Bill Oppenheim: Supersire Crop

Shared Belief's romp (Beyer 111) in Saturday's GI Santa Anita H. propelled his sire, Lane's End's Candy Ride, to the number two spot on the TDN Year-to-Date North American General Sire List (click here), behind only Gainesway's super-sire, Tapit, who had his 15th Grade I winner from seven crops of 3-year-olds (of 2015) when Ring Weekend captured the GI Frank E. Kilroe Mile, also on Santa Anita's power-packed card last Saturday. Interestingly, both Shared Belief and Ring Weekend are 4-year-old geldings, part of a very strong crop that also includes GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner, Bayern (Offlee Wild); and two of the three intended U.S. invaders for the Mar. 28 $10-million G1 Dubai World Cup: 2014 dual Classic winner and Horse of The Year, California Chrome (Lucky Pulpit); and last month's GI Donn H. winner (and 2014 GI Florida Derby winner), Constitution (Tapit). The third U.S. contender is the now 6-year-old Lea (First Samurai), who won the Donn last year and was runner-up to Constitution this year. Unlike Shared Belief and Ring Weekend, they are all sire prospects, as are a pair of 4-year-olds already ticketed for Lane's End: Saturday's impressive GII Gulfstream Park H. winner (Beyer 108) Honor Code (A.P. Indy); and last year's GI Belmont S. winner, Tonalist (Tapit). Last year's GI Wood Memorial winner, Wicked Strong (Hard Spun), was fourth behind Honor Code at Gulfstream, looking like he needed further than Saturday's mile.

So Saturday's two Santa Anita Grade I results were won by 4-year-old geldings by America's two top sires so far this year, Tapit and Candy Ride. I don't know what was in they air when these horses all went to stud in Kentucky in 2005, but it is so striking that the four horses from that sire crop who always looked like they could be major-league, from day one, now occupy four of the top seven places on the 2015 TDN Year-to-Date North American General Sire List. The other two, of course, are Darley's now-#5 ranked Medaglia d'Oro and WinStar's Speightstown, now ranked #7.

There is a very interesting (and, I suspect, under-used) Table among the TDN Sire Lists; it goes by the title, Lifetime Cumulative Earnings General Sire List (click here), and ranks by cumulative lifetime earnings all sires that still have runners in North America or Europe. The earnings are interesting, sure, but even more interesting are the black-type categories, where we can quickly find out with how many lifetime black-type winners and horses; how many graded/group stakes winners and horses; and how many lifetime (Northern Hemisphere-sired) Grade I/Group 1 horses the top 100 sires (by career progeny earnings) have sired.

So we looked up the four F2006 sires, who are all among the top 100, as are two sires with first foals 2007: Darley's Dubawi and Ramsey Farm's Kitten's Joy. We included their records in the accompanying table, along with two Coolmore greats, Sadler's Wells and his son, Galileo, for comparison. The sires are listed by total progeny earnings, but those figures do happen to correspond to their percentage of Grade I/Group 1 winners to foals.

As you can see, Sadler's Wells sired 2,193 named foals in 23 crops, of which a mere 294 (13.40%) were black-type winners (BTW). Of these, 167 (7.61%) were graded/group winners (GSW), and 73 were Group 1 winners (G1W). That works out to 3.32%, in other words, one in 30, which must be the best record ever established. From 10 crops of 3-year-olds (including 3-year-olds of 2015), Galileo has sired 151 BTW (10.91%), 95 GSW (6.86%), and 41 G1W (2.96% of named foals). He's not quite matched Sadler's Wells's figures, but he has sired 40% higher average foal crops, and he is absolutely out on his own among contemporary stallions with almost 3% G1 winners/named foals.
If we look at the 2015 TDN YTD General Sire List, including European sires (click here), you can see that Dubawi is a narrow second behind Tapit on this list, which means five of the top eight sires on this list are F2006 or F2007 sires (the sixth, Kitten's Joy, currently ranks #23 this year). So these are about the biggest guns out there, therefore it is relevant to see what percentages of success they have achieved in career terms. That's where the cumulative table comes in. Dubawi has, at this point, actually matched Sadler's Wells's career percentage of GSW (7.61%), and surpassed Galileo's (6.86%); that is some achievement. Tapit lags behind by GSW percentage (4.49%), but he makes them count: Tapit has 2.04% G1 winners/foals, Dubawi has 2.03%. But this is the absolute top of the tree–1 in 50; for the population as a whole it's more like 1 in 250, which is why we don't go around using the percentage of Group 1 winners in advertisements. It would put you off.

Here are what look like attainable goals for the top sires of today, using the six F2006-F2007 sires as examples. All six have APEX A Runner indexes between 2.48 – 3.49; practically speaking, we can call that the 2.50 – 3.50 range. Five of the six have 7.50% BTW/named foals. The same five have over 3.00% GSW; and four of the six have near enough 1.50% G1 winners (Medaglia d'Oro has 1.46%). F2006 Candy Ride and F2007 Kitten's Joy are around 1.00% G1 winners, so it looks like that's about the minimum desired level for top sires–Kitten's Joy has been champion sire, remember, and Candy Ride is the current #2 and has the current best horse in America, Shared Belief. What this means: future top sires are likely to sire a minimum of 1.00% G1 winners (likely higher); 3.00% GSW; and 7.50% or higher BTW from named foals. So these are target percentages, achieved by the current top sires; but there is a danger in jumping too soon, too–one top horse is not enough.