Unbridled Express has been a consistent leader in Indiana’s stallion ranks. This season, he will have a barnmate who looks poised to be a state powerhouse. Mor Spirit will stand his first Indiana season in 2024 at Swifty Farms in Seymour for a $2,500 fee, joining a roster led by Unbridled Express. An 11-year-old son of Eskendereya, Mor Spirit formerly stood at Spendthrift Farm in Kentucky, and the numbers he garnered in that state give him a clear advantage moving to a regional marketplace. Mor Spirit sired 49 individual winners from 129 starters in 2023 for progeny earnings of $3,216,368, easily ranking as the leading sire in Indiana regardless of progeny conception area. Perennial standout Unbridled Express, a 20-year-old son of Unbridled’s Song, recorded 18 winners from 33 starters for earnings of $821,584. Among leading Indiana sires with state-conceived progeny, he narrowly edged Harry’s Holiday of Breakway Farm, whose progeny earned $804,701 on the year. Mor Spirit will get fewer mares in Indiana than in Kentucky. Last season, Harry’s Holiday was the busiest stallion in the state, covering 44 mares, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred. But Mor Spirit should be popular, having had flashes of early success. From his first two crops of racing age, he is the sire of Velocitor, whose multiple stakes wins include a Canadian classic in last year’s Prince of Wales Stakes; stakes-placed Georgees Spirit, Makani, Mor Lively, Mor Victory, and Weslan; and Mexican Grade 1-placed Mutig. Swifty Farm has said it will honor lifetime breeding rights to Mor Spirit earned by Spendthrift breeders through its incentive programs. The farm will give special considerations to black-type mares and will award a $5,000 bonus to the breeder of the first Indiana-sired stakes winner by Mor Spirit. These moves should attract continued good books for the stallion. Mor Spirit’s race record, in which he displayed both precocity as a juvenile and brilliance as an older horse, also will keep him in demand. The millionaire won the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity at 2, then was a graded stakes winner at 3. The following year, he won three stakes, all with triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures, culminating with a 6 1/4-length romp in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap with a 117 Beyer Speed Figure. The Metropolitan is a key race on Mor Spirit’s résumé. Of the last 20 Met Mile winners – including one gelding, Bribon – 11 stand at stud in the United States. That includes four without progeny on the track yet – Vekoma, whose first foals race this year; Silver State, whose first foals are yearlings; 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline, whose first foals are beginning to arrive; and Cody’s Wish, who will begin his stud career next month. Mor Spirit becomes one of two Met Mile winners standing in Indiana. Millionaire Sahara Sky won four graded stakes as an older horse, including the 2013 Metropolitan, before retiring to R Star Stallions for the 2017 season. The sire of two stakes winners from his first five crops of racing age, he finished 21st on Indiana’s 2023 earnings list, with four winners from nine starters. Despite the commonalities in their race record, and now, their state of residence, there are differences between Mor Spirit and Sahara Sky that make Mor Spirit a unique prospect. While Sahara Sky never stood outside of Indiana, Mor Spirit, who showed precocity that is valued by the marketplace, still has several Kentucky-sired crops to come, with those numbers continuing to bolster his statistics and adding value for breeders. As a younger horse, he also will likely be considered to have more upside. That upside stands to benefit the Indiana ranks.