2017 Leading Sires? It's a Song Dynasty

It was the Song Dynasty, a thousand years ago in China, that first introduced paper money. And while the Unbridled's Song dynasty is still developing, it is the dollar bill that in 2017 gave the ultimate measure of the legacy to be shared among his heirs.

Four and a half years after his death, aged 20, Unbridled's Song has been decorated by his posthumous champion, Arrogate, with a first sires' championship among North American stallions.

Everyone knows that prizemoney can be a fairly clumsy index of stallion quality. And everyone also recognises the paradox that a racehorse's primary economic function is to connect the cyclical values of the sales ring.

Nonetheless the experiment that introduced the Pegasus and Everest at No 1 and No 3 in the world's most valuable races in 2017, whatever its long-term future, has skewed things afresh. Not simply in California Chrome and now Gun Runner briefly extending their track careers, but in further undermining the coherence of the sires' prizemoney championship.

Without Arrogate, the leading North American sire of 2017 would have finished in 44th place-between Jump Start and Sky Mesa-in the table of worldwide earnings (click here) as it stood on the final day of the year. As it was, Arrogate's wins in the Pegasus and Dubai World Cups helped him to contribute 71.2 per cent of the $18,739,088 accumulated by Unbridled's Song.

In contrast, Tapit's top earners in winning the three previous titles were Frosted, twice, contributing 9.6 per cent and 10 per cent respectively in 2016 and 2015; and Untapable, who weighed in with 15.1 per cent in 2014.

It's hardly a new challenge. California Chrome's spree in 2016, when beaten only by Arrogate in the Breeders' Cup Classic, catapulted his blue-collar side Lucky Pulpit to ninth with a contribution of 75.8 per cent to his progeny earnings. That's why breeders nowadays use umpteen different measures to try and ascertain how different sires are punching above their weight.

But if these new megabuck races have the potential to increase distortion, then it would be churlish to deny that a sires' title represents an apt epilogue to the story of Unbridled's Song. He was always a smasher-as his sales history attests, whether as an individual or as a sire-and his overall body of work, across 17 seasons at Taylor Made, makes him a legitimate colossus.

Arrogate is a graduate of his penultimate crop. As such, Unbridled's Song was confined to a pool of 2017 runners smaller than any of those sires who would have outranked him without his final masterpiece. Indeed, his 143 starters represent less than half the 297 who represented the deposed champion Tapit, who has slipped to fourth after three consecutive years crushing all comers. (No disgrace in that, of course, for a sire only now about to have his first runners after doubling his fee to $300,000, presumably with a corresponding upgrade in his harem.)

If Unbridled's Song has saved his very best till last, more or less, then nor does he depend only on Arrogate to strengthen his profile as a sire of sires. Will Take Charge and Cross Traffic, both out of G1 winners, are about to be represented by their first runners; the weanlings of Liam's Map were in strong demand last year; and then there is Bird Song, out of a champion half-sister to Birdstone, starting out this spring.

Sons of Unbridled's Song have hitherto made only a fair job of recycling their ability but the story, plainly, is far from over. On the face of it, certainly, it would be surprising if those assets associated with his brand did not prove genetically transferable: such athleticism, such competitive zest! Hard-headed and ambitious, his stock have always known what they are about; what it is they want to get out there and do.

When Arrogate derailed after Dubai, you heard renewed mutterings about their physical longevity, and indeed about the delicate balance between soundness and brilliance in the whole Mr Prospector line. Certainly Unbridled's Song has produced plenty of big horses, which sets an obvious premium on soundness. But some trainers have suggested that the main reason his stock might damage themselves is that they will always give you anything you ask. Perhaps Arrogate just reached the bottom of his barrel in Dubai.

In many cases, no doubt, all that gusto and natural brilliance sometimes proved just too much, too soon, for a big raw physique. Smart trainers learned to bide their time; to back off, let them develop. And we saw the dividends not just in the late bloom of Arrogate but also in some others who arrived fairly late on his resumé. Cross Traffic only raced at four; Liam's Map really thrived at the same age; and likewise Graydar, another young sire out to bat for Unbridled's Song.

The fact that collective experience can help horsemen refine the way they handle his stock-and breeders to choose appropriate partners-is perhaps a neglected factor when the market downgrades an ageing sire. Note that Unbridled's Song was down to $85,000, from a peak of $200,000, the year he conceived Arrogate-and was cut to $60,000 for what proved to be his final season.

Like Unbridled's Song, sires' list runner-up Candy Ride (Arg) had a game-changing standout in 2017. Gun Runner accounts for 45.1 per cent of his $15,409,072 tally, though even without him Candy Ride would have divided Speightstown and Uncle Mo in a perfectly creditable 19th. Officially turning 19 today, he is hoisted from $60,000 to a career-high $80,000 at Lane's End.

