After plenty of anticipation while waiting on the runway, it’s almost time for the first crop by 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline to take off at breeze-up sales and, shortly thereafter, the races. “I think we have something really special on our hands,” said Peter Sheehan, farm manager at Lane’s End, which stands Flightline. Life looks pretty good for others in this freshman sire class. Flightline is one of nearly two dozen Grade/Group 1 winners represented with first-crop juveniles at the season-opening Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s March sale of 2-year-olds in training. The group includes four Eclipse Award champions. “This is a very special group of freshman sires,” said Liam O’Rourke, director of bloodstock services for WinStar Farm, which has multiple Grade 1 winner Life Is Good and stakes winner Nashville in the class. “We’ve all been tracking this group, this cohort of sires. There’s a tremendous amount of quality.” Flightline won all six of his starts by a combined 71 lengths, including Grade 1 triumphs in the Malibu Stakes at seven furlongs and the Met Mile, followed by two scintillating wins at the classic 1 1/4-mile distance. He took the Pacific Classic by 19 1/4 lengths with a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 126, followed by an 8 1/4-length score in the Breeders’ Cup Classic with a 121. Every horse in the starting field of eight for the BC Classic was a Grade 1 winner. Flightline retired to Lane’s End, which had been involved in his racing partnership, for an advertised fee of $200,000 in his first season. Demand for his book, which was limited to 152, was high. “He came in, and it’s just, you’re on pins and needles with him arriving,” Sheehan said. “Everything has to go perfect. And he had the mind and the disposition to just carry that class through. He’s such an easy horse to look after, and that was probably why he was such a great racehorse, because he has that class, he has that great mind, he has the physical attributes, he has the mental attributes, and he has that all-important intangible.” Last year, Flightline was represented by 57 yearlings sold at public auction for an average price of $737,274. Domestically, his stock included eight seven-figure yearlings at the Keeneland September yearling sale, led by a $2.2 million filly, and two seven-figure lots at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale. “After looking through all his yearlings that have gone through the sale, I think he’s producing the goods,” Sheehan said. “And now, the reports coming out of Ocala [from early training] are terrific.” Life Is Good debuted for a fee of $100,000 at WinStar. He had a strong return on that figure last year, with 81 first-crop yearlings averaging $310,741. He had seven-figure yearlings at both the Fasig Saratoga and Keeneland September sales. “We were struck by the consistency, the balance, and just the action that they had,” O’Rourke said. “They looked like athletes. They’re very uniform, plenty of strength to them, just good overall horses, good action, good motion. Just thinking back over the years to horses that really succeed in the commercial market, when they do have that consistency to them, you see that demand.” Like Flightline, Life Is Good showed brilliance around both one and around two turns, often the hallmark of a successful sire. He won four graded stakes at a mile or shorter, topped by the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. He also won four graded stakes beyond a mile, including Grade 1 triumphs in 2022 in the Pegasus World Cup over Horse of the Year Knicks Go, the Whitney, and the Woodward. He took it to Flightline with a brave performance in the BC Classic, setting fast fractions with those two well clear of the rest of the field before fading. “I think the world ‘brilliance’ gets maybe overused a little bit in our business. However, Life Is Good, I think, kind of defines it,” O’Rourke said. “He had the speed, and he carried it on many occasions around two turns. So I believe he truly was a brilliant horse. “When I look at him, he’s as close to a perfect Thoroughbred as I can imagine. Like, he is the bar that I used when evaluating any other physical. He’s got strength, he’s got balance, he’s an incredible mover. He’s strong in all the right places. He has power where power is supposed to come from.” Life Is Good is also bred to be a stallion, as one of several stellar runners produced by the cross of leading sire, and sire of sires, Into Mischief over mares by the late WinStar standout Distorted Humor, a group that includes top 10 general sire Practical Joke. Distorted Humor is also the broodmare sire of successful stallions in WinStar’s top 10 sire Constitution, who is by Tapit, and Arrogate, by Unbridled’s Song, who produced several major winners in just three crops. WinStar has another member of this class in Nashville, who followed in the footsteps of late WinStar sire Speightstown, a champion sprinter. Nashville inherited that speed, winning the 2020 Perryville Stakes at Keeneland in a track-record 1:07.89 for six furlongs. Later that same day, Whitmore won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in 1:08.61. “That’s apples to apples, right?” O’Rourke said. “We have really well-calculated speed figures to sort of try and create the most honest comparisons, but that was apples to apples that day, and his apples were better. “He was a seriously talented horse, extremely well received [as a stallion] right throughout his first three years and into his fourth year. He bred 204 in his first crop and bred 164 in his second. So for a horse who doesn’t have a graded win to his credit, the demand has been tremendous.” Other noteworthy performers with first-crop juveniles cataloged at OBS March include Eclipse Award champions Corniche (Coolmore’s Ashford Stud), Epicenter (Ashford), and Jackie’s Warrior (Spendthrift Farm); Kentucky Derby winner Mandaloun (Juddmonte Farm); Preakness winner Early Voting (Taylor Made Farm); and Belmont Stakes winner Mo Donegal (Spendthrift); Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint and Juvenile Turf Sprint winner Golden Pal (Ashford); Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Aloha West (Mill Ridge Farm); Dubai World Cup winner Mystic Guide (Darley); and Grade 1 winners Colonel Liam (Ocala Stud), Cyberknife (Spendthrift), Drain the Clock (Gainesway), Gretzky the Great (Ocala Stud), Happy Saver (Airdrie Stud), Idol (Taylor Made), Jack Christopher (Ashford), Mind Control (Rockridge Stud), Olympiad (Gainesway), Pinehurst (Walmac Farm), Roadster (Ocala Stud), and Speaker’s Corner (Darley). Golden Pal and stablemate Epicenter were the busiest stallions in the country in their debut season, covering 293 and 262 mares, respectively, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred. Fellow Ashford first-year stallion Jack Christopher covered 247, checking in fourth.  Corniche and Epicenter gave Ashford a strong hand with two Eclipse Award champions in this class. Epicenter won four graded stakes, including the Grade 1 Travers, and finished second in both the 2022 Kentucky Derby and Preakness to earn 3-year-old honors. The appearance of Corniche’s first juveniles at the OBS sales will mark a full-circle moment for the stallion, who stood out at $1.5 million at the company’s 2021 spring sale. He went on to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to complete an unbeaten championship season.