Grade 2 winner Cheekaboo lived up to high expectations by selling for $300,000 to Japanese interests as the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed sale began with gains on Monday.
The two-day sale in Lexington, Ky., marking the final major-market mixed auction before Northern Hemisphere breeding sheds open for business, moved 146 horses during its opening session for revenues of $4,677,200. That marked a gain of 13 percent from last year's opening session, when 181 horses sold for $4,134,200.
Our annual Eastern Stallions special edition takes a closer look at the robust regional stallion markets in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Florida. The region is coming off a season in which several state-bred programs or local stallions were represented by Eclipse Award champions or Grade 1 winners, and coming into a season in which the region welcomes several graded stakes winners to stud.
Canadian champion Uncaptured got his own racing career off to a swift start with a stellar season as a juvenile. Now a young stallion at Ocala Stud, he started his stud career in fitting fashion, finishing as Florida’s leading freshman sire of 2018.
Uncaptured, by Lion Heart, recorded eight individual winners from 26 first-crop starters for earnings of $584,829. That bankroll also placed him 10th among living sires on the national freshman earnings list, and third among all Florida sires by juvenile earnings behind Brethren and Adios Charlie.
Great Notion and Friesan Fire have emerged as leaders in Maryland’s sire ranks following the pensioning and death of the state’s titan, Not For Love. Their reign continued in 2018, as they were again the leading general sires by earnings.
Central Banker made a stellar debut with his first runners in 2018, not only finishing as New York’s leading freshman sire by a wide margin, but leading all juvenile sires in the state and ranking in the top 10 nationally among freshmen.
There were five New York-bred Grade/Group 1 winners in 2018 in a banner year for the state program – Audible, Diversify, Fourstar Crook, Mind Your Biscuits, and Voodoo Song. Of that quintet, two are by stallions currently standing in New York – Diversify, by Bellamy Road, and Fourstar Crook, by perennial leading sire Freud.
The dark bay with the flashy blaze and white stockings first walked into a breeding shed in New York in 2002. That same season, his full brother, European Horse of the Year Giant’s Causeway, headed to Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky after standing one year at the outfit’s Irish headquarters due to high demand from U.S. breeders.
As he prepares to stand his 10th season in his adopted home of Pennsylvania, Jump Start continues to reign as the state’s leading sire. But with two solid newcomers joining him, a competitive stallion market looms in coming years for the Keystone State, which is in the national spotlight following the Eclipse Awards.
No matter the location, Northview Stallion Station seems to have the market cornered when it comes to first-year stallions in the Mid-Atlantic region for 2019. The hard-knocking multiple Grade 1 winner Hoppertunity is set to enter stud at the Pennsylvania division in Peach Bottom, Pa. Meanwhile, classic-placed Irish War Cry will stand at the flagship farm in Chesapeake City, Md.
Kantharos entered stud in Florida in 2011 and rapidly rose to national prominence, moving from his regional pond into Kentucky’s deep waters for the 2017 season.
Among the stakes winners helping to propel Kantharos forward has been Bucchero. The multiple graded stakes winner gets a chance to make a splash of his own, an anticipated addition to the Florida stallion ranks this year, as he fills the void as the first son of Kantharos to enter the market.
