Grade 1 win not always required for stallion success

Breeding sheds officially open this week across Kentucky, with farms looking to get their new young stallions off to a strong start with the best mares possible in what has become an increasingly competitive landscape.

Not only has the commercial market become highly selective, but a reduced broodmare population also has heightened that competition. According to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred released last fall, 29,218 mares were reported covered in North America during 2019, a decline of 36 percent from 45,317 reported at the same point in 2009.

When the performance and pedigree virtues of incoming stallions are extolled, highlight wins in Grade 1 races are often put at the forefront. Some high-profile newcomers this season are missing a crucial top-level victory, but history shows that Grade 1 success on the track is not the sole indicator of a stallion’s ability to at produce top progeny. Prime examples standing in Kentucky include classic sires Distorted Humor (WinStar Farm), Maclean's Music (Hill 'n' Dale), Malibu Moon (Spendthrift Farm), and War Front (Claiborne Farm); stalwart Stormy Atlantic (Hill ‘n’ Dale), the sire of champion Stormy Liberal; and young rising star Kantharos (Hill ‘n’ Dale).

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War Front reigns as North America’s most expensive stallion, with an advertised stud fee of $250,000. That is a far cry from the $12,500 the stallion stood for when he entered stud in 2007 after winning the prior year’s Grade 2 Alfred G. Vanderbilt at Saratoga and finishing second in a pair of Grade 1 races in New York. War Front is now the sire of 2020’s most expensive incoming stallion, as three-time Grade 1 winner Omaha Beach will stand for an advertised fee of $45,000 at Spendthrift. The farm’s breeding shed opens Feb. 10, and Omaha Beach, who arrived at Spendthrift on Jan. 27 after injury ruled him out of the previous Saturday’s Pegasus World Cup, was expected to begin covering mares later in the week following his accelerated turnaround.

War Front has followed in the mold of two late leading sires at Claiborne without a Grade 1 score – stakes winner Mr. Prospector, who began his career in Florida before being brought to Kentucky based on his early success, and War Front’s own sire, Danzig, a blazingly fast Northern Dancer horse who won all three of his starts but never started in a stakes.

“Pedigree will always out in one way or another, but unless they have that speed inherent in their breeding, you’re hoping they’re going to make a stallion,” longtime Fasig-Tipton employee Terence Collier said while serving as emcee at a stallion show at Lane’s End Farm, discussing Danzig and others.

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Lane’s End is hoping pedigree will continue to out in one of its signature sire lines, founded by a stallion without a Grade 1 win. Dixieland Band, a graded stakes-winning son of Northern Dancer, was one of the original three stallions at Lane’s End when it was established. Dixieland Band was succeeded in the stallion barn by his Grade 1-winning son Dixie Union, and by that stallion’s Belmont Stakes-winning son Union Rags. Catalina Cruiser, by Union Rags, becomes the latest link as he returns to Lane’s End, where he was raised, for the 2020 season. Catalina Cruiser was a five-time Grade 2 winner, but finished off the board in a pair of Breeders’ Cup races in his only attempts at the Grade 1 level. David Ingordo, head of Lane’s End Bloodstock, noted that omission has not held back other stallions.

“Cruiser is missing a Grade 1, that’s there,” Ingordo said. “But we were talking about War Front and Distorted Humor, two leading sires that were brilliantly fast. Cruiser is fast, and what stallions need is speed. He has the looks to go with it and he has a great pedigree.”

Absent a Grade 1, Ingordo pointed to last year’s Grade 2 True North Stakes, in which Catalina Cruiser traveled from his home base of California to New York, as his signature victory. Ingordo pointed out that trainer John Sadler prefers to keep his horses in California, but shipped Catalina Cruiser to New York for the True North because he thought a victory in that race would boost the horse’s stallion credentials.

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Because of the reduced broodmare population, various incentives or bonus structures offered by farms have become commonplace to give newcomers a leg up. Pioneering many programs in this vein has been Spendthrift, which introduces five newcomers this year, with Omaha Beach joined by Breeders’ Cup winners and champions Mitole and Vino Rosso. The farm’s other two debuting stallions each lack a Grade 1 win. Maximus Mischief, by the farm’s leading sire Into Mischief, was a Grade 2-winning juvenile before injury curtailed his career, and Coal Front won four graded stakes, highlighted by a score in the Group 2 Godolphin Mile. Coal Front will be available through the farm’s “Share the Upside” program, in which breeders commit mares to a stallion for his first two years and thereafter earn a lifetime breeding right.

Several other Kentucky farms have adopted Share the Upside, including Darby Dan Farm, which has the versatile multiple graded stakes winner Flameaway sold out for his first season under that banner. Flameaway may still be matched with mares under two other Darby Dan incentive programs – “Black Type Bonanza,” in which mares who are black-type performers or producers are eligible for a reduced stud fee, and “Goldmine 20/20,” offering incentives to mares who match the stallion based on hypo-mating patterns that have produced superior racehorses.

Darby Dan also adds Grade 2-winning juvenile Copper Bullet to its roster this year with similar pedigree-based incentives. Copper Bullet was owned during his racing career by Winchell Thoroughbreds and Willis Horton. Ron Winchell teamed with David Lambert’s Equine Analysis Systems to establish three qualifications for mares to be considered for the new stallion’s book. Mares are first analyzed based on age, race record, pedigree, and production. Those approved at this first stage will then have their pedigrees and conformation assessed by Lambert’s team. As a final step, a photo of the mare will be uploaded into an Equine Analysis Systems program where an algorithm will take biomechanical measurements of the mare. If the mares are approved through all three steps, their owners will receive a free season to Copper Bullet and also receive a $5,000 bonus when the mare has reached 45 days’ gestation.

“This horse checked all the boxes that Mr. Winchell uses in evaluating horses to purchase,” Darby Dan stallion director Ryan Norton said in a press release. “He believes in this horse and his analytics so much that he is willing to spend his money to prove how much he believes in this horse and the science. We are excited to be at the forefront of such a forward-thinking model for how to breed horses.”

Other new stallions in Kentucky for 2020 without a Grade 1 victory are Grade 3 winner Demarchelier (Claiborne), Grade 2 winner Enticed (Darley), Group 3-placed Lost Treasure (Hill ‘n’ Dale), and Grade 2 winner Qurbaan (Shadwell).