For sheer consistency, however, the most remarkable achiever on the podium is Medaglia d'Oro, with no fewer than seven G1 winners in the calendar year. This tally had previously been matched, among American sires in Graded stakes history, apparently only by three titans in Danzig, Mr Prospector and Storm Cat. (But see Scat Daddy below.) Moreover, he has just produced the most prolific, at least by winners, of the year's debutant sires in Violence. (Click here for the TDN first-crop sire list.) Another approaching the venerable stage-a contemporary, indeed, of Gun Runner-Medaglia d'Oro remains so unmistakably in his pomp that he has earned a hefty hike at Darley America from $150,000 to $250,000.

Medaglia d'Oro duly denies fifth-placed Kitten's Joy as the main man for their sire-line in North America, a great distinction nowadays with El Prado (Ire) arguably exceeding even European phenomenon Galileo (Ire) in terms of proliferating and diversifying the geographical impact of their sire Sadler's Wells.

But Kitten's Joy remains champion turf sire-it scarcely needs stating – for the fifth year running, and also emerges from the general table as No 1 by individual winners, aggregate wins and indeed G1 horses, thanks to his son Gendarme running second in the Hopeful Stakes in Japan last Thursday. (Click here for the TDN leading turf sires of 2017.)

In contrast with the work being done for their sire by Medaglia d'Oro, grass remained the surface of choice for every one of the 16 stakes winners sired by Kitten's Joy in 2017. But there is no denying his ever-deepening impact, with a career-best prizemoney haul of $14,083,832, even as he transfers to Hill 'n' Dale and takes an aggressive fee cut from $100,000 to $60,000. That should surely heighten his appeal to the kind of breeders Ken Ramsey found so exasperatingly elusive. In the combined European and American turf table, after all, Kitten's Joy has even intercepted the Galileo-Dubawi (Ire) exacta of the previous two years.

All that said, on behalf of El Prado, the sire-line of the year in North America must nonetheless be that of Fappiano-which has not only delivered the first two in the general table but also Gainesway's Empire Maker, seventh; the leading sophomore in WinStar's Bodemeister (click here); and Lane's End's Twirling Candy, second only to Uncle Mo among those operating on three crops (click here).

While Coolmore's Uncle Mo only just makes the top 20 of the general list, he does so as the youngest among them. In that respect, however, special distinction is reserved for Quality Road, whose $11,071,284 earnings in 2017 take him up to 11th place after just four crops. Unsurprisingly Lane's End have doubled their invoices for the sire of Abel Tasman to $70,000.

As mentioned, Violence is top freshman by winners (32, an impressive clip from 65 starters) and wins (43)-as he would have been in each of the three previous years. He gets a corresponding boost to $25,000 from $15,000 at Hill 'n' Dale. By prizemoney, however, he fell a little short of Overanalyze: WinStar's son of Dixie Union amassed $1,665,118 from a bunch of $10,000 covers (up to $15,000 for 2018). Violence, the only other to break seven figures, reached $1,588,996. Both rivals also stacked up four black-type winners.

But 2017 was famously the year of the sophomore, on both sides of the Atlantic, making this a category of unusual interest. Bodemeister, the division leader, and Maclean's Music each produced a Classic winner; Union Rags, complementing the work of Overanalyze for their sire, finished second with four GSW; and an honourable mention again goes to Dialed In, who beat Union Rags to the freshmen's title the previous year off $7,500 covers, for consolidating with a dozen black-type horses in 2017.

Union Rags, Bodemeister and Dialed In duly fill the podium for this intriguing crop of sires on cumulative earnings to date. All have earned a rise: WinStar hardly pushing their luck on Bodemeister, after conjuring a Kentucky Derby winner at the first attempt, by going $40,000 from $25,000; Lane's End edging Union Rags to $60,000 from $50,000; and Dialed In still looking decent value at Darby Dan, at $25,000 from $15,000.

The final word, however, is reserved for poor Scat Daddy. Sixth overall, the late Coolmore sire is unmatched in stakes and Graded stakes, whether by winners or horses. In fact, 28 black type winners and 16 GSW represents an aggregate haul beyond any sire in the previous three years, Daddy's Lil Darling giving him a sixth Northern Hemisphere G1 of the year in the American Oaks at Santa Anita on the penultimate day of the year. (He also sired a G1 winner in Chile during the summer, bred on Southern Hemisphere time.)

It is just over two years now since Scat Daddy dropped dead walking out of his paddock, aged just 11. So we can never know, from day to day, quite what thoroughbreds will bring us this year. Never mind building dynasties. Here's to healthy horses in 2018; the rest, always, is only gravy.