Bill Oppenheim: Third-Crop Leaders

By the time a sire's first foals are halfway through their 4-year-old years–and their second crop are halfway through their 3-year-old years– we usually have a pretty good idea of whether the needle which measures success is pointing up or down. Not always; sometimes we know right away, like with Coolmore Ashford's Uncle Mo. Other times it takes even longer for the facts to crystallize, but we're surely getting an idea by this point in time about third-crop sires, or, this year, sires with first foals in 2012.

At this point, seven F2012 sires–four in North America and three in Europe–are leading their respective sire groups both by progeny earnings and black-type progeny performances, though–as has been typical of this group all along–there are still plenty of other contenders in the running for sire success. We'll gain further insight into this sire class in a couple of weeks, when we get the Midyear APEX ratings, always an exciting time of year for us APEX groupies, but pending those numbers there's plenty we can say now.

In North America, four F2012 sires have cumulative worldwide progeny earnings over $7-million to date. Lane's End's Quality Road is the North American sire class leader with 2016 earnings of $3,239,666, through Tuesday, ahead of Coolmore Ashford's Munnings, with $2,468,739 (click here). Quality Road leads Munnings barely by 2016 winners, 55 to 54. Munnings leads the group with six 2016 Black-Type Winners (BTW), and five Graded Stakes Horses (GSH), while Quality Road is tied with Spendthrift's Temple City with three 2016 Graded Stakes Winners (GSW). Cumulatively, though, Munnings leads North American third-crop sires, both in number of winners (101) and cumulative worldwide earnings (click here), which stood at $8,653,365, through Tuesday. He also leads North American third-crop sires with 15 BTW and 22 Black-Type Horses (BTH), though the leading European third-crop sire, Ireland's Ballylinch Stud's Lope De Vega, leads all NA/EU third-crop sires with 31 Black-Type Horses to date.

WinStar's Super Saver is second with 95 worldwide winners (including a couple of impressive 5 1/2-furlong 2-year-old winners at Belmont and Santa Anita), followed by Spendthrift's Warrior's Reward (94), and Quality Road and Coolmore Ashford's Lookin At Lucky, with 92 each. Quality Road is second by cumulative worldwide earnings ($8,143,198), followed by Super Saver ($7,701,114) and Lookin At Lucky ($7,127,578) as the four North American third-crop sires with cumulative progeny earnings over $7-million. Super Saver is the only third-crop sire with three Grade I winners to date; Quality Road and Lope De Vega have two each. Besides the four NA sires with $7-million-plus in progeny earnings, special mention among this group goes to Spendthrift's Temple City, who has three GSW this year and four overall, including one Grade I winner (Miss Temple City), and three other Grade I-placed horses; and Florida's Ocala Stud's Kantharos, who leads this entire group with 11 Black-Type Horses this year (including the 1-2-3 in a stakes at Gulfstream the other day). I'll bet he has an impressive A Runner Index when we see that in two weeks.

The top three European third-crop sires are: Lope De Vega, who leads all European third-crop sires by worldwide progeny earnings, both in 2016 (click here), and by cumulative worldwide progeny earnings (click here); France's Haras De Bonneval's Siyouni; and England's Whitsbury Manor Stud's Showcasing. Showcasing leads European third-crop sires with four GSW this year, to three for Lope De Vega and Siyouni, but otherwise Lope De Vega leads in all other black-type categories, both in 2016 and cumulatively. To date Lope De Vega has sired 94 winners, the earners of over $6.4-million, with 15 Black-Type Winners (tied with Munnings as NA/EU 3rd-crop leader); 31 Black-Type Horses, which comfortably leads all North American as well as European third-crop sires; eight GSW; 16 Group Stakes Horses; two Group 1 winners; and five Group 1 Horses. Siyouni and Showcasing are two-three by cumulative earnings, black-type and Group Race performers: Siyouni has sired 76 winners and the earners of over $4.95-million, including 10 BTW (7 GSW) and 18 BTH (9 GSH); Showcasing has sired 8 BTW (6 GSW) and 19 BTH (also 9 GSH)–and, by the way, both started out at four-figure stud fees, and without that much help in terms of mare quality. Makfi ($4.1-million), who is now back in France at the Haras De Bonneval, and Ireland's Tally Ho Stud's Zebedee ($3.6-million) are four-five by cumulative progeny earnings; Zebedee, sire of two very fast Group 2 winners in Ivawood and Magical Memory, is the leading third-crop sire of winners (111) over Makfi (107), the sire of dual 2015 Group 1 winner Make Believe. Highclere's Paco Boy ($3.3-million), sire of this year's G1 English 2000 Guineas and G1 St James's Palace S. winner Galileo Gold, and England's Newsells Park Stud's Equiano ($3.0-million, including 11 Black-Type Horses, seven GSH) round out the seven European third-crop sires with over $3-million in cumulative worldwide progeny earnings from Northern Hemisphere-sired crops.

SECOND-CROP SIRES: Castleton Lyons's Gio Ponti won seven Group 1 races on the turf and was twice North American Turf Champion, but he also finished a bang-up second to Zenyatta in the 2009 GI Breeders' Cup Classic on the then-synthetic at Santa Anita. Synthetic still works at Woodbine, and last Sunday Sir Dudley Digges, a $130,000 OBS June 2-year-old buy by Kenneth and Sarah Ramsey from Gio Ponti's first crop, became the sire's first Black-Type Winner with a half-length score over favorite Amis Gizmo, by Giant's Causeway's successful Canadian-based son Giant Gizmo, in the C$1-million Queen's Plate. The C$600,000 first prize propelled Gio Ponti into fifth place, behind Coolmore Ashford's Uncle Mo, Lane's End's Twirling Candy, and Spendthrift's Paddy O'Prado and Archarcharch, among North American second-crop sires by 2016 progeny earnings (click here). Claiborne's Trappe Shot and Florida's Double Diamond Farm's First Dude are the other two NA second-crop sires over $1-million in 2016 worldwide progeny earnings. Among European second-crop sires, France's Haras d'Etreham'sWootton Bassett has only seven winners this year, but one of them is G1 Prix du Jockey-Club-French Derby winner Almanzor, who gives his sire about an $80,000 lead (click here) over Coolmore's Leading 2015 European Freshman Sire, Zoffany, who has 29 winners this year, including 5 BTW. Cumulatively, Zoffany is nearly $1-million in front (click here), including nine BTW, five of them GSW, and, ominously, four Group 1-placed horses.