He was a seven-figure yearling, with all the high hopes implied. He was managed carefully, due to minor issues, but lived up to expectations on the racetrack, winning multiple Grade 1 events, including the Breeders’ Cup Classic to conclude his career. He then went on to become a breed-shaping sire, a star in every stage of his career. A.P. Indy was that rare, legendary Thoroughbred, and a lynchpin for the Farish family’s Lane’s End Farm operation. It’s into those massive horseshoes that his great-grandson Flightline now attempts to step, and it’s impossible not to draw comparisons. A $1 million Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling, Flightline did not debut until his 3-year-old season after cutting himself on a stall latch, and was carefully managed throughout a dazzling six-start career. The day after winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland, Flightline was retired unbeaten, having won his starts, including four Grade 1 races, by a combined 71 lengths. He shipped home to Lane’s End to see if he can tick off the next box of accomplishments. “Flightline, certainly, being a million-dollar yearling and then living up to those expectations on the racetrack, it’s rare,” Bill Farish said. “But we wouldn’t all go for those bigger-priced horses if we didn’t think the odds were better with those horses. He certainly keeps that hope alive going into the future.” Flightline was campaigned by the partnership of Woodford Racing, which has Farish as a principal; Hronis Racing, which has two of its former colorbearers on the Lane’s End roster; West Point Thoroughbreds; his breeder Jane Lyon’s Summer Wind Farm, which consigns its yearlings via Lane’s End; and Siena Farm. :: Flightline: The Making of a Partnership :: It was announced in September that Flightline would stand at Lane’s End as the property of a syndicate, which seemed an obvious conclusion due to his existing connections to the farm. He also is connected by blood, as Lane’s End has continued to build around the legacy of leading sire A.P. Indy, the 1992 Horse of the Year who died in 2020 after a distinguished career. The farm currently stands his champion sons Mineshaft and Honor Code; Honor Code’s best son Honor A. P.; Belmont Stakes winner Tonalist, who, like Flightline, is by the A.P. Indy grandson Tapit; and champion West Coast, by the A.P. Indy son Flatter. A.P. Indy, Mineshaft, and Tapit are all represented as broodmare sires on the stallion roster as well. “Having multiple generations of any sireline has always meant a lot to us here,” Farish said. “Having Dixieland Band, we’ve got four generations of that sireline, and to now see the same thing happening with A.P. Indy is really special.” Flightline, who was trained throughout his career by John Sadler and ridden in all his races by Flavien Prat, made three starts as a 3-year-old last year, winning a maiden in April, an allowance in September, and finally, his stakes debut in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes going seven furlongs in December. He won all three outings with triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures, by a combined margin of 37 1/2 lengths. In 2022, the bar kept moving higher for Flightline, and he kept clearing it. He made his first start outside of California in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, long considered a stallion-making race, in June at Belmont. He crushed the one-turn mile by six lengths with a 112 Beyer. He then stretched out to 1 1/4 miles for the first time in the Grade 1 Pacific Classic, and turned in a tour de force to win by 19 1/4 lengths. He finished the classic distance in 1:59.28, just .17 of a second off the Del Mar track record set in the 2003 Pacific Classic by his Lane’s End rostermate Candy Ride. :: Replay: Flightline wins the Pacific Classic :: The smashing effort earned Flightline a Beyer of 126. According to Andrew Beyer, who makes the figures, it was the biggest number given a horse since Ghostzapper won the Iselin in 2004 with a 128, and equals the second-biggest number given any horse since the Beyer Figures moved into the public domain, first with the launch of The Racing Times in 1991, and then moving on to Daily Racing Form. Flightline put it all together for one final performance in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, traveling away from his California base to face a top-flight field at the 1 1/4-mile distance. He rolled by 8 1/4 lengths for a Beyer of 121. :: Replay: Flightline wins the Breeders' Cup Classic :: “We got together Sunday, the day after, and we went over every scenario and looked at the different targets he could have for next year,” Farish said. “The Pegasus first – but who’s going to run in the Pegasus against him? Is it going to be worth waiting that time, and backing up against breeding season? “To go on through the year, again, he’d [already] beaten the best four 3-year-olds and best other older horses that are out there,” Farish continued. “Who’s going to emerge to run against him? By the time Breeders’ Cup rolls around next year, maybe there will be a superstar that will be worthy of that, but that’s a long wait for one race. There just really was no upside to keep him in training.” Flightline now enters the stallion market as one of the most anticipated, and valuable, prospects in years. Farish said the stallion will cover a first book of about 150 mares, belonging both to shareholders in his breeding syndicate and outside breeders. His advertised stud fee has been set at $200,000, the highest for a first-year stallion since Triple Crown winner American Pharoah debuted at the same mark in 2016. Further driving home Flightline’s value, a 2.5 percent minority interest in him fetched $4.6 million at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale less than 48 hours following his Classic victory. That placed his inexact valuation at $184 million. Freddy Seitz of Brookdale Farm placed the winning bid as the agent for an undisclosed West Coast-based buyer, who will now be bolstering his broodmare band to participate in the syndicate. “With a special horse like him, all you can do is get involved and then just hope for the