Posts Tagged ‘stonerside’

By Ray Paulick
Voting for the Eclipse Awards will begin in just over a month, and the biggest debate and perhaps most hotly disputed division will be for Horse of the Year, where early- and mid-season leader Rachel Alexandra and undefeated Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Zenyatta will vie for the most votes from members of the National Turf Writers Association, Daily Racing Form staff, racing secretaries at National Thoroughbred Racing Association tracks and Equibase chartcallers.

I hope voters will spend as much time assessing the relative merits of some of the other categories as they will on Horse of the Year. Specifically, if they take their responsibilities seriously, they will examine as much of the season-ending statistics on leading breeder as possible before casting their votes. As I’ve written before, I don’t think that’s been the case in some years. Too many voters simply look at which breeder has won the most money.

If that’s the criteria, then Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs will win the outstanding breeder award for the sixth consecutive year. But Adena’s breeding program has produced just two American Graded Stakes winners of 2009, a far cry from some of its previous Eclipse Award winning years. Adena Springs-bred horses have won all that money through the size of Stronach’s broodmare band, producing runners that started 3,568 times in North America so far this year, far more than any other operation. The average earnings per start for Adena-bred horses is just $3,286. Those aren’t bad numbers, nor is the 14% win rate, but I don’t think they should qualify Adena for another Eclipse Award.

The award for outstanding breeder shouldn’t be about who has the biggest operation or who wins the most money. Scanning the list of leading breeders of American Graded Stakes winners of 2009, there are 10 entities that have bred at least three AGS winners alone or in partnership. They are Darley and Stonerside, with five each; Juddmonte Farms and Edward Evans, four each; and with three each are Gainsborough Stud, Phipps Stable, Classic Star, Diamond A Racing, William Farish,  and Wertheimer et Frere. Our leaders list only includes Gainsborough and Phipps Stable in the group with three as their AGS winners won a total of five graded stakes, versus four or three for the others.

So if the Eclipse Award for outstanding breeder should go to one of those operations, which one? You can make a case for several, but special attention should be given to Saudi Prince Khalid’s Juddmonte, which has won four previous Eclipse Awards in this category (1995, and 2001-03). Juddmonte is third behind Adena in money won in North America, with $6,771,260, and has done so with only 280 starts, 41 one of which resulted in winners. That works out to an average of $24,183 per start.

Unlike some of the other breeding operations, Juddmonte sends the majority of its homebreds to Europe to begin their careers, and they don’t normally bring the poor performers back to the U.S. once they have established their form. So its North American stable is stocked with quality from the outset.

A large part of Juddmonte’s success is attributable to the consistently top-class work done by Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, whose death earlier this week was mourned by the Juddmonte family and everyone in racing who knew him.

Another breeder having an outstanding year with his homebreds is Edward P. Evans, whose four AGS winners have won six races (though one of them, Charitable Man, was sold at the Keeneland September yearling sale. Evans has a much more select broodmare band than Juddmonte but has still managed to produce the winners of $4,154,264 from 506 starts (89 winners), putting him eighth in the money rankings. His average earnings per start is $8,210.

There are still some big races to be run, so it’s too early for me to say who I think should win as outstanding breeder. But the hope is when the ballots are sent to voters, the voters will spend some time assessing the overall quality of the horses a breeder produces.

By Ray Paulick
I make no apologies for my dissent with Eclipse Award voting results in the outstanding breeder category on at least three different occasions in the years since the vote was taken away from a six-member committee and given to the larger group of voters that determine the other Eclipse Award winners–members of the National Turf Writers Association, Daily Racing Form staff and racing secretaries at National Thoroughbred Racing Association tracks and select Breeders’ Cup employees.

When that decision was made earlier this decade, the NTRA might as well have said it would give the annual award to the breeder whose horses earned the most money. It’s gone to Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs Farm each of the last five years, whether the operation had a truly good year or not, simply because he dominated the money standings by breeding the most horses and winning the most money. I’m not knocking Stronach, who has built a breeding empire and deserved the Eclipse Award in years that he produced champions and a number of high-quality, graded stakes-winning racehorses. His success in those years didn’t happen by accident or through sheer numbers. Adena Springs has been a top-class operation, and it’s something for which Stronach should be proud.

