When Eclipse, by Orlando, was imported to the U.S. in the late 1850s by Richard Ten Broeck and Francis Morris, he arrived at a propitious moment for a horse of his specific proclivities. Although he had dead-heated for the win in the 10-furlong Newmarket Stakes with subsequent Epsom Derby winner Beadsman, he was primarily a speed horse, as evidenced by his victory in the Clearwell Stakes at Newmarket as a 2-year-old the previous year.

Champions Arrogate and Gun Runner traded blows throughout their racing careers. Arrogate, racing’s leading money winner, ran down Gun Runner for a dramatic victory in the 2017 Dubai World Cup. But that turned out to be the final win of his career, and by the end of the season Gun Runner had turned the tables, winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic to secure the Horse of the Year title.

Juvenile champion and Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist led a group of first-crop weanling sires that included several fellow Eclipse Award champions at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale. Nyquist, who stands for Darley, was represented by the most expensive youngster from the group – a $600,000 filly sold to Larry Best’s OXO Equine – and led his class by average, with three sold for an average of $335,000.

Two-time Horse of the Year and Taylor Made stallion California Chrome finished with an average of $109,500 from six sold.

The pattern many breeders follow in the contemporary big-book era of stallion management can be a major problem for all but the most elite prospects. It is generally easy to get plenty of quality mares to a first-year stallion who starts his career in the $20,000 to $40,000 range, but for his second through fourth crops, commercial breeders looking to cash in on the premium buyers pay for first-crop stallions move on to the next similar prospect, and then the next.

Weekend Hideaway, a winner of stakes races in seven consecutive years, will begin his stallion career in his home state of New York, at Irish Hills & Dutchess Views Stallions LLC in Saratoga Springs.

Multiple Grade 1 winner Bolt d'Oro has been retired and has settled in at Spendthrift Farm, where he will begin his stud career in February.  

Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Accelerate will debut for a stud fee of $20,000 at Lane’s End Farm in 2019, the farm has announced.

Multiple Group 2 winner Daddy Long Legs has been purchased by a partnership to stand at Taylor Made Stallions in 2019, becoming the most recent son of the late Scat Daddy to stand in Kentucky.

Dual classic winner and champion I'll Have Another, who has spent his entire stud career to this point in Japan, will relocate to stand at Ballena Vista Farm in California for the 2019 season, a major coup of the regional program.

"I truly consider bringing champion I’ll Have Another back to the States as one of the most satisfying and one of the best things I've ever done in the Thoroughbred industry," Ballena Vista owner Donald Cohn said. "He is a magnificent specimen and a true champion racehorse, the likes of what we in California have never had the opportunity to stand."

America has always prided itself on being the land of opportunity, the country where by sheer merit and hard work one can achieve wealth or power - or both. The results of this year’s Breeders’ Cup meeting, though, reflect a different kind of opportunity.