Yesterday my blog was about the young guns Medaglia d’Oro and Tapit. Both of them are second-crop sires with their oldest runners now 3-year-olds and they are 1-2 on the second crop list by earnings and by number of unrestricted SWs with 7 each. This may be one of the strongest crops of young stallions we’ve seen in a while, because you can add Birdstone to this list as the sire of two classic winners from his first crop! – Derby winner Mine That Bird and yesterday’s Belmont Stakes winner, Summer Bird (Click here to view pedigree). In fact, Medaglia d’Oro, Tapit, and Birdstone now rank 1-2-3 on the Thoroughbred Times’ 2009 Second-Crop Sire List!
People often question why breeders go crazy over new stallions each year and why buyers often prefer to buy the foals, yearlings and 2-year-olds by them at auction. Well, you don’t have to look past the classics this year for the answer. All three Triple Crown races this year were won by progeny from a stallion’s first crop! That’s right, Birdstone and Medaglia d’Oro dominated the Triple, and Medaglia d’Oro’s super filly Rachel Alexandra also won the Kentucky Oaks and his daughter Payton d’Oro won the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes, the sister race of the Preakness – won by Rachel.
Yesterday, Medaglia d’Oro’s daughter Gabby’s Golden Gal, who won the Sunland Oaks earlier this year (how about the form at Sunland Park in New Mexico this year, considering that Mine That Bird also ran there!), won the G1 Acorn Stakes at Belmont – the first leg of New York’s “Triple Tiara” for fillies. Amazing – Darley buys Medaglia d’Oro on Thursday, and on Saturday the stallion gets his second G1 winner from his first crop – that’s how this business works, and you can usually go to the bank on it! (In the interest of full disclosure and tooting one’s horn: I bet $200 to win on Gabby’s Golden Gal, and I had a $50 exacta box on her with the 4/5 favorite, for a $5,102.50 return. Of course, like most betters, I only talk about my winning bets!).
After Medaglia d’Oro, Tapit, and Birdstone (both Tapit and Birdstone stand at Gainesway, which is huge coup for the farm), there are a few other stallions that are making a case to be included with them. One of them is Speightstown, a son of Gone West (sire of Elusive Quality), whose son Munnings (Click here to view pedigree) became his 5th unrestricted SW (7th SW overall) yesterday when he won the G2 Woody Stephens Stakes in 1:20 3/5 for 7 furlongs! I know the track was playing super fast yesterday, but that’s smoking! Speightstown’s sons and daughters, until Munnings yesterday, hadn’t really won a major race, but he certainly bears watching.
Another stallion with his first crop age 3 that has done extremely well is Candy Ride, who I’ve discussed before. Candy Ride’s Chocolate Candy was in the Belmont yesterday but didn’t handle the track as far as I could see. Candy Ride has 6 SWs (4 of them unrestricted SWs). He stands at John Sikura’s Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm – the farm where Medaglia d’Oro’s first crop was conceived! (Medaglia d’Oro stood one season at Hill ‘n’ Dale in 2005 before moving to Stonewall Farm for the 2006 season.)
Coolmore’s Tale of the Cat stallion Lion Heart is also off to a strong start with 6 SWs (5 of them unrestricted), although he does have more foals than the others listed here.
One of the big names from this group of second-crop stallions is Smarty Jones, the Derby and Preakness winner who lost his Triple Crown bid to – Birdstone! Who would have thought that with their first crops at the races, it would be the Belmont Stakes winner (and a son of Grindstone!) who would have two classic winners to his credit, while the Derby winning son of Elusive Quality is off to a slow start with one SW? However, I caution against giving up on him too soon. There have been stallions over the years that have started off slow and then come on like gangbusters. The latest example is another Three Chimneys stallion Sky Mesa, who had been left for dead about this time last year only to make one of the most amazing comebacks I’ve ever seen. In fact, he currently ranks No. 2 on the Times 2009 Leading Third-Crop Sire List!
Finally, one last stallion I want to briefly mention from this group is Brazilian-bred Redattore, who stands for only $4,000 in California at Harris Farms. Redattore shuttles to Brazil for the Southern Hemisphere seasons. This son of Roi Normand is on fire in Brazil with his first crop of 2-year-olds, and collectively has 7 SWs with 6 of them graded!