Preservationist

No getting away from it, the young stallions we assess today have already completed their service to many breeders. They've processed a debut crop of yearlings, often on an industrial scale, and many have obliged with the kind of averages that vindicate the familiar, self-fulfilling commercial cycle that so favors new sires: demand generating supply, and the quality incidental to that increased supply in turn increasing demand. That leaves us with another tricky podium. You can't just congratulate those who have "won" on this system, topping out the first-crop yearling...

The Brereton C. Jones/Airdrie Stud consignment will be bustling in just a few weeks at the Keeneland September Sale as an assembly of over 60 yearlings bred and raised at the landmark Midway farm prepare to go through the ring. The majority of these youngsters represent the dozen-strong stallion roster at Airdrie, which includes two sires that are represented by their first crop of yearlings this year in Grade I-winning millionaires Preservationist (Arch - Flying Dixie, by Dixieland Band) and Divisidero (Kitten's Joy - Madame du Lac, by Lemon Drop...

With the global economy tottering in the Covid headwind, last year a lot of stallion farms went out of their way to help breeders with fee cuts. As a result, as I've previously suggested, the market's remarkable rally since means that the present trading environment represents a pretty historic opportunity. And that particularly applies to the next group in our series, as the first to have absorbed those cuts. (Even last year, it felt as though the rookies had been priced with the usual and necessary opportunism.) Especially because one...

Grade I-winning millionaire Preservationist (Arch--Flying Dixie, by Dixieland Band) was represented by his first reported foal with the arrival of a filly produced by the Giant's Causeway mare Win Crafty Jan. 8 in Ocala, FL. A daughter of graded stakes winner Win Crafty Lady, Win Crafty is a half-sister to Grade I winner Harmony Lodge (Hennessy), GII Arkansas Derby Graeme Hall (Dehere) and to stakes-winning and graded stakes-producing mare Win's Fair Lady (Dehere). Win Crafty is also a full-sister to Win McCool, herself a graded stakes producer and granddam of...

Thursday, Chris McGrath covered the first half of the Kentucky stallions with first weanlings. Click here to read about Omaha Beach, Vino Rosso, Mitole, Audible, Catholic Boy and Yoshida. Part II appears below. Unusually enough, this intake includes a third Grade I winner on both dirt and grass in WORLD OF TROUBLE (Kantharos--Meets Expectations by Valid Expectations), held at $15,000 by Hill 'n' Dale. This was an unusually efficient machine for the chaotic environment of the sprint division. His only defeat in his final eight starts measured by the neck...

Saturday's GI Whitney S. lost some of its appeal when two-time G1 Dubai World Cup hero Thunder Snow (Ire) (Helmet {Aus}) was scratched sick, depriving fans of a battle with 'TDN Rising Star' McKinzie (Street Sense) in the 'Win and You're In' qualifier for the GI Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita the first weekend in November. Though that clash is on hold for the next eight weeks, McKinzie upheld his end of the bargain, getting a thinking-man's ride from Hall of Famer Mike Smith before holding off a late...