Ron Winchell and David Fiske know what it’s like to see a young sire start from modest beginnings and raise his game in meteoric fashion. After all, the Winchell colorbearer Tapit entered stud for a $15,000 fee in 2005, and is now one of the nation’s perennial leading sires and influential classic sires. The Albaugh Family Stables’ Not This Time debuted for the same $15,000, in 2017 at Taylor Made Stallions in Nicholasville, Ky., after injury curtailed his promising career. While it’s too early to call him another Tapit, he is certainly on a breakout ascent. From just his second crop, the stallion will have two runners in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, including one of the favorites, Epicenter, who is owned by Winchell Thoroughbreds. “He’s another one, much like Tapit or even Into Mischief, that didn’t stand for a lot of money to begin with and has really raised his game,” said David Fiske, racing and farm manager for Winchell Thoroughbreds. Not This Time was a homebred for the Albaughs, as the stable sent Miss Macy Sue to the late, great Giant’s Causeway. The resulting colt, trained by Dale Romans, was a 10-length maiden winner at second asking, going a mile at Ellis Park in August 2016. :: DRF has you covered! Get everything you need to win big on Derby Day with a Kentucky Derby Package and get up to 41% off retail price. He then won the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes by 8 3/4 lengths at Churchill Downs, making him the post-time favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita. After a difficult break from the starting gate, he was beaten just a neck by divisional champion Classic Empire. A soft-tissue injury forced Not This Time into early retirement, but he proved equally precocious in his second career. On the 2020 freshman sire list, he finished third by earnings while leading by winners; he led 2021 second-crop sires by earnings. This season, Not This Time currently sits 10th on the general sires list; every stallion ahead of him is between 2 to 14 years older, and thus, they all have more starters to accrue earnings. Not This Time is the sire of 45 winners from 97 starters on the year through May 1, with six stakes winners. Epicenter was a $260,000 purchase by Winchell out of the Keeneland September yearling sale. The colt dominated the series of Derby preps at Fair Grounds, winning the Gun Runner Stakes in December, finishing second in the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes with an unfavorable pace scenario, and then annexing both the Grade 2 Risen Star and Grade 2 Louisiana Derby. Not This Time’s other Derby entrant, Simplification, was consistent on the Gulfstream Park road to the Triple Crown, winning the Mucho Macho Man, finishing second in the Grade 3 Holy Bull, winning the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth, and finishing third in the Grade 1 Florida Derby. Just One Time became her sire’s second career Grade 1 winner when she took the Madison Stakes at Keeneland. Her performance joined Princess Noor, from Not This Time’s first crop, who won the Del Mar Debutante and Chandelier in 2020. :: DRF BREEDING LIVE: Real-time coverage of breeding and sales Not This Time is also the sire, thus far this year, of Arzak, winner of the Thorncliffe Stakes at Woodbine; Last Leaf, winner of the Melody of Colors at Gulfstream; and Midnight Stroll, winner of the Sophomore Fillies at Tampa. His four other black-type-placed horses this season include multiple graded stakes-placed 3-year-old In Due Time, who is under consideration for the Preakness Stakes in two weeks. A continued ascent will continue to stamp Not This Time as one of the heirs to the throne of three-time leading sire Giant’s Causeway, who died in 2018 – and, moreover, to that one’s sire, the great Storm Cat. “To hear people say that is just something I can’t really fathom,” said Jason Loutsch of Albaugh Family Stables, which maintains an interest Not This Time as a stallion. “It’s really humbling.”