By Stefanie Grimm
Each year, the team at the TDN designates horses early in their career who display enough promise to become an eventual graded-stakes winner. In 2017, a total of 80 horses racing on North American soil received the honor, but how many actually went on to achieve success?
The class is led by the achievements of its lone Eclipse Award winner, 2020 champion turf female Rushing Fall (More Than Ready). A 2-year-old in 2017, the half-sister to SW & MGSP Milam (Street Sense) earned her tag with a half-length defeat of fellow 2017 'Rising Star' classmate Daddy Is A Legend (Scat Daddy) at Belmont Park. Two starts later she would take the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and take the second-most votes behind Caledonia Road (Quality Road) to be champion 2-year-old filly. Rushing Fall raced only four time as a 3-year-old but earned 3 wins and a second, capping her season off with a score in the GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup S. She added two more wins at the highest level as a 4-year-old in 2019 before retiring as a 5-year-old with an impressive final record of 15-11-3-0, six of those being grade ones in four consecutive years, and earnings of $2,893,000. Rushing Fall was purchased by M.V Magnier's Coolmore connections for $5.5 million out of the 2020 Fasig-Tipton Night of the Stars sale.
The most successful colt of the 2017 'Rising Star' class, Mckinzie (Street Sense) didn't debut until late in his 2-year-old year, taking a maiden special weight event at Santa Anita in late October before immediately making an impact with a win via disqualification over future MGISP Solomini (Curlin) in the GI Los Alamitos Cash Call Futurity. Though he missed the Triple Crown series as a 3-year-old, McKinzie returned in the fall of 2018 to take the GI Pennsylvania Derby and would finish the year with a win in the GI Malibu S. He would put up one more grade-one win in the 2019 Whitney S. before finishing his career in the fall of 2020 with a record of 18-8-6-0 and earnings of $3,473,360. McKinzie now stands at Gainesway and had his first weanling sell at this year's Keeneland November Sale.
Four more members of the class won multiple times at the grade-one level: Paradise Woods (Union Rags), current WinStar Farm stallion Yoshida (Jpn) (Heart's Cry {Jpn}), Separationofpowers (Candy Ride {Arg}), and Moonshine Memories (Malibu Moon). Six other 'Rising Stars' of 2017 would go on to win once against grade-one company: Battle of Midway (Smart Strike), current Hill 'n' Dale Farms stallion Army Mule (Friesan Fire), Pavel (Creative Cause), Lady Ivanka (Tiz Wondeful), Mia Mischief (Into Mischief), and Sporting Chance (Tiznow).
Several notable horses, while not grade-one winners, would place at the level multiple times. Perhaps most notably is 2018 Canadian Horse of the Year and 2017 Canadian champion 2-year-old Wonder Gadot (Medaglia d'Oro) who took both the Queen's Plate S. and the Prince of Wales S. as part of the Canadian Triple Crown following a second-place finish to dual Eclipse Award winner Monomoy Girl (Tapizar) in the GI Longines Kentucky Oaks. She would be purchased for $2,000,000 by Japan's KI Farm at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton Night of the Stars Sale.
The aforementioned Daddy Is A Legend would hit the board twice in grade-one company behind both Rushing Fall and 2019 champion turf female Uni (GB) (More Than Ready).
There were 16 'Rising Stars' in 2017 who would go on to achieve success in grade two or three events–led by millionaire and current Spendthrift Farm stallion Coal Front (Stay Thirsty).
In total, 28/80 horses who received the 'Rising Star' honor in 2017 would win a graded-stakes race, or 35%. By including those horses that placed in graded events, that number jumps to 49/80, of 61%. An additional nine horses would win at the stakes level and five would be stakes placed. Of the 80, only 17 failed to earn black type in their careers.
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