Miss Macy Sue

The year 2020 will have an asterisk next to it in racing history, but there will nevertheless be a leading first-crop sire at year's end, and Taylor Made's Not This Time (Giant's Causeway) might be the stallion atop it. As we head into September, Not This Time leads all N. American-based first-crop sires by number of winners, with nine, and he's a close third behind Ashford's Air Force Blue (War Front) and WinStar's Speightster (Speightstown) on the progeny earnings list. The major 2-year-old graded events the next few months leading...

Not his time yet, surely. Can't be. A son of two-turn titan Giant's Causeway; a half-brother to late-blooming Liam's Map. Yet there it is, in black and white: three starters, two winners. Hopeful Princess hurtling just 4 1/2 furlongs at Churchill last week; and Swaggy George at Gulfstream the next day, circling the field into the stretch and sprinting four lengths clear. So while these remain the very earliest of days, Not This Time could not have made a more auspicious start to his stud career. On the one hand,...