One piece of the puzzle that often goes overlooked in American Pharoah’s bid to win the Triple Crown resides at Le Mesa Stallions in Carencro, La. Stakes winner Yankee Gentleman is the sire of Littleprincessemma, who was purchased by Ahmed Zayat for $250,000 at the 2007 Keeneland September yearling sale. American Pharoah is the second foal of Littleprincessemma.
Champion Zenyatta was confirmed in foal to Claiborne Farm stallion War Front on Wednesday, carrying what would be her fourth foal. The official Zenyatta website reported that the 2010 Horse of the Year was scanned 36 days in foal after an April cover.
Willcox Inn, a Grade 2 winner and first-year sire, was euthanized due to injuries from a paddock accident on May 24. The 7-year-old son of Harlan’s Holiday was finishing his debut season in the breeding shed at Saratoga Stud in Stillwater, N.Y., where he was standing for an advertised fee of $5,000.
With her victory in the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes on Memorial Day at Santa Anita Park, the Ontario-bred racemare Hard Not to Like added to the worldwide reputation of her sire Hard Spun. The stallion – who currently is based at Darley’s American headquarters in Lexington, Ky. – has five graded/group stakes winners in four different countries thus far in 2015, according to DRF’s SirePowered Results.
Lookin At Lucky followed up his 2009 Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old male with another statuette in 2010 for champion 3-year-old male. Lookin At Lucky’s first foals are now 3-year-olds, and he is showing signs of adding to the impressive stallion numbers generated by his predecessors. Madefromlucky, winner of the Grade 2 Peter Pan Stakes on May 9, is his sixth stakes winner, and given the impressive form of others from his first crop, including Santa Anita Derby runner-up One Lucky Dane, there will be many more to come.
Group 1 winner Hampton Court has been retired from racing and is the first Australian native announced to stand at the newly formed Spendthrift Australia in Victoria.
With the eyes of the racing world on Pimlico, young sire First Defence enjoyed a solid weekend, as he was represented by Grade 3 Miss Preakness winner Irish Jasper and Sir Barton Stakes winner Fame and Power. According to Daily Racing Form’s SirePowered Results, the Juddmonte Farms sire is represented by five individual stakes winners this year, in the U.S., Hong Kong, and Ireland.
Complete coverage of the Maryland and Pennsylvania stallion markets at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic juvenile sale for 2015.
Although no Mid-Atlantic-based stallion has led the list since Halo, two subsequent leading American sires were bred in Pennsylvania. Northern Dancer’s son Danzig was born in 1977 at Marshall Jenney’s Derry Meeting Farm near Cochranville, Pa., while Storm Cat was foaled six years later at Averell Walker’s Rolling Plains Stable near Unionville, Pa.
Pennsylvania’s overall loss was state resident sire Jump Start’s gain as the exodus of a trio of stallions left him as the leading returning sire in the state. With several of his veteran campaigners still on the track, he will look to keep the momentum going in 2015.
