Exploring Sire Families: Part Two

Taking a look at elite stallions who combine multiple elite sire families

Last month, I released an article about mares with multiple stakes-producing sire descendants. Due to time and space constraints, I only touched on three of those 58 elite foundation mares, so today I’d like to build on that piece by discussing two examples of elite stallions who combine multiple elite sire families, and highlighting an intriguing young stallion who brings together two of these elite families in his immediate pedigree.

As a reminder, this study revolves around the following 70 mares (some have been added that were overlooked in the initial post), born between 1960 and 1975, who all have at least five stakes-producing tail-female sire descendants:

• Alluvial

• Amerigo’s Fancy

• Ballade

• Bebopper

• Best In Show

• Bitty Girl

• Bold Sequence

• Change Water

• Chris Evert

• Classy Quillo

• Close Control

• Cold Hearted

• Con Game

• Cool Mood

• Copper Canyon

• Courtly Dee

• Discipline

• Equal Change

• Fairway Fun

• Fanfreluche

• Far Beyond

• Foggy Note

• Glad Rags

• Glowing Tribute

• Gold Digger

• Goofed

• Grand Splendor

• Grecian Banner

• Impish

• Imsodear

• Incantation

• Java Moon

• Lady Dulcinea

• La Mesa

• Lassie Dear

• Lianga

• Luiana

• Milan Mill

• Minnetonka

• Moccasin

• My Charmer

• Nalee

• Natashka

• Native Partner

• Native Street

• Numbered Account

• On The Trail

• Patelin

• Priceless Gem

• Queen Louie

• Quilloquick

• Remedia

• Shama

• Shenanigans

• Sleek Dancer

• Sleep Lonely

• Smartaire

• South Ocean

• Special

• Square Angel

• Square Generation

• State

• Stick to Beauty

• Strike a Pose

• Tamerett

• T.C. Kitten

• Ten Cents a Dance

• The Garden Club

• Too Bald

• Where You Lead

Let’s begin with a stallion who has proven to be an elite sire, broodmare sire, and sire of sires - Tapit. Tapit was lightly raced but brilliant on his best days, which included a stunning victory in the Laurel Futurity and a G1 win in the Wood Memorial. Tapit is the sire of 31 G1 winners, and has produced a fantastic 74.1% winners and 11.7% stakes winners from 1,372 starters in 17 crops of racing age. His 79.8% starters from foals also puts him among the best of the top 1% of stallions - according to the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation statistics from 2022, he ranked 12th among all sires by percentage of starters from foals. Daughters of Tapit have produced 65.8% winners and 7.2% stakes winners in 1,411 starters.

Tapit, his sire, and his grandsire are all members of these elite sire families. Tapit himself traces to Foggy Note, the tail-female ancestor of four other G1 producing stallions (Rubiano, Relaunch, Summer Bird, and Glitterman), as well as six other stakes sires. The sire family’s 7.7% stakes winners in 1,925 starters since 2011 is the third-highest among all families in the study, and from a higher number of starters than the families of Milan Mill (8.5% in 213 starters) and Copper Canyon (8.4% in 1,558 starters).

Tapit’s five-cross pedigree, with elite foundation mares underlined in red