competence of a modern Thoroughbred? It was actually this one, having ended a generation of doubt, that started at the higher fee: he opened at $200,000 in 2016, and Justify at $150,000 three years later. The latter had been trimmed to $100,000 by the time he launched his first runners, in 2022; and American Pharoah had taken a proportionately deeper cut at the equivalent stage, to $110,000 for 2019. Their paths since, however, have forked radically. Justify is now out of sight, listed as private; and Pharoah enters 2024 suffering the indignity of yet another cut, this time down to $50,000 from $60,000.

American Pharoah | Sarah Andrew

Now there's no way that you can say he's any kind of dud, en route to oblivion. He finished 2023 at No. 6 in the general sires' list, with a seventh Grade I winner supplemented by no fewer than six others placed at the elite level–and that's taking no account of his success in Australia, including a G1 Victoria Derby winner. Yes, like most stallions on this farm, the volume behind him proves a double-edged sword when it comes to his ratios.

His 11 stakes winners arrived at 3.7 percent, pretty unexciting given the quality he must have been working with. But he continues to get his superior/graded action at a superior rate to ever-fashionable studmate Munnings, for instance, who commands a 50 percent higher fee.

The exotic seeding of American Pharoah's family was always liable to make the owners of top-class mares a little nervous, but his dam has proved a consistent producer so something has come together in dynamic fashion. Further action was plainly required after he assembled no more than 129 mares with last year's reduction, but if able to maintain his current sales performance–yearling median $150,000 with both his last two crops, averaging $210,164 in 2023–then you'll be looking at a very fair yield at his current price.

Both American Pharoah and Justify have proved effective sires on turf. If this fee proves a last roll of the dice, then I might impudently suggest once again that American Pharoah could be worth a spin in Co. Tipperary. But he's now within reach of a different type of American breeder, and that may well grant him a new lease of life.

Gold: UPSTART
Flatter–Party Silks (Touch Gold)
Airdrie Stud $30,000

So what is it, really, that we can hope to find at this level? I mean, we're obviously excluding “fantasy” breeding to untested stallions. But is there perhaps a horse out there hinting that he's pressing against the ceiling, and might soon be inaccessible? The other pair on the podium, admirable as they are, hardly fit that category. To me, however, Upstart is the dude in this tier who has the chance of elevating himself to a higher level yet.

Upstart | EquiSport

Maybe you were disappointed that he didn't follow through the 2022 deeds of Zandon and Kathleen O (among 63 named foals conceived at $10,000) with his next crop of sophomores? Well, that's because his third crop comprised just 27 live foals. Even so they included Prerequisite, a $47,000-to-$350,000 pinhook who won the GII Wonder Again S. on her first start outside maiden company, and then missed a Grade I by three parts of a length next time. Meanwhile, as we knew to expect from his own template (multiple Grade I-placed in three consecutive seasons), his mature stock kept him in the game with wins in races as resonant as the GII Clark and GII Woodward S.

He has punched conspicuously above weight at the sales, averaging $90,900 in 2022, but traded at just $39,434 from a modest book last year. But he's now ready to open a new cycle. His incoming yearlings emerge from a book of 151, saturation point for a farm that resists the opportunity of exposing their clients by inundating catalogues. Hiked to $30,000 last spring, he entertained another 153. When you consider what he has been doing with mediocre materials, this is a stallion on the point of a big move.

Despite a dual Grade I runner-up among his first juveniles, Upstart somehow remained bumping along at $10,000. Even so, his 13 stakes winners at 5.2 percent of named foals and 26 black-type performers at 10.4 percent compares with 5/12.2 percent for the lavishly supported Nyquist (standing at $85,000) in his own class; 4/9 percent for Practical Joke ($45,000) and 5.2/8.5 percent for Arrogate in the following intake; 5.9/9.4 percent for Justify and 4/11.1 percent for Bolt d'Oro ($60,000) in the one after that.

This is a horse that gets stock onto the track, and into the winner's circle: 53 percent winners to lifetime starters, compared with 46 percent for the soaraway hero of his intake, Not This Time; 41 percent for Nyquist; 43 percent even for the stellar Gun Runner, the same for Practical Joke, just 39 percent for Arrogate.

Upstart was cleverly named and, it now seems, aptly too. There are some curiosities sowing his family, but it's demonstrably all working. Perhaps the farm that gave us the sires of Uncle Mo and Into Mischief has again tapped into an unexpected seam of gold. With an incoming spike in quality and quantity, catch him while you can.

The post Value Sires For 2024 Part 6: Reaching The Snowline appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Value Sires For 2024, Part 4: Into The Teens

Today we'll consider some of the sires standing between $10,001 and $19,999. For a long time, I called this the Lookin At Lucky zone. But don't worry, we won't be deploring his neglect yet again: he's staying in Chile, where they evidently appreciate him rather more.

Plenty of horses in this bracket have recently relinquished their brief window of commercial opportunity, and are now hanging around to discover whether they might join the very small group whose first runners generate a fresh vogue. Even with the newcomers out of the equation–we gave them a separate assessment, to open the series–we're left with three groups still untested on the track: those expecting their first foals; those who have just sold their first weanlings; and those actually about to dip a toe in the water with their first runners.

Pending that crossroads, many find themselves somewhat adrift against a bunch of older sires who have survived that test. These fit this tier either because they are losing stature or, more cheerfully, because they have carved out a viable niche as an affordable source of winners.

First the young guns. Of those who sent their first yearlings to auction this year, the ones who really nailed it, unsurprisingly, vaunted the kind of speed that pinhookers crave.

VOLATILE burned brightly in a light career, not seen again after confirming his Grade I caliber against a small but select field in the Vanderbilt. His 112 Beyer in the Aristides S. (1:07.57) was the highest of 2020 and duly secured 181 mares the following spring. Himself an $850,000 yearling, with a GI Test/GI Ballerina winner as granddam, his $125,431 average was boosted by a spectacular $1.15 million docket for a Book 1 filly at Keeneland in September. Nudged back up to $15,000 (from $12,500), Volatile has three hefty books behind him and will be the horse to beat for the freshman title next year.

But not even his median yield of 4.3 on his opening fee ($75,000/ $17,500) could match that of COMPLEXITY, whose $65,000 median (never mind his average $90,400!) multiplied his $12,500 fee by 5.2. Complexity started with some serious volume by the restrained standards of his farm, and then followed through with another three-figure book in his second season. He was clearly in the same vicinity as Volatile as a mature horse (110 Beyer in the GII Kelso) but was the more accomplished juvenile, wiring a Saratoga maiden (90 Beyer) before a decisive success in the GI Champagne S. on his second start. His half-sister ran second in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, so their unraced dam is obviously channelling the good stuff.

VEKOMA is meanwhile working the Spendthrift system with remarkable efficiency, having started out (at $20,000) with staggering volume, entertaining at least 200 mares in each of his first three seasons. This year he processed 102 of his first yearlings at $98,432, albeit was unsurprisingly stretched somewhat thinner by a median of $60,000. Though confined to eight starts across three seasons, he was class from beginning to end, posting big numbers for his Grade I double in the Carter and Met Mile. From a stallion-producing family, he's a horse I've liked all the way through and everything is in place for him to look after many (albeit probably not all!) of his (very many!) clients at $15,000.

