National Treasure, the 2023 Preakness Stakes winner who took last Saturday’s Pegasus World Cup in his most recent start, will have a future as a stallion at Spendthrift Farm.

The farm announced Thursday that it had acquired the breeding rights to National Treasure, a 4-year-old son of Quality Road who races for the partnership of SF Racing, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stables, Robert Masterson, Stonestreet Stables, Jay Schoenfarber, Waves Edge Capital, and Catherine Donovan. A next start has yet to be determined for the colt, who remains in training with Bob Baffert.

Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Mucho Macho Man has been moved from Kentucky to Adena Springs North in Aurora, Ontario, for the 2024 breeding season.

A 16-year-old son of 2-year-old champion Macho Uno, Mucho Macho Man has sired 10 black-type winners, including Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup victor Mucho Gusto, Grade 1-winning turf runner Mucho Unusual, and multiple graded stakes winner City Man.

Mucho Macho Man’s stud fee is $4,500 Canadian, stands and nurses.

On January 27, Lucky Appeal became the first winner for Blue Star Racing’s stallion Breaking Lucky. In the $33,000 Maiden Special Weight at Sam Houston Race Park, Lucky Appeal ralied from the rear and won by a neck –covering 5-1/2 furlongs on a fast track in 1:07.72. 

War Front, the flagship of the current roster at historic Claiborne Farm, quietly put together another consistently outstanding season.

War Front was North America’s leading living turf sire by progeny earnings in 2023. He had a remarkable strike rate with 33 winners, including 10 stakes winners, from 91 starters for a turf bankroll of $5,863,936.

That placed him behind only the late English Channel (Calumet Farm), and just ahead of the versatile leading sire Into Mischief (Spendthrift Farm) to make him the living leader in the category.

Justify was a breakout success as a racehorse, crossing the line first in all six of his starts in 2018, including a sweep of the Triple Crown series. The Horse of the Year, now based at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky, enjoyed breakout success as a sire in 2023, with six Grade/Group 1 winners, tied for most by a North American sire with Into Mischief (Spendthrift Farm).

Two-time Horse of the Year Curlin made the vast majority of his starts in Grade/Group 1 races and only missed the top three once while retiring as North America’s all-time leading money winner. His high achievement has continued into his second career as a stallion, as he has been a remarkably consistent sire of upper-level horses.

A number of the most exciting sires currently standing in Ohio have moved there from other states. In the case of National Flag, he began his career in Ohio for one of the Buckeye State’s most prominent partnerships and is rewarding them as a rising star.

National Flag, who stands for a $2,000 fee for racing co-owner WinStar Farm and longtime Ohio partner Tim Hamm at the latter’s Blazing Meadows Farm in Ohio, was the state’s leading freshman sire of 2022. He stepped up to finish third on the state’s general sire list for 2023.