Central Banker, Freud slug it out in New York
Live racing on the New York Racing Association circuit was last conducted March 15 at Aqueduct before being suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the spring meeting at Belmont Park has been postponed to a date yet to be announced. However, a lack of racing in their state of residence has not slowed young New York sire Central Banker and the state’s perennial leading sire Freud.
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Both have stakes runners elsewhere in the nation and have emerged as New York’s top sires through the first quarter of 2020. Central Banker, who stands at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds, has an early lead on Sequel Stallions resident Freud, with a progeny bankroll of $794,882 to $529,142 through Sunday.
Central Banker was New York’s leading freshman and juvenile sire of 2018. He again led the juvenile list in 2019 with his second crop and was third on the state’s overall sire list. One of his standouts from the start has been Bankit, a stakes winner against statebreds and stakes placed against open company as a juvenile. Last summer, he won of the New York Derby at Finger Lakes and bookended that with a third in the Mike Lee Stakes at Belmont and a second in the Albany Stakes at Saratoga. Those three races make up the Big Apple Triple for New York-bred juveniles. This year, Bankit is winless in four starts, all stakes at Oaklawn Park, but has run with distinction, finishing second in the Grade 3 Razorback Handicap and the Fifth Season Stakes, and third in the Oaklawn Mile.
Freud has finished first or second on New York’s list of general sires with state-sired runners for 12 consecutive seasons and has led the state’s turf stallion ranks for 12 straight years. He is likely to give Central Banker a run atop the general list as turf racing returns to New York later this season. His top runner in 2020 is the 7-year-old turf campaigner Dot Matrix, who scored the biggest win of his career in the Grade 3 John B. Connally Turf Cup at Sam Houston in January. Dot Matrix won an open stakes in 2018 at Indiana, and last year won a stakes for New York-breds and was Grade 3-placed at Aqueduct.