Bill's Columns

As our veteran readers know, we don’t assign APEX (Annual Progeny Earnings IndeX) stallion ratings to sires until they have their first 3-year-olds. It’s also one of our beliefs that, regardless of the demands of the commercial market, sires can’t really properly be evaluated until the end of the term their first 4-year-olds have run. So two of the most interesting sets of tables we like to examine are sires with their first 3-year-olds (first foals 2015, abbreviated F2015, in 2018) and sires with their first 4-year-olds (F2014). There were 86 qualifying F2014 sires in North America and Europe, of which 49 had 100+ ‘year-starters’ (a horse is counted as one starter each year it starts, so a foal of 2014 could be as many as three year-starters by the end of 2018). There were 79 qualifying F2015 sires in North America and Europe, of which 51 had 50+ year-starters (one 2015 foal could be as many as two year-starters by the end of 2018).

Juddmonte’s Frankel was the highest-rated racehorse of all time, and, after his foals have raced for three-years, he has the highest A Runner Index (6.65) of 777 North American, European, and Japanese sires assigned 2018 Year-End APEX ratings, even higher than his own sire, Galileo (5.78), though to be fair Galileo had six times as many year-starters in the period covered. Nonetheless, Frankel is even farther ahead of his F2014 contemporaries as F2013 Uncle Mo was ahead of his this time last year. He’s the best son of Galileo so far, and he’s arguably already one of the top six sires in the Northern Hemisphere (along with: Galileo, Dubawi, Tapit, War Front, and Deep Impact – all of whom are considerably older than Frankel).

In fact, by certain metrics Frankel is very nearly as good as his dad. Frankel had 288 named foals in his first three crops. Back before the Big-Book era the standard of excellence for sires used to be 10% Black-Type Winners (BTW) from Named Foals of Racing Age, but since book sizes have doubled that has all but gone out the window; as long as ten years ago I wrote an article entitled “Six Percent is the New Ten Percent”, and now when farms advertise 10%, it’s “10% of runners”, which may look better than “6% of foals”, but isn’t really as accurate a gauge of merit, since some sires might have 90% runners/foals and others might have 60%.

Nonetheless, Frankel’s three crops include 35 BTW, which is 12% of his named foals of racing age (and 16% of his 211 starters); Galileo has 262 BTW/1980 foals, which is 13%. Frankel has 56 Black-Type Horses (19% of foals); Galileo has 417 BTH (20%). Frankel has 26 Graded/Group SW (GSW), 9% of his foals; Galileo has 176 (also 9% of foals). Whether Frankel can sustain those percentages as his foal numbers climb – well, we’ll have to wait and see. But he could hardly have made a more sensational start – and yes, he had a lot of help: the average CPI (Class Performance Index, a measure of racing ability) of the mares in his first three crops was over 13.00, versus a breed average of 1.00). But when we talk about comparing him to Galileo, arguably one of the three best sires of the last 50 years, alongside his sire, Sadler’s Wells, and grandsire, Northern Dancer - well, that’s about as exalted company as you can find, isn’t it?

We’ve compiled four ‘Top 15’ tables of 49 North American and European F2014 sires with 100+ Year-Starters: A Runner (top 2% of earners/runners) and ABC Runner (top 8%) Indexes, and by Number of A Runners and ABC Runners. Frankel, of course, leads all four lists by a mile. Four other F2014 sires with 100+ year-starters have A Runner Indexes above 2.00: former European sires Campanologist (2.68), who stood at Gestut Fahrhof in Germany but died; and Redoute’s Choice (2.61), a multiple champion sire in Australia who stood two seasons at the Aga Khan’s Haras de Bonneval in France; and two active American sires, Lane’s End’s Union Rags (2.23) and Spendthrift Farm’s less well-known son of Smart Strike, Dominus (2.23). Three more former European sires occupy the next three spots: Rio De La Plata (1.93, sent to Sweden); Sir Prancealot (1.59, now in South Australia and was far more successful in California than in Europe); and Delegator (1.59, sire of 2018 Royal Ascot G1 Queen Anne S, winner Accidental Agent but Delegator also died young). Thus Enable’s sire Nathaniel (1.52) is number two to Frankel among active European sires. He is tied with Crestwood Farm’s popular Get Stormy (1.52), ahead of To Honor And Serve (1.50, now in South Korea) and Airdrie’s Creative Cause (1.47).

Union Rags (17) is second to Frankel (42) by number of A Runners, ahead of Redoute’s Choice (11), Nathaniel (10), and Creative Cause (9). Five sires are tied with eight: Sir Prancealot, To Honor And Serve, Stay Thirsty (now in California), Shackleford, Bodemeister, and The Factor. Get Stormy, Dialed In, and Tapizar have seven each.

Frankel (2.89) is the only F2014 sire with an ABC Index above 2.00 (which is 16.00% of year-starters, as we multiply the index by eight to see that percentage). Dominus (1.56) is second ahead of Caleb’s Posse (1.54), who now stands in Oklahoma; and New York’s Mission Impazible (1.50). Maclean’s Music (1.49) and Redoute’s Choice (1.48) are just behind. Frankel has 73 ABC Runners. Union Rags (36) comes next, ahead of The Factor (35), Stay Thirsty (33), Shackleford (32), and Bodemeister (30). Of course, relatively speaking, these horses are all ‘mere mortals’ – Union Rags (with four), the only F2014 sire to have more than two Grade I/Group 1 winners besides Frankel (who has five), is the only other F2014 NA-EU sire to be standing for more than 25,000 in 2019.