However, I disagree that the breeder who wins the most money should automatically win the Eclipse Award in that category, something that is now occurring routinely. Voters have done a great disservice in recent years to individuals who have had incredible success with a far smaller number of mares.

Full disclosure: I served on that six-member Eclipse Award outstanding breeder committee as editor of Blood-Horse magazine, as did Mark Simon, editor of Thoroughbred Times, along with two editors with expertise in bloodstock matters at Daily Racing Form and two representatives of the NTRA or its Eclipse Awards-sponsoring predecessor, the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America. The committee would be presented with a wide array of breeding statistics, have the opportunity to study them, then meet via teleconference to discuss the merits of the leading candidates before taking a vote. In my opinion, the committee got it right far more often than the general Eclipse Award electorate has when determining outstanding breeder.

The committee tended to discount breeders who had simply led the money list. That cost the late Harry T. Mangurian an Eclipse Award several years when he or his Florida-based Mockingbird Farm led the list by earnings from 1999-2002. When some Floridians cried “foul,” the Eclipse Award steering committee gave Mangurian an Eclipse Award of Merit at the 2002 Eclipse Awards dinner. Shortly thereafter, the vote went from committee to the larger body, which I think was a mistake.

Why was it a mistake? Twice in the last seven years, breeders who produced two of the 10 Eclipse Award champions—with a small number of broodmares—didn’t even get enough votes to be among the three finalists as outstanding breeder, much less win the Eclipse Award. That happened in 2002, when Virginia Kraft Payson bred champions Farda Amiga and Vindication and wasn’t a finalist, and again in 2004 when Aaron and Marie Jones bred champions Speightstown and Ashado and were ignored by the voters.

Think about that for a minute. You are a breeder with a relatively small group of mares and produced two out of the 10 Eclipse Award champion horses. Yet you weren’t even recognized as one of the three outstanding breeders in North America. That is an insult to all breeders who work hard to produce a good horse. Eclipse Award voters really should be ashamed for their ignorance or lack of interest on breeding matters.

Last year, Adena won its fifth consecutive Eclipse Award as leading breeder by a wide margin—receiving 139 votes, more than twice as many as runner-up Stonerside Stable. Adena won the most money, by far, $19.2 million, but produced no champions. With far fewer runners, Stonerside-bred horses earned $8.5 million but included 2-year-old male champion Midshipman and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Raven’s Pass.

That brings us to this week’s spotlight on leading breeders on our weekly feature, American Graded Stakes Standings, brought to you by Keeneland. Stonerside–the Paris, Ky., operation founded by Robert and Janice McNair and sold last year to Sheikh Mohammed when Robert McNair said he needed to spend more time on his Houston Texans of the National Football League team–is the leading breeder of American graded stakes winners, with five, led by Grade 1 winner Santa Teresita. The others are Grade 2 winners Tizaqueena, Skylighter and Cowboy Cal, along with Grade 3 winner Stormalory.

Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley, Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms, and Edward P. Evans are next in the list of breeders of American graded stakes winners, with three apiece.

Stronach’s Adena Springs, which is the leading breeder by money won so far this year, with $7,054,476 earned from 2,322 starts, has bred just one graded stakes winner, the Grade 3 winner My Princess Jess. Stonerside has had 481 starts and earnings of $3,252,001, ranking fifth by money won. Evans has had 360 starts and ranks sixth with earnings of $2,936,973; Juddmonte is 18th with $1,948,227 from 175 starts; and Darley is 19th with $1,943,075 from 328 starts.

In terms of money won per start, which I think is a good overall indication of quality, of those listed above, Juddmonte is the leader, with $11,323 earned for each start; followed by Evans, $8,158/start; Stonerside, $6,760/start; Darley, $5,924/start; and Adena, $3,038/start. Those statistics include international racing. The lists presented below strictly represent American graded stakes, those approximately 500 races designated by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association’s American Graded Stakes Committee as the best races in the United States.

We hope that by focusing each week on the leading breeders, owners, trainers, sires, sale companies and consignors of the winners of American graded stakes, which define the best races in the United States, Eclipse Award voters might start to look beyond the simple exercise of seeing which breeder earned the most money in a given year.