best,” Seitz said. “There has never been a horse that has done what he has done for however many years, back to Secretariat. You just have to pay up and get involved, and this is kind of what [the interest purchaser is] thinking. He has a broodmare band and I think he is going to have a nicer broodmare band now. He does have some nice mares – six or eight mares at any time. He will probably be shopping now from what I understood.” The anonymous shareholder is one of several inside and outside breeders expected to strongly support Flightline, representing some of the top breeding programs domestically and internationally. “It will not be from a lack of quality mares if he doesn’t make it,” Farish said. An underbidder on the share sold at Keeneland was the international Coolmore group, indicating its interest in Flightline. Lane’s End Farm has its own broodmare band, and Lyon has amassed one of the most noteworthy broodmare bands in the country at Summer Wind, which will have several of its members visiting her star in 2023. She continued to add to that band at Keeneland November, with purchases including graded stakes winners Edgeway for $1.7 million and Proud Emma for $1 million. “We decided we would give [Flightline] a little present for his performances lately,” Lyon joked. “We were trying to find mares that we thought both physically and pedigree-wise would fit him. I hope he realizes what a job he’s got ahead of him.” Lyon wasn’t the only member of Flightline’s racing partnership shopping to support him. Terry Finley of West Point signed six sale tickets at Keeneland November as the new Gage Hill broodmare partnership, some of those in partnership with Determined Stud, including the $2 million broodmare Salty as Can Be. Finley had noted in the weeks leading up to the Classic that, while West Point is a racing-focused business, he hoped some partners would be inspired to invest in the bloodstock world thanks to Flightline. That appears to be coming to fruition. Gage Hill “was a partnership, a breeding partnership that we’ve put together,” Finley said. “I think the idea just came internally. Our partners just said let’s do some things with Flightline if and when he retires, so that’s what we’re doing. “Determined Stud is taking a piece of the deal. They’re trying to make a mark on the breeding side of things, so it’s a great partnership. Lane’s End will be part of it, so the power of the partnership is going to Flightline.” Also passing through the Keeneland November sale ring were several mares bound for Japan who will remain in Kentucky for the breeding season to visit Flightline’s court before eventually shipping overseas. “If a mare had a big telephone number price coming out of the November sale, she’s probably going to end up here after Feb. 15,” Lane’s End bloodstock adviser David Ingordo said. Eclipse Award champion Shamrock Rose, purchased for $3 million by Japan’s KI Farm, heads the group of about six mares eventually bound for Japan, according to Farish. “It will be great to see them spread his influence over there,” Farish said. “It is an unbelievable added benefit you get when you have a stallion with that international interest. We are seeing some European mares doing the same thing as well. I wish it was this easy with all the new stallions.” Farish noted that other mares who have been confirmed for Flightline’s first book include Diva Delite, dam of Eclipse Award champion Midnight Bisou; and Queen Caroline, dam of this year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner and likely champion Forte. As the sale-ring bids and phone calls flew to assemble his first book, Flightline has been in the process of settling in to his new home and routine at Lane’s End. “He’s settled in incredibly well,” Farish said. “He’s just very mellow, very intelligent, inquisitive, looking around, checking everything out. Really couldn’t have settled in any better.” Part of Flightline’s new routine has been being inspected by breeders. Although he has a long frame that carries him efficiently over a distance of ground, having inherited the stamina that is typical of A.P. Indy’s line, several have noted that the brilliant bay also strongly resembles broodmare sire Indian Charlie, who produced the Grade 3-winning Feathered, from a deep Phipps family. “I think he favors Indian Charlie a lot,” Ingordo said. “He was a dominant horse, he was a brilliant horse. . . . I think that’s where some of the brilliance came from, because Indian Charlie was a brilliant horse. I think he favors that, and I think that’ll be a good part of him for people looking commercially. “He should throw a really good-looking baby, because he’s beautiful himself, his dam’s gorgeous. It’s an attractive family, so it should breed through.” Although Indian Charlie died young, at age 16 in 2011, his influence is flourishing, through his champion son Uncle Mo and his sons at stud, and through his daughters. In addition to Flightline, Indian Charlie is the broodmare sire, in recent years, of champion Mitole and Grade 1 winner Hot Rod Charlie. Meanwhile, Flightline also has a chance to be a significant son at stud for perennial leading sire Tapit, who, at 21, continues to reign at Gainesway in the twilight of his career. Tapit has 25 sons advertised at stud worldwide, with perhaps the most successful of those being young classic sire Constitution, whose fee has climbed to $110,000 at WinStar Farm. Several of Tapit’s best sons are younger and coming through the pipeline, as champion Essential Quality will have his first foals arrive in 2023 for Darley. If Flightline becomes Tapit’s most significant son at stud, it will be fitting to find that branch of the line flourishing at Lane’s End, where A.P. Indy was foaled and raised and returned to reign at stud. A statue of the late champion cast a shadow as Flightline paraded around the walking ring in the stallion complex in November. “Since he ran his first race, the expectations were getting bigger and bigger,” Farish said. “Every time you think he’s done everything he can do, he does something even more impressive the next time.” How impressive it would be if Flightline can succeed in this phase of his career, too.