Knicks Go | Sarah Andrew

Among those in this intake offering rather more stretch, one or two suffered horrible yearling medians relative to conception fee. But one who made a solid start off $12,500 was Bolt d'Oro's half-brother GLOBAL CAMPAIGN: 74 yearlings sold at $63,195 (median $43,500). This was a more talented animal than generally appreciated and I can see him proving himself a bargain gateway to Curlin. A closer look at his family shows that it tends to produce faster types than are associated with the seeding sires, and Global Campaign's first crop of 126 live foals may surprise a few people with their dash.

Of those who sold their first weanlings this fall, meanwhile, the one that will sort out the sheep and the goats is KNICKS GO. No questioning his talent, it was just never quite obvious where it all came from–albeit his dam maintained stakes speed through four seasons. Those who didn't require a more familiar pedigree were delighted to see a Horse of the Year introduced at just $30,000. Well, now they can get him for half that, even though he's still nearly 18 months away from the opportunity to demonstrate whether or not he can replicate his brilliance! At this money, some people will surely want to roll the dice.

Even as it is, his weanlings sold a little better than those of SILVER STATE. But it's very early days for the latter, whose pedigree in contrast elucidates all the class he manifested as a runner. A friendly clip to $15,000 should hopefully keep him in the game because this horse equipped to prove a really wholesome influence.

The subsequent intake features some truly frightening books, but I will resist dwelling on that here. Suffice to say that those playing a longer game might quite like a filly by either SPEAKER'S CORNER or MYSTIC GUIDE. Both have taken an early trim at Darley, respectively to $17,500 and $12,500, and their pedigrees shout distaff influence.

We'll have to see how many of the youngsters will endure even in this relatively modest tier, a few years from now. Nor does a flying start bring any guarantees, as UNION RAGS could caution them. The halving of his fee to $15,000 acknowledges the way he has faltered, having stood at $60,000 between 2018 and 2020. Trade for his latest yearlings made this further cut imperative, but he's still the same horse that so quickly came up with five Grade I winners. Hopefully he will find a little oxygen now that he has descended to more accessible altitudes.

Studmate DAREDEVIL has taken his second cut since returning to the U.S., now down to $15,000, but of course it's only in 2024 that we'll get to assess the first juveniles conceived after Swiss Skydiver prompted his urgent repatriation. Their sales performance demanded a mild trim in fee, but he could easily be poised for fresh momentum.

MENDELSSOHN has also taken consecutive cuts, similarly now available at $15,000. He has so far been more about quantity than quality but his supporters will hope that he can still emulate four others, standing at the same fee, who have all done admirably to create a lasting foothold in this most slippery of markets.

The first of these, DIALED IN, is something of a blue-collar hero. He maintains such high volume–corralled 175 mares last spring, his 10th at stud–that it will always be hard, with the raw materials available at this level, to make his ratios “sing”. But Defunded has once again shown the caliber within his competence as his third elite scorer. Dialed In gets his work done at a fair tariff, and will keep plugging away to leave behind many of those now starting at multiples of his fee.

Cairo Prince | Sarah Andrew

CAIRO PRINCE has also created a sustainable brand for himself through six crops, as attested by a solid book of 129 mares last spring. A set-your-clock black-type producer throughout, he's now entering the territory where he can legitimately prove a mare–and of course he gets such a nice type, the average ($54,194) and median ($40,000) of his latest yearlings duly best among this proven quartet.

MIDSHIPMAN is a true yeoman and it's typical of this business that he should have had a quieter year (by his very special standards) both on the track and in the sales ring after finally doubling his fee to $20,000 last year–due recognition for having punched above weight for so long. His lifetime stats remain ridiculous for a stallion who has largely been a four-figure cover: 47 stakes winners at 6.4 percent of named foals, nine at graded stakes level; and 101 black-type performers overall, at 13.7 percent. The trim back to $15,000 brings him back towards the reach of breeders who most appreciate just what he can do for their mares.

KANTHAROS, who has really pulled himself up by his bootstraps, had another very solid year on the track. He has made the same slip in fee, reflecting a tepid book of mares last spring and a challenging yield on yearlings conceived at $30,000. But that was an experience shared by many sires exposed to a porous middle market, and the fact is that Kantharos lurks only just outside the top 10 in the 2023 general sires' list with a dozen stakes winners, including a couple at graded level. His lifetime ratio of stakes runners–11 percent of named foals–remains outstanding for a horse whose first five books were compiled in Florida at just $5,000.

He sired two Grade I winners at that fee, and now has another millionaire in Grade II winner Bay Storm. The first of his two $30,000 books were juveniles this year, and we know how they will keep thriving. That guarantees Kantharos imminently entry into the top 20 active sires on lifetime earnings. All he needs to do is supplant… Lookin At Lucky!

VALUE PODIUM

Bronze Medal: CONNECT
Curlin–Bullville Belle (Holy Bull)
Lane's End $15,000

Connect | Sarah Andrew

Amid all this talk about stud fees being too high, credit is overdue to Lane's End for anticipating the mood in the room. From Flightline down, the farm made 11 cuts across their 2024 roster. All were meaningful, and some nearly brutal, effectively conceding that one or two stallions were drifting into trouble and needed some decisive help. Bravo! The very opposite of burying your head in the sand, and in the present environment I hope it works out both for the farm and its clients.

One stallion who can certainly benefit is Connect, restored from $25,000 to his 2021 fee of $15,000 after the crop conceived that year returned a tepid median (albeit a perfectly acceptable $45,774 average) at the yearling sales. He'd also suffered a real slump in his book last spring, down to 45 from 172 in 2022! But we're accustomed to seeing horses treated like this, once they have served their commercial purpose, and should sooner marvel at the impression he must have made with his first crop to get such a big book (up from 93 in 2021) in his fifth year at stud.

Sure enough, only Gun Runner and Practical Joke banked more prizemoney as freshmen in 2021, and only Gun Runner had more winners. Unfortunately Connect did not then consolidate especially well, but he has made a timely return to form this year with eight stakes winners, three at graded level, plus a GI Kentucky Oaks third in The Alys Look. Moreover, his first-crop flagship, the juvenile Grade I winner Rattle N Roll, failed by just half a length to add another elite score in the GI Stephen Foster S. That horse was a $55,000 weanling but has now banked $1.7 million across three seasons.

Connect's pedigree is not without its challenges but he's another to bring Curlin within range and had real prowess as a racehorse, a blip in the Travers his only defeat in seven starts (four triple-digit Beyers) up the grades after debut. He outkicked none other than Gun Runner in the GII Pennsylvania Derby and, while he won't be doing that again any time soon, he's actually siring winners at a higher percentage of named foals.

With that bumper crop of weanlings in the pipeline, and now a lenient fee, this looks a good time to re-Connect.

