All Equine All The Time

With 12 categories and 31 horses, it's to be expected that there's some overlap in the bloodlines found when the Eclipse Award finalists are named in early January. This year was no different with some stallions making their marks in more than one category. From Mr. Prospector to A.P. Indy, here are some of the more interesting things you’ll find when digging into Eclipse award pedigrees this winter. Mr. Prospector (WikiMedia Commons/Pawneese photo) Mr. Prospector – It’s never a big surprise to find Mr. Prospector (Raise a Native) in pedigrees but it may be a surprise to see how dominate he is when it comes to this year's Eclipse awards. Of the 31 finalists, Mr. Prospector is found in the sire or damsire line of 18 (58 percent) of the horses, including all three of the Horse of the Year candidates. Horse of the Year and 3-year-old Male finalist Arrogate (Unbridled’s Song) and female sprinter finalist Finest City (City Zip) both have Mr. Prospector in their sire and...

Frankly Speaking, a 2-year-old colt by Frankel Every spring as racing ramps up in the Northern Hemisphere, trainers prepare 2-year-olds for their new careers as racehorses. For some of those 2-year-olds, they aren’t just carrying the hopes of what they may become on their backs, they are also carrying the hopes of breeders who t ook a chance on their sires in their first year at stud .  This year, expectations will be high for those first-crop sires with a lot of big names having their foals hit the track . Here are five stallions in Europe who we may see battling it out at the top of the First-Crop Sire list in the com ing months . One of two Juddmonte stallions with first foals hitting the track this year, Bated Breath (Dansili) is a Group 2 winning half-brother to Group 1 winner Cityscape (Selkirk). As normal for Juddmonte horses, he has family class behind him for generations with his fourth dam also the dam of champion Xaar (Zafonic). Bated Breath didn’t hit the t...

Last fall All Equine All the Time took a look at Unbridled’s Song as his last yearlings went through the ring, today I dig a little deeper into the late stallion’s impact as his final 2-year-olds get ready to go through the ring in the first major 2-year-old sale of the year.  Taylor Made photo Buyers hoping to get their hands on 2-year-old from the final crop of Unbridled’s Song (Unbridled) will get their first chance of the year on Wednesday when four of his colts go through the make-shift sales ring in the paddock at Gulfstream Park during Fasig-Tipton’s Florida Sale. Unbridled’s Song was originally slated to have five of his final foals go through the ring this week but a colt out of a half-sister to Hansen’s dam Stormy Sunday (Sir Cat) was scratched before the sales week started. But while Hansen gave that colt’s page a nice set of blacktype, the colt had the weakest pedigree of the Unbridled’s Songs so his scratch still leaves buyers with a lot of options. The str...

Congrats A well-bred Grade 2 winner by mega-sire A.P. Indy, Congrats was well received when he retired to Cloverleaf Farms in Florida in 2007. Standing for a stud fee of $12,500, Congrats covered 172 mares that year with 107 live foals, setting him up for success when his first foals hit the track in 2010. Congrats had 61 2-year-olds run that first year and had 25 winners including three graded stakes winners and 12 other stakes horses. His results were good enough to top the First-Crop Sire list over a generation that included the high profile Bernardini (A.P. Indy) and future top sire War Front (Danzig). It was the first time since Valid Expectations led the First-Crop Sires list in 2001 that a stallion standing outside of Kentucky during his first season at stud led the list. Congrats had moved to Vinery Farm’s Florida division in 2008 after Cloverleaf Farms closed at the end of 2007, which made a move to Kentucky after his first 2-year-olds’ success easier. He was transferr...

An interesting addition to the U.S. stallion ranks in 2016 is the 6-year-old Teofilo son Amira’s Prince. Standing in Florida at Pleasant Acres Stallions, Amira’s Prince joins Treasure Beach (Galileo) as an Irish-bred, turf stallion at the farm.  Amira's Prince Amira’s Prince started his career in Ireland in September of 2011 when he finished fifth in his debut on yielding to soft ground at the Curragh. He wasn’t seen again until the following March but it was worth the wait for his connections with the colt finishing first by 3 ¼ lengths over eventual multiple group/graded stakes winner Speaking of Which (Invincible Spirit). From there, he hit the board in a few races in Europe before being bought by U.S. interests and transferred to trainer Bill Mott. Making his first start in the U.S. in December of 2012 after a four month break, Amira’s Prince hit the track running when he started a four-race win streak when winning by 1 ¼ lengths in an optional claiming race over 1...

Tale of the Cat in 2014 A Grade 2 winner at seven furlongs and Grade 1 placed at nine furlongs, Tale of the Cat (Storm Cat) was more than useful as a racehorse. His successful racing career turned out to be a foreshadowing of his stud career when he joined the stallion ranks in 1999, retiring to Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky for $25,000.  By a top sire in Storm Cat and from a strong female family that includes champion Johannesburg (Hennessy) (out of Tale of the Cat’s half-sister) and Pulpit (A.P. Indy), Tale of the Cat has constantly ranked in the top 30 on the General Sires list since graduating from the crop-specific lists (where he was ranked in the top five on the first, second and third crop sires lists). While never a leading General Sire, Tale of the Cat is more often than not seen in the top 15 with his best ranking on that list being a seventh. The stallion has also done well enough with his 2-year-olds to lead the Two-Year-Old Sires list in 2003 and to rank seco...

Liam's Map is one of the more successful expensive yearlings in his group Possibly the biggest “high money” area of the commercial side of horse racing, every year yearling sales see many yearlings sold for $500,000 or more. While it is rare that horses sold for that much money will make it back on the track, researching sales and race results from some of the horses sold at the the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Selected Yearling and Keeneland September Yearling sales from 2010 to 2013 provided some interesting insight on where buyers may have the best bang for their buck with on-track results. For this project, all of the $1-million yearlings sold at those sales during that time frame in addition to the top five lots sold at each sale each year in the $751,000 to $999,000 and $500,000 to $750,000 ranges were looked at. If more than five horses tied at one of the top prices, all were included in the table with those ties accounting for the 43 horses in the $500,000 to $750,000 ran...

Golden Horn galloping in front of the crowd at Keeneland. One of the most dominant horses in the world in 2015, Golden Horn (Cape Cross) won four Group 1 races in 2015 including the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and Investec Derby on his way to Cartier (European) Horse of the Year honors. The colt started his career on Oct. 29, 2014 as a 2-year-old when beating future multiple classic placed Storm the Stars by a head in a Nottingham maiden. Shelved until April of his 3-year-old year he came back and beat Peacock by 1 ½ lengths in the listed Feilden Stakes, his final start at the non-group stakes level. With William Buick aboard for the final time in the Dante Stakes he took his record to three-from-three over fellow John Gosden trainee Jack Hobbs, who was again his victim a few weeks later in the Derby. Golden Horn’s first attempt against older horses validated his claims as one of the top horses in Europe on July 4 when he ran away from a field that included multiple Group 1 ...