Only one North American or European sire, with their first 3-year-olds in 2018, finished the year with more than one G1 winner, and that was Coolmore’s Camelot, who has three. He is the leading F2015 NA-EU sire by number of A Runners (11) and ABC Runners (25), and ranks fourth by A Runner Index, with a highly respectable 2.32 A Index, especially considering his 237 year-starters is the most for any F2015 NA-EU sire. The only other sire with more than 200 year-starters is the sire crop’s progeny earnings leader, Hill ‘n’ Dale’s Violence, who is second to Camelot by number of ABC Runners, with 24, from 209 year-starters. Tops among 51 NA-EU F2015 sires with 50+ year-starters by both A Index (4.81) and ABC Index (2.40) is Darley’s Farhh, but his 52 year-starters are just a quarter of those registered by Violence.

In fact, the top five F2015 sires by APEX A Runner Index are all European, though three of them – Farhh, #3 Reliable Man (2.59) and #5 Pedro The Great (2.24) – all had fewer than 70 year-starters. Camelot as mentioned had 237, and #2-ranked Intello (3.05), a son of Galileo who has alternated between England’s Cheveley Park Stud and France’s Haras Du Quesnay (currently at Cheveley Park), had 131 year-starters, of which eight were A Runners – seven of them 3-year-old A Runners of 2018. Intello’s Age Ratings (based on ABC Runners) were 1.07 for 2-year-olds, 1.80 for his first 3-year-olds, so he is definitely a better sire of 3-year-olds. So is Camelot, who in spite of having a G1-winning 2-year-old (Wonderment, winner of the 10-furlong G1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud) has an 0.64 ABC 2-year-old Index but is 1.92 for his first 3-year-olds.

Adena Springs’ Dynaformer son Point of Entry (1.89) just nips South Korea’s Take Charge Indy (1.88) as leading North American F2015 sire by A Runner Index, just ahead of G1 winner Firenze Fire’s sire Poseidon Warrior (1.79), now at Darby Dan in Kentucky, from Florida, and California’s Harris Farm’s good sprinter Smiling Tiger (1.74), sire of G1 winner Spiced Perfection.

Camelot (11) is the leading sire by number of A Runners, with Intello (8) second and Take Charge Indy (7) third. Two sprint sires, England’s Tweenhills Farm’s Havana Gold, the fastest son of Teofilo, and Ireland’s Society Rock, who died early and was posthumously Europe’s Leading Freshman Sire of 2017, had six A Runners each; Farhh, Point of Entry, and Violence each had five.

Farhh (2.40) and the surprising Pedro The Great (1.87), a heavy-ground (1:19 for 6 furlongs!) G1-winning half-brother to Footstepsinthesand by Henrythenavigator, are one-two by ABC Runner Index. The top North American sire in this category is Florida’s Pleasant Acres Farm’s Brethren (1.79), a G3-winning half-brother to Super Saver who has done well in Florida’s state-bred program, followed by Point of Entry (1.70). Intello (1.53) comes next, followed by New Year’s Day (1.49), an upset G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner by Street Cry who has been exported to Brazil; Violence (1.44) and Spendthrift speedball Jimmy Creed (1.44), another by Distorted Humor.

As mentioned Camelot (25) and Violence (24) are well clear by number of ABC Runners, followed by Point of Entry (18); WinStar’s 2017 Leading North American Freshman Sire, Overanalyze (17); Intello and Jimmy Creed (16 each); and, tied on 15, Darley’s Animal Kingdom; Spendthrift’s Flat Out; and Take Charge Indy.

Violence, the leading F2015 NA-EU sire by total progeny earnings, as noted actually only scores in the top two in one category, number of ABC Runners (24). Interestingly, his profile is somewhat like that of Curlin – now standing for $175,000 – at a similar stage of his career. Not exactly: Violence had a 1.20 A Runner Index and 1.44 ABC Index at the end of 2018. Curlin had only two A Runners at the end of 2013, the year his first 3-year-olds ran, so had an A Runner Index of just 0.62 – but one of the two was G1 Belmont S. winner Palace Malice; his ABC Index was 1.56. Violence had just two G3 winners, no G1 or G2 winners, by the end of 2018. But both Curlin and Violence had 18 ABC Runners the year they had their first 3-year-olds. In Curlin’s case, 15 of the 18 were first-crop 3-year-old ABC Runners – that’s a lot. Violence himself had 18 ABC Runners last year. The difference is that Curlin was a much better sire of 3-year-olds, with a 2-year-old ABC Index of 0.97 (at that point) and a 3-year-old ABC Index of 2.30. Violence, by contrast, has a 2.46 ABC Index for 2-year-olds, and just 1.11 for 3-year-olds. Ordinarily that might be taken as a negative – do they train on? – but our suspicion is this might be misleading, because it seems like every time you turn around there are one or two by Violence in the good races. We do say, as you know, often we can’t really evaluate them until the year their first 4-year-olds have run; Violence just could be poised for a very big year; last weekend he added Black-Type Winner #13 (also his third G3 winner), and he’s now up to 22 Black-Type Horses in his first two crops. He needs to start converting some of these to G1 and G2 winners – but, like Curlin, that is likely just a matter of time.