Silver Medal: KARAKONTIE (Jpn)
Bernstein–Sun Is Up (Jpn) (Sunday Silence)
Gainesway $15,000

Karakontie | Sarah Andrew

How pleasing to see this undervalued stallion moving his book back up last year, up to 86 from 48. Perhaps his hour has come at last, now that the minority prepared to breed to a quality turf sire in the Bluegrass have been deprived of English Channel and Kitten's Joy.

If you're enlightened enough to see the growing need for turf quality in the U.S., then you might also recognize that you don't always have to fly first class to Tattersalls. With a fifth crop on the track, Karakontie has still only had 174 starters, but seven have won graded stakes. For the second year running, moreover, he had an elite scorer in She Feels Pretty, winner of the GI Natalma S. before failing by barely half a length to overcome a wide trip in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. Karakontie's premier earner Princess Grace meanwhile continued to thrive in Australia, missing Group 1 scores by a neck and half a length.

Even after a hike from $10,000, Karakontie is an awful lot of horse for this fee. He converted some of the most regal blood in the book–his third dam is Miesque herself–into a turn of foot that won him a Group 1 at two and then a mile Classic, before doing all he could to endear the American market in the GI Breeders' Cup Mile. Don't forget that he restores Sunday Silence to the Bluegrass through his dam, herself out of a half-sister to Kingmambo. His international pedigree and participation alike are a measure of our debt to the program that produced him.

The American market has not really grasped its privilege, with this horse, but the elevation in his fee tells you everything you need to know: he's being used by people who want to breed a runner, whether in their own silks or to boost a mare. Actually, Karakontie is perfectly capable of a home run at the sales, including the $525,000 filly at Keeneland in September whose buyers will have been delighted to see her full-sister (who herself made $280,000 the previous year) win the Tepin S. last month. His lesser specimens may struggle commercially, until the environment improves, but that won't trouble those eccentrics who calculate value according to the odds of ending up with a runner.

Gold Medal: MITOLE
Eskendereya–Indian Miss (Indian Charlie)
Spendthrift $15,000

How naïve of me to imagine that all those commercial breeders who flocked to the new sires in 2020 wanted nothing more than to land on the champion freshman of 2023. Because Mitole, as he closes in on those laurels, finds himself the only one of the four Spendthrift sires dominating this table to remain on the same fee in 2024.

Mitole | Louise Reinagel

Now, clearly this farm needs no help in how to make their remarkable machine run smoothly. The Spendthrift team know that Mitole was the one who took the biggest slide of the quartet, in the inevitable slackening of demand for their second crop of yearlings. But they had already ensured that these were conceived more affordably, trimming him from $25,000 in his debut season to $15,000. That was partly a concession to the Covid market, but it also offered such obvious value about a champion sprinter that he maintained the enthusiastic support of 184 mares even last spring, after topping 200 in each of his three previous seasons.

In other words, the system is functioning smoothly and Mitole has played his part so well that he approaches the winning post with a narrow advantage over Maximus Mischief (my serial “gold” pick, I might add, after starting at $7,500!) by prizemoney and also a wafer-thin one by individual winners (32 from 79 starters).

Whether or not he holds out, Mitole is the only one of the four to have a graded stakes scorer–and so joins Flameaway and Solomini in what has been a weirdly unproductive group, by that measure-in GIII Pocahontas S. winner/GI Alcibiades runner-up V V's Dream.

The precocious Maximus Mischief has shown a lot more of his hand (77 starters from 122 named foals) and remember that Mitole (79 from 145) himself only squeezed in a single start at two, in late November. It was as a 4-year-old that he racked up his four Grade Is–including that resonant Met Mile/Breeders' Cup Sprint double, and a stakes record at the intermediate distance in the Forego. So it seems fair to suggest that he has only just got started.

By now Mitole has surely stifled misgivings about his sire, himself after all a brilliant performer and a conduit of corresponding genes. Eskendereya's fifth dam is Cosmah, and doubles up her half-sister's son Northern Dancer top and bottom. It was presumably his unfashionable sire that confined Mitole to $20,000 as a yearling–but then along came kid brother Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow), himself a $17,000 short yearling, to reiterate the merit of a family cultivated by the late Edward A. Cox Jr.

Hot Rod Charlie has now followed Eskendereya to Japan, where they have made a habit of exposing crass commercial trends in Kentucky. But here's a horse making the family assets work even in this less imaginative environment, and his debut at the 2-year-old sales–behind only Omaha Beach in the key freshman medians–suggest that Mitole will be taking out a long lease on the attention of pinhookers.

 

Sires In The Teens: Breeder Selections

Aidan O'Meara, Stonehaven Steadings

Aidan O'Meara | Keeneland

Gold Medal: Volatile
One of the best angles for success in the commercial breeding field is identifying a future leading stallion in the early stages and this sometimes requires taking a leap of faith breeding when their first runners are about to run. Volatile has been the breakout star at the yearling sales this year, mirroring his sire's first crop results a few years back. He's a beautifully built horse himself and passed his physique on with remarkable consistency. He's been very well supported by breeders and will have plenty of ammo in his first few crops to give him every opportunity. If his offspring have legitimate ability, he will skyrocket up the stallion ranks and $15,000 will look like the deal of the decade.

Silver Medal: Connect
The crop of 2021 has all been overshadowed by Gun Runner's incredible achievements, but Connect has been quietly developing a very solid career for himself. He has shown consistency with three graded stakes winners again this year and a strong supporting cast of stakes horses. He has also shown the ability to get the all-important high-class horse with Rattle N Roll. He measures well in all statistical categories and looks to be a stallion that can establish himself long term in the mold of a Midshipman/First Samurai/Blame type.

Bronze Medal: Audible
The Spendthrift quartet has garnered most of the attention from this year's freshmen and rightly so but one horse is simmering just below these and that horse is Audible. His 14% stakes horses with his first 2-year-olds cannot be ignored and his own racing career suggests there is more improvement to be had as they mature. He's a beautiful horse that can throw the right kind as witnessed by his first crop of yearlings. $15,000 is very intriguing for a horse with some potential future upswing and worst-case scenario has shown plenty of ability for longer term success at this price point.

Peter O'Callaghan, Woods Edge Farm

Peter O'Callaghan | Fasig-Tipton

Gold Medal: Midshipman
This stallion has been very good to us both on the track and in the sales ring. We recently bred first-time-out 2-year-old winner Midshipman's Dance; pinhooked Grade II winner Special Reserve; bred Leucothea and co-bred Amidst Waves, both of whom are multiple stakes winning 2-year-olds. He is a very consistent and well-respected sire, standing for an affordable $15,000. You can sell one well at the sales and he produces winners every weekend at the track.

Silver Medal: Mitole
Obviously a brilliant racehorse and looks to be turning out some good 2-year-old winners this second half of the year. Must be a horse worth a punt at $15,000. We are breeding to him again this year.

