Last crop of City Zip comes to commercial arena

City Zip was aptly named, a speedster based in New York who was a tenacious competitor. Trained most of his career by Linda Rice, City Zip excelled at sprint distances, racking up nine victories, $818,225 in earnings, and eight stakes wins and eight stakes placings in 23 starts, but when he went to stud, there were no great expectations.

The son of sprinter Carson City out of the Relaunch mare Baby Zip, City Zip started at stud in 2002 at Contemporary Stallions in Coxsackie, N.Y., for a fee of $7,500, and was bred mostly to New York-based mares, not necessarily a proven recipe for success.

Even before his first crop reached the races, his pedigree improved dramatically in 2004 when his half-brother Ghostzapper won that year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic and went on to be voted Horse of the Year. Lane’s End, based in Versailles, Ky., stepped in and brought City Zip to the Bluegrass State for the 2005 breeding season and doubled his fee to $15,000.

While that may have seemed aggressive at the time, his progeny started running that spring. And running. By year-end, City Zip was the third-leading freshman sire in the country, with the most winners, 20, by any first-crop sire, and he looked like he would be more than a regional sire. And he proved to be.

City Zip went on to sire horses who could sprint, run a middle distance, and run on dirt and grass. His best progeny were like him – fast and game – and some could carry their speed. He sired champion turf female Dayatthespa, Canadian Horse of the Year Catch a Glimpse, champion sprinter Work All Week, champion female sprinter Finest City, and such Grade 1 winners as Collected, Palace, Bustin Stones, and Zipessa. He has sired 81 stakes winners, 28 of which won graded stakes, and has progeny earnings of $89 million. He has firmly staked a place among leading sires annually.

City Zip last covered mares in 2016. He was to stand the 2017 season for a fee of $50,000, but was not able to cover any mares that year because of chronic foot problems. He was euthanized due to those problems in July 2017 at the relatively young age of 19.

The foals from City Zip’s last crop are yearlings, and he is represented by 45 horses in the Keeneland September sale catalog. Lifetime, City Zip yearlings have averaged $59,109 at sales, but much of that is based on lower stud fees from his earlier years. From 2016 through this year’s summer sales, 70 yearlings by City Zip have sold for an average of $133,617.