By Chris McGrath
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.
- Reminiscent of Not This Time.
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.
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