Bill Oppenheim: Tough Company

TOUGH COMPANY 
Sometimes, things just crystallize right before your eyes: the light goes on. Often this unshakeable conviction unravels at the eighth pole, but occasionally inspiration strikes when you’re trying to divine the secrets of the Thoroughbred marketplace. 

For the 2015 breeding season in Kentucky, nine stallions at four farms are standing for the same fee: $35,000. For 2015, that is ‘The Number’. Well over 1,000 mares are going to be bred at that fee. Whatever the market might be like for the resulting yearlings in 2017, and whatever the commercial status of these sires then (which will have more to do with what those 2017 yearlings bring than the $35,000 stud fee the breeders will have paid), right now this is an impressive group of names. Who are we talking about? In order of the year they had their first foals, the nine are: 

Congrats (F2008, WinStar): Ranks #3 on the North American 2-Year-Old Sire List with his first Kentucky crop (click here). He stood that season (2011) for $15,000, but has been at $35,000 since, so his current ranking justifies the existing price, in his case. So it should: he has stepped up. 

Hard Spun (F2009, Darley): Returns from Japan at a lower fee than before he went but hello, he’s #10 on the TDN YTD General Sire List (NA only) (click here) with three new Grade I winners this year, including GI Wood Memorial winner Wicked Strong and GI Arlington Million winner Hardest Core. 

Scat Daddy (F2009, Ashford): This horse is about one Group 1 winner away from being a really big-time sire. Last year his 2-year-olds included Group 1 winner No Nay Never, and this year he’s the leading North American sire by 2-year-old winners, with 21 (click here). He’s also re-writing the record books from his Chilean crops. 

Street Sense (F2009, Darley): After unbeaten Ocho Ocho Ocho’s win in the $1-million GIII Delta Jackpot, Street Sense ranks #11 on the North American 2-Year-Old Sire List and #20 on the NA General Sire List, on which he is one place behind his own sire, Street Cry. Street Sense has 96 winners this year, including nine black-type winners; Street Cry has 97 winners and nine black-type winners. So he’s not far behind his old man. 

Curlin (F2010, Lane’s End): Runaway leader amongst North American third-crop sires (click here), is #12 on the NA General Sire List with no fewer than 13 graded stakes horses this year, even though just two of them are graded stakes winners. Considering his advancement from his first 3-year-olds to his first 4-year-olds this year, it would be no surprise to see quite a few of those graded stakes horses convert to graded stakes winners next year. 

Quality Road (F2012, Lane’s End): The #1 North American Freshman Sire (click here). He was a really high-class racehorse but didn’t necessarily figure as a sire of 2-year-olds, so this is a big result, even given he covered a lot of the best Ned Evans mares in 2011. 

Super Saver (F2012, WinStar): The #2 North American Freshman Sire. Market darling with his first yearlings in 2013, came good. Not all do. 

Union Rags (F2014, Lane’s End): The #1 North American first-crop sire at the November sales, with 17 sold for an average of $133,941 (click here). Frankel will be the overall leader by a mile, but this horse has good credentials and good support, and is popular. 

Animal Kingdom (F2015, Darley): Ranks #3 amongst North American first-crop covering sires (click here), with 22 mares in foal averaging $170,173. The only horse ever to win the GI Kentucky Derby (dirt) and G1 Dubai World Cup (synthetic), and a really interesting prospect from the pedigree point of view, being by the Blushing Groom-line sire Leroidesanimaux out of a top German mare by their multiple champion sire Acatenango. He has as close to an ‘outcross’ pedigree as it’s possible to find these days (he is 4×4 Lyphard, but that’s about it). 

These are some really serious stallions and top prospects. Most have probably already filled up, but for breeders that have mares that can justify a $35,000 stud fee, if your mare isn’t already committed and you can get into one of these horses (assuming good conformation and pedigree matches, of course), this price, this year, looks like a key number. 

NEXT COLUMN: Sunday, Nov. 30, after the Tattersalls Foal Sale that starts today. Four Frankels sell Friday. All still in, as of yesterday.