Flightline is not the only member of the incoming stallion class of 2023 who has merited a lofty six-figure introductory stud fee. Multiple Grade 1 winner Life Is Good, who like Flightline is expected to be an Eclipse Award finalist in the older dirt male category, has taken up residence at WinStar Farm for an advertised fee of $100,000. Life Is Good, one of several talented sons in the pipeline for leading sire and emerging sire of sires Into Mischief, retires having won 9 of 12 starts, all for WinStar and China Horse Club, and earned more than $4.5 million. He won five of his first six outings, in 2020 and 2021, with four graded stakes wins in that span, including a 5 3/4-length romp in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Del Mar. He earned triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures in every start that year. Life Is Good opened 2022 by winning the Pegasus World Cup by 3 1/4 lengths over Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and subsequent Horse of the Year Knicks Go, earning a 110 Beyer. He finished fourth in the Dubai World Cup, then returned to the United States to roll in the Grade 2 John A. Nerud, earning a career-high Beyer of 112. He then won both the Grade 1 Whitney and Woodward. In his career finale, Life Is Good finished a brave fifth to Flightline in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, setting a snappy early pace – 45.47 seconds for the half and 1:09.27 for three-quarters with Flightline breathing down his neck – before fading late. “You never want to be beaten but there was no loss in reputation after that performance from Life Is Good,” said Eden Harrington, vice president of China Horse Club. “There is every argument his reputation was enhanced. Flightline has earned the right to be placed in the pantheon of the greats of American racing. There isn’t another dirt horse around who could have sat on Life Is Good’s bumper like that and then sprinted away. There is certainly no dishonor at all in being the second-best horse in America behind Flightline.” Life Is Good is the highest-earning son of Into Mischief retiring to stud for 2023. Behind Flightline and Life Is Good, rounding out the three highest incoming stud fees in Kentucky for 2023 is Eclipse Award champion Jackie’s Warrior, whose 11 graded stakes scores include Grade 1 wins at ages 2, 3, and 4. The son of Maclean’s Music debuts at Spendthrift Farm for $50,000 off a career in which he earned more than $2.9 million. “Jackie’s Warrior has settled in nicely at the farm and is such an impressive specimen, especially for a horse coming off a pretty hard campaign,” general manager Ned Toffey said after the stallion arrived at Spendthrift following his third-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Uncle Mo shows off versatility There may be no better illustration of a stallion’s versatility than champion and sire Uncle Mo’s two sons retiring to stud for 2023. Uncle Mo sired his second American classic winner this year in Mo Donegal, who scored in the Belmont Stakes going the marathon 12 furlongs on dirt. He will stand at Spendthrift Farm in 2023. Meanwhile, at the other end of the distance and surface spectrum, Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint and Turf Sprint winner Golden Pal has retired to stand alongside Uncle Mo at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud. Uncle Mo made a smashing start to his own stud career, setting what was then a record for North American freshman earnings with his first crop in 2015, led by Nyquist, who emulated his sire with an unbeaten juvenile championship campaign. Sons of Uncle Mo quickly came in demand as sires and dominated the 2020 freshman list, with Nyquist leading by earnings followed by Laoban in second and Outwork in fourth. Those three stallions are second, eighth, and ninth, respectively, on the 2022 third-crop sires list. With the retirements of Mo Donegal and Golden Pal, there will be 25 sons of Uncle Mo at stud worldwide in 2023. Corniche continues Coolmore trend The international Coolmore group has made a practice of investing in precocious talent for its stallion roster. That continues in 2023 at its Ashford Stud in Kentucky, which welcomes Eclipse Award champion Corniche to its roster. Corniche, a $1.5 million juvenile purchase, won all three of his starts in 2021, all for Peter Fluor and K.C. Weiner’s Speedway Stables. That included consecutive Grade 1 wins in the American Pharoah Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to secure his divisional title. He emerged from his only start in 2022, a ninth-place finish in the Grade 2 Amsterdam Stakes, with an injury. Corniche, by Quality Road, will become the seventh 2-year-old champion from the last 15 winners of the award to begin his stud career at Ashford. The farm stands Eclipse champion juveniles Lookin At Lucky (2009), Uncle Mo (2010), American Pharoah (2014), and Classic Empire (2016). The farm also launched the stud careers of divisional champions Hansen (2011) and Shanghai Bobby (2012) before they moved to other jurisdictions. Baaeed, Stradivarius to stud Cartier Award champions Baaeed and Stradivarius lead Europe’s newcomers at stud for 2023. Baaeed, Europe’s Horse of the Year and the world’s top-rated turf horse for 2022, has taken up residence at Shadwell’s Nunnery Stud in Norfolk, England. A son of fellow Horse of the Year Sea The Stars and from the immediate female family of Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf winner Lahudood, Baaeed first stepped into top-level competition to win the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and Group 1 Prix de Moulin de Longchamp in 2021. This year, he ripped through consecutive Group 1 victories in the Lockinge, Queen Anne, Sussex, and Juddmonte International to run his career record to a perfect 10 wins from 10 starts. He was fourth in the Group 1 Champion Stakes to end his bid for an unbeaten career. Stradivarius, also by Sea The Stars, was Europe’s champion stayer of 2018, 2019, and 2020 in a legendary career prior to heading to the National Stud in Newmarket, England. Stradivarius put together a career record of 35-20-5-5. His remarkable 18 group stakes victories, at distances up to 2 1/2 miles, were highlighted by three wins in the Group 1 Gold Cup at the Royal Ascot meeting, in 2018, 2019, and 2020. He also won the Group 1 Goodwood Cup in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, and the 2018 British Champions Long Distance Cup.