10 minute read
Paying mare owners for sex
Martin Stevens chats with Darby Dan Farm’s Stuart Fitzgibbon about the alternative strategy Winchell Thoroughbreds has adopted to lift off Copper Bullet's stallion career
STALLION STUDS have produced some attractive deals down the years, but the offer made by the owners of up-and-coming Kentucky sire Copper Bullet to broodmare owners a few seasons ago takes a lot of beating.
Winchell Thoroughbreds, whose silks the son of More Than Ready carried when he won the Grade 2 Saratoga Special by 4l in 2017, didn’t offer a big discount, or a free season, or equity in the horse in exchange for a number of paid covers; it actually paid the breeders who sent mares to him in his first three years.
It wasn’t a free-for-all, but rather an academic pursuit, explains Stuart Fitzgibbon, stallion director at the storied Darby Dan Farm, where the strapping bay stands.
“Winchell Thoroughbreds and Willis Horton Racing bought Copper Bullet as a yearling at Keeneland for $200,000 and raced him in partnership,” he says. “Winchell assumed full control of the horse and decided to stand him with us upon his retirement.
“Winchell are very clever people. They have given the world two exceptional stallions in Tapit and Gun Runner, an exciting young sire in Epicenter, and Tapiture, a very good horse we have here. They’re arguably the most successful ownerbreeders in America, and one of the best acquirers of stock at the sales.
“They came up with a plan to stand the horse with us, as the property of Winchell, and to invite applications from mare owners to use him, with those selected on certain criteria being paid $5,000 when the mare went in foal at 45 days.”
Readers might be thinking “who do they think they are, assuming they know the unknowable: which mares will produce the best runners?”.
But this wasn’t any ordinary selection panel. The process was overseen by Dr Dave Lambert, the renowned veterinarian and expert on equine sports physiology who advised Winchell Thoroughbreds on the purchase of Tapit and Gun Runner.
“We received around 300 applications for Copper Bullet in his first season and Dave Lambert and Winchell Thoroughbreds reviewed every single mare,” says FItzgibbon. “The first thing they looked at was age, race record, family and production record.
“If the mares passed the first filter, a pedigree and a conformation photo was sent to Lambert’s team for analysis. The photos were uploaded into the FotoSelect programme that he has developed, and algorithms based on the biomechanical measurements of the mare gave a good indication of whether she had the best chance of producing a good horse to Copper Bullet.
“I don’t think anyone is saying it’s a foolproof system that will guarantee an infinite number of Grade 1 winners, though. It’s just another tool that puts the odds of producing a superior athlete a little more in your favour.”
In the end 50 mares were accepted, resulting in a first crop of 37 live foals, who were born in 2021. The market certainly seemed to buy into the horse, and the attempt to engineer a successful stallion career from him, as his stock sold remarkably well.
His debut yearlings made an average of $30,000 and median of $20,000, hitting a high of $160,000 paid by SGV Thoroughbreds for a Darby Dan-bred half-brother to three-time Grade 1 winner Colonel Liam, while his two-year-olds sold for an average of $90,000 and median of $60,000, led by Kerri Radcliffe giving $275,000 for the pinhooked Colonel Liam sibling.
“He’s been very commercial,” says Fitzgibbon. “People could have been forgiven for asking themselves what he’s all about, as he didn’t breed big numbers and it’s an unusual way of managing a horse. But as it turned out they reacted favourably.
“It was good to see Kerri Radcliffe buy the top-priced two-year-old, and besides that Pin Oak Stud, who have just won the Haskell with Geaux Rocket Ride, bought a colt for $260,000, and Winchell Thoroughbreds purchased another colt for $175,000.”
Commercial success is all well and good, but the real proof of the pudding for sires is the racecourse test. Copper Bullet is showing promise on that front too, with four winners from 14 runners at the time of writing –figures that need putting in context for those outside of America.
“That might not sound a whole lot from a European perspective, but the leading freshman sire at the moment, Maximus Mischief, has 18 winners and our own Flameaway, who’s doing really well too, is on 12,” says Fitzgibbon.
“It’s not like in Europe where a horse such as Blue Point can quickly rack up 30-odd winners. Copper Bullet is doing well for a horse with such a small crop in relative terms, and seems to have the market’s respect.”
One of Copper Bullet’s early winners Copper Em suggested she has an especially bright future by bolting up on debut in a maiden special weight over 5f at Ellis Park in June.
The Steve Asmussen-trained filly carries the colours of Winchell Thoroughbreds, having been bred by Winning Bloodstock out of the winning Scat Daddy mare Lovely Em.
“He’s had winners at Delaware Park and Lone Star, and he’s got plenty of horses working on good tracks like Del Mar, Saratoga, and Belmont, so it’s exciting,” says Fitzgibbon.
