Keeneland September 2024: Book One Selections

Some pedigrees to watch today and tomorrow

Today is the first day of the 2024 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, which will run through Saturday, September 21st. There are over 4,400 horses catalogued through all six books of the sale, with 372 of those catalogued for the premier Book One. Most years, I skip over this book, simply because I prefer looking for pedigrees that don’t necessarily jump off the catalog page, but I decided that this year, I’d take a little bit of a different approach to my Keeneland September blog, as it’s an opportunity to discuss some of the most productive pedigrees in the breed.

As always, these are strictly evaluations of pedigree, and are made with the intent of educating and entertaining my readers. These are not recommendations to buy a horse, and all buying decisions should factor in conformation, vet work, and temperament along with pedigree.

With that said, here are some of the most interesting pedigrees in Keeneland September Book One.

Hip 001 - c. Curlin x Daddy Is a Legend (Scat Daddy)

The very first horse through the ring at this year’s September sale is one I am quite intrigued by. This son of Curlin is the first foal out of multiple graded stakes winner Daddy Is a Legend, and shares a female family with two of his sire’s G1 winners.

The cross of Curlin over Scat Daddy has produced four stakes winners in just 37 starters, including Good Magic’s graded stakes winner Reincarnate. Although none of the four starters bred on the cross of Curlin with this colt’s second damsire Benchmark are stakes winners, the cross of Curlin with Benchmark’s sire Alydar has been very good, producing 9.1% stakes winners in 351 starters, including G1 winners Grace Adler and Good Magic, who both carry Alydar’s son Turkoman. Good Magic’s G1 winning son Muth also gets a distant cross of Alydar via Arch. All of these examples are more distant than the fourth-generation cross of Alydar in this colt, with Alydar appearing in the fifth generation of both Good Magic and Grace Adler and in the seventh generation of Muth’s pedigree, but the large sample size helps gives some confidence that this cross is, at the very least, not a detrimental one.

As mentioned, Curlin has also seen significant success with this female family, with two G1 winners in 11 starters on the cross of Curlin and his sons with the Orchestra tail-female line. Orchestra, this colt’s eighth dam, is the seventh dam of Curlin’s G1 winners Curalina and Exaggerator. The connection to the latter is even closer, as his fourth dam, Bon Debarras, is the fifth dam of this colt. Curlin is also the sire of stakes placed runner Rose Parade from this female family.