By Bill Oppenheim
It has been my contention for a long time that until a horse has 4-year-olds, notwithstanding market considerations, we don't necessarily always have a really clear picture of whether he is going to succeed at all, and if so, how far up the ladder he is likely to climb. This seems to particularly be the case with the group of North American and European sires with their first foals in 2012, who now have their oldest 4-year-olds. There are at least 15 sires which we could say are still in contention to become success stories at one level or another, but at the same time it's hard to point any out which could be considered unqualified successes just yet. The picture could, and should, become clearer as the year progresses, but breeding season is now, so breeders either have decided, or have to decide, on which if any of these sires they are prepared to gamble.
One sire stands out in terms of one key statistic: WinStar's Super Saver has three Grade I winners so far from his first crop, and correspondingly has the group's highest stud fee, at $65,000 (click here); he is the only NA/EU F2012 sire with more than one Grade I or Group 1 winner. A former 'market darling' with his first yearlings in 2013 and first 2-year-olds in 2014, he was runner-up to Quality Road on the 2014 North American freshman sire list, his progeny including GI winner Competitive Edge and Grade II winner I Spent It. He followed up last year with two more Grade I winners: GI Breeders' Cup Sprint winner and champion sprinter Runhappy and GI Alabama S. winner Embellish The Lace, as well as Grade II winner High Dollar Woman.
However, though he is out on his own in terms of Grade I winners and is the leading North American F2012 sire with six Graded/Group Stakes Winners (GSW), he has not yet 'filled in' the next categories below: his year-end 2015 APEX A Runner Index was 1.69 (*note: these F2012 A Runner indexes include any GSW which did not qualify as A Runners by earnings. Click here for the 2015 final Apex ratings). With eight Black-Type Winners (BTW) to date, he ranks second in that department to Ashford's Munnings, who has 14 BTW, and Super Saver is also second to Munnings by cumulative progeny earnings (click here), with $6,444,684 in progeny earnings (all figures through Monday) compared to Munnings's total of $6,807,786. Munnings has one Grade I winner, 2015 Eclipse finalist I'm A Chatterbox, and four GSW, second in North America to Super Saver's six. Munnings's $25,000 stud fee for 2016 must therefore qualify as a very reasonable bet.
Sixteen F2012 NA/EU sires have cumulative progeny earnings over $3-million, of which four are, at this writing, European sires–considering European sires are at a distinct disadvantage in that American sires have had progeny running for two months of 2016 already, whereas the European turf season isn't yet underway. But thus far it's the European sire Lope De Vega, who stands at Ballylinch Stud in Ireland, who leads all NA/EU F2012 sires by number of GSW (7) and number of Black-Type Horses (BTH), with 22 (Munnings has 20), though he is only seventh by progeny earnings, which stand at $4,103,758. He is also second to Munnings among NA/EU F2012 sires, with 12 BTW (Munnings has 14). The next two European sires by progeny earnings are the Haras de Bonneval's Siyouni ($3,821,172) and England's Whitsbury Manor Stud's Showcasing ($3,320,542). Each has seven BTW (tied for fourth among this group) and four GSW (tied for third, with Munnings, behind Lope De Vega and Super Saver). The fourth European sire with over $3-million is Makfi ($3,035,158), who started at Tweenhills Stud in England and now stands alongside Siyouni at Haras de Bonneval.
Munnings and Super Saver are two of only four NA/EU F2012 sires with over $5-million in progeny earnings to date, the others being Ashford's #3-ranked Lookin At Lucky ($5,804,308) and Lane's End's #4-ranked Quality Road ($5,695,133). Lookin At Lucky has sired six BTW (two GSW, though not a Grade I winner as yet) and 15 BTH, and his 3.24 year-end 2015 A Runner Index (3.24) ranks second in that category among F2012 sires with significant representation only to Florida sensation Kantharos (3.47), who ranks only 11th on the North American cumulative progeny earnings list but has six BTW, two of them graded, including last weekend's GIII Gulfstream Park Sprint winner X Y Jet, who now goes for the $2,000,000 GI Golden Shaheen on Dubai World Cup night Mar. 26. Quality Road, meanwhile, was Leading North American freshman sire of 2014, and after a lackluster 2015 has roared back as the leading NA/EU third-crop sire of 2016 with 17 winners so far this year and progeny earnings of $791,601, over $160,000 ahead of Munnings, Kantharos, Warrior's Reward, and Lookin At Lucky, in that order.
