Essential Quality leads the way for first-crop weanling sires

Two-time Eclipse Award champion Essential Quality, standing for breeder Darley, led first-crop weanling sires by average at the Keeneland November mixed sale. All four of Essential Quality’s weanlings offered sold for six figures, led by a $485,000 colt to Shadwell Racing, resulting in an average of $327,500 to top first-crop sires with three or more sold.

Grade 1 winner Charlatan was next in the class by average price, with an impressive 14 of his 16 offspring through the ring sold for an average of $200,714.

“His weanlings have been really well received and we’re really excited,” said John Moynihan, adviser to Stonestreet Farm, which bred and co-owned Charlatan and maintains a major interest in him as a stallion at Hill ‘n’ Dale.

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Grade 1 winner Maxfield, also a Darley homebred, hinted at his popularity when he sired a $500,000 co-weanling topper at Fasig-Tipton November. At Keeneland November, he was third in the class with an average of $151,714, with seven of eight through the ring sold.

Grade 1 winner Yaupon hinted at his popularity when he covered 242 mares in his first season at Spendthrift Farm, second in the nation, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred. He finished as the November sale’s overall leading sire of weanlings by gross, with 31 sold – of 34 through the ring – for $4,137,000. His average price was $133,452, ranking fourth in the class. Three of his four highest-priced lots were purchased by AAA Thoroughbreds, the weanling-to-yearling pinhooking partnership of Randy Hartley and Dean De Renzo, for $450,000, $400,000, and $300,000, respectively. That team bought five weanlings by the sire, indicating that he may be a sire to watch in next year’s yearling marketplace.

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