Bronze Medal: Vekoma
A brilliant racehorse, a high class 2-year-old who trained on, winning some high-profile races in the GII Bluegrass S. going two turns at three. Then winning the GI Carter H. and GI Met Mile at four in impressive fashion. Furthermore, he is a very well-bred son of Candy Ride (Arg), out of the GISW Speightstown mare Mona De Momma from the family of Mr. Greeley.

He is a good-looking horse who seems to sire plenty of good-looking stock. We have bred to him each year and have bought foals by him in each crop, he has not let us down so far.

I think he is a horse with a legitimate shot to be a sire standing at an affordable fee of $15,000.

 

The post Value Sires For 2024, Part 4: Into The Teens appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Value Sires For 2024–Part II: Stallions Under $10,000

Having dealt with the new sires as a case apart, today we start our journey through the price bands of Kentucky stallions by seeing what we can do with a four-figure budget.

Even at this end of the market, the perennial dilemma remains that value means different things to different people. A breeder operating at this level tends to appreciate every cent of a commercial return, however marginal. If your belt is already at the last notch, then the understandable inclination is to leave any selfless consideration of the breed's wider interests to those who can better afford it. Nonetheless I would persist in the view that anyone who believes in a mare can do her no better service than try to put a winner on the page.

Many stallions in this bracket are barely clinging to a place in the Bluegrass, even though in many cases they have had little or no opportunity to show what their mature stock can do on the racetrack. We know that the commercial compulsion towards new sires is double-edged, in that they are abandoned just as promptly as they were embraced only a year previously. And once a sire is reckless enough actually to start testing his genetic prowess by fielding runners, the game really is up for most.

Even the few that make a good start on the track tend to find their books and sales yield both on the slide. As a result, the types that are entitled to need a little more time tend to find themselves almost wholly abandoned. If you're keeping the faith with your stallion, all you can do is stand him at this kind of fairly token fee pending the testimonials of the winner's circle. The trouble is that even an excellent ratio of track success, when your volume is so low, will be submerged by “yet another stakes winner” advertised for rivals who may have 500 more foals on the ground across their first three crops.

The trick, among the younger sires, is to distinguish between those lurking at this level only pending a breakout, and those who are merely clinging to hang on. Because we must never forget that Into Mischief himself once spent a couple of years languishing at $7,500.

An alternative source of value at this level is a handful of stalwarts who have quietly carved out a respectable niche of service for breeders of modest means and realistic ambitions; plus a few younger ones who appear on course for that kind of yeoman viability.

Take TAPITURE, for instance. He was launched with plenty of volume: in fact, in his intake only American Pharoah has more named foals. Granted that the quality clearly couldn't match the quantity, at this level, his ratios will probably never be very startling. But he has shown himself able to get plenty of black-type action with an adequate mare and, while Repo Rocks this year became only his second domestic graded stakes winner, his 111 Beyer in blitzing the GIII Toboggan S. and a runner-up finish in the GI Carter together complement the Classic-placed Jesus' Team as evidence that someday Tapiture is going to land an elite score at just $7,500.

At the same fee, his farm has not managed to muster anything like the same demand for COUNTRY HOUSE, who had to make do with just 119 mares across his first three books and endured corresponding inattention for his first yearlings. But he did sell one for $250,000, and I hope he can similarly defy the odds once he gets a foothold on the track over the next couple of years. His inherent merit was lost in all the blather about the horse he supplanted in the Derby, but his performance there was absolutely consistent with the progress he'd been making and it was terribly unfortunate that he never had the chance to corroborate his breakout–especially after the gamble of trying again the following year left him even more of a forgotten horse. It's ridiculous that so many of those that finished behind him at Churchill were launched with huge books at much higher fees. Country House's sire was always scandalously underrated, but he's inbred to the Sam-Son matriarch No Class (Nodouble) and could certainly breed a horse capable of attending to his unfinished business with the Derby.

Country House | Matt Goins

Darby Dan is definitely worth a visit for those working to this kind of budget, then, as a look at our podium will confirm, and the same is true of Airdrie. True, a couple of that farm's most attractive options demand a little nerve, in that they must negotiate the tricky chicane between small books and the maturity of their first stock, but both are now a bet to virtually nothing at $5,000.

Nobody could have expected PRESERVATIONIST to set the world on fire overnight, having won his Grade I at six, but he's had 13 juvenile winners already from 41 starters-a ratio that matches or beats many peers working from monster books. Unsurprisingly, in the world we live in, his second crop were quiet at the sales but earlier transactions of $280,000, $260,000 and $250,000 show the kind of stamp of horse he can produce. And there are few stallions in any bracket with a better shape to their pedigree, with King Ranch queens Courtly Dee and Too Chic standing opposite each other. I'd be amazed if Preservationist doesn't make a broodmare sire.

DIVISIDERO was never going to cause a stampede, either, having been so recklessly “uncommercial” as to advertise his constitution on the racetrack until the age of seven. He duly had a small debut crop, prompting little interest at the yearling sales, but from this tiny foothold he has mustered a very talented horse in Vote No, whose three starts to date comprise maiden/stakes/length defeat in a Grade II. He had a good winner at Gulfstream just last week, too, leaving him top of the freshmen table by earnings per starter. In the meantime, the eight yearlings sold from his second crop, again very small, included a colt and filly that each made six figures at the September Sale.

So Divisidero is hinting, to those who pay heed, that he could yet claim a role in filling the void left by the loss of his sire Kitten's Joy. Remember that his two GI Woodford Reserve Turf Classics, 13 triple-digit Beyers and length defeat in the GI Breeders' Cup Mile have a genetic bedrock in none other than Cosmah as fifth dam.

The crass neglect of turf sires also requires us to draw attention to DEMARCHELIER (GB) at $7,500. His unfortunate derailment, after an immaculate start to his career, required Bluegrass breeders to show uncharacteristic breadth of perspective by grasping their good fortune in having access not only to a son of the European great Dubawi (Ire) but also to an outstanding Classic family. Demarchelier's first crop will not come fully into their own until stretching out at three, but a perfectly respectable start by his American juveniles is not even half the story, with a youngster Group-placed in France from a handful of starters over there.

His veteran neighbor at Claiborne, FIRST SAMURAI, is a seriously productive horse to be standing at the same fee. He's actually inside the top 20 active stallions on lifetime earnings, and it's very scrupulous of the farm to advertise only six millionaires when he also has one who came up cents short at $999,000! That's not enough for the typical breeder, apparently, as he's only getting small books nowadays. But if you want to put a winner under your mare, here's a Hopeful/Champagne winner by Giant's Causeway for a fraction of the price required to reach many horses of less accomplishment who have yet to sire the winner of a maiden claimer.

TOM'S D'ETAT won't have a runner himself until next year yet has somehow just suffered a third consecutive fee cut, from an opening $17,500 to $7,500. That reflects the modest commercial traction of his first yearlings, but on the racetrack he achieved a high level with maturity-nine consecutive triple-digit Beyers-and he's by a sire of sires out of Giant's Causeway mare whose own mother was a sister to Candy Ride (Arg). Tom's D'Etat has every right to sire runners at a fee that minimises those risks equally attached to more expensive but similarly unproven horses.

