Proving Grounds

From 1997 until 2008 or 2009, commercial breeders and the auction marketplace loved first-year sires. One cynic said to me that's because nobody has had a bad one yet, and when you consider that, according to APEX findings, something like 92% of runners do not pay their way, it's not hard to understand the logic. Once you've had one or two by a sire, and if only one out of 12 by all sires are going to pay their way, you need to be lucky as well as good to be making money. For whatever combination of reasons, first-year sires were in vogue for 12 or 13 years.

The psychology changed with the World Financial Crash of 2008. The crash itself lasted exactly
12 months in the North American and European Thoroughbred market, from the end of the Keeneland September Sale in 2008 to the end of the Keeneland September Sale in 2009. I have no idea why the timing was like that, but it was.

Then, for the next four years, the market more or less went sideways. The downturn ended in the NA/EU Thoroughbred business when the 2013 Keeneland September Sale was up 28% in gross (from $219 million to $280 million) from 2012.

Beginning partly in 2009 (foals of 2010), but really in 2010 (foals of 2011), there was a definite shift by commercial breeders from unproven to proven stallions–much like investors moving from stocks to bonds. The class of North American sires that retired to Kentucky in 2010 was the smallest, and had the lowest 'highest stud fee' ($25,000) in recent memory. These were 3-year-olds of 2014, and this year's 3-year-olds, foals of 2012, were the result of coverings in 2011, when– logically–the shift would still have been favoring proven sires. In fact, it wasn't until Super Saver became a 'Market Darling' at the 2013 yearling sales that unproven sires really began to get back on the radar.

So we couldn't help but notice–as did a few people– that the winners of both French Guineas races last weekend were from the first crops of their respective sires.

“The news was very positive from Arqana's 2-year-old sale at Saint-Cloud last Saturday: with the same number (88) sold as last year, the gross and average were up by more than 21% each, and trading was described as very brisk as nearly two-thirds of the catalogue was sold. Al Shaqab and Steven Hillen were the biggest buyers. Since 2010 the Saint-Cloud sale, parallel with the European 2-year-old market generally, has seen revenues rise by 50%. The new on-site
hotel got the thumbs-up as well.”

Saudi Prince A.A. Faisal is best known as the breeder of Invincible Spirit and Kodiac, but his colt Make Believe, from Makfi's first crop, convincingly won the G1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains for colts under a great front-running ride by the incomparable Olivier Peslier. After four seasons at Tweenhills Stud in England, Makfi is standing this season at the Aga Khan's Haras de Bonneval, and the stud doubled up when Ervedya, from the first crop of the Aga Khan's own homebred Siyouni, won the G1 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches for fillies in spite of a bad draw. To return once again to the theme of 2014 French Arc weekend juvenile form, Ervedya had run second to Found in the G1 Prix Marcel Boussac, and then convincingly won her Guineas prep, the G3 Prix Imprudence, last month.

Siyouni, meanwhile, is emerging as a big-time sire. Winner of the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, France's top 2-year-old race, in 2009, Siyouni was easily the top freshman sire in France last year, and number two overall to Lope de Vega in Europe (click here), such that his stud fee jumped from €7,000 to €20,000. I have to tip my hat, as we used to say, to Flying Start graduate and bloodstock agent Tina Rau, who was telling me about Siyouni foals at the German yearling sale in Baden-Baden in September 2012; good call, Tina. Anyway, Siyouni was the hottest sire of all, with seven 2-year-olds averaging €145,714, at the red-hot Arqana 2-Year-Old Sale at Saint-Cloud on Saturday, and now he has a Classic winner–no fluke about it, she was the best filly.

It's the second year in a row, after Avenir Certain (Le Havre) last year, that the Pouliches has been won by a filly by a first-crop sire. And, after Lovely Maria's win in the GI Kentucky Oaks for first-crop Airdrie Stud stallion Majesticperfection, it means three of the first six 2015 North American and European Classics have been won by the progeny of first-crop sires. They may have been a little out of fashion, but it hasn't stopped them firing in Classic winners.

We then went back to 2010, and looked at the results for 91 Classic races run through last weekend–that is 17 a year for five years 2010-2014, with six run so far this year, and 11 left to run. We decided on five a year for North America, the three Triple Crown races for colts, and the GI Kentucky Oaks and GI Mother Goose (both at nine furlongs) for fillies. That makes 27 run in North America since 2010, with three more to come this year: the GI Preakness, GI Belmont, and GI Mother Goose. In Europe, we counted the one-mile 2000 (colts) and 1000 (fillies) Guineas in Britain, France, and Ireland; that adds up to six per year.

Then another six for the respective Derbies and Oaks; 12 per year is 60, and with four of the Guineas run this year 64 have been run since 2010, with eight remaining to run.

So 91 Classics, by this definition, have been run in North America and Eur ope since 2010; 11 more remain to be run in 2015. Of the 91, there have been 27 run in North America, 64 in Europe. These are Classic wins, not Classic winners, meaning a few horses that won two Classics have been counted twice.

Of the 91, there have been 19 winners from the first crops of their sires (21%); if you look at the tables and graphs, you'll see that all crops through the first 10 had two or more winners, but from the 11th on, it's only the occasional one, except for Blue Bunting, from the 18th crop by Dynaformer–she won two Classics. So you kind of say, okay, nine per crop. The third crops, with only two Classic winners, definitely fare worst, but even given the number of available sires descends with each crop, 19 out of 91 is surely a disproportionately high number: first-crop sires do really well, and second-crop sires (like Pioneerof the Nile in 2015, sire of GI Kentucky Derby winner American Pharoah), don't do badly either.

There is another wrinkle in these statistics: exactly 25% of the European Classics run since 2010–16 of 64–have been won by sons and daughters of Galileo, whose fifth crop were 3-year-olds of 2010, and whose 10th crop are 3-year-olds of 2015. If you take those out of the reckoning, on the grounds that he's a super-sire so they are going to win Classics no matter which crop they're in–and we take out Montjeu's six Classic wins as well, it means there have been 69 Classics won by the progeny of sires other than Galileo and Montjeu (his foals are a year older than Galileo's). The 19 first-crop winners are then 28% of those 69, and the 10 second-crop winners another 14%. Even including Galileo and Montjeu, first- and second-crop sires have won 32% of the Classics; without those two super sires, first- and second-crop sires constitute 42% of the total. So–as usual–'the market,' in its 12- or 13-year run of favoring first-crop sires, turns out to be a better forecaster than we might have thought. Even the 2011 and 2012 foals, the ones sired by the young sires after the fashion should have shifted, have seven first-crop Classic winners from 23 Classics (31%) run so far in 2014-2015.