Thoroughbred Broodmare Sires Study—2yo All Weather Sprinters

Original article written by Scott Zeigler posted 2 months 1 week ago

In this series of articles, I'm looking at the trends in thoroughbred broodmare sires. The series will start with two-year-olds and work first through sprinters at each surface. For this article, I'm looking at two-year-old all-weather sprinters, a fascinating category.

As I've progressed, my methodology has changed as I've adapted to better group the top broodmare sires and display their progeny output. For each horse that I list, I'll include in parentheses their earnings, best speed figure, and stakes wins. I continue to rely on the publicly available horse ranking tool as my source of information, a tool that I find highly valuable during breeding season. To rank the broodmare sires, I look at metrics from their progeny including earnings, stakes wins, points, and speed figures. The resulting list narrowed the candidates to sires of horses who were at the top of the various metrics. For this study, I settled on a very broad, somewhat weak collection of 25 all weather racers from twelve broodmare sires.

Remember, this study is a moment in time. All of these horses will continue to run this season and their numbers will change. As I continue this study over the years, and as I finish out the older horses, a fuller picture of broodmare sires will emerge.

Finally, a few quick notes about this particular study of two-year-old all weather sprinters. The class is dominated by one sire, Lloyd's Keeping It, who sired roughly two thirds of the list. Also, unlike the turf and dirt sprinters, there is less money and limited stakes available for this class of horse. As such, the top and bottom of the list have a much broader range of values. The top earner has $187,500 compared to the bottom at a paltry $15,000. Compare this to the top 2yo turf sprinter, Cleo the Snuggler, with $341,500, and top dirt, Blissful Summer, $216,000, but with a deeper class of earners over $100k.

As for the top broodmare sires among 2 year-old all weather sprinters, the class is dominated by the mares of three sires with four progeny each on the list: Ghostly Forensics, Stab Thru the Hart, and Maclean's Music, the last of which is the strongest.

Maclean's Music's top earner is the filly Marabou ($187,500 earnings, 92 BSF, 3 stakes wins) with colt Distorted Mac ($125,500, 90, 1) not far behind. The filly Positive Impact ($68,000, 92, 2) and colt John Mcclane ($82,500, 88, 0) were the other two on the top list. Maclean's Music has a two-year-old class of forty foals from his mares, but it's a mixed class with some turf sprinters. Narek made the list of top two-year-old turf sprinters with an undefeated record in four stakes races and earnings of $150,000. Because Game Point Sires tend to work more across surfaces, I'd anecdotally expect this to be the same for others. One final note about Maclean's Music's broodmares: all of them were bred by Alexandra Jaysman and were unraced. None of the 24 are available for sale. You can access the line, however, by breeding to Jackie's Warrior or by picking up one of his mares.

Next on the list is Ghostly Forensics with top earner, a colt, Manintheshadows ($145,500, 94, 3.) Manintheshadows is the fastest of the class with that 94 BSF, and his others are nearly as quick. Ghostly Forensics mares also landed two fillies, Versace ($29,000, 92, 0) and Beautifulasalways ($31,500, 92, 0,) both of whom are fast but haven't yet won a stakes race, and a colt, Luck You Pal ($47,500, 92, 1.) Ghostly Forensics has a 2yo class of 137 progeny from his mares with 70 earners (51%.)

Rounding out the top broodmares is Stab Thru the Hart. His mares have produced some fast runners, including two stakes winners, a colt, Esteemed Mark ($73,500, 91, 2,) and the filly, Erika ($79,890, 91, 1). His other pair on the list, another colt, Robin Hood Hills ($24,750, 92, 0,) and filly Powerful Position ($30,250, 92, 0,) are faster, though neither are stakes winners and their earnings reflect that. Still, it's a respectable group, part of a 151 foal class with 70 winners (46%.)

Two other broodmare sires of note are Contrail, whose mare produced the colt, Somebody Else's Sky ($162,500, 92, 4), in contention for top horse as of this writing, and Red Falx with a pair of colts, Phantom Gold ($137,500, 93, 3) and Investment Manager ($46,300, 92, 1.) Other broodmare sires on the list are At the Gallows End, Hooray, Langfuhr, Palace Pier, Passion Reaction, Saturnalia, and Slayer of Enemies.

There are 22 stakes races remaining for this class, including on Week 16-Day 1, when the Steward's Cup Dash for colts and geldings and another for fillies will run for $500k each. That race will significantly impact these rankings, as will the other late season races for turf and dirt sprinters. I expect to revisit the top broodmare sires on all three lists at the conclusion of Year 66.

Next up, I've decided to shift my focus to three-year-olds sprinting on each surface. As a researcher at heart, I am expecting some commonalities from each respective list, and I'll note those. As I look at older horses, I'm also expecting to see some broodmare sires that might reveal opportunities that breeders have gone away from in their mating.

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