Kentucky Value Sires For 2026: Part 4–The 20-Somethings

[Wandering Eyes]

The band we reach today, between $20,000 and $29,999, perhaps represents the sweet spot of the entire pyramid. It features sires of adequate achievement to have elevated themselves clear of the basement, yet without obtaining the kind of commercial luster that puts them beyond mortal pockets. The most established names retain their customary place on our Value Podium, not least as a tremendous route to proving a mare; but this tier also features one or two that could be on the point of cycling through delayed rewards for their early endeavors.

As such, given that we can't single out each and every sire anyway, we certainly won't be dwelling too long on those yet to establish any kind of competence in their new careers. True, I can return to a recurring theme of this series to point out that if GUNITE was deserving of a preposterous 256 mares when entering stud in 2024, at $35,000, it's hard to see why you wouldn't go back to him now at $25,000. Of the 39 weanlings presented to market, 34 found a new home at $166,764. Their consistency was reflected by a significantly strong median of $157,500. He will probably become an imperative play next time round–when his fee will presumably subside again–ahead of a cavalry of juveniles bursting with the precocity that won him the GI Hopeful Stakes, and the speed that saw him trade blows with Elite Power as a 4-year-old.

By the same token, then, we should be taking a keen interest in JACKIE'S WARRIOR at $25,000–half the sum paid by 247 mares in 2023. His first yearlings repaid their $50,000 conception fee very solidly, 82 of 103 selling at an average $225,102 (median $165,000). He's another Hopeful winner, who returned to Saratoga to win Grade I sprints at three and four. He seems bound to make some noise in the freshman table and, with his third book holding up at 166, now is actually the time to be doubling down. After all, the “judgement” exercised by so many breeders when he entered stud could be on the point of vindication.

That mindset admittedly would not have paid off, in the preceding class, with ESSENTIAL QUALITY. Having reached $50,000 last year, from an opening $75,000, he has been slashed to $25,000 after a perfectly steady start by his first juveniles (three stakes winners putting him third in the freshman table). But while he was a champion juvenile, he's also a Belmont winner by Tapit and it would be perfectly natural for mares with Classic blood of their own to draw a great deal of improvement from his stock with maturity round a second turn. For now a fee cut became inevitable, however, after his second crop averaged $88,564–with a median that only matched the conception fee.

Essential Quality | Sarah Andrew

COMPLEXITY made a contrastingly lively start, the previous year, setting a storming early pace in the freshman table until inevitably worn down by rivals with industrial volume behind them. With a second crop in play, he's up to a dozen stakes winners–four at graded level–at 6.5 percent of named foals, from a conception fee of $12,500. That is actually the same ratio boasted by class leader Vekoma for his 18 stakes winners, yet he is up to $100,000 while Complexity has been eased to $20,000 (from $25,000). Two other peers in huge demand, Tiz the Law and McKinzie, are meanwhile getting their black-type winners at 5.1 and 3.3 percent. Complexity's problem in the short term is that his incoming juveniles graduate from a book of 59, but he was back up to 119 last spring and mares sent to him now will be able to ride that wave by the time their foals go to market.

MAXIMUS MISCHIEF is an interesting proposition. Having set out as a straightforward, low-budget commercial option, he had a nice moment this time last year with the GI Malibu Stakes winner. But that has turned into an authentic breakout, and not just because Raging Torrent has meanwhile followed up in the GI Met Mile. Two other members of his debut crop won graded stakes, confirming that a sire whose own career had been curtailed could get his stock to thrive with maturity; and then a third-crop son won the GI American Pharoah Stakes. Yet his fee has only nudged up from $15,000 to $20,000, and with his numbers never having let up–incoming juveniles from a crop of 105 live foals, while he covered another 161 mares last spring–he stands at an auspicious crossroads.

BOLT D'ORO has had an up-and-down career already. His latest yearlings, conceived at $35,000 after he won freshman laurels in 2022, achieved an uneven yield: he boasted a $1.4 million colt at Saratoga, and a six-figure average, but a median of $60,000 puts the pressure on (his next crop sired at exactly that sum). Halved to $30,000 last year, when he duly maintained traffic, he takes another trim to $25,000–solid value after he regrouped with 11 stakes winners in 2025, four at graded level. He may be finding his level but that is a solid one: he has consistent volume behind him and, in principle, that mare upgrade should help him gain further track quality over the next two or three years.

But it is the most established operators in this category that pack in most value, and I would suspect that an awful lot of you might land on the same few names for a Value Podium. ARMY MULE misses out only narrowly, having had a mild hike from $20,000 to $25,000, an acknowledgment of some strong results at ringside (72 of 83 yearlings sold at $83,215, albeit the median was considerably less at $51,000) and with his early impact beginning to cycle through. He has still had no more than 206 starters, of which 21 are stakes winners. That's a tremendous ratio for a horse that started out at $10,000 and sired even his incoming sophomores at $7,500.  He welcomed 160 mares when initially raised to $25,000, in 2024, and another 140 last year, so the “pipeline” is pretty loaded. There's every chance he could be standing at a rather higher fee before long, assuming he can consolidate with his somewhat upgraded materials. As things stand, his single graded stakes winner of 2025–his fourth overall–augurs well as GII Miss Grillo Stakes winner Ground Support, first home for the home team in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies' Turf.

