Kentucky Value Sires For 2026: Part 3–Stallions Under $20k

[Wandering Eyes]

Having dealt with the rookies as a case apart, and then sought a couple of bargains at the base of the pyramid, today we move into a category that remains within the reach of many hands-on breeders–from $10,000 to $19,999–while also containing sires that can raise the bar a good deal higher.

On the one hand, it includes a number of young horses still to be given adequate (if any) opportunity to show what they can do, yet already finding their books and fees eroded by still newer names. But we can also weigh up older sires whose record entitles you to hope that they might inexpensively put a winner under your mare.

MIDSHIPMAN has long been a model of that type, having endeared himself to countless breeders over the years while bumping along at fees even lower than his current $15,000. He's up to 59 lifetime stakes winners at a rock-solid 6.6 percent of named foals, 10 at graded level. Though now turning 20, his latest yearlings averaged $61,573–with only one of 30 failing to find a home. That looks suspiciously like exemplary commercial performance to underpin his services as a racehorse sire. Basically he can't help but make a stalwart job of anything you ask him to do.

KANTHAROS entered stud the same year, 2011, but his career has followed rather more twists and turns. He earned his passage to Kentucky by punching above a low fee in Florida, briefly threatening to become something special, but has now taken a third consecutive cut to $10,000, half his 2023 fee. One way or another, that odyssey leaves him as high as #13 in lifetime earnings among active sires.

DIALED IN should retain his usual loyal support after a generous trim from $15,000 to $10,000, acknowledging a tapering commercial profile that doesn't alter in the slightest his ability to sire a smart racehorse. He's had three Grade I winners, besides one who earned more than them all combined in Gunnevara. CAIRO PRINCE has taken exactly the same cut, which will surely keep him in the game as sire of 43 stakes winners at 5.4 percent of named foals, not least with Fierceness further upgrading his page.

KARAKONTIE (Jpn) has never been adequately acknowledged for his lonely work against the tide, albeit his latest yearlings achieved a yield of nearly $60,000 from a $10,000 conception fee. With the commercial market becoming a little less hostile to turf, you have to doubt whether the younger sires taking advantage will ever match the ratios long established by Karakontie. With his superb genes, the sire of She Feels Pretty remains underpriced at $15,000.

Kantharos | Sarah Andrew

The indices of GOLDENCENTS can never stand up to his volume but any $10,000 sire that can win you the GI Kentucky Derby deserves some indulgence.

FROSTED ($12,500) looks much more at home at this level, his body of work stacking up very acceptably to the kind of breeders now lining up to use him. He drew another triple-figure book last spring. UNION RAGS, another whose fee has come right down, has not yet had the same compensation in his books. But the fact is that he is still purveying the same genes, at $10,000, as he did to six Grade I winners.

Among stallions still making their name, FLAMEAWAY has gilded a solid start with a Group 1 winner in the desert, Dark Saffron, alongside Group II winner and turf millionaire Bear River. He has emulated his sire Scat Daddy with a big impact in Chile and, from finite resources, appears to be providing a valid conduit to his outstanding European family at $10,000. While his current sales performance is holding him back, his books are holding up so well (weanlings graduate from one of 172) that he can absolutely consolidate from here.

At the same fee, VOLATILE has shown a useful ability to make his bigger punches count: he had four stakes winners this year, steady enough, but all won graded stakes.

As for the many horses in this tier yet to undergo any meaningful examination, we will use the top of our podium as an exception to prove the rule: generally speaking, we prefer evidence of some functionality, rather than participate in the guessing game that drives the commercial market. Two factors may militate against that prejudice, however: one, as in the case of our gold pick, is a fee that slides so fast that it becomes good value, even allowing for all the doubts that must linger; the other is the horse that you just can't help but admire at the price.

My clear favorite, among the latter, is ANNAPOLIS. He holds his $12,500 fee, and so he jolly well should. For one thing, that avoids the negative message so many farms send to their clients–essentially that they have bought an overpriced product, which is now depreciating–in automatically clipping sires for their second and third years. But also because he was originally so attractively priced: having made an 11th hour switch to stud duties, he had to recruit mares in a hurry. As a beautiful horse, who combines a top-class grass record with elite dirt blood, he has maintained both quality and quantity in his books. His weanlings averaged $51,500, the best of any sire under $25,000, and auspiciously their median was virtually the same–always a significant marker.

Among the preceding intake, besides our gold pick, DRAIN THE CLOCK deserves credit for maintaining a $71,084 average ($55,000 median) from a $10,000 cover fee, despite sending as many as 116 of his first yearlings into the ring. His foals look the type to land running, and 139 mares returned last spring in the hope of slipstreaming an impact on the freshman table.

He is joined on $10,000 by MANDALOUN, who has taken a third consecutive cut after starting at $25,000. His date with Citizen Bull's dam produced a seven-figure yearling at Saratoga, helping his average to $108,336 (median $66,000), and there will be some very well-bred horses going out to bat for those breeders who stick with him now.

The same syndrome applies to many of his peers: conspicuously EARLY VOTING, who has halved from his opening fee of $25,000 despite processing 69 of 83 yearlings at $129,485 (median $80,000); CYBERKNIFE, similarly halved to $15,000 (106 of 136 sold at $90,886/median $63,500); and JACK CHRISTOPHER, plunging to $15,000 (opened at $45,000) after 128 of 155 yearlings sold at $113,875 (median $92,500).

Cyberknife | Sherackatthetrack

With that in mind, it feels sensible to put aside those stallions who covered their first mares last spring: for these will doubtless find themselves on the same trajectory, and so offer better value again next year. We'll address the broader status of the bubble stallion when we reach the top of our Value Podium.

