Only a handful of representatives for Kenny and Lisa Troutt’s WinStar Farm could get up on the stage to accept the operation’s Eclipse Award as outstanding breeder last Saturday night at Gulfstream Park. However, farm president and chief executive Elliott Walden noted that there were dozens who belonged there.

“Of all the awards presented tonight, I think the breeder is one of the most collaborative efforts,” Walden said. “You have the stallion team, the broodmares, the yearlings, the owners that buy our horses at the sales, the trainers that they give them to.

As they usually do, the pedigrees of the 2016 Eclipse winners followed the overall trends of American pedigrees. Over the last several decades the Northern Dancer and Mr. Prospector male lines have dominated grades stakes results, with the emergent A.P. Indy branch making steady inroads into that dominance. Those male lines thus dominate the numbers of stallions at stud, and it is only logical that those numbers will be reflected during awards season.

Grade 1 winner Keen Ice will retire to Calumet Farm at the end of this racing season, the farm announced on Sunday.

Keen Ice, who is best known for defeating Triple Crown winner American Pharoah in the 2015 Travers Stakes, is expected to start in this Saturday’s $12 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park.

Dual Eclipse Award finalist Lord Nelson will miss what would have been his first breeding season at Spendthrift Farm after recently developing laminitis.

2016 leaders

Tapit continues to raise the bar

Roundup of top stallions

2016 Leaders information

Standings offer new metric for stallions

Two of reigning leading sire Tapit’s best runners from a Beyer Speed Figure standpoint will be among Kentucky’s new stallions of 2017.

Frosted, who retires to Darley’s Jonabell Farm in Kentucky, earned the year’s top figure with a 123 for his 14 1/4-length romp in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park. That also was the top career Beyer for Tapit, far surpassing the 112 awarded to Trappe Shot for a runner-up effort in the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Stakes in 2011 at Saratoga.

Dual classic-placed Grade 1 winner Bodemeister displayed brilliance during his own racing career, earning triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures in four of his six career starts, led by a 109 when second in the Preakness. He just missed the triple-digit cutoff with a 99 for his runner-up effort in the Kentucky Derby.

There is little doubt that Northern Afleet has amassed a fine résumé at stud.

The 23-year-old son of Afleet has sired a dual-classic winner in Afleet Alex, a champion sprinter in Amazombie, and a Brazilian Horse of the Year in Barolo.

However, Northern Afleet’s commercial appeal is limited, leading his stud fee to be set at $6,500 by Taylor Made Stallions. For those looking to breed a runner, or bet on one by the stallion, the price could be right.

Tapit’s latest record-setting year atop the North American sire ranks was led by Frosted, who dazzled the racing world with a romp in the Metropolitan Handicap that earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 123 – the highest number of the year.

But Tapit, who commands the highest fee on the continent at $300,000, has a stablemate in the Gainesway stallion complex who quietly put together a solid year based on Beyers in 2016.

It’s no revelation to say European-sired horses tend to have a natural advantage in North American turf races over their domestic contemporaries.

The major racing jurisdictions on the other side of the pond breed almost exclusively for the grass, and the above-average European runners regularly travel to North America to become forces in graded stakes races.