The Freshman Sires of 2024
Looking toward the two-year-old sale season!
The OBS March sale is fast approaching, and with it the start of the the two-year-old sale season. There are plenty of exciting young stallions whose offspring we will be getting our first chance to see working at speed with these shows, and today I wanted to talk about this class of Kentucky freshmen, how their foals were received as yearlings, and what we might expect from them moving forward.
Eighteen of this group of freshman sires bred 100 or more mares in their first season, led by Authentic with 229. Multiple G1 winner McKinzie leads the charge in number of live foals, with 174 (an impressive live foal percentage of 81.3%), which gives him a slight numbers edge over Authentic and Vekoma, with 165 and 161 foals, respectively, in the freshman sire race.
The star of the yearling sales, though, has been the 2020 Horse of the Year. Authentic had 92 yearlings sell for an average of $285,033 and median of $230,000 in 2023, and his $26.2 million gross placed him behind only his venerable sire Into Mischief as leading sire of yearlings by that metric. While his average and median were well above the competition, with McKinzie a distant second in both categories with a $148,277 average and $90,000 median, he did not have the distinction of siring a $1 million yearling. Two stallions in this group were the sires of seven-figure yearlings - McKinzie had a half-brother to Kentucky Derby winner Mage and graded stakes winner Dornoch sell for $1.2 million at the Keeneland September sale, while G1 winning sprinter Volatile had a filly out of the multiple G1 winning A.P. Indy mare Love and Pride sell earlier in that sale for $1.15 million.
Taking a look at the complete list of Kentucky-based freshman sires and their 2023 yearling sales, there aren’t very many surprises overall - although Volatile’s first foals were conceived on a $17,500 stud fee, he’s a gorgeous son of Violence out of an Unbridled’s Song mare, and it’s to be expected that he’s getting good-looking foals. Only Rowayton, with a yearling average of $34,857 off a $5,000 stud fee, had a better ratio of yearling average to stud fee, although Complexity, who got a $83,583 average on a $12,500 stud fee, is also comparable, and his median of $65,000 is 5.2 times his stud fee, making him a clear leader by that metric. Volatile’s median of $72,000 is 4.1 times his stud fee, and also notable here is Caracaro’s $27,000 median on a $6,500 stud fee (4.2x). The only stallion whose yearling average or median did not exceed their stud fee is Improbable, whose first foals sold for a median of $37,000 on a $40,000 stud fee. Improbable stands for $15,000 this year - the co-highest drop in fee along with Maximum Security, who went from a $20,000 fee in 2021 to a $7,500 fee in 2024.
Two other stallions who appear as though they could present value based on their yearling sales are Caracaro and Instagrand, who stand for $6,500 and $7,500, respectively. Although Caracaro never won a stakes race, he was second to Tiz the Law in the Travers and brings a very solid pedigree to the table, being a son of Uncle Mo out of a War Front mare who has produced four black type horses from as many starters. He’s a member of Lowe family 8h going back to Lady Be Good, and thus hails from the same branch of this family as stallion such as Maclean’s Music, Wavering Monarch, and With Distinction. This family 8h shares a mitochondrial haplotype with Uncle Mo’s family 8c, and in that regard Caracaro is bred similarly to Mo Town, who has been a useful value sire in his career to date.
Instagrand, like Authentic, is a son of Into Mischief, but Instagrand shows the strong influence of his damsire Lawyer Ron and his sire Langfuhr in his powerful physique. He was a precocious runner whose only stakes win came sprinting as a two-year-old, although he was G1 placed at nine furlongs in the Santa Anita Derby the following year, and I would not be surprised to see his offspring come out running this year. With 136 live foals in this crop - the fourth most of any freshman - I think he’s a legitimate contender to be among the leading freshmen.
Personally, McKinzie is the stallion whose foals I am most excited to see on the racetrack. The son of Street Sense was a G1 winner at two, three, and four, and a graded stakes winner at five, showing longevity and consistency that tends to be rare in the modern breed. Just as important, to me, is the fact that McKinzie was a tenacious competitor who could win in a stretch duel just as easily as he could run away from his competition. He also possessed tactical speed, usually employing stalking tactics although he led at first call in his Alysheba win and closed from five lengths back in his Malibu victory.
Though he is the best foal to race out of his multiple graded stakes-winning dam, and the highest class runner in the immediate family, there’s no dearth of black type under his first three dams, and his sire Street Sense has sired a G1-producing son at stud in Australia, as well as the regional stakes-producing sires The Lieutenant and Street Strategy in the U.S. Unlike the other exciting young sons of Street Sense at stud, such as Maxfield and Speaker’s Corner, McKinzie is free of A.P. Indy and should cross well with mares from that sire line, especially those who share a female family with his damsire Petionville, such as Flatter, Congrats, Mineshaft, and Sky Mesa.
Of course, Authentic has to be respected as a legitimate contender for leading freshman sire, as he has the volume and quality to carry on the legacy of Into Mischief, who is already an established sire of sires. As a two-time winner at the classic distance by a sire whose offspring typically don’t want more than nine furlongs, but who was still a winner on debut going 5 1/2 furlongs as a two-year-old, it seems very likely that he will find success as a sire. Though he is the only black type runner under his first two dams, his third dam was a graded stakes winner at two whose descendants include three other G1 winners and three more G1 placed runners, so there’s quality to go back to on the bottom.
Preakness Stakes winner War of Will was a G1 winner on both dirt and turf, and while I think we can expect surface versatility from his get, his breeding indicates that turf might be their better surface in the long term. As a member of the Best In Show family that has produced more successful sires than any other mare born in the same time frame, my hopes are very high for this son of War Front. Last year, War Front’s Omaha Beach ranked fourth among first-crop sires, and his son The Factor is one of the leading value sires in the country. Outside of North America, he is the sire of G1 sires such as Declaration of War, Lancaster Bomber, War Command, and Hit It a Bomb. Being a versatile son of a potent sire of sires and from arguably the strongest sire family in the stud book, War of Will is a very exciting young stallion for Claiborne Farm.
Vekoma’s first crop of yearlings sold for an average of $96,825, and it will be very interesting to see if his foals have inherited the paddling gait that was far from ideal but certainly didn’t prevent him from being brilliantly fast. A stakes winner at two, three, and four, though he never made more than three starts in a season, Vekoma is a royally bred son of Candy Ride out of G1 winner Mona de Momma. He comes from the immediate family of the stallions Mr. Greeley and Street Sense, suggesting that he’s certainly bred to be a top-class sire. His foals are likely to be a force to reckon with on the racetrack, especially if they’re more mechanically sound than their sire.
Thank you for reading! Next week, I’ll be highlighting a few pedigrees from the OBS March sale for paid subscribers! I am available for shortlisting and individual hip analysis for OBS March - you can respond directly to this email or reach out at jessica.rae.tugwell@gmail.com for more information on how I can help you at this sale.
This is excellent stuff, thank you.