In late December, More Than Ready made his flight from Vinery in Australia to Kentucky for the final time. More Than Ready, who officially turned 22 with the turn of the calendar, has concluded his days of shuttling to a continent where he was phenomenally successful and beloved, represented by champions More Joyous, Phelan Ready, Sebring, Samaready, and Entisaar.
Another majorly successful season for Quality Road cemented his place among North America’s leading stallions, and for 2019 he joins the ranks of North America’s six-figure sires.
Quality Road’s advertised stud fee has more than doubled for 2019 at Lane’s End, with his $150,000 price tag placing him among the elite on the continent. He stood for $70,000 in 2018 – up from $35,000 the prior year – after a 2017 season in which he was represented by champions Abel Tasman and Caledonia Road.
Adena Springs’s homebred champion Ghostzapper hinted that he was developing as a broodmare sire at a relatively early point in his career when Drefong, out of his daughter Eltimaas, was named the champion male sprinter of 2016.
Lookin At Lucky had a career year in 2018 and capped it by coming within a length of a historic accomplishment.
Mark Valeski didn’t get the press of Cross Traffic, whose first-crop daughter Jaywalk coasted in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. He also lacked the numbers of runners to reach the top ranks of a competitive freshman sire earnings list, in which four individuals had progeny earnings of more than $1 million. But what Airdrie Stud’s homebred lacked in quantity, he made up in consistency and quality.
The Factor had a lot going for him as a stallion prospect when he went to stud. He was fast, was a Grade 1 winner, and had a nice pedigree. One of the unknowns was his sire, War Front, because The Factor was from that sire’s first crop, and at the time it was not known if War Front would be a good sire, or, more importantly, be a good sire of sires.
One of the hottest sires at yearling sales in 2017 was Violence, whose first foals had just reached the races, and some people questioned if the unabashed love for his progeny was warranted. At sales in 2017, yearlings by Violence sold for an average of $123,840, or 8.3 times his $15,000 stud fee, a very high multiple for the commercial market.
As it turns out, the answer was in the affirmative, and those who believed in him early are reaping the rewards.
In recent decades, America’s Thoroughbred breeding industry has been contracting – with fewer racetracks, smaller foal crops, and a declining number of active stallions. The decline in active stallions has been especially notable: Since 1991 the number of stallions used for breeding has dropped some 79 percent nationally.
In recent years, the Hoosier State has bucked a downward national trend with its on-the-rise Thoroughbred industry. Whereas other regional racing and breeding centers struggle for any number of reasons, Indiana flourishes. Why? The passage of legislation in 2007 legalizing on-track gaming and the subsequent advent of casinos at the state’s two racetracks has infused vital lifeblood into a once anemic business. Industry interests have since benefited to the tune of more than $500 million and counting, with big bucks pouring annually into purses and incentives for breed development.
Numbers talk, but sometimes the message they send can be mixed. Despite a racing program that has witnessed steady growth in purse distribution and average purse per race, and offers a respectable incentive program, Iowa’s breeding end of the business has trended in a different direction.
