A young stallion with a modest $7,500 fee stands tall as the most prolific North American-based sire of 2012 juvenile stakes winners. In heading that statistical category, Henny Hughes, who stands at Walmac Farm in Lexington, Ky., finished the year ahead of sires commanding $60,000, $70,000, even $100,000 fees, and his six stakes-winning 2-year-olds represent the most in a single season since Posse sired seven in 2007.

What he lacked in quantity, Spendthrift Farm stallion Into Mischief made up for in quality.

WinStar Farm stallion Speightstown ended 2012 second on the Midwest general sire list behind Giant’s Causeway, finishing the year with nearly $10 million in progeny earnings distributed among a wide variety of runners over all surfaces. A considerable part of his earnings, however, came from his offspring’s performances on synthetic tracks.

Veteran Hill 'n’ Dale Farms stallion Stormy Atlantic continued to enhance his reputation as a top sire of turf runners in 2012 when his progeny captured graded stakes across the U.S. and in Canada. The 19-year-old son of the legendary Storm Cat was represented by nine turf stakes winners, best among Midwest stallions, and finished second in turf earnings to the late Dynaformer and second in number of turf winners to Kitten’s Joy.

He was pure alpha male . . . big, powerful, dominant . . . a three-quarter-ton, 17-hand tower of attitude and temper, who might have gnashed your finger off as soon as he looked at you, who bent the steel bars on his stall door like so much Play-Doh, and who commanded fear-tinged respect from all around him — including other horses. He was not anything approximating handsome, nor had he been a top-flight racehorse, but try convincing him of that.

Winning a race doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.

Every race has a winner — multiple winners in the rare exception of a dead heat — and eight or more horses win a race daily at every racetrack around the country.

With that said, a win is still hard to come by. Half the Thoroughbreds born in North America never win a race, and an even smaller percentage do it more than once in their careers.

Giant’s Causeway was all over the place in 2012. His presence on a myriad of leading sire lists — general, turf, and synthetic — explains why he is one of the more popular stallions standing in North America: He gets good runners on all surfaces.

No one was surprised when Kitten’s Joy had another successful year as a sire of turf runners in 2012, but as his stock has risen, the horse has shown that he has a few more tricks up his sleeve.

Year by year, the 12-year-old’s résumé and reputation have grown as he transitioned from one of North America’s elite turf runners into one of its elite turf sires, carrying the colors of his breeder and owner, Ramsey Farm, every step of the way.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Funding from public or private sources and a lead time of approximately a year will be needed for Fairplex Park or Los Alamitos to expand its property to accommodate Thoroughbred racing and training, the board of directors of the California Thoroughbred Trainers was told on Wednesday.

The New York Racing Association has appointed nine members to a committee charged with conducting a search for the newly established position of Equine Veterinary Medical Director, the association announced Wednesday in conjunction with Cornell University.