That said, there's no denying the superior impression made by the first yearlings presented by CARACARO. They were processed at an average of $41,745 from a base of just $6,500, thanks partly to a filly who brought $175,000. In exemplary hands at Crestwood, Caracaro also kept some good company in a light track career and has a physique reminiscent of his expensive sire.

By the way, before we proceed to our Value Podium, don't forget that we surveyed the new sires separately in the first part of this series. That was on the premise that they seldom offer sufficient value, strictly on their merits, to have any chance of a podium against the proven horses in the higher brackets. But that wouldn't apply to a couple we highlighted at this level: the teak-tough and classy SMOOTH LIKE STRAIT is almost insulted by a fee of just $3,500, while LOGGINS actually mounted the top step of the newcomers' podium at $7,500.

Copper Bullet | Matt Goins

VALUE PODIUM

Bronze: COPPER BULLET

More Than Ready ex Allegory (Unbridled's Song)

Darby Dan $7,500

Bronze for Copper? Why not, when this horse has been the medium of a pioneering experiment: not only complimentary covers for mares that satisfied certain selection criteria, but a $5,000 award to their owners once certified in foal!

Nor have their dividends stopped there. The first intimation that the novel strategy was paying off came at the 2-year-old sales, when 11 members of Copper Bullet's debut crop-comprising 34 named foals-achieved the fourth-highest median ($65,000) among new sires, headlined by colts selling at Ocala for $275,000 and $260,000. He then did something even more unusual by actually advancing the yield realised by his second crop of yearlings. At a time when even those of his peers who had made a flying start with their first runners were suffering from the usual slide-so fatuously do purchasers follow the herd-the handful representing his second crop at the sales achieved a median ($55,000) surpassed, among Kentucky sires, only by Omaha Beach.

After another restricted book this spring, Copper Bullet will surely be generating demand after producing Copper Tax to win five off the reel, including two stakes (one by nearly seven lengths), before flattening out from a messy trip in the GII Remsen S. Overall Copper Bullet has had half a dozen winners from 19 starters, including another placed in stakes company.

It all stands to reason, for a four-length winner of the GII Saratoga Special who flashed residual talent at both three and four despite only fitful visits to the track. With a classy French family behind him, his innovative showcasing may turn out to give us plenty more to think about.

Silver: GREATEST HONOUR

Tapit ex Tiffany's Honour (Street Cry {Ire})

Spendthrift $7,500

This farm's system has adapted very well to the upgrading of its roster over recent years but here we have a horse combining a hint of elite caliber at the kind of basement fee that first made the model work. Having duly welcomed 178 mares into his debut book, he's surely going to produce a headliner or two to maintain momentum through the crossroads ahead. As ever, with high volume, you'd want to be taking one of his nicer specimens to market. But plenty of commercial breeders will be happy to accept those terms for such a lenient fee.

On the racetrack Greatest Honour ultimately proved an anti-climax but only after showing ample to suggest that he had inherited a functioning line to one of the great modern families. And at least his fading has brought affordable access to those aristocratic genes, with second and fourth dams both Broodmares of the Year, divided by a GI Kentucky Oaks winner.

Greatest Honour took four starts to break his maiden, but that was fair enough when he was sharing an education with Olympiad, Speaker's Corner and Known Agenda, and he duly beat a subsequent Grade II winner when doing so. Improvement was barely required, then, in making a dazzling emergence on the Derby trail in the GIII Holy Bull S. and GII Fountain of Youth S. He was so strong at the wire in these races that it was a jolt when he could not follow through in the GI Florida Derby, but he disappeared for a year and never really retrieved the thread.

As we've indicated, this horse straddles the divide in that busy Spendthrift covering shed. He's standing at the kind of commercial fee that brings corresponding numbers behind him. But he definitely had a ton of class, far more than his final profile suggests, and recycles genes that could produce any kind. Few stallions at this level will appeal to the breeder who wouldn't mind keeping a filly, but that's a measure of the way Greatest Honour has all bases covered.

Gold: HIGHLY MOTIVATED

Into Mischief ex Strong Incentive (Warrior's Reward)

Airdrie $7,500

I'm going to put it on the line here and declare that this is the value play, hands down, among all the aspiring young sires in Kentucky.

Highly Motivated resides at a farm that strives to price stallions fairly without making breeders pay another way by flooding the catalogues. The 141 mares he covered last year represents a maximum subscription, by its restrained standards, and reflects what a talented runner he was. We'll return to that, but the big news is what has happened to his page since.

If pressed, I suspect that Airdrie might have conceded that the only reason he launched at a fee this low was that it wasn't totally clear that his young dam, albeit a black-type winner in a light career, had much genetic back-up to complement the brilliance we know to expect from Into Mischief. But now look!

Since he went to stud, the two named foals she had delivered since Highly Motivated-only her third and fourth overall-have both emerged as elite performers. The 3-year-old by Flintshire (GB), Surge Capacity, has emerged from nowhere to be beaten by a single rival in five starts, winning a maiden, two grade IIIs and now the GI Matriarch S. And the 2-year-old filly by Practical Joke produced the debut of the Saratoga meet, geared down by 12¾ lengths for a 90 Beyer, before enduring a horror trip and still failing by only half a length to run down Brightwork (Outwork) in the GI Spinaway S.

Combine those new talents with Highly Motivated himself, and you're looking at a mare entering blue hen territory at the age of 11. Throw in the expensive genes of his sire, and it's hard to resist reminding ourselves that Into Mischief himself once stood at exactly this fee.

A quick refresher: Highly Motivated beat no less a horse than Known Agenda (Curlin) in his maiden before breaking the Keeneland track record in his stakes debut, clocking the second highest juvenile Beyer of his crop. After a messy stakes debut, he probably did himself a disservice in pushing champion Essential Quality so hard in the GII Blue Grass S., just run out of it by a neck, as he left connections no choice but to stretch his speed on the first Saturday in May. His Derby turned into one of those that require an 11-month lay-off, yet he regrouped to claim another track record-one previously held for 37 years by a Horse of the Year-in the GIII Monmouth Cup.

Look, this is a horse with something for everyone. He's a commercial no-brainer, yet benefits from the relative market protection of a commendably restrained farm. And he has just enjoyed a freakish genetic upgrade that creates just as much interest for breeders playing a longer game, as well. Much as had always been true of our silver medallist, Highly Motivated now offers cut-price access to elite blood for anyone who would be happy to retain a filly. Among the four-figure options, no other stallion has this kind of five-star appeal.

Highly Motivated | Sarah Andrew

Value Sires under $10,000: the Breeders Speak

We asked breeders to weigh in on who their top picks were.

George Adams of Housatonic Bloodstock serves as the Director of Stallions and Breeding for Wasabi Ventures.

GOLD: Tapiture (Tapit-Free Spin, by Olympio), Darby Dan Farm, $7,500.