“The bloodstock business is very fickle, of course, and buyers can soon go off sires if they don’t have winners for a few weeks, so he’ll need to maintain momentum for the rest of the year. But there’s good talk around him and I think he’s done enough to be busier in the breeding shed next year, his second season without the deal applying.”
Being paid to use a stallion, especially one with as solid credentials as Copper Bullet, almost seems too good to be true, but it has to be wondered whether European breeders would have greeted the deal with more cynicism, thinking there must be a hidden agenda, or outright dismissing the deal as a gimmick.
“Maybe,” says the Irish-born Fitzgibbon as he reflects on differing attitudes on either side of the Atlantic. “There’s more of a ‘glass half full attitude’ here, and the American market is used to all sorts of stallion promotions at various farms, such as Share the Upside, profit protection programmes and so on; certainly more so than in Europe.
“But don’t forget, too, that this horse was a very good racehorse by a top sire in More Than Ready out of an Unbridled’s Song mare, who is a fabulous broodmare sire, with an excellent physique – he’s a big, strong horse standing 16.3hh.
"So it’s not like they were trying to contrive interest in an unraced or lightly raced horse.
“On top of that, people know Winchell Thoroughbreds get things right a lot of the time, and they’re well aware of how they helped build Tapit and Gun Runner into successful sires, so they will have been eager to join them in this project at ground level.”
Copper Bullet raced solely on Dirt, and all his runners have been in America to date, but his pedigree suggests he could be effective in Europe. His sire More Than Ready was an outstanding influence on all surfaces, and his winning dam Allegory is out of the Irish-bred Peintre Celebre mare Louve Royale, from the Wildenstein family of Loup Breton, Loup Sauvage and Loup Solitaire that goes back to the great racemare Lupe.
“Unbridled’s Song is a strong commercial speed influence on Dirt but More Than Ready was a brilliant sire all around the world, especially in Australia, and it’s a famous Wildenstein family so there’s no reason why he shouldn’t work on Turf,” says Fitzgibbon.
“I can see his progeny running and excelling on Dirt and Turf, and I get the impression he’s not being pigeonholed for either surface. I think there’s less of that nowadays, anyway.
“Horses don’t know their nationality, do they? And who’s to say what’s more natural for them to run on, Dirt or grass? The market can make stallions look more surface-dependent than they actually are. There are a lot of owners here who’d buy solely Dirt horses, but there’s a growing Turf programme in the US, so the gap might be closing.”
Copper Bullet is not the only member of the Darby Dan roster who could sire capable grass runners if given the chance, as happened in an earlier era of greater transatlantic commerce in bloodlines, when legendary sires Ribot and Roberto stood at the farm.
Darby Dan has 15 stallions, most of whom are syndicated with the farm owning shares in them, as is the case with Kentucky Derby winner Country House, while a handful of others are owned by prominent breeder Chuck Fipke and managed on his behalf.
Asked for a few highlights who should be on European breeders’ and buyers’ radars, Fitzgibbon says: “Tapiture is one everybody should be sitting up and taking notice of.
“If you look at the stats for fifth-crop sires on Dirt in North America he’s unbelievable, he’s well ahead of American Pharoah and Constitution in terms of winners. He’s got very high strike-rates, so he gives you a very good shot of getting a racehorse.
“And Flameaway is one that the European market needs to look at a bit more closely.
“He’s by Scat Daddy, who’s become an important sire of sires in Europe, and he’s from Pat O’Kelly’s brilliant Flame Of Tara family. He’s had six winners, divided equally between Dirt and Turf, so looks versatile.
“I definitely think he could make an impact on the Turf in Europe if he got the chance, but it’ll be hard as he stands at only $7,500 and so Europeans might not recognise him.”
Dialed In is another stallion close to Fitzgibbon’s heart. The Grade 1-winning son of Mineshaft stands at $15,000 and has supplied two outstanding talents in Defunded and Gunnevera, as well as a narrowly beaten Norfolk Stakes (G2) runner-up in Pocket Dynamo from limited chances in Europe.
“He’s flying this year, with Defunded winning the Hollywood Gold Cup and Gambling Girl beaten a neck into second in the Kentucky Oaks,” he says. “He’s areally precious commodity as a mid-market stallion in that $7,500 to $20,000 bracket who gives breeders a chance of making a few dollars and getting a good racehorse without spending too much.
“It’s the biggest complaint I hear, that there aren’t enough stallions like that. The ones at that price are usually either completely unproven, or proven but shown not to be very good.”
In summary, Fitzgibbon says: “All our stallions were good racehorses by top sires. Higher Power, an easy Pacific Classic winner by Medaglia D’Oro with first yearlings, is one I have high hopes for, and Modernist, a Grade 2 winner by Uncle Mo, has thrown some impressive first foals. They all have upside, though.”
Copper Bullet certainly had more upside than most for his earliest supporters. It would be quite something if the sire whose owners paid breeders to use him ascended to the top of the pecking order.
