Fancy Shoes

[Keith Maidlow]

Here he is folks! Fancy Shoes!

Winner of $6,003,000 and six G1 races including: The LOUISVILLE DERBY, Oceanside Classic, Louisville Classic, Awesome Derby, Gladiator Stakes and Kentucky Blue Stakes. He also finished runner up in four races with purses of a million dollars or more including the Desert World Cup at $6 million. His last 19 races were all G1 events, 14 at a mile and a quarter, against the top dirt routers in the SIM.

Crowned Y51-North American Champion Three Year Old Male he is a bona fide classic distance dirt router. He will initially stand for $75,000 so bring your mares and take advantage of the potential this champion provides.

[Keith Maidlow]

Steward breeds two very nice mares to Fancy Shoes (dam sires James Dean and Doctor)!!! Nice to get the Steward's stamp of approval.

[Keith Maidlow]

I've always said, "I'm not much of a breeder" so I have a curiosity question to ask. The number of Fancy Shoes' breedings have been quite underwhelming, 9 of 17 outside of mine, and I am curious why? I also looked at The People's Horse numbers for this year and they too seem to be underwhelming with only 13 of 27 breedings outside of Kris. Is this a pedigree/nick issue, pricing issue or something else? I am not going to change my price this year because others have already paid the current amount and it doesn't seem fair, but will adjust next year if that would help get more mares.

I also know that there have been so many better than average dirt routers the past several years and that too could affect the numbers.

Any thoughts are appreciated!

[The Steward]

I'm going to guess on this one it is a price issue.

Also I still have 96 dirt routers to breed, maybe others do, too!

[Cleo Patra]

I think it’s a price and a mare limitations thing. People will mostly only send mares to pricier stallions when they think the mare is worth it. Everyone has limited numbers of those types of mares. For example: Conquerer has seen less than 30 mares this year at 45k despite having sired 2 millionaires and 8 freaks at only 9 years old. Farseer, his younger brother standing at 30k, has seen twice the number of mares.

[Keith Maidlow]

Okay. Price adjustment next year just to be fair to those who already bred at the current price.

[Andrew James]

The other thing to keep in mind is there are people like me who wont send very many mares to new stallions. I like to collect some data on what crosses seem to work and the initial results before I start breeding to a stud consistently. Not to mention I just have less mares to breed by the end of the year because I do so throughout the season. Lastly, I tend to be looking for ways to cut costs at the end of the year to save bankroll for next so Im almost always paring down from pricier bookings to cheaper ones so at 75k I can't really find a mare to send to him.

Hope that helps, don't be too down, he looks fancy, I think he will get more going forward.

[The Steward]

But it's a dicey situation, because in theory Fancy Shoes, Conquerer, etc should all be in the $50k - $75k range. Farseer should be more like $45k, along with Soldier (who I think is $15k). When the big names are really low, it means everyone else has to be low.... so dropping too far isn't the answer. Drumming up top mares and ensuring (or trying to) lots of stakes is better.

[Andrew James]

But it's a dicey situation, because in theory Fancy Shoes, Conquerer, etc should all be in the $50k - $75k range. Farseer should be more like $45k, along with Soldier (who I think is $15k). When the big names are really low, it means everyone else has to be low.... so dropping too far isn't the answer. Drumming up top mares and ensuring (or trying to) lots of stakes is better.

Or put another way, If people wont breed to your 75k stallion and he is actually a 75k stallion it gives you a competitive advantage!

[Keith Maidlow]

I'm hoping the mares I bred him to are good enough to get him a few stakes galloping yearlings. I pretty much leased as many blue hens as I could and still looking for more before the breeding season ends.

He's not going to be listed at a "bargain basement" price but we'll see where he eventually lands.

[Keith Maidlow]

Year 54 fee for Fancy Shoes reduce to $60k

[Lucas Davenport]

It could be that "dad" is still standing, is a successful stallion, and is priced at 50K. Don't think its a function of price per se; lots of competition in the category.