Tapiture would be my best value pick at under $10,000 in Kentucky. For me, value at this price point is about a horse's ability to get runners rather than explicitly commercial considerations, and Tapiture has a high percentage of runners to foals, and an excellent winners/runners ratio. He also has a strong 4.7% stakes winners/foals aged 3 and up. His 11.3% stakes horses/foals is solid as well.  Plus he can get you a two-year-old, which we all like to have. He has 25 juvenile winners already in 2023, with a pair of black-type winners and five more that are stakes-placed. To me, that makes him very good value and an excellent choice with which to start off a young mare–especially since his physical makes him easy to breed to.

SILVER: Demarchelier (GB) (Dubawi {Ire})-Loveisallyouneed (Ire), by Sadler's Wells), Claiborne Farm, $7,500.

Demarchelier is a really interesting horse at this level. With the start that he's off to with his first crop this year, he has a big chance to make it as one of the next good turf stallions here, I think. His CI shows that he didn't get the best book of mares for these first foals, which isn't unexpected for a two-turn turf horse by Dubawi in Kentucky. But despite his own later-maturing tendencies and that lack of support, he's got double-digit winners to his credit already with far fewer foals than some of the top freshmen. His winners have come in good maiden special weight races, and he has a Group horse in France and a good stakes colt in New York.  He's also had some dirt winners, which doesn't hurt his chances. He's a horse that I could see standing for more down the road (and he got a bump for '24), and I think that makes him good value this year.

BRONZE: Instagrand (Into Mischief-Assets of War, by Lawyer Ron), Taylor Made Stallions, $7,500.

Typically I have a hard time calling an unproven stallion a good “value” just because I think that it has to be a function of their ability to get runners. But in the case of Instagrand, who will have his first two-year-olds next year, I think he's got so many things going for him that he counts as value this coming spring. He was the first seven-figure sales son of Into Mischief, and he was so precocious–which you can easily see why by looking at him–I have a hard time believing that he's not going to be giving Authentic a run for his money at the top of the freshman sire list next year. At 190 mares bred in that first year, he'll have plenty of ammunition, and we all know the quality of some of the mares that Larry Best sent to him, which will set him apart from some of the others at this prince point. His first crop have sold well, and the ones that I have seen have looked quick and early. So when they come out firing early next year and put Instagrand right at the top of the freshman sire list, I think that'll make his '24 fee look like pretty good value.

Andrew Cary, Cary Bloodstock

Gold: Loggins (Ghostzapper-Beyond Blame, by Blame), Hill 'n' Dale Farms, $7,500.

Excellent physical, high-level talent, and the pedigree to succeed. He was a pricey Saratoga yearling and ran to his looks. Beaten a nose by champion Forte in a Grade I and looks like a slam dunk under $10k as a first year sire with big upside. Hill 'n' Dale has an excellent reputation developing stallions with his profile such as Army Mule and Maclean's Music.

Silver: Instagrand

Into Mischief has already sired the likes of Practical Joke, Maximus Mischief, and Goldencents and his reputation as a sire of sires will only grow in the future. Instagrand was a precocious and brilliant 2-year-old and he should have lots of early runners next summer with his first crop. His first crop of yearlings averaged over $44k this year.

Bronze: Beau Liam (Liam's Map-Belle of Perintown, by Denere), Airdrie Stud, $6,000.

He had elite talent and his first few races were jaw-dropping. Another beautiful physical, he has all the ingredients to succeed and has been well supported for an under $10k sire. His first foals look the part and were well-received at the November sales.

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Kentucky Value Sires for 2024, Part I: New Stallions

And so another cycle opens, bringing all the usual dilemmas. To assist their resolution–albeit the exercise seldom fails to entail a degree of provocation, sometimes even offense–today we commence our annual quest for value among Kentucky stallions.

This time round, value feels likely to prove quite elusive. With the middle market increasingly porous, stud fees overall are at a challenging level. If they were driven up by a long bull run in international bloodstock, that appears to be tapering away and there's evidently going to be quite a lag before we see any kind of relief in fees.

Instead of assessing each annual intake, and judging how its members are meeting challenges particular to a phase of their career, this year we're going to tackle them by price bands. Previously a mediocre group has sometimes left us scratching around for a horse for the Value Podium, while much better sires in stronger year groups enjoyed no such elevation. So we're simply going to work to a budget, and the full range of options within it–which, after all, is what every breeder has to do. We'll start with sires below $10,000, and work our way up through the tiers.

The one exception comes today, when we acknowledge that new sires are always a class apart. On the one hand, they are priced to exploit commercial prejudice and seldom turn out to have offered value relative to their eventual competence. Almost all will turn out to be standing at a career-high fee; and many will be packing their bags, whether for overseas or Oklahoma, even before the claims now being made on their behalf are validly tested by mature crops. Nonetheless many breeders will be focusing all their attention on this group.

The defeat of the proposed 140 cap appeared to stimulate some pointedly unfettered books last time round, when a rookie turf sprinter covered 293 mares. Regardless of the merits of that debate, and indeed of that horse, it really can't be healthy for so many mares to be corralled by unproven stallions that will mostly fail. As we've often conceded, however, it's hard to blame either commercial breeders or the stallion farms. The former need to put bread on the table, never easy; the latter, equally, can no longer bank on market interest even into a second year. (In other words, if you want fees to come down, don't just flit from one new sire to the next.)

The situation is really driven by the agents and managers driving the spending at ringside. This series will hope to challenge the refrain that breeders have no choice but to roll the dice on newcomers because proven sires are too expensive. In fact, that's exactly why we're giving the newcomers separate consideration today: few, if any, would have had a prayer of making a Value Podium in a price band shared by stallions who have actually got horses out there winning stakes. The truth about buyers' behavior is evident from the way yearling averages tend to slide markedly in the second crop even for stallions whose first runners make a flying start-as happened this year, for instance, to all four of the sires who have dominated the freshman table! (Champion elect Mitole, for instance, processed his second crop at $48,423, down from $104,638 with his first.)

We'll leave for another day the puzzle why breeding “for the sale ring” should be any different from “breeding for the track.” As I'm always saying, there should be nothing more commercial than putting a winner under your mare. The only real argument for unproven sires is self-fulfilling, in that most will never again repeat the quality and quantity of their debut books. Otherwise, investment is being directed precisely where it is most likely to fail. But each to their own, right? There's a proving ground out there, with a wooden stick at the end, and this is a great environment for anyone mating a mare with the quaint objective of breeding a runner.

So let's immerse ourselves in this perilous whirlpool of new sires, and at least try to make the gamble affordable as we seek the handful that will eventually manage to swim clear and build a viable stud career in the Bluegrass.

As indicated, that won't be easy in the current market. For a sense of where the typical commercial breeder is operating, we can calculate the median fee of the top 10 new sires in each of the past six years. This was $22,500 in 2019; $27,500 in 2020; $25,000 in 2021, as farms made a pandemic gesture; $40,000 in 2022; $35,000 in 2023; and it is again $35,000 for this latest intake.

