Winners of various Breeders Cup races have proved hugely successful at stud.
From the likes of breed-shaping stallions, Sunday Silence, A P Indy, Unbridled, Last Tycoon, and Theatrical, to such remarkable producers as Miesque, Personal Ensign, Banks Hill, Sacahuista and Dance Smartly, the modern day thoroughbred owes plenty to past Breeders’ Cup winners as sires and matriarchs.
The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile is set to be run over 1700m at Churchill Downs on 2 November.
Pluck wins the 2010 Breeders Cup Juvenile
Winners of this race have also fared well at stud.
Inaugural winner, Chief’s Crown, siring, among others, Epsom Derby winner, Erhaab, and high class miler/sire, Grand Lodge.
Capote sired a string of high class gallopers (including South African Horse Of The Year, Surfing Home), headed by Breeders’ Cup Juvenile hero, Boston Harbor, and Success Express, who enjoyed success at stud in Australia. Not only did Success Express feature as sire of Gr1 winners, but he is damsire of champion sire, Savabeel, and his Gr1 winning son, Al Akbar, is broodmare sire of Winx.
Scat Daddy
The 2001 Juvenile hero, Johannesburg, ensured his name will live on for years to come through his outstanding sire son, Scat Daddy, while Gilded Time, Macho Uno and Street Sense have all enjoyed multiple Gr1 successes as sires.
Unbridled’s Song
To date, the most successful Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner has been Unbridled’s Song, whose 100 plus stakes winners include no fewer than six individual Breeders’ Cup winners, headed by champion, Arrogate. An increasingly successful broodmare sire, Unbridled’s Song was Champion Sire in North America in 2017. Tellingly, perhaps, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile honour roll also features a stallion capable of going on to great things and who could yet become the best stallion to have emerged from this major 2yo feature.
Uncle Mo, the four and a quarter length winner of the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, is enjoying a fantastic year in 2018. The son of Indian Charlie has made his mark both on the track and in the sales ring, and with a number of major races still to be run in North America in 2018, Uncle Mo could well be poised for even greater things yet.
Our Uncle
A sign of Uncle Mo’s increasing success can be viewed by the fact that just three stallions in North America this year have been represented by more black type winners than his eyecatching tally of fifteen.
Uncle Mo’s 15 stakes winners this year places him equal to both Quality Road and Kitten’s Joy, with the latter currently North America’s Leading Sire by Stakes.
2008 Dubai World Cup – Curlin (photo: Dubai Racing Club)
Uncle Mo has also been responsible for more black type winners in the USA (his stakes winners have won a total of 17 features thus far) than high profile stallions as Speightstown (Gone West), Curlin (Smart Strike), Distorted Humor (Forty Niner) and Medaglia D’Oro (El Prado).
The Ashford Stud based stallion, whose $125 000 fee in 2018 was higher than proven Gr1 sires as Candy Ride, Bernardini, Distorted Humor and Lemon Drop Kid, made a blistering start when his first Northern Hemisphere crop of foals produced 25 stakes winners.
Typically well supported for an Ashford sire in his first season, Uncle Mo’s first crop did include 160 foals, which gave him a strike rate of 15.6% stakes winners to foals from his first crop, an impressive statistic.
Nyquist –
He is the first Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner to sire a Kentucky Derby winner, with the Uncle Mo sired Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winning champion, Nyquist (one of three Kentucky Derby runners that season for his sire) landing the Kentucky Derby in 2016. Uncle Mo dominated the US First Crop Sires List of 2015 with his 28 winners banking $3 675 294 (runner up, Twirling Candy, had runners that earned $1 167 144 in contrast), and went on to head the US Leading Second Crop Sires List of 2016 when his runners earned over $12 million (Twirling Candy, again runner up, had runners earn just over $3.56 million that season, a good indication of Uncle Mo’s domination.
Consistent
Uncle Mo has shown that he is no one season wonder, with his 15 black type winners including seven graded stakes winners – including unbeaten star filly, Dream Tree.
His stakes winners this season have also included high class 2yo’s, Forty Under, Galilean and Monkeys Uncle. At the time of writing, Uncle Mo is 13th on the North America General Sires List and 11th on the North American Leading Sires of 2YOs list. Uncle Mo’s ongoing success also places the spotlight on his underrated, but top class, sire, Indian Charlie. A great grandson of outstanding stallion, Caro, Indian Charlie died relatively early but left behind 83 stakes winners (9%) with his stars including champions Fleet Indian, Uncle Mo, and Indian Blessing and the G1 winners A.P. Indian, By The Moon, Pampered Princess and Liaison.
The Indian Charlie sired short-lived champion, Fleet Indian, is second dam of the 2018 dual Gr1 winning 2yo, Game Winner (Candy Ride), who rates a leading chance in the 2018 Sentient Jet Juvenile at Churchill Downs.
Uncle Mo, the sire of Gr1 winners on both dirt and turf, has a single son at stud in South Africa in the form of Gr3 Robert B.Lewis Stakes victor, Royal Mo.
The latter has made an encouraging start this season and already has a number of mares tested in foal.
