The Gainesway Farm based Tapit, Champion Sire in the USA in 2014, 2015, and 2016 is enjoying increasing success as both a broodmare sire and sire of sires.
Already sire of Gr1 stallions Tapizar and Concorde Point, Tapit is making his presence felt on the 2019 US Leading First Crop Sires List, where his sons Constitution, Tapiture and Race Day all feature in the top ten.
Tapit (Pulpit – Tap Your Heels)
Dual G1 winner Constitution (he won both the Florida Derby and Donn Handicap) has made an instant impression with his first two-year-olds this season including unbeaten G3 Sanford Stakes winner By Your Side and devastating G2 Sorrento Stakes winner Amalfi Sunrise, and Constitution, who himself never raced at two, looks an exciting future prospect. At the time of writing, Constitution is the Leading First Crop Sire in North America for 2019.
He is not the first son of Tapit to make his mark, however. Tapizar, whose victories include the 2012 G1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, is already responsible for champion filly, and five time G1 winner, Monomoy Girl, and fellow graded stakes winners Jeltrin, Honey Bunny, and Solidify.
Another son to left behind a G1 winner is Concord Point –with that Iowa Derby/West Virginia Derby the sire of G1 Test Stakes/G1 Humana Distaff winner American Gal.
Talented Tapit horse Race Day, whose wins included the G2 (formerly G1) Oaklawn Handicap, made an impressive start with his first 2yos including a very promising filly in the form of recent stakes winner Gee She Sparkles.
Tapit’s G2 True North Hcp winning son Trappe Shot is currently responsible for four graded stakes winners and more than 20 black type horses, and the list of Tapit sire sons to have made their mark at stud looks set to grow in coming seasons. (Another example is the regally bred Belmont Stakes winner Tonalist (who hails from the same family as Tapit’s grandsire A. P. Indy), who was recently represented by his first North American winner when his two-year-old daughter Tony’s Rose won at Belterra Park.
Tapit’s broodmare daughters have already made their mark at G1 level, with Tapit already damsire of G1 winners Qafila (South Australian Derby), and Gran Alegria (Japanese 1000 Guineas), as well as graded/group winners Munitions, Air Strike, Somelikeithotbrown, Sergei Prokofiev, and Tenfold.
Tellingly, perhaps, of his potential as a broodmare sire, Tapit is broodmare sire of graded/group winners by sires as varied as Deep Impact, Scat Daddy, Big Brown, Not A Single Doubt, Street Sense, and Curlin.
With a number of outstanding daughters yet to be represented on the track, the future looks very bright for Tapit to become an outstanding broodmare sire.
Arguably the most important conduit of the formerly dominant Bold Ruler sire line today, Tapit himeslf is having another solid year –even if he is yet to hit the heights he achieved in 2016, when his offspring won no fewer than seven G1 races in the USA, including the Belmont Stakes, Whitney Stakes, Arkansas Derby, and Met Handicap.
(That year, his daughters Sweet Loretta and Pretty City Dancer also dead-heated for first in the G1 Spinaway Stakes).
In 2019, thus far, Tapit has been responsible for (at the time of writing) an impressive 21 black type winners so far, with this tally including ten individual graded stakes winners –notably Tacitus, who emulated his sire when he captured the Wood Memorial Stakes (now a G2 race) earlier this year.
One of the best 3yos seen out in North America this year thus far, Tacitus was also runner up in the Belmont Stakes (if he had won, he would have become his sire’s fourth winner of the final leg of the US Triple Crown).
A G1 Wood Memorial Stakes winning son of Pulpit, Tapit has already wracked some impressive statistics in his stud career thus far.
From 2014-2017, his sons either won or finished second in the classic G1 Belmont Stakes, while Tapit’s individual number of Breeders’ Cup winners currently stand at five. His tally of G1 winners stands, at the time of writing, at 25, with Tapit responsible for four official champions. Himself unbeaten in two starts at two, Tapit has enjoyed notable success as a sire of high-class two-year-olds, with his progeny including such G1 winning 2yos as Hansen, Stardom Bound, Tell A Kelly, Laragh, Chasing Yesterday, and Sweet Loretta and Pretty City Dancer.
(Another high-class 2yo winner by Tapit was Tapitsfly, who won the then ungraded Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf in 2009 while Tapit son He’s Had Enough was a close up second in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in 2012).
It is also interesting to note that Tapit has enjoyed good success when mated to mares with Unbridled in their pedigrees (Tapit himself being produced by the Unbridled mare Tap Your Heels). This pattern can be seen in the pedigrees of Tapit’s champion daughter Unique Bella, the aforementioned Tacticus, Gr1 winner Sweet Loretta, and graded winners West Coast Belle and Dream Pauline.
Coup De Grace
Tapit has also fared well when mated to Storm Cat line mares. Storm Cat sons Forestry, Giant’s Causeway, Hennessy, Bluegrass Cat, Yankee Gentleman, Forest Wildcat, Tabasco Cat and Sir Cat are also damsire of at least one graded stakes winner by Tapit, while Harlan (by Storm Cat) is the sire of Harlan’s Holiday and Menifee –both of whom are damsire of graded stakes winners sired by Tapit.
Storm Cat himself features in the pedigrees of Tapit’s high-class sons Coup De Grace, whose first crop race in 2019-2020, and Tacitus.