Three other North American F2012 sires are over the $4-million mark in progeny earnings: Spendthrift's Warrior's Reward, who has sired 81 winners, one of four F2012 sires to have sired more than 80 so far; then Darley's Midshipman, who has done very well and looks a real bargain at $7,500 this year. He has six BTW and though no GSWs, his very good now 4-year-old filly Lady Shipman, runner-up in the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint against the boys and elders, was a good winner at Gulfstream Park last time out and is another headed for Dubai, in her case for the five-furlong G1 Al Quoz Sprint at five furlongs on the turf. Airdrie's Majesticperfection ranks seventh, with cumulative progeny earnings over $4,060,000.
Other North American sires over $3-million: Claiborne's Blame, with three GSW and 12 BTH, who is siring runners with quality and could emulate his sire Arch by siring good 4-year-olds; Spendthrift's Temple City, also with three GSW, including recent GII Arcadia S. winner Bolo and, like Blame, a Roberto-line sire; Lane's End's Discreetly Mine; the aforementioned Kantharos; and Hold Me Back, who was transferred this year from WinStar Farm to Irish Hill Century Farm in New York.
F2013 SIRES (1st 3-Year-Olds)
As we've pointed above, sometimes we have to wait until a sire has his first 4-year-olds to determine where they stand on the totem pole; sometimes we don't. One where we don't is Ashford's leading 2015 NA/EU Freshman Sire Uncle Mo, who has already had four BTW (two GSW), 11 BTH (seven GSH), and the earners of over $1.1-million in the first eight weeks of the year (click here). His cumulative total is now nine BTW (four GSW), 18 BTH (11 GSH), two Grade I winners including unbeaten champion 2-year-old Nyquist, and the earners of over $4.9-million–three times the earnings of his nearest pursuer, Lane's End's Twirling Candy ($1.6-million) (click here). He is one of three sons of Candy Ride among the North American second-crop top 10; the others are Hill 'n' Dale's Misremembered, winner of the GI Santa Anita H.; and WinStar's Sidney's Candy. Misremembered has five winners this year, including two winners of two races each at Oaklawn and Nightly News, winner of the Turf Paradise Derby. Sidney's Candy also has five winners, including last weekend's GIII Palm Beach S. winner Converge. Misremembered ($267k) and Sidney's Candy ($239k) currently rank eight-nine among second-crop NA/EU sires by 2016 progeny earnings.
Third in 2016 ($349k) and overall ($1.4m) is Spendthrift's Archarcharch, like Blame a son of Arch, and also a Roberto-line sire, as is also Temple City. Fourth is Claiborne's Trappe Shot ($300k), with Florida's Double Diamond Farm's First Dude ($291k) in fifth. Airdrie's Haynesfield ($283k) ranks sixth, ahead of Maryland's Country Life Farm's Friesan Fire ($276k), a son of A.P. Indy who won the 2009 edition of the GII Louisiana Derby. Misremembered ($267k) and Sidney's Candy ($225k) are eight-nine, as mentioned, with Spendthrift's Wilburn ($199k) rounding out the 2016 NA/EU second-crop sire table top 10.
The European sires haven't really got underway yet; at the end of last season Coolmore had European freshman sire one-three Zoffany ($1.289-million in progeny earnings to date, five BTW, including three GSW) and Canford Cliffs ($816k, three BTW). Ballylinch's Dream Ahead ($856k) sits second, and the English National Stud's Roderic O'Connor, who was moved to Britain from Irish horseman Joe Foley's Ballyhane Stud for this breeding season, is fourth. Dream Ahead, Canford Cliffs, and Roderic O'Connor have two GSW each.
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