Kentucky Derby winner Orb took some time to gather momentum commercially, with his first crop of yearlings last year receiving a measured response. But this year, the young stallion has found himself on a rapid ascent to eclipse the competition in rare fashion. Orb has found wild commercial success with two seven-figure horses this year as his first crop is still proving itself on the racetrack, and he looks poised to continue on his new trajectory heading into the bellwether Keene-land September yearling sale. Orb, who won the Florida Derby prior to his Kentucky Derby triumph, stands at his birthplace, historic Claiborne Farm in Paris, Ky. The freshman son of Malibu Moon had four winners from 18 starters through Aug. 26, with two of those coming in competitive maiden special weight events at Saratoga. “When they win up here, they’re stake horses,” said veteran trainer and bloodstock expert Leon Blusiewicz, 86, who has purchased several of Orb’s progeny this year. “I’ve been coming up here a long, long time. When you have a 2-year-old who either wins here or is a good second, they’re a stake horse. This horse Orb could hit a home run. This is the way these horses start out.” Surprisingly, several of Orb’s early winners have come on turf. His standouts thus far are Orbolution, winner of the P.G. Johnson Stakes at Saratoga, and stakes-placed Earth. “He has no turf in his pedigree whatsoever, being by Malibu Moon with Unbridled on the bottom,” Claiborne’s Walker Hancock said. “There’s nothing you’d think would be turf. I think we’ve seen it because they haven’t written two-turn dirt races yet [for 2-year-olds]. I think people are knowing they need more distance, and the only way they’re going to get that is by throwing them on the turf and seeing what they can do. Once you start seeing the longer two-turn dirt races, I really think he’ll be a dirt sire. I don’t understand why he’s had so much success on the turf, but it’s great, because it’ll show he can do both, so it’ll broaden the range of mares he can get. It more has to do with the distance than anything.” Judging by the response of the bloodstock community, experts believe Orb will go the distance and are getting on the train early. At the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co’s March sale of 2-year-olds in training, before juvenile racing began for the season, a colt from the stallion’s first crop sold for $1.25 million to a partnership including the Roth family’s LNJ Foxwoods. With the transaction, Orb became the first freshman sire to put a seven-figure juvenile through the ring at a North American auction since 2012. And at last month’s elite Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale, an Orb colt sold to Kerri Radcliffe Bloodstock for $1 million to co-top the sale. These numbers for an unproven stallion are notable in a selective market that has tended to favor proven stock since recovering from the recession of 2008. Uncle Mo shattered the earnings record for a freshman sire with his first crop led by champion Nyquist, who went on to win the 2016 Kentucky Derby. The young stallion’s first seven-figure juvenile was sold in March 2016 – after Nyquist had earned an Eclipse Award – and he has yet to record a million-dollar yearling. Three-time reigning leading sire Tapit established the earnings record Uncle Mo eventually broke in 2008, with a first crop including champion Stardom Bound. Although his rise through the ranks coincided with the recession, he recorded another Eclipse Award champion in Hansen in 2011 before breaking through with his first seven-figure yearlings in 2013. “I’ve never seen it in my short time,” Walker Hancock, 28, said of the early commercial response to Orb. “It is very impressive, and very encouraging.” Several noted bloodstock agents have been aggressive in pursuing Orb’s early stock at auction. That group includes Dennis O’Neill, best known for scouting out classic talent such as Nyquist and I’ll Have Another. Orb is “kind of my Uncle Mo from a couple years ago,” O’Neill said after purchasing an Orb colt for $710,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale. “I haven’t seen too many bad Orbs. He’s the one this year. They look great – they’re really athletic, they’re strong, they’ve got great minds.” Mike Ryan’s fingerprints have been all over several classic winners in the last five years – including this year’s Kentucky Derby winner, Always Dreaming, who he co-bred, and Preakness Stakes winner Cloud Computing, who he selected as a yearling. The keen horseman also offered high praise for Orb. “I’m seeing a lot of [broodmare sire] Unbridled coming through the Orbs,” Ryan said. “They’re nice. I’m impressed by them. They’re two-turn horses, but they’ve got class. They’re sound, they’re good-training horses, they’re very straightforward.” Blusiewicz purchased an Orb colt for $525,000 on behalf of C.P. Beler at the Midlantic juvenile sale, and he landed that same client another colt for $325,000 at the Saratoga yearling sale. He echoed the assessment of the steady minds of Orb’s progeny. “He does everything like an old horse,” Blusiewicz said of his 2-year-old that is in training in New York and expected to start at Belmont’s fall meet. :: DRF Breeding Live: Streaming video of September sales, a look at top horses with comments from consignors and buyers, market analysis, and more:: As his next act, Orb has 51 yearlings cataloged at the Keeneland September yearling sale, including a half-sister to dual Grade 1 winner Divisidero in Book 1. With the wind at his back, he is expected to improve upon his $141,686 first-crop yearling average from last year’s sale. “The first year, it seemed like he had a lot of immature kind of horses. They’ve clearly grown up to be solid racehorses,” Hancock said. “Maybe it just took some time for people to realize that, but now that they know they will grow and mature, they have a little more confidence to buy one. I know we had a lot of immature, little small ones in our first crop, and we probably cut them loose too soon and wrote them off, but it turns out they were probably just late bloomers. I think people have realized that now.” — additional reporting by Joe Nevills