Valid Expectations dies at age 22

Valid Expectations, a multiple Grade 3 winner and Texas’ all-time leading sire by earnings, died at age 22.

The son of Valid Appeal had been living as a pensioner from commercial stud duty at Mt. Brilliant Farm in Lexington, Ky. since 2013 after previously residing at Lane’s End Texas. Valid Expectations spent his final years at Mt. Brilliant covering polo mares after owner Greg Goodman bought out partners Bob and Lee Ackerley, Joe Archer, Bob and Janice McNair, and Will Farish.

“He was the most intelligent horse I’ve ever been around,” said Lane’s End Texas farm manager Danny Shifflett. “He knew what his job was; he would tell us when mares were ready to breed. He knew better than the vets. He was an incredible animal who impacted every aspect of the equine industry that his babies participated in. They excelled in barrel racing, polo, cutting, showing, and of course as racehorses and broodmares.”

Bred in Florida by Harry Mangurian Jr., Valid Expectations was a $68,000 purchase out of the 1994 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. August yearling sale by Terry Bowling and Bobby Dodd, who sold the colt to Ackerley Brothers Farm for $225,000 at the following year’s OBS February 2-year-olds in training sale.

Steve Asmussen trained Valid Expectations, who retired with 12 wins in 27 starts for earnings of $596,092, highlighted by wins in the Grade 3 Derby Trial Stakes and Sport Page Handicap, as well as five additional non-graded stakes. He won or placed in 16 stakes races over three seasons of racing.

Valid Expectations was retired to Mockingbird Farm in Florida, where he stood his first two seasons before relocating in 2000 to Farish’s Huisache Farm, which was later named Lane’s End Texas. He started fast, finish as North America’s leading freshman sire by winners and progeny earnings in 2001.

Valid Expectations has sired 15 crops of racing age, with 439 winners and combined progeny earnings of more than $33.1 million, surpassing Sunny’s Halo as Texas’ leading sire shortly after being pensioned in 2013, according to American Racehorse.

Leading runners by Valid Expectations include Saratoga County, winner of the Group 1 Dubai Golden Shaheen, as well as Grade 2 winner The Daddy, Grade 3 winner Expect an Angel, and 46 non-graded stakes winners. He is also the sire of multiple stakes winner Ivan Fallunovalot, who is a contender for this year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint.

‘The thing you have to say about him is that he did what he did in Texas, which made it even tougher,” Shifflett said. “Almost everyone involved, from the shareholders to those to bred mares to him to those who raced one of his offspring, had fun and came out well in the end. He had average earnings per starter of nearly $62,000. He set a standard in Texas that will never be achieved again, and his horses competed worldwide.”