American Pharoah's first starter scores win in Ireland

Triple Crown winner American Pharoah is off to a perfect start with his highly anticipated first crop, as the young stallion's first starter, Monarch of Egypt, also became his first winner Saturday at Naas in Ireland.

Monarch of Egypt easily won the five-furlong maiden race under Ryan Moore for trainer Aidan O'Brien, kicking clear in the stretch and staying on by open lengths despite greenly changing leads in the stretch and drifting in slightly once clear.

Monarch of Egypt is out of the multiple group stakes-winning Galileo mare Up, the runner-up in the 2012 French 1000 Guineas and a half-sister to Group 1 winner Dutch Art. Up was a $2.2 million purchase by RanJan Racing, the breeder of this colt, at the 2015 Keeneland January sale of horses of all ages. Monarch of Egypt was purchased for $750,000 last year at the Keeneland September yearling sale by Peter Brant and the international Coolmore group, which stands American Pharoah. The colt ran in Brant's colors on Saturday.

American Pharoah’s first-crop 2-year-olds were conceived on an advertised stud fee of $200,000 at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Kentucky. He covered 208 mares that season, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred; of those, 55 were Grade 1/Group 1 winners or the dams of winners at that level.

Ten members of the crop were sold as weanlings, fetching an average of $445,500. American Pharoah went on to average $453,273 from 70 yearlings sold worldwide last year – a staggering figure for a first-crop stallion in a market that trends toward proven sires. He is averaging $514,800 this 2-year-old sales season.

With Coolmore strongly supporting its young stallion, several more of American Pharoah’s offspring are likely to debut in O’Brien’s care this year. American Pharoah never raced on turf or synthetic surfaces, but his sire, the late Pioneerof the Nile, was a winner on turf and a Grade 1 winner on synthetic and is the sire of turf Grade 1 winner Midnight Storm.

American Pharoah is expected to have his first U.S. starters on Wednesday, as Aqueduct cards the first 2-year-old race of the year in New York. Trainer Wesley Ward has entered Lady Delaware, a half-sister to Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner Hootenanny, and Tesorina, whose dam is Grade 1 winner Nonsuch Bay.