As new stallions have been announced through the fall, much of the attention has focused on the horse WinStar Farm isn’t standing – Triple Crown winner Justify, whom it co-campaigned and who will begin his career at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud.

Spendthrift Farm struck early to secure Bolt d’Oro for its stallion roster, completing a deal for his breeding rights in the fall of his 2-year-old season, but its relationship with the multiple Grade 1 winner goes back much further than that. Bolt d’Oro’s 10th dam is Hall of Fame filly Myrtlewood, a foundation mare for Spendthrift.

Three Chimneys Farm has an established history with the stellar female family responsible for 2005 Horse of the Year Saint Liam and 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner. The farm has continued to reinvest in that family, developed by the late Edward P. Evans, as it expands its stallion roster. This year, Three Chimneys adds a pair of Grade 1 winners in Funtastic, a half-brother to Saint Liam, and Sharp Azteca, out of a daughter of the champion.

Classic-placed champion Good Magic will enter stud at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm alongside his sire, Curlin, and several other former Stonestreet Farm colorbearers.

Good Magic, who was bred by Stone-street, was sold by Hill ‘n’ Dale on behalf of his breeder at the 2016 Keeneland September yearling sale, where e Five Racing went to $1 million to acquire him. Stone-street later bought back in, and the two entities raced him in partnership to three graded stakes victories from nine starts and earnings of more than $2.9 million.

Charles Fipke made his fortune as a risk-taking geologist whose pursuit of his profession led to the groundbreaking discovery of diamond mines in Canada. Fipke has been similarly bold in his pursuit of Thoroughbred gems. In recent years, he has campaigned a homebred Eclipse Award champion in Forever Unbridled; seen her dam, Lemons Forever, honored as Broodmare of the Year; developed a number of his homebred runners into consistent sires; and has seen two runners by those sires hit the board in American classic events at long prices.

There’s the old joke about a mother who had two sons. One ran away to sea and the other was elected vice president. And neither was heard from again.

Well, if that same woman had once owned a stallion prospect who went to stud in Japan, she’d probably never hear of him again, either.

While Kentucky sires cover more mares annually than all other state programs combined, regional breeders rely on in-state sires for their mares and to also take advantage of state breeding incentive programs. A total of 228 stallions stood in Kentucky during the 2018 breeding season – and 986 stood in North America outside Kentucky during the season.

In 2019, there are 61 new stallions reported to be standing in North America, and two-thirds of those will be outside of Kentucky. Here’s a look at some of the new stallions by state.

California

Oscar Performance tossed his head and stepped sideways on the end of the lead shank, turning a white-rimmed eye toward the horizon, beyond the rolling hills surrounding Mill Ridge Farm. Oscar Performance’s familiar former stall in trainer Brian Lynch’s barn is less than five miles away at Keeneland – where Hal Price Headley, the father of Mill Ridge’s Alice Chandler, served as the first president.

A common criticism of the centuries-old Thoroughbred industry is that the wheels of change and innovation turn at a snail’s pace. But in the case of the Pegasus World Cup in late January, the race has so quickly been embraced that even the all-important bloodstock market has adjusted its traditional practices to accommodate the opportunity the lucrative race provides.

In early February 2015, American Pharoah returned to the work tab in California for the first time since being scratched from the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile due to injury, with no guarantee that he would maintain his form off the layoff. The young broodmare Stage Magic wandered the fields at Glennwood Farm in Kentucky, carrying a Scat Daddy colt whom she would deliver the following month. The Triple Crown trophy had still been gathering dust since Affirmed outdueled Alydar in the 1978 Belmont Stakes.