As in every category, meanwhile, we apologize to those stallions that have not been mentioned in dispatches. But this remains, as always, an exercise as subjective as it is ignorant of the most critical factor of all, the make and shape of your mare.

VALUE PODIUM

Bronze: CARACARO
Uncle Mo–Peace Time (War Front)
$10,000 Crestwood
Got to stick with this fellow, the good folks at Crestwood having shown what can still be done against the industrial Goliaths.

Caracaro's first crop of juveniles in 2024 included two stakes winners from just 21 starters. One of these was Casalu, who had topped an OBS April session at $775,000–the first sign that something unusual might be happening with a $6,500 rookie. Casalu is meanwhile a dual stakes winner, with serial placings in graded company, but a lot of people didn't need to wait for that corroboration: Caracaro's book that spring leaped from 67 to 151 mares. No fewer than 119 returned last time round and, while this spike will still take a year or two to cycle through, that does mean that those who use him now will be ideally positioned to ride the wave.

Especially auspicious is the way Caracaro's second crop has corroborated the bright start made by their predecessors, with Throckmorton ($8,000 weanling turned $250,000 2-year-old) recently following up his maiden success in a stakes race at Aqueduct; and Churchill maiden winner Mo' Em Down subsequently runner-up in the GIII Sorrento Stakes.

Remember that all three of Caracaro's siblings are either stakes winners or graded stakes-placed; while the second dam is GI Kentucky Oaks runner-up Santa Catarina (Unbridled). There's obviously no shortage of competition among heirs to Uncle Mo but this one, who flashed high ability in a curtailed career, may prove to be recycling something well ahead of his fee.

Silver: MITOLE
Eskendereya–Indian Miss (Indian Charlie)
$10,000 Spendthrift

The tame sales performance of his latest yearlings stands in contrast to an excellent year on the racetrack for Mitole, crowned by GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint winner Shisospicy. But if he has exhausted his value to those commercial breeders who systematically exploit new sires, then perhaps he's building on the foundations they gave him–by sheer weight of numbers–as a legitimate racehorse sire. Ultimately, after all, that is the only way to renew sales momentum.

Mitole | Sarah Andrew

Mitole's three other graded stakes winners this year all belong to his debut crop, suggesting that they are thriving with maturity–much as he did himself. Yet you don't become champion freshman without transmitting precocity, as well as speed, and this fall his third-crop daughter Rileytole was denied a juvenile Grade I by just a nose.

Think what that might have done for the marketability of a sire whose stock has been winning sprints as resonant as the GIII Count Fleet Handicap and GII Honorable Miss Stakes.

His sire was little help to Mitole, though the Japanese knew the value of Cosmah as Eskendereya's fifth dam. And they have now also imported Mitole's half-brother by Oxbow, Hot Road Charlie. These are genes that roll up their sleeves and go to work.

Mitole could be flattered by the way he worked the commercial system, but his resume now has weight beyond mere aggregation. Champion sprinter, champion freshman, perhaps he can next to prove himself champion value.

Gold: CORNICHE
Quality Road–Wasted Tears (Najran)
$15,000 Ashford

In some ways this feels a little hypocritical. I'm always pontificating against unproven sires, and the way thousands of mares are wasted in deference to the prejudices of ringside “investors” wholly lacking in conviction. Almost invariably, they ensure that first-crop yearlings achieve averages slavishly sequenced according to their covering fees. And they then abandon those same horses, precisely as their “judgement” might prove most valuable, i.e. when everyone else is running scared because foals are actually nearing the starting gate.

That's when the books slide. That's when the fees slide. And that's when the potential dividends skyrocket. Because if you find the right bubble horse, the one who actually vindicates all the hype that launched his stud career, then in a couple of years from now you will be taking to market goods that very few people have–and a lot of people suddenly need.

In some ways, then, putting this horse top of our podium is a gesture. Others might make a similar case, as noted above, for peers at the same stage, like Jack Christopher, Early Voting or Mandaloun. But if Corniche remains a guess, no less than any of the rest, then there is at least some tangible evidence in his favor.

And that's the flesh and blood he presented for his debut at the yearling sales. Ridiculous as it should sound, by modern standards an offering of 84 was fairly conservative. Epicenter sent 160 into the ring, Jack Christopher 155, Golden Pal 149. But the 72 that found a new home did so at a superb average of $171,694, behind only Flightline (conception fee $200,000), Life Is Good ($100,000) and Jackie's Warrior ($50,000). If home runs of $725,000 and $650,000 assisted that yield, then the median took equally high rank at $135,000. Having made a similarly bright impact with his weanlings the previous year, Corniche is transparently throwing stock that fully vindicates his opening fee of $30,000.

As ever, the question now is whether they are show ponies or racehorses? Well, the template is pretty encouraging: they are by a $1.5 million 2-year-old who clocked a 98 Beyer on debut over 5 1/2 furlongs, before stretching out and being crowned unbeaten crop champion at the Breeders' Cup. He would have started at a higher fee, had he retired on the spot, but his drawn-out farewell required the kind of fee that might nudge breeders with short memories.

And now, because of the puerility of the commercial system, the same semen is worth only $15,000–despite rave reviews for his yearlings, the only evidence available of its efficacy.

I must admit I was originally nervous of the seeding of Corniche's family, but his dam is much the most accomplished runner (six-time graded stakes winner) by Najran, so that hesitation actually turns itself inside out. A genetic potency was palpably at work, on the racetrack, in both Corniche and his mother. If it was worth tapping into that, at $30,000, just to get an unbroken youngster to stand on a dais, why wouldn't you pay $15,000 now that they are about to break into a trot?

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