So the typical cost of using a new sire has gone up by over half (56 percent) in the last six years, during which time the average banked for a Keeneland September yearling has risen only 13 percent. And you still don't want to use a proven horse?

Well, okay, if you insist. Let's take a look at the class of '24. But remember that this whole exercise, while undertaken with every effort at objectivity, is just one guy's opinion. You know what your mare looks like-which should, after all, be the starting point for every mating-and you know what physique would complement her best.

OVERVIEW OF THE CLASS

The retiring cohort is led by two sons of Curlin who have given an extra twist of speed to his established influence. That said, both shared another of his trademarks by thriving with maturity. Both, indeed, required four sophomore starts to win a maiden, Elite Power in September and Cody's Wish in October. So we'll have to see whether or not their brilliance will express itself on a pattern more conventional for sons of Curlin out of Seattle Slew line mares.

Elite Power | Sarah Andrew

Both those mares were elite runners themselves, of course, as a GI Kentucky Oaks runner-up and GI Gazelle S. winner respectively. The latter, Dance Card, showed conspicuous speed for a daughter of Tapit when placing in the GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, and had laid the ground for Cody's Wish by producing Endorsed (Medaglia d'Oro), the throwback talent who has this year won graded races in his sixth season. Elite Power meanwhile underpins his credentials with a half-sister to proven sire Dialed In as second dam, besides champion Eliza (Mt Livermore) as his fourth.

Both will take little finding but rather more funding, CODY'S WISH introduced at $75,000 and ELITE POWER at $50,000. While we all love a Met Mile winner, I'm not sure anyone could sensibly assert that there's a 50 percent difference in their potential at this stage.

GUNITE got a rear view of each, in his respective Breeders' Cup starts, but proved a handful for Elite Power in their two meetings in Saratoga this summer, running him to a head in the first and then beating him in GI Forego. And he has an edge in precocity, having won the GI Hopeful S. by nearly six lengths, enabling him to start at $40,000. His maternal family is seeded by some fairly arcane names, but the first three dams are stakes winners so it's demonstrably all working.

By the way, while we quickly learned to expect the unexpected from Gun Runner, perhaps we should pay more heed to the fact that Cody's Wish, Elite Power and Gunite were all presumably bred with two turns in mind. Quality tells, however it expresses itself. You want a Hopeful/Forego winner? Then you don't necessarily want to join a long line for a “commercial” sprinter.

Gunite | Sara Gordon

As for those who did end up with a Triple Crown agenda this year, we'll see who ends up with Eclipse laurels but the farms have meanwhile sought to anticipate the votes of breeders, with juvenile champion FORTE ($50,000) still ahead of ARCANGELO ($35,000), MAGE ($25,000) and TWO PHIL'S ($12,500).

The world was still at Forte's feet when he added the GI Florida Derby to three elite scores at two, but a couple of his contemporaries rather caught up with him. With hindsight, as the far less experienced horse, Mage's performance that day actually turned out to be the more significant pointer. But obviously commercial breeders will prize Forte's precocity, the Derby and Belmont winners both being later developers.

No newcomer has a better genetic base than Arcangelo, whose third dam is Better Than Honour, yet was found as a yearling for exactly the same price we must now pay for single cover! Hard to argue with that, given the way he followed up his Belmont breakout in the deepest sophomore field of the year at Saratoga.

Mage did not show his true colors there, but let's not lose sight of the historic level of talent required to progress so rapidly from a standing start, unraced until Jan. 28. He's gone to a farm that prices horses fairly without flooding the catalogue, and his brother's GII Remsen performance has meanwhile opened an exciting door.

That's the kind of thing that would help Two Phil's, who has an inescapably plain page. But you had to love the way he followed up a shatteringly game Derby effort on what sadly proved his only subsequent start, and the bottom line is that Danzig's last big star has covered a graded stakes sprinter and come up with something special.

Another star sophomore entering the ranks is ARABIAN LION, at $30,000. He's surely set for pinhooker shortlists as a $600,000 2-year-old who followed through to clock big numbers in the GI Woody Stephens, but those taking a longer view will also be satisfied to find Justify underpinned by Personal Ensign as third dam.

Pappacap | Sarah Andrew

TAIBA was an even more spectacular pinhook ($140,000 to $1.7 million) and paid it all back on the racetrack, winning the GI Santa Anita Derby off a maiden win and flaunting his speed when dropping back for the GI Malibu. Sticking around to run in the desert did not pay off, except maybe for breeders who might conceivably have been asked for a little more than $35,000 a year ago. Like Gunite, Taibia suggests the upgrading powers of their sire: his family owes most of its distinction to Ohio-breds, but his dam's 17 wins would be pretty remarkable in any currency.

PROXY, like Taiba, ran third in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic and that was a fitting conclusion to four seasons of set-your-clock Tapit action that left him just a tick below the very best (starts on $25,000) while thoroughly deserving his Grade I in the Clark. That hard-knocking profile befits the combination of his sire-line with a third dam also by Seattle Slew, and his dual Grade I-winning dam Panty Raid (Include) has corroborated her genetic input–sister a GI Kentucky Oaks runner-up–with a Grade II-winning daughter.

Among the more affordable newcomers, ZANDON appeals strongly at $12,500 as a horse rather more talented than generally appreciated. That's a curious suggestion of one whose consistency banked over $2 million through three campaigns in the best company, but he seldom found the right scenario to showcase that turn of foot. Even as it stands, he looks a lot of horse for this kind of money. I guess someone who could stretch for his aptly-named sire should still do so, but at this level Zandon is entitled to give Upstart fresh kudos.

DR. SCHIVEL will be in commercial demand at the same fee, as a Grade I winner at two and then also in the GI Bing Crosby S. He was beaten only two heads in his defense of that trophy, and only by a nose in the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint in between. His family carries a few faded names, but his dam is a half-sister to a Grade I winner and the blood was plainly functioning in a horse so consistently fast.

The Walmac revival meanwhile gains ground with a couple of eligibly priced recruits. PAPPACAP is assured traffic at $12,500 as a precocious son of Gun Runner, while FULSOME gives bargain access to Into Mischief at $7,500 after converting his Juddmonte page to the margin of elite performance.

War Horse Place is also showing ambition, bringing Classic winner Rombauer in from the cold at $6,000, while SMOOTH LIKE STRAIT has every right to sire runners at a bargain $3,500. This teak-tough and classy horse definitely warrants a look, having repeatedly missed adding to his solitary Grade I score only by narrow margins, including a head, a neck (twice), and half a length. He earned $1.8 million across four full campaigns and has a bunch of top runners and producers under his third dam. Do not make the mistake of assuming that his basement fee limits the kind of breeder who should be interested in recycling his merit in an expanding turf program.

