It has been a year since California Chrome, one of the most popular runners of recent years, made his final start in the inaugural Pegasus World Cup. But the two-time Horse of the Year’s family continues to cause conversation in the Thoroughbred industry, with the recent arrival of his first foal, his dam being booked to a successful young sire, and his full brother eyeing stakes company.

The University of Kentucky men’s basketball team tips-off at fellow nationally ranked West Virginia on Saturday night. But less than two hours prior, students will have another rooting interest when homebred Fear the Cowboy starts in the $16 million Pegasus World Cup.

Fear the Cowboy was bred and raised by the University of Kentucky’s Maine Chance Farm, which employs students as part of the curriculum. Fear the Cowboy is 6-4-1-1 lifetime on the main track at Pegasus host Gulfstream Park, and won two Grade 3 events there last year.

Great racemares who also become great broodmares have exerted an outsized influence on the ranks of great stallions, most recently 1992 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Urban Sea, by Miswaki, dam of nine-time leading English and Irish sire Galileo, by Sadler’s Wells, and top-five European sire Sea The Stars, by Cape Cross, both winners of the Epsom Derby as well.

The first foal by two-time Horse of the Year California Chrome was born Saturday night at Calumet Farm in Lexington, Ky., when the Bernstein mare Pay the Man produced a colt.

Pay the Man is the highest-earning Ohio-bred filly in history, and she is one of three horses bred in the Buckeye State to have earned seven figures on the racetrack, joining Harlan’s Holiday and Catlaunch. She won 27 of 76 starts over nine seasons of racing for $1,058,511, highlighted by 21 statebred stakes victories and 14 additional stakes placings.

Songandaprayer, a Grade 1 winner and two-time leading sire in Louisiana, has relocated to Journeyman Stallions in Ocala, Fla., for the 2018 breeding season and will stand for an advertised fee of $3,000.

The 20-year-old Unbridled’s Song horse previously resided at Copper Crowne in Opelousas, La., where he stood for $4,500 in 2017. Songandaprayer has sired 14 crops of racing age, with 651 winners and progeny earnings in excess of $49.3 million.

The blue-blooded Sabbatical has delivered the first foal for the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame's Foal Patrol project, a colt by prominent sire War Front.

Sabbatical, who is owned by Phipps Stable, resides at historic Claiborne Farm in Kentucky and delivered the foal shortly before 6 a.m. Friday. The mare is among eight broodmares in three states participating in the Foal Patrol project, a one-of-a-kind collection of live web cameras where people can view real-time streams of several in-foal mares during their pregnancy through the actual foaling and days following.

The blue-blooded Sabbatical has delivered the first foal for the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame's Foal Patrol project, a colt by prominent sire War Front.

Daily Racing Form's annual special edition takes an in-depth look at North America's leading sires, based in Kentucky, the Thoroughbred capital of the nation. Read about earnings leaders Candy Ride and Unbridled's Song; examine the latest accomplishments for perennial standouts Tapit and War Front; review Medaglia d'Oro's seven Grade 1 winners; learn more about the breakout freshman sires of 2017; and more. Our staff also looks at leading sires and prominent farms in the surrounding Midwest region.

When it came to siring elite-level runners in 2017, nobody did it quite to the level of Claiborne Farm’s War Front, and it appears his run in the upper echelon has only begun.

The prominent commercial sire has backed up his six-figure stud fee and numerous seven-figure yearlings with performance on the racetrack.

Medaglia d’Oro is coming off a career year in 2017. That’s saying something, since the Darley stallion’s résumé already featured Hall of Fame racemare Rachel Alexandra, two-time Eclipse Award champion Songbird, and Kentucky Oaks winner Plum Pretty.