Who Will Be the Leading Freshman Sire?

[Wandering Eyes]

With the first major 2-year-old sale, OBS March, now in the books, it's time for some predictions. We asked the experts who their pick is for leading freshman sire and also asked them for a “sleeper pick” or a stallion that will perform beyond expectations. Here's what they had to say:

Jimbo Gladwell

Top Pick: Charlatan, Standing for $50,000 in 2025 at Hill 'n' Dale

Ten percent of the horses I've had on the farm are by Charlatan, so I am a Charlatan fan. They are really smart horses that have trained well and done everything right for me. Then we got them over to the sale and they sold really well for us.

Sleeper Pick: By My Standards, Standing for $5,000 in 2025 at Spendthrift

The one sleeper I have is By My Standards. I've got one of them and he is a really good colt. I only have the one to go off of, but he's a really good one.

Ramiro Restrepo

Top Pick: Maxfield, Standing for $40,000 in 2025 at Darley

The buzz horses at OBS were Charlatan, Maxfield and Yaupon. I saw a lot of nice babies by all three. We bought a Maxfield filly for $1.25 million. She looked so much like her sire and was a classy individual. Maxfield had a ton of talent and there were a lot of expectations. I think that will carry over into his progeny, so he will be my top pick.

Sleeper Pick: Leinster, Standing for $2,500 in 2025 at Pleasant Acres Stallions

For a sleeper pick, there was a Leinster filly who sold for lot of money ($400,000) that Donato Lanni bought for the Three Amigos group and Bob Baffert. Donato has bought an uncountable number of Grade I winners. For him to dip into the pool of a lower-end freshman sire and make that kind of investment, that catches your eye. There was also a lot of buzz for Independence Hall. People liked their physicality and the way they worked. In March they have to be ready to come and play ball. Later on in the year, I start looking for value, but not so much now. There are bigger catalogues and more opportunities later on.

Leinster | Sarah Andrew

Dave Scanlon

Top Pick: Yaupon, Standing for $25,000 in 2025 at Spendthrift

Before the sale I would have definitely said Yaupon and I still think there will be a lot of big Yaupons to come in the remaining 2-year-old sales. There are a large number of them. You go through the catalogue and basically everybody had a good Yaupon. Charlatan got off to a good start and we'll be seeing more. But I think we've seen a lot of his higher-end offspring sell already. So I look for Yaupon to make up a lot of ground. There are a lot of them and there are a lot of good ones coming. I am biased because I have a real top-quality Essential Quality. We paid a good amount of money for him and he looks like he's going to be a really good horse. So I think you'll see Essential Quality do well as well.

Sleeper Pick: Beau Liam, Standing for $6,000 in 2025 at Airdrie Stud

My under-the-radar pick is Beau Liam. I have heard a lot of good things about him. We have one and paid a decent amount of money for him, but nothing crazy. I think he's going to do really well.

Eddie Woods

Top Pick: Charlatan

My pick is Charlatan. They have a great shape to them and all appear to be good-minded. They are easy to be around. They train well, they are quick enough. You see the Speightstown creeping out of a lot of them, which isn't a bad thing at all. They're just smooth horses.

Sleeper Pick: Beau Liam

The sleeper? How about Beau Liam. I only have a couple of them but I've seen a couple of others that I like quite a bit. But the two that I have are very elegant, are good movers and are very smooth. I don't know how quick they'll be but they're very classy acting.

Carrie Brogden

Top Pick: Yaupon

   It's a toss up between Charlatan and Yaupon and, honestly, I had started hearing about them during the January OBS sale when I was down there. There were some outliers and freshmen sires that brought really good money, but as a general group the Charlatans and the Yaupons stood out. There were some Maxfields that sold great, but the majority of those were bought by end users since they were so expensive. The Essential Qualitys were expensive and the majority of them were bought by end users. There was good chatter about both those sires. As far as from the 2-year-old sale, I would say overall Yaupon was on top. Everyone seems to have a good one, across the board.

Sleeper Pick: Rock Your World, Standing for $5,000 in 2025 at Spendthrift

Rock Your World is my sleeper pick. I shouldn't be completely surprised because he is a son of Candy Ride (Arg) and if you look at how Candy Ride has done as a sire of sires, it's pretty incredible. They weren't super-expensive horses. Especially on the day there were headwinds, I thought they acted very determined in their breezes despite the conditions. I feel like a lot of times that's in their genetics.

Corbin Blumberg

Top Pick: Charlatan

In terms of who will be the leading freshman sire, I think Charlatan is a pretty exciting choice. Based on the March sale, there were some really exciting horses by him and it was not just their pedigree. I thought physically they were really impressive. They had a lot of substance. I thought they were an impressive group, which is what you would have hoped for from him. He was really fast and was also able to stretch his speed for the Starlight, Madaket, SF Racing team.

Sleeper Pick: Uncle Chuck, Deceased

My under-the-radar pick is Uncle Chuck. I thought there were some really nice Uncle Chucks around. He was a really good-looking horse that Donato bought. A bunch of them made my list to go look at after the breeze show. I also looked at a bunch of them back at the barn. I thought a lot were good looking. We didn't buy one. They didn't quite make our list. But I wasn't expecting to go look at as many as I did. As a Florida stallion, he should have plenty of runners.

Maxfield

-Eyeinthesky-colt-_OBSMAR25_PRINT-credit-OBS.jpg" alt="" width="1155" height="840" /> 2-year-old by Maxfield who sold for $1 million at OBS March | OBS

Niall Brennan

Top Pick: Maxfield

It's still a bit early in regards of the first 2-year-old sale. There are the freshman sires that stood out at the yearling sales, Charlatan and Maxfield and Yaupon. It seems to be a good crop. I don't think there's anybody that has disappointed. I am impressed with the Maxfields. We had a very nice filly by him at the sale that sold for $200,000. I have a few at the farm for clients that will race them. They are very nice. The yearlings were quite consistent, all well-grown, well-developed yearlings and they still appear the same as 2-year-olds. They have a lot of class. They are smooth on the racetrack. They shouldn't be early. I wouldn't expect them to be winning at five furlongs. But they are light on their feet and are mature. They will have some speed, but will definitely be two-turn horses. So you see more of them in the fall. The Charlatans are very nice too. The ones we have are quite impressive and they are training forwardly. They may be obvious picks but I think those two sires stand out.

Sleeper Pick: Essential Quality, Standing for $50,000 in 2025 at Darley

I'm not sure he's under the radar, but I also like Essential Quality. They weren't as obvious right out of the box. They were all over the place. Different colors, sizes, shapes. Not much consistency. I am biased because I had Essential Quality as a yearling, but he was a heck of a nice horse. I have several that are really starting to develop. He's under the radar in the sense that people aren't talking about him, but I think they are going to be runners.

Ciaran Dunne

Top Pick: Charlatan

For us, based on OBS, it would be Maxfield. But having said that, we only had two Maxfields and both were in that sale. Probably the horse we've been most impressed with among our horses at the farm is Charlatan. We have some of those that we really like that will be sold at later sales.

Sleeper Pick: Leinster

My sleeper horse is my own personal favorite, Leinster. They breezed very well at OBS and one filly sold super well. I think he's a horse who could surprise a lot of people. We raced him and we still own him. So we've got quite a few of them. We bred 20-something mares to him. So we have quite a few of them, which we are planning on racing.

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