VALUE PODIUM
Bronze:
UP TO THE MARK (Not This Time–Belle's Finale, by Ghostzapper)
Lane's End $25,000

Up to the Mark | Coady Photography

Here's a horse that taught a couple of valuable lessons for anyone smart enough to heed them. One is that the fearless approach can pay off even if you're beaten: the decision to risk a new distance at the Breeders' Cup, against a vintage group of Euro raiders, was arguably only thwarted by a dream trip for the winner and enabled Up to the Mark to tell us something new about himself–something that made us all think still more highly of him. Meanwhile the GI Mile was won by a horse he had nailed in their previous start, confirming his caliber at that trip.

But a still more important lesson concerned a different type of versatility. Because our horses will only expand their boundaries if we push our own, and Up to the Mark's career confirms what has long been obvious to any student of pedigrees: even when horses might have an obvious surface, on paper, we have to remember that races aren't staged on paper. How many other talents remain unfulfilled, you wonder, because they are campaigned in prescriptive fashion?

As it is, the slavish orthodoxies of our business have created a dividend for more imaginative breeders. Because the discovery that Up to the Mark was an elite performer on grass means that we get a much milder fee than would be the case for a dirt horse so narrowly denied a fourth consecutive Grade I success. And yet the pedigree that made it perfectly logical to start him on dirt–first four dams are by Ghostzapper, Capote, Fappiano and Key To The Mint–could easily filter into his second career.

After all, Not This Time himself in this instance appears to have served as a conduit for the flexibility trademarked by Giant's Causeway. Maybe Up to the Mark can now emulate his grandsire by helping breeders to overcome their prejudices, especially in an era when the American turf program is growing far faster than the available pool of talent among Kentucky stallions.

There's room at the top, after all, after the loss of Kitten's Joy and English Channel. And those who are squeamish about chlorophyll will surely be comforted that Up to the Mark's grandam Capote Bell won elite dirt dashes in the GI Test and GII Prioress. If he can breed a few to start their careers like he did, impressive in a Saratoga dirt sprint, then perhaps they will also emulate the kind of money he made as a $450,000 Book 1 yearling.

Silver:
COUNTRY GRAMMER (Tonalist–Arabian Song, by Forestry)
Winstar $10,000

Country Grammer | Benoit

This horse was one of the great auction steals at just $110,000 at the 2021 Keeneland January Sale. It tells you a lot about our business that he had brought four times as much as a 2-year-old, at OBS April, yet had since won the GIII Peter Pan S.! He was chased home there by Caracaro (Uncle Mo) and Mystic Guide (Ghostzapper), respectively GI Travers runner-up and GII Jim Dandy winner on their next starts. Though it was a poignant dispersal that put him into the ring, only WinStar were wide awake. The rest of us must keep going to work!

Country Grammer now gets the chance to top up his earnings since–enormously inflated in the desert, but also very respectable in the best Californian company–at what could prove another bargain price.

It's unsurprising to be reminded that this tremendously game animal draws on two doses of Pleasant Colony, responsible for the dams of both sire Tonalist and damsire Forestry. Tonalist may be keeping his price down but remember that Country Grammer's sire is himself extremely well-bred, while the second dam is a half-sister to a brilliant dasher in Etoile Montante (Miswaki) and granddaughter of the Juddmonte foundation mare Nijinsky Star (Nijinsky). The continued efficacy of this branch has been confirmed by both his granddam (produced a very fast juvenile in Britain) and his own mother, whose daughter by Runhappy banked over half a million with multiple graded stakes placings.

On pedigree as well as performance, then, Country Grammer is absolutely entitled to sire an elite runner like himself, and you can't say that of many horses standing at this kind of money. Personally, I wouldn't labor the point about his earnings: nobody is going to deceive themselves that this is the third best American Thoroughbred of all time, and the real point of his Dubai win was that he had too much for the likes of Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow), Life Is Good (Into Mischief) and Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow). And pinhookers should note the progress he made, admittedly as a May 11 foal, from $60,000 September yearling to his bullet breeze in Ocala.

Gold:
LOGGINS (Ghostzapper–Beyond Blame, by Blame)
Hill 'n' Dale $7,500

Loggins | Coady Photography

Like everybody else, and far more than many, I'm just guessing with all these horses. But every now and then even I can strike lucky and that was certainly the case with Not This Time. I was in his corner from the moment he went to stud in 2017 at $15,000-a fee he has meanwhile increased tenfold-and I feel there are striking echoes about this fellow, who starts at half that price.

Both ran the subsequent champion juvenile to a neck on what unfortunately proved to be their final start, and in each case their connections were entitled to hope for revenge next time. At the Breeders' Cup Not This Time had to concede first run to Classic Empire, who exploited his cleaner trip but was all out to hold on. Loggins, in contrast, was exposed to a hot pace in the GI Breeders' Futurity at Keeneland, and yet rallied bravely as Forte picked up the pieces. Moreover, the winner jostled him towards the rail sufficiently for a rider objection, albeit one that was ultimately not sustained. Regardless it was a remarkable effort, against the GI Hopeful winner, from a horse that could not have learned too much when breaking his maiden by over eight lengths on debut.

He now enters competition with Mystic Guide for what remains a slightly alarming vacancy as a worthy heir to their sire, who's plainly in the evening of his career as he welcomes Loggins to the barn. It would be a shame if such a flamboyant talent failed to secure a male conduit for genes that have already served Justify and Up to the Mark so well, through their dams.

Loggins himself shared a damsire with Forte, in Blame. My feeling is that Blame's precocity in this capacity channels the quality both of his own maternal line, and that of his sire Arch. Now Loggins can combine that legacy with Ghostzapper's prowess as a broodmare sire, typical of the Deputy Minister sire-line. As such, any breeder who wouldn't mind retaining a filly would be well advised to consider Loggins.

He was a $460,000 Saratoga yearling, remember, as the first starter for a graded stakes winner out of a half-sister to two others. The next dam is a dual Grade II-placed Unbridled's Song half-sister not only to Street Boss but also to the dam of another elite sprinter in Jack Christopher (Munnings).

As the rest of this podium demonstrates, we'd appreciate rather more proof of soundness. But the bottom line is that a raw Loggins had shown himself to be nearly Forte's equal, forcing him seven lengths clear of smart horses like Red Route One (Gun Runner), Instant Coffee (Bolt d'Oro), Newgate (Into Mischief), Two Phil's (Hard Spun) and Funtastic Again (Funtastic). All served as complimentary proxies on the Derby trail after Loggins was derailed.

Forte obviously achieved a much deeper body of work, but that's why he's basically seven times the price. Loggins has gone to a farm that has excelled with these brief meteors and its owner must have been very keen, given that Spendthrift was in the ownership group that made a deal to send him here. In the current fee climate, he has been priced with unbelievable generosity. That will surely secure the kind of volume that can help Loggins make his second career far more sustainable than his first.

The Value Podium: New Sires

Gold: LOGGINS. $7,500 Hill 'n' Dale.

Silver: COUNTRY GRAMMER. $10,000 WinStar.

  • Modern career, old school merit.

Bronze: UP TO THE MARK. $25,000 Lane's End.

  • Turf discount but potential for any surface.

Check out our breeders picks for their value sires of 2024.

The post Kentucky Value Sires for 2024, Part I: New Stallions appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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