Mr. Z

Grade I winner Lexitonian (Spightstown) will stand the 2024 breeding season at Calumet Farm for a fee of $7,500, live foal, after spending his first two years at stud at Lane's End, the farm announced on Tuesday. The 7-year-old stallion, who won the 2021 GI Alfred G. Vanderbilt H. and finished second in the GI Bing Crosby S., was bred and campaigned by Calumet Farm. Lexitonian joins Keen Ice (Curlin), Oxbow (Awesome Again), Hightail (Mineshaft) and Channel Cat (English Channel) at $7,500. Bal A Bali (Brz) (Put It Back), Bravazo...

This is the second part of the latest instalment in our ongoing series assessing stallion options for the new covering season, now tackling sires who have just sold their first yearlings. The first part, which appeared in Tuesday's edition, can be read here. Dixie Union has achieved quite a legacy as a broodmare sire and, following on from Mohaymen (Tapit), two other stallions in this group are out of his daughters. KLIMT (Quality Road-Inventive by Dixie Union) has maintained an industrial output through his first three books at Darby Dan,...

We've taken a breather in this series during the January Sale, where I shared many conversations on themes raised in its first two parts--notably the market's addiction to unproven stallions. Time after time, it was the same story. A shrug of the shoulders, a helpless spreading of the hands: "Yes, we know it's nuts. But we have to make the game pay." Fair enough. It's a bit like the individual who asks why he or she should make a massively inconvenient personal sacrifice, with regard to the climate crisis, when...