OP/ED: Is This Sire the Next Kodiac?

No need to stop the press, there is no secret being revealed when it is stated that Kodiac (GB) (Danehill) is one of the hottest commercial sires in Europe right now. In the last two years in particular, he has really come to the fore and his best days are very much ahead of him, with him having covered 232 mares at a fee of €25,000 in 2015 and set to stand for a career-high of €45,000 in 2016.

Inevitably, such a rise in nomination fee will put him out of the reach of those breeders at the low-to-middle end of the market, so for those that wish to avoid the risks of using unproven sires, the search is on for a proven sire at the lower end of the nomination fee scale that has the potential to erupt into the next Kodiac in terms of commercial appeal.

Having searched the stallion book for sires with nomination fees of below £7,000/€10,000 that have the right blend of achievements in the book and all-important potential upside, the one that makes the most appeal is Dandy Man (Ire) (Mozart {Ire}), who will stand at Ballyhane Stud in Carlow for €8,000 in 2016.

Whilst running the numbers for this piece, not long after I started working on Dandy Man, it became clear that his stallion career to date has been remarkably similar to Kodiac's profile and achievements at the same stage of his career. See for yourself:

What the above tables do is compare the performance of the progeny of Kodiac and Dandy Man up to the end of their third season with runners. In Kodiac's case, that is up to the end of 2012 and with Dandy Man it is up to the end of 2015. In the context of racecourse performance, their first three crops are the relevant ones to examine and despite Dandy Man having 15% less progeny of racing age during this time which were sired off a 17% lower average nomination fee (based on advertised fees), it is eye-catchingly impressive that his progeny still outperformed the progeny of the excellent Kodiac both on the racecourse and in the sales ring, producing more racehorses that achieved Racing Post Ratings of 90+ and 105+ as well as achieving higher average and median prices at the yearling sales.

Those are the numbers and comparisons to date, but an even more important and relevant aspect of this study for breeders going forward is that of the potential upside in using Dandy Man in 2016.

After his excellent start with his first two-year-olds in 2013, Dandy Man attracted a significantly increased quantity of mares at the backend of that breeding season. The 92 live foals that resulted from those matings have just sold as yearlings and will be hitting the track in 2016, which promises to bring Dandy Man into mainstream focus after a couple of understandably quiet seasons given the small number of mares he covered in 2011 and 2012.

Even more significant is that the group of mares he covered in 2014 were of a higher quality off a €7,500 nomination fee that was nearly double that of 2013. Some of that crop of 96 foals has just gone through the sales as foals and the results have produced career-high median and average prices for Dandy Man foals. Looking even further ahead, Dandy Man covered no less than 192 mares in 2015, a substantial increase on the numbers he has covered in the past.

Thus, in common with Kodiac, Dandy Man is going to have an excellent chance to deliver on his early promise in the next three seasons. Given how closely their careers have mirrored each other thus far, it is worth noting how the fortunes of Kodiac panned out from the beginning of 2013 onwards (new information from that point in bold font), which is the stage that Dandy Man is just about to enter.

From 2013 onwards, the quantity and quality of Kodiac's progeny on the racecourse rose sharply and the sale's results soon followed. It was his 2012 crop that really set Kodiac off in commercial terms, with the likes of Tiggy Wiggy (Ire), Kodi Bear (Ire) and Terror (Ire) all flying his flag high in 2014, resulting in significant gains in average and median for Kodiac yearlings that sold later that year.

Mares that are covered by Dandy Man in 2016 will have yearlings on the ground in 2018, at which point his higher quantity and quality foals crops of 2014 and in particular 2015 and 2016 will all have raced for at least one season. Of course, not many sires rise up the ranks as quickly as Kodiac has in recent years, but all of the above evidence suggests that those that use Dandy Man in 2016 will have probability and value on their side. It is likely that he will only need a handful of high-class performers to emerge from those big crops for the market as a whole to appreciate his merits and those that get him on their side now could well reap the rewards in the sale's ring in the years ahead.