Sire Chat 3/6/2018

Let’s discuss some real life sire news.  One way sim-players can stay ahead of the curve in the game is to stay up to date with which sires are getting hot, which racehorses and retiring, etc.  I’m going to attempt to offer regular updates, focusing on lesser-used sires and hopefully trying to include sires outside of the US.  If you have a sire you would like to see mentioned or think is worth noting please feel free to post a comment or shoot me a private message on the forum.  So let’s begin!

This was a big weekend for the sire Midnight Lute.  He was a champion sprinter and two time winner of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.  Trainer Bob Baffert has called him one of the fastest horses he’s ever trained.  He’s the best son of Kentucky Derby winner Real Quiet who descends from the red-hot stallion Fappiano.  Fappiano died in 1990 at age 13 but his may be the most influential sireline in the US today.  Tail-male descendants of Fappiano are represented in two main branches through his sons Unbridled (sire of Unbridled’s Song and Empire Maker) and Cryptoclearance (grandsire of Candy Ride).  Midnight Lute descends through Fappiano’s son Quiet American who is also the broodmare sire of Bernardini.  Another son, champion Rubiano is the broodmare sire of War Front.  Interestingly Rubiano’s dam was bred to Unbridled based on the success of Rubiano and produced a mare named Tap Your Heels.  Tap Your Heels didn’t do much on the track but she produced leading sire Tapit.

So with all the very fashionable Fappiano descendants available to breeders it might be easy to overlook Midnight Lute.  He retired to Hill ‘n Dale Farm in KY and saw a decent sized initial book of mares who produced 111 named foals.  His numbers dropped for the next three years (which is typical for a young stallion) down to a low of just 58 in his third crop.  As his runners started to hit the track he gained traction and by 2015 (his sixth crop) he produced 115 named foals.

Two of those 2015 babies won major races on the way to the Kentucky Oaks this past weekend.  Midnight Bisou won her second graded stakes race of the year in the Santa Ysabel at Santa Anita.  She had previously won the Santa Ynez Stakes in early January.  Those victories put her atop the Kentucky Oaks entry point leaderboard.  Second on that list is Midnight Disguise who won the Busher Stakes at Aqueduct.  It was her second stakes victory of the year and she’s pointing towards a grade two as a prep for the Oaks.  Midnight Bisou is out of a Northern Dancer-line mare while Midnight Disguise is out of a mare from the Bold Ruler line.

Through the first two months of 2018 Midnight Lute has sired four stakes winners of six stakes races.  In all of 2017 four of his offspring won stakes races and each only won once.  None of them won a graded stakes race.  Certainly more can be expected as his 2015 foal crop ages.  Midnight Lute himself was a 17 hand horse who only managed 13 starts over 4 years of racing.  Many of his offspring have inherited his size (Midnight Disguise is 17.2 hands already) and need time and patience to come around.  Considering this trajectory of increased foal crop sizes and presumably those foals were produced by better mares Midnight Lute bears watching as a future stallion.

In the game Midnight Lute has sired 15 graded stakes winners compared to 10 in real life.  He also has 866 runners compared to just 369 through 2017 in real life.  In the game he has crossed really well with Danzig mares and also those from the A.P. Indy line.  I am surprised he is so popular and so successful in the game, primarily because his sire (Real Quiet) and broodmare sire (Dehere) and dam’s broodmare sire (Blues Times) were not tremendously popular sim sires and don’t bring a lot to a foal’s page.  On the plus side the sim foals don’t have to worry about growing pains due to large size.  He already has three two year old winners.  Considering his decent production record in the game he’s not a bad gamble but at the right price I might purchase shares to sit on for next year in the event that he has a banner year in 2018 and gets an upgrade.

Another stallion who had a good weekend was Shackleford.  Shackleford won the 2011 Preakness and 2012 Met Mile and Clark Handicap.  A grandson of Storm Cat by Forestry, Shackleford was produced by the Unbridled mare Oatsee.  She was named Broodmare of the Year in 2011 after having previously produced grade one winner Lady Joanne and two other graded winners.  He entered stud in 2013 at Darby Dan Farm and produced 118 named foals from his first crop but that number dropped down to only 73 in his second.  He sired only two graded stakes winners from his first crop (so far) with Malagacy taking a grade two as a three year old and Well Abled winning a grade three at two.  Shackleford’s smaller second crop included two year grade three winner Dream It Is and Promises Fulfilled.  On Saturday Promises Fulfilled dominated a strong field in the Grade Two Fountain of Youth, trouncing last year’s two year old champion Good Magic in his three year old debut.  He was produced by the very good Marquetry mare Marquee Delivery.  She was a graded placed runner and of her four previous foals three were winners including a stakes winner.

Shackleford has not been a rousing success so far as a stallion.  His father, Forestry was a disappointment as a sire.  He was royally bred, a grade one winner produced by a grade one winning mare and entered stud as the highest priced sire of his generation at $50,000.  His fee eventually swelled to $125,000 but the crop produced for that fee included only two graded stakes winners, of which Shackleford was one of them.  Forestry shuttled to Brazil for several years and in 2014 it was decided he would not return from that country.  Certainly having a major son on the Triple Crown Trail could change Shackleford’s fortunes significantly and the astute sim-breeder should keep an ear out to see what Promises Fulfilled does next.  In the game Shackleford has produced seven graded stakes winners to date.  The flip side of this situation is that, if Shackleford doesn’t have a hit horse this season he may well be exiled from Kentucky as well and since he’s doing better in the game in real life acquiring a share at this point is certainly a gamble.

The last sire I want to mention this week is a newly retired horse, Russian Revolution.  He is retiring to stud for the 2018 Australian season but oddly he is already available in the game.  He bred 21 foals in 2017 and so far 8 in 2018.  Of those 17 are winners already.  Russian Revolution won two group one races in Australia, the 2017 The Galaxy and the 2018 Oakleigh Plate.  Both races were run at 1100m (which is about 5 ½ furlongs Yanks).  He was a blazing fast son of Australian super sire Snitzel out of a Stravinsky mare named Ballet D’Amour.  Ballet D’Amour was bred and raced in the US but was sent to Australia for a broodmare career.  Her first two foals did poorly but her 2012 filly by Sebring became a group three winner and Russian Revolution is her 2013 foal.

Ballet D’Amour was an interesting acquisition for Australia.  She is a tail-female descendent of the immortal Fanfreluche who was named Canadian Horse of the Year and Champion 3 Year Old Filly in the US in 1970.  She was also awarded the Sovereign Award for Outstanding Broodmare in 1978.  Fanfreluche has had an impact on Australian breeding through her granddaughter Rolls.  Rolls was bred in Kentucky but never raced and was shipped to Australia.  She only produced three foals.  Her first was the Star Way mare Shoal Creek.  Shoal Creek was bred to Fairy King and produced leading sire Encosta de Lago.  Later Rolls saw the court of Danehill to whom she produced leading sire Flying Spur.  Ballet D’Amour’s second foal was by Flying Spur and again that foal was not a successful racer.  But it seems safe to say that Russian Revolution will see some mares by Encosta de Lago and Flying Spur in his book.