In the high-stakes bloodstock game, a stallion’s fourth year at stud is considered a particularly risky time to breed to him. That marks the same season that his first foals come to the races as juveniles, and their performances can cause the value of his future offspring to either skyrocket or plummet. And thus, stud fees, the size and quality of books of mares, and commercial auction prices for a stallion’s stock will generally dip in his third and fourth years before establishing a future path. But American Pharoah has bucked trends at every turn of his racing and breeding careers and has proven worth the risk. The long-awaited Triple Crown hero prevailed atop an outstanding freshman sire class of 2019, ranking among North America’s leading overall juvenile sires. He looks poised for continued success as he has continued to garner outstanding books of mares at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky, including in that risky fourth season. American Pharoah, the 2015 Horse of the Year and the Eclipse Award champion male of his generation in both 2014 and 2015, won the three 2015 Triple Crown races by a combined 13 1/2 lengths, ending the 37-year drought that had held since Affirmed in 1978. He won nine career graded stakes by a total of 44 1/2 lengths, including a 6 1/2-length romp in the Breeders’ Cup Classic to end his racing career in style. But his quest for honors in his second career was going to be no cakewalk. Setting aside the Triple Crown winner for a moment, the other stallions who entered stud in Kentucky in 2016 combined to win two additional editions of the Belmont Stakes, the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Breeders’ Cup Mile, Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, Breeders’ Cup Sprint, and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Sprint. Their other wins include the French 2000 Guineas and Chilean Triple Crown, and two editions each of the Metropolitan Handicap, Jockey Club Gold Cup, and Donn Handicap, in addition to the Whitney, Woodward Stakes, Cigar Mile, and Dubai Golden Shaheen. Bloodstock and sales industry participants spent the years between these debuts at stud and last year’s freshman racing extolling the virtues of the group. “It’s as good a group of first-crop sires as I can ever remember,” Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning said. “It’s a special group of horses, both in terms of race record and pedigree. This group has all the attributes to become major, major stallion influences. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to look up in seven or eight years and say, ‘Wow, this is one of those vintage crops.’ ” It didn’t take seven or eight years for this group to stack up well against other young sires in recent history. In the previous five seasons, spanning from 2014 to 2018, no freshman class had been represented by more than four individual sires whose progeny earned more than $1 million, a span in which Uncle Mo established the earnings record for a North American freshman sire, when his progeny bankrolled $3,675,294 in 2015. The freshman class of 2019 boasted 10 millionaires – and two other stallions had progeny earnings of more than $900,000. With those solid results, including in rich stakes, three freshmen worked their way in amongst older, proven sires currently standing in Kentucky to sit in the top 10 on the overall juvenile sire list, with two others just outside at 11th and 12th. No class in the prior five years had finished with more than two on that list. :: Download the complete Kentucky Stallions special edition :: American Pharoah edged multiple Grade 1 winner Constitution, standing at WinStar Farm, for that freshman earnings title, with bankrolls of $2,873,170 and $2,200,411, respectively. The champion trailed leading general sire Into Mischief by less than $600,000 on the overall North American juvenile sire list. Meanwhile, American Pharoah, Constitution, and Darby Dan Farm’s Tapiture tied atop the freshman list with 27 individual winners each. The freshman sire class was represented by 12 individual graded/group stakes winners. No other class in the cited five-year span had finished the freshman season with more than eight individual graded winners, that coming from the 2016 class. Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Liam’s Map, who stands at Lane’s End Farm, was represented by a pair of Grade 1 winners in Basin and Wicked Whisper, while Constitution and Three Chimneys Farm resident Palace Malice both also sired Grade 1 winners. Structor, who completed an unbeaten campaign by winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, is a divisional Eclipse Award finalist for the awards to be presented Jan. 23 at Gulfstream, making Palace Malice, winner of the 2013 Belmont Stakes and 2014 Metropolitan Handicap, the only freshman with a horse in that group. Constitution, whose son Tiz the Law captured the Champagne Stakes, was represented by three other graded stakes winners in Amalfi Sunrise, By Your Side, and Independence Hall. Independence Hall posted a 101 Beyer Speed Figure for a 12 1/4-length romp in the Grade 3 Nashua Stakes at Aqueduct, the top 2-year-old figure of the year. He opened his 2020 season by winning the Jerome Stakes, further establishing himself as a Kentucky Derby hopeful for his sire alongside Tiz the Law. Structor could join those as a Derby hopeful by a freshman sire, as trainer Chad Brown indicated a desire to try the long-winded colt on dirt. Palace Malice, by Curlin, is from the versatile Smart Strike sireline, and Structor was started on turf in order to find two-turn opportunities, which become more available on dirt as the Derby trail heats up. “He’s a really true two-turn horse, and I would see in his work that hustling him off the bit early in some faster works in the morning, he wasn’t really effective,” Brown said. “And up at Saratoga, looking to get him started, if you’re running those short-distance dirt maiden races, they