First-Year Sire Spotlight: Angel of Empire

Arkansas Derby winner Angel of Empire enters stud at Taylor Made Farm in 2025

Arkansas Derby winner Angel of Empire has a fascinating pedigree and is a very exciting stallion prospect for Taylor Made Farm, where he will stand for an introductory fee of $7,500. The son of 2016 Eclipse Champion Two-Year-Old Classic Empire was a winner of two of his three starts at two, winning his debut going a mile over a sloppy track at Horseshoe Indianapolis, then failing to make an impact in an experimental run sprinting on the turf at Kentucky Downs before winning an allowance at Horseshoe Indianapolis by 6 1/4 lengths. He began his three-year-old campaign with a runner-up finish in the Smarty Jones Stakes before stringing together back-to-back stakes wins in the Risen Star Stakes and Arkansas Derby. Sent off as the 4-1 favorite in the Kentucky Derby, he put in a solid showing to finish third, closing fast late, and finished in a dead heat for fourth in the Belmont. His final career effort was a troubled third-place finish in the Jim Dandy Stakes behind Forte and Saudi Crown. He earned a 104 Beyer Speed Figure in both the Kentucky Derby and Jim Dandy Stakes.

Lifetime breeding rights are currently being offered on Angel of Empire, and today I’d like to take a deeper look at his pedigree and some of the influences I believe he will appreciate as a sire. He fits the mold of other Taylor Made stallions at similar price points, such as Instilled Regard, who has been off to a quietly good start at stud with seven winners and a stakes winner in 19 starters, being a well-bred, well-balanced individual who showed precocity but improved with age and distance. Angel of Empire is the type of stallion who I believe will make a great value option for breeders looking for the potential to get a good-looking commercial foal that will fetch a solid return on their stud fee investment, or for those breeding to race and willing to take a chance on a horse who offers slightly different avenues to proven sire lines and should complement certain mares very well.

Pedigree

His sire, Classic Empire, was exported to Korea this past year, but was a useful value stallion in the states, getting 58.6% winners and 5.2% stakes winners in 309 starters. A son of Pioneerof the Nile and out of the Cat Thief mare Sambuca Classica, Classic Empire comes from the same Alablue branch of family 4m as stallions such as Harlan’s Holiday, Ride the Rails, and Cryptoclearance. Angel of Empire is his only G1 winner as a stallion to date.

Angel of Empire is out of Armony’s Angel, a daughter of To Honor and Serve who was winless in eight career starts. To Honor and Serve is a son of Bernardini, who shares his female family 4m with Classic Empire. This repetition of female families is a pattern that appears with multiple branches of family 4 in Angel of Empire’s pedigree. While you have to go back to family 4m’s foundation mare Magnolia to find their most recent common ancestor in the tail-female line, there’s another intriguing link between their families via Classic Empire’s fifth dam, Alanesian. Alanesian is the dam of Boldnesian, the great-grandsire of A.P. Indy.

Family 4m is a vast and successful sire family, and while Classic Empire’s first crops have been modestly received at auction and he has now been exported, the Alanesian branch of family 4m is responsible for not just Boldnesian but also stallions such as Harlan’s Holiday and Ride the Rails, as mentioned above. Successful stallions from other branches of the family include the likes of Unbridled’s Song, Dixieland Band and his son Dixie Union, French Deputy, Cozzene, and Allen’s Prospect among their ranks.

Although Armony’s Angel was a non-winner, she was a half-sister to graded stakes winner Conquest Big E (Tapit) and stakes winner Aquapazza (Stormy Atlantic). Their dam, Seeinsbelieven, was a Carson City half to graded stakes winners Coragil Cat (Forest Wildcat) and Softly (Binalong), as well as the stakes placed runner Spring Eclipse (Unbridled’s Song) out of the stakes-placed Metfield mare Coragil. Notably, To Honor and Serve shares his female family 4r with Carson City, meaning that Angel of Empire’s first two damsires come from the same Lowe family. As with Classic Empire and Bernardini, you have to dig deep to find the most recent common tail-female ancestor between To Honor and Serve and Carson City - the 1829 Sumpter mare Miss Obstinate, but they still share a mitochondrial haplotype, the same “I2a1” haplotype as Classic Empire and Bernardini.

Coragil, Angel of Empire’s third dam, was a half to three graded stakes winners out of the Whitesburg mare White Jasmine, who was notable for being inbred 3x3 to her third dam, Papila, also the dam of 1959 co-champion two-year-old Crimson Satan (the sire of Whitesburg). This female family 26 is not often seen, and their mitochondrial haplotype “B1a” is also fairly uncommon, also found in family 31 and certain branches of family 5, including family 5i, which can be found in this pedigree via Classic Empire’s third damsire Hoist the Flag. Papila’s influence is perhaps most felt in the modern breed in America via Cee’s Song, the dam of Tiznow and second dam of Paynter and Oxbow. It’s at this shared female family that I would begin looking for mares that suit Angel of Empire.

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Beneficial Influences

Angel of Empire stands for a $7,500 fee in 2025