Thoroughbred Broodmare Sires Study Part 1—2yo Turf Sprinters

Original article written by Scott Zeigler posted 2 months 2 weeks 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. In a few weeks, once the milers and routers have more stakes under their belt, I'll highlight those broodmare sires. For the purposes of this analysis, I'm going to feature stakes producing lines that come from the broodmare side, since much focus is already placed on the sire lines. Developing a stable of quality broodmares can, naturally, improve your success rate with breeding.

First, let me talk about my methodology, because I think it's helpful to see how different people use the tools available to all players. I also took a multipronged approach to determining "best." One shortcut to this research is available to SIMperior members through the Stud Book rankings by sorting for broodmare and distance. However, this doesn't give players the more detailed look that I want here by age. So, I used the search feature (available to all players) to find thoroughbred stakes winners and highlighted the dam sires with top earnings. Next, I used the Horse Rankings feature and sorted by various metrics like top SFs, earnings, and stakes wins. The result is a peak midway through the 2yo season at what broodmare sires have been most productive.

Settling on a top broodmare sire is as subjective as naming the best horse, particularly with 2 year-olds who have such limited data. Still, Lord Empire has ten earners from a 33 horse class, including top 2yo earner Zero Dawn ($362,500), who is undefeated in four starts. His 93 BSF puts him near the top of his turf running class.

Lord Empire is the 16yo son of Lord Black, who has four of the top horses in the class: What's in the Sky, Vae Victus, Breaking Velocity, and Shatter Me Love. Each of those are highly ranked in all categories, primarily Vae Victus, a filly with the top BSF of 96 and three stakes wins. What's in the Sky, another filly, isn't far behind with three wins and a top of 94. Lord Black has 346 2-year-olds from his mares with 118 earners.

Winning Moves, by Protagonist Story out of Mikki Rocket mare Strategy Dance has four stakes wins and a 96 BSF. Mikki Rocket has a tiny 12 horse class with only one other earner, the filly Upamecana by Anamoe. I wouldn't nominate Mikki Rocket for top 2yo broodmare sire, but Winning Moves is impressive enough to note here.

Back on the other end of the spectrum is Talus, who has 64 earners from a 160 horse class. His top two producers are the fillies Cleo the Snuggler (93 BSF, $141,500, 4 stakes wins) and The Shield Maiden (94, $127,000, 2). The numbers drop off quite a bit from there, but these are two of the best in a strong class of 2-year-old fillies.

Maclean's Music is another top broodmare with Narek, who has a relatively lower top BSF 89, but the colt is undefeated in four starts, all stakes, including the Grade 2 "Big Ben Stakes," in which he beat my best 2yo, Jolly Iron Giant. No hard feelings. It's worth noting that Maclean's Music also has one of the top 2yo AW sprinters, Marabou (92, $187,500, 3), who is undefeated, too.

Not listed here but worth mentioning are Reckoner, Pinatubo, Contrail, Little Fictions, and Dirk Provin. Each of them have top runners from their mares, but they didn't quite squeeze into the comments, either from lack of overall earnings or figures. This list could be quite expansive, since there are so many competitive horses at this point in the season and they are spread around among many, many broodmare sires.

Next up I'll cover top dirt sprint broodmare sires. Feel free to message me with comments or questions or even advice. I'm freewheeling a bit here, hoping that I'll find my footing by the time I get to older horses.

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