can really come up difficult and fast. So I didn’t want to just run him off his feet and blow him up early. . . . I would like to try to get him on the dirt in the spring.” But the headline stallion of the freshman class was American Pharoah, who sired three graded/group stakes winners on the season – all of those on turf. American Pharoah, a Grade 1 winner on synthetic as a juvenile, received international support with turf-type mares from the Coolmore group and other prominent outfits from various jurisdictions. He also is by another versatile stallion, the late Pioneerof the Nile, who consistently sired graded performers on the turf. Leading the way for American Pharoah was Four Wheel Drive, who put together an unbeaten three-start campaign. After winning his debut in the Rosie’s Stakes at Colonial Downs, the colt captured the Grade 3 Futurity Stakes at Belmont, then won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint at Santa Anita, rated a Grade 2 event in its second running. “He’s a very, very talented colt,” trainer Wesley Ward said. “He’s done nothing wrong so far, he’s got a big, big future as a 3-year-old. To actually do it with an American Pharoah, in the first crop – everybody’s got such high expectations for him, and to get it done on the big stage like this in the Breeders’ Cup is just unbelievable. “I trained his brother as a 2-year-old, and he showed affinity for the grass from the mare’s side,” Ward continued about Four Wheel Drive. “That’s the way it went with him from the onset. He’s had some nice works on the dirt, but to me, he’s impressed me a little bit more on the grass.” American Pharoah also sired Sweet Melania, who won the Grade 2 Jessamine Stakes at Keeneland and then finished third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf; Skidmore Stakes winner Another Miracle, who finished third to Four Wheel Drive in the Juvenile Turf Sprint; French Group 3 winner Maven; and Monarch of Egypt, whose multiple group placings in Ireland included a runner-up effort in the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes. The stallion’s freshman group also included Princesa Caroline and Skygaze, who were graded stakes-placed on turf and synthetic, respectively, and turf stakes-placed Envied, Homeland, and Saggara King. The stallion’s best dirt stakes performer at 2 was American Theorem, who finished second in the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes, a race the namesake won when it was known as the FrontRunner. Several trainers of American Pharoah’s top offspring have cited the unflappable minds of the young horses – a trait likely inherited from their sire. American Pharoah was known for his calm and gentle demeanor, keeping his composure despite the hectic atmosphere of several major race days and allowing fans to interact with him. Ward says Four Wheel Drive’s mind has contributed to his success on the track thus far – and that it could help the colt target other major goals in the future, such as a trip to the renowned Royal Ascot meeting in England, a common target for Ward’s young horses. “He’s certainly got a beautiful mind,” Ward said of Four Wheel Drive. “He’s done everything so far that we have asked of him. . . . American Pharoah, from what I saw, was a very docile horse. He could go anywhere and took everything in and he was almost like a stable pony. And this guy’s the same way. . . . There’s no pre-race antics that you have to worry about with him.” Meanwhile, as the connections of these young horses don’t have to worry about their attitudes at the racetrack, one thing Ashford doesn’t have to worry about is the continued strength of American Pharoah’s books. It’s typical for a young stallion to garner an outstanding book of mares in his first season as his stud farm and supporters look to get him off to a strong start. Then the quality and quantity of his book of mares may decrease somewhat in the ensuing few years, only picking up again later if the stallion’s first crops are a success on the racetrack. But American Pharoah, who also shuttles to Coolmore Australia, isn’t a typical case, and the market has not responded in typical fashion. The stallion’s second Northern Hemisphere book, according to lists that are part of The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred, included a pair of Broodmare of the Year honorees in Leslie’s Lady, dam of Eclipse Award champion Beholder, Grade 1 winner and leading sire Into Mischief, Grade 1 winner Mendelssohn, and Grade 1 winner Take Charge Lady, dam of champion Will Take Charge and Grade 1 winner Take Charge Indy. Take Charge Lady’s daughter Charming, the dam of champion Take Charge Brandi and multiple Grade 1 winner Omaha Beach, visited the stallion in 2018 as part of his third book. American Pharoah’s second and third books also have included Eclipse champions Champagne Room, Indian Blessing, and She Be Wild; and European champion Peeping Fawn; Maryinsky, dam of Peeping Fawn and Group 1 winner Thewayyouare; Sacre Couer, dam of champion Lady Eli; the dams of Grade 1/Group 1 winners Athena, Bayern, Bracelet, Caravaggio, Collected, Diamondsandrubies, Fog of War, Executiveprivilege, Hoppertunity, Horatio Nelson, and Midnight Storm; and Grade 1/Group 1 winners Careless Jewel, Downthedustyroad, Imagine, Marylebone, Meadow Breeze, Quarter Moon, Together, and Virginia Waters. American Pharoah’s crucial fourth book, which he began to cover before his foals began their successful campaigns in 2019, included Eclipse Award champion Rags to Riches; European champion Alpha Centauri; Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Flotilla; the dam of Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint winner Wavell Avenue; the dams of Grade 1 winners Cry and Catch Me, Certify, Fault, and Persistently; and Grade 1 winners Downthedustyroad, Harmony Lodge, and Marylebone. He also again was paired with Funfair, the dam of Four Wheel Drive, bringing the circle back around as he continues to write his story.