Balance the Books to stand at Royal Pegasus in Azerbaijan

Grade 2 winner Balance the Books will begin his stallion career in 2015 for Mammad Huseynov’s Royal Pegasus Farm in Azerbaijan after being purchased at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale.

Royal Pegasus, which has farms in Baku, Azerbaijan and Lexington, Ky., bought the 4-year-old son of Lemon Drop Kid as a stallion prospect for $20,000. He will soon enter pre-export quarantine to be shipped overseas in December.

Azerbaijan is located in western Asia, on the northern border of Iran and the southern border of Russia, east of Turkey and Armenia, and off the Caspian Sea.

Balance the Books finished his on-track career with three wins in nine starts for earnings of $404,596. He was a successful turf runner during his juvenile campaign, winning the Grade 2 With Anticipation Stakes, and the Grade 3 Bourbon Stakes, and finishing third in the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. At three, he won the listed Stroll Stakes.

Chad Brown trained Balance the Books for owners Klaravich Stables and William Lawrence.

“His sire Lemon Drop Kid has proven he is a valuable sire of graded stakes horses and Balance the Books comes from a great female family,” said Crystal Conway, farm manager at Royal Pegasus’ Kentucky branch. “Balance the Books was a competitive juvenile turf horse who had a great closing drive.”

Conway said that Balance the Books could one day return to stand at Royal Pegasus’ Lexington farm. The operation employed a similar tactic with its stallion Big Surf, who shipped overseas to begin his stud career in Azerbaijan and now resides in Kentucky after returning with a handful of his foals. Big Surf is the sire of Black Fighter, the first Azerbaijani-bred to win a race in the U.S.

Bred in Kentucky by Scott Heider and Knowles Bloodstock, Balance the Books is out of the winning Seeking the Gold mare Kreisleriana, who is the dam of two winners from six foals to race, including stakes-placed Photo Shoot. His second dam is European champion Kooyonga, and his extended family also includes the Irish classic-placed Princess Sinead.