Blame

" width="601" height="437" /> Blame | Sara Gordon

VALUE PODIUM

Bronze: BLAME
Arch–Liable (Seeking the Gold)
$25,000 Claiborne

Though now entering the veteran stage, in turning 20, Blame remains a precocious achiever as a distaff influence. In 2025, his daughters were represented by 199 starters–compared with 776 for champion broodmare sire Tapit–of which four won Grade I races.

While it remains easier to recognize the phenomenon of a broodmare sire than to account for it, it has been clear for a while now that this horse is an essential option for anyone who wouldn't mind hanging onto a filly. And little wonder: the underrated Arch was himself from a noble line, and Blame blends it with none other than Special (Forli {Arg}) as third dam.

Of course, Blame is a thoroughly competent sire of runners in his own right. In 2025 he notched his seventh elite scorer, over in Europe, while GII Oak Leaf Stakes winner Explora only narrowly failed to reel in the winner in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. His current tally of 54 stakes winners and 25 at graded level represent extremely solid ratios: 6.5 and 3.0 percent of named foals. That puts him essentially level with Constitution and Twirling Candy, to name just two sires too excellent to be embarrassed by the comparison.

And, guess what? While Blame's book of 73 last spring implies that not everyone is keeping the faith quite so resolutely, his growing reputation as a broodmare sire is quietly converting him, fairly late into his career, into a more commercial proposition.

Of 43 yearlings offered from his latest crop, 36 sold at a solid average of $83,215. Admittedly the median was lower, at $57,500–but that is itself instructive. The fact is that enough people have now cottoned onto Blame's particular strength to contest his nicer fillies quite avidly. Though the most expensive of the crop, at $475,000, was actually a colt, the next seven (between $110,000 and $370,000) were all fillies. Stick or twist, race or sell, at least half the time Blame can be a win-win scenario.

Silver: UPSTART
Flatter–Party Silks (Touch Gold)
$25,000 Airdrie

A solitary graded stakes winner for Upstart this year doesn't begin to tell the story about a horse going places every bit as purposefully as his witty naming suggests.

When on the bubble, in 2020, he had just 27 live foals. But then his second crop disclosed the talent he had imparted to Zandon and others–especially as sophomores in 2022, when Upstart matched Not This Time and Nyquist in the third-crop table with three Grade I performers apiece–and his fee the following spring was hoisted from $10,000 to $30,000.

That trajectory has been reflected in his yearling returns: $42,071 in 2023, $67,564 in 2024, and this time round a stellar $108,477 for the graduates of that upgraded book. That was for 66 sold, of 82 offered, and the median was milder at $70,000: but you're obviously looking at a mixed bag, still bred at a budget fee, and the nicer ones completed home runs as high as $650,000, £425,000 and $350,000.

Upstart | Sarah Andrew

Even ahead of their arrival on the racetrack, things already appear to be afoot. Of Upstart's eight stakes winners in 2025, five were juveniles–including triple Grade I-placed Percy's Bar.

As it stands, Upstart's 25 black-type scorers to date represent 6.7 percent of named foals. By the restrained standards of his exemplary farm, his book has basically been fully subscribed for the past four years, with another 147 paying this fee last spring–appreciating a mild clip pending the new cycle of success that now feels imminent.

Gold: HARD SPUN
Danzig–Turkish Tryst (Turkoman)
$20,000 Darley

Okay, so he has never really won over the ringside speculators. But that's their problem, not his. Of 68 yearlings offered in 2025, 54 retailed at just under $50,000 (median $40,500) off a conception fee of $35,000. And that's probably not going to change, after a fairly sedate year on the track as well–at least by his standards–with eight stakes winners, including three at graded level, from 307 starters.

But. But. But… Twenty grand! For a sire whose lifetime bank is exceeded, among the Kentucky competition, only by Into Mischief, Tapit, Curlin and Candy Ride (Arg). For the sire of a dozen elite winners in the Northern Hemisphere, besides three others in Australia. For the sire of four sons at stud in Kentucky. For the last available short cut (besides War Front, now private) to his breed-shaping sire Danzig. One of just 28 foals in the patriarch's final crop, he taps directly into a seam of gold meanwhile diluted by all the thousands of mares wasted on failed stallions.

For a horse to have achieved so much, and only once to have charged even as much as he did in his debut season, is a weird reflection on the commercial breeding era. He was tremendous value, for anyone trying to put a hard-knocking winner under their mare, at $35,000 in 2024. To have now taken his second cut since will keep his loyal clientele returning, even as he turns 22, in incredulous gratitude.

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