COMING ATTRACTIONS
If buying a yearling is a gamble, buying a weanling is doubly
so. Not only does such a young horse have an extra year to go
before it can race-with all the attendant expenses and risk of
injury or illness in between-but a smoothly balanced, impressive
weanling can, through nature’s vagaries, become an awkward Baby
Huey of a yearling or 2-year-old and ruin a pinhooker’s hopes.
Nonetheless, buyers have in recent years shown themselves
willing to pay healthy prices for weanlings whose appearance and
breeding suggest they might have the right stuff either to turn a
pinhooking profit or to develop into a quality racehorse. The hot
young sires for these youngsters generally fall into two
catagories: superbly bred champions or near–champions who hold out
the hope of classic potential, and athletic sprinters whose
hoped-for strong suit is precocious speed and a quick return on the
buyer’s investment.
Belmont Stakes winner Empire Makers led all 2005 first-crop sire
of weanlings by both average ($894,400) and median ($894,400).
These figures are somewhat deceptive as they are based upon a
single foal, a son of Deputy Minister mare Ms. Strike Zone and so a
half-brother to English champion and 2004 Man O’War winner
Magistretti. Nonetheless, the sale serves to illustrate one of the
strong points for Juddmonte Farms’ homebred stallion: a superb
initial book. Given the quality of Empire Maker’s own pedigree-by
1990 champion 3-year-old male and important sire Unbridled out of
2002 Kentucky Broodmare of the Year Toussaud – his yearlings should
have some of the strongest pedigrees on the market.
A great-grandson of Mr Prospector through Unbridled and of
Northern Dancer through his broodmare sire, European classic winner
El Gran Senor, Empire Maker is inbred 4x3 to In Reality. His
pedigree is weighted towards stamina, but is by no means short on
horses that could turn in a brisk mile, meaning that he should be
able to give his foals a measure of speed as well as staying
ability.
Date:
24 August 2006