Apex Up Close

Through racing of July 5, when we ran the Midyear APEX data, a North American racehorse needed to have earned just over $40,000 thus far in 2015 to qualify as a Midyear 'C Runner', and just over $83,000 to qualify as a Midyear 'A Runner'; you can see the amounts (converted to US$) for the other jurisdictions in the accompanying table. These are the top 8% of runners in 2015 after the July 4 weekend; if you take the view that $40,000 in earnings is maybe a little better than...

Last week we took a look at the Top 50 North American and European sires by APEX A Runner Index (click here), using new Midyear 2015 data, meaning from 1/1/2009 through 7/5/2015. A particular note about this, if you will refer to the table on page five of last Wednesday's paper, is that the earnings thresholds are based on racing through that date. Thus, the 2% A Runner threshold calculated on July 5 was, for example, $83,084 in North America. The 2014 year-end threshold was $134,655. Therefore, it is highly...

At the end of 2014, Coolmore's Galileo had finally ascended to the top of the list of North American and European sires by A Runner Index, with a 4.09 rating (8.18% of his 1,822 year-starters 2008-2014), just slightly ahead of Claiborne's War Front (4.02). Now, halfway through 2015, War Front (3.98) has edged ahead of Galileo (3.93), who is actually tied for second with Spendthrift's Into Mischief (3.93), among 459 North American and European sires with 175+ year-starters 2009-2015. Because APEX (Annual Progeny Earnings IndeX) ratings, like the average-earnings index,...

When you see that Coolmore=s top sire, Galileo, had 66 black-type horses (BTH) last year, of which 50 were graded/group stakes horses (GSH), it's not surprising he's also the leading 2014 North American or European sire of APEX ABC Runners. To review, a horse becomes an ABC Runner (meaning A Runner, or B Runner, or C Runner) by recording earnings among the top 8% of runners, in the year, in one of the five jurisdictions in which earnings are tallied: North America (US + Canada); Great Britain/Ireland (traditionally collected together...

Last week we looked at the top 50 sires with 200+ year-starters ('runners') 2008-2014 by the signature APEX A Runner Index. This week we'd like to look at three more Top 50's, as well as sires with first foals 2010 (4-year-olds of 2014) and 2011 (3-year-olds of 2014). As we mentioned last week, when you look at the quantity of A Runners since 2008, Coolmore's Galileo is really in a class of his own, with 149 A Runners (keep in mind one horse can be counted as a separate A...

Finding a racehorse that makes money is a challenge. By our calculations, only 8% of all the runners in North America in 2013 earned $53,500 or more ($53,492, to be precise). Recent studies show that it takes about $50,000, if not more, to have a horse in training at the major tracks for a year. So we have a rule of thumb, which is that a horse has to qualify as an ABC Runner-- to be among the top 8% of runners--in order to for us to call it a...

At the end of 2006, a total of 1,156 sires which stood or had stood in North America, Europe, and Japan qualified for APEX ratings, meaning, basically, that they had 10 or more 3-year-olds in the last year covered (in that case, foals of 2003 and 3-year-olds of 2006). By midyear 2014--The Jockey Club Information Systems (TJCIS) ran the data on July 8--the number of sires which qualified was down to a record low of 821. By that measure, there has been a 30% decline in the viable 'commercial' stallion...

I know all this data isn=t the easiest to sort out, in fact, I even forgot and said in my column yesterday there are 13 APEX indexes, when actually there are 17: A, B, and C Runners for three regions (North America, 'Europe' [GB/ Ireland, France, Germany], and Japan) plus for all three regions combined (that=s 12), plus ABC Index for all combined, plus ABC Age Ratings for 2-, 3-, 4-year-olds, and 5-year-olds and up).

Of the 937 sires which were assigned APEX ratings at the end of 2013 (meaning they had 10 or more 3-year-olds in 2013), there are 501 sires which stand or stood in North America or 'Europe' (England, Ireland, France, or Germany) and which had 200 or more year-starters (denoted 'runners', though in this case a horse is counted as one runner each year it races) from 2007 to 2013.

Three sires with 200+ year-starters recorded APEX (Annual Progeny Earnings IndeX) A Runner Index (ARI) figures of 4.00 or higher for the seven-year period 2007-2013, according to data provided to us through the end of 2013 by The Jockey Club Information Systems (TJCIS).

'Saturday' horses. That's what the commercial market is all about. Horses that can run at the big tracks, on the big days, in the big races. There are various ways of tallying sires' performances in this respect; our way, as you know, is earnings-based. The top 8% of earners in each jurisdiction we cover, each year (or part of a year, when we run the mid-year statistics), are classified as 'ABC Runners= (specifically, A's=top 2%; B's=next 2%; C's=next 4%); these are the 'Saturday' horses.