Illinois Stallions: Ghaaleb leads thinned-out sire ranks

Horse racing has a long and storied history in the Illinois, where it has enthralled the sporting public since the 1830s. But times have changed in recent decades, and not for the better.

In 2019, the Illinois Thoroughbred industry continued a grim downward statistical trend as it struggled to compete economically with proliferating non-track-based casinos. Despite being home to several racetracks, most notably the state-of-the-art facility at Arlington Park, Illinois has experienced a jaw-dropping 70 percent decline in annual purse money distributed since 2002 – a nosedive from $96 million to $29 million in 2018.

In-state breeders have responded as one might expect, by tightening belts, selling off bloodstock, some even leaving the business altogether. The current state of affairs in Illinois is evident in some stark Jockey Club data.

In 2000, 1,315 mares were covered by 156 stallions in Illinois. Nearly 20 years later, according to 2019 Jockey Club statistics released in October, fewer than 100 mares went to just 16 stallions – representing a mind-blowing 92 percent drop in broodmares and an 90 percent decline in stallions in service for breeding. Average book sizes likewise dropped by 72 percent from 19.7 in 2000 to 5.6 in 2017, the last year with full records available.

The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred for 2019 indicates that Wildwood Farm’s Ghaaleb was the state’s most popular stallion, with 19 mares sent his way. Forest Attack and 2018 leading sire Three Hour Nap ranked second and third in this category, with 17 and 14 mares, respectively.

Ghaaleb was popular for a reason. A well-bred son of sire of sires Unbridled’s Song, he is out of a Storm Cat mare and from the female family of champions Smarty Jones and Folklore. He was sold at the 2009 Saratoga yearling for $650,000 to Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al Maktoum’s Shadwell Stable, for whom Ghaaleb – Arabic for “victor” – displayed high promise in an abbreviated four-start career.

Fresh off the track in 2013, he was acquired as a stallion prospect for $42,000 at the Keeneland November sale by former Ralston Purina CEO William Stiritz, owner of Wildwood Farms near Bellevue, as well as Fairmount Park racetrack.

Ghaaleb lost no time in making his regional presence felt, becoming the state’s premier first-, second-, and third-crop sire of 2017, 2018, and 2019, leading juvenile sire all three of those years, and overall leader this past season with $513,036 in progeny earnings. While he has yet to sire a stakes winner, he has knocked hard on that door for a while now and it appears only a matter of time before he gets one. In the meantime, Ghaaleb has been a profoundly reliable generator of winners, with 19 winners from 20 lifetime starters, including four of stakes class.

Former fellow Wildwood stallion Well Positioned, an East Coast stakes winner by Awesome Again, ranked second on the state’s general sire list with progeny earnings of $455,130. His best was Arlington Park black-type winner W W Fitzy.

McCrosky Farm’s Forest Attack ranked third among Illinois sires of 2019. The Polytrack-loving stakes winner by Forestry and half-brother to a pair of Grade 1/Group 1 winners, was the state’s leading third-crop sire of 2016 and has been a steady presence in the top 10 overall ever since. His 14 winners in 2019 placed him second in that category to Ghaaleb’s 15.

Road Ruler, another son of Unbridled’s Song and a former $800,000 yearling who dropped to a $4,000 claiming price in a lackluster racing career, has redeemed himself as a noteworthy regional progenitor. Illinois’s leading sire in 2015 and 2016, the now-18-year-old checked in fourth overall by 2019 progeny earnings with $356,491. Road Ruler stands at J. B. Stables, near the village of Burnt Prairie in southeast Illinois.

This article is part of the Midwest regional coverage in our annual Kentucky Stallions special edition. To download the complete edition, click here.