For the very best thoroughbred horses, their overall career arch only starts on the circuit. It does not end when they pass the finish line for the last time, not through a long shot, because it doesn’t matter how much they made while racing, the big money – the real, the real, Real Big money – is in the breeding industry.
Exhibition A is Flightline. The Bay Tapit Horse, which was bought for $ 1 million as a yearling by West Point Thoroughbreds, raced for the first time in the spring of 2021 in Santa Anita Park, where he won with 13 ¼ lengths. He then started wrapping five more victories by overwhelming until November 2022. After he had completed his racing career with a dominance of 8 ¼ length of the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland Race Course, Flightline was retired and retired as the Bylipse-Stom of the year. Only Ghostzapper, who won nine out of 11 races and was Horse of the Year in 2004, produced consistent speed figures comparable to flightlines.
Flightline was owned by a partnership of established industrial figures, including West Point, during his time on the circuit, and after his final in Keeneland, his owners brought him to the prestigious Lane’s end farm in nearby Versailles, Ky. The group offered an interest rate of 2.5% in flightline on the Keeneland November Sale after the Breeders’ Cup, and it was purchased for $ 4.6 million, which kept his estimated total value as a stallion at around $ 184 million. Flightline’s first studies for 2023 was stuck at $ 200,000, and that first season he covered (was linked to) 152 mares. Power the calculator and you have a cool $ 30.4 million for his first year at Stud, compared to the $ 4.5 million he earned during racing.
That 152 mares bred In 2023, 124 foals produced in 2024, and last year at the end of Lane, Flightline was bred to the exact same number of mares for his second Go-Round. His reimbursement was reduced to $ 150.00, a not unusual practice in the breeding industry when the new sensation buzz shifted to stallions that made their own first performances. Last fall, another 2.5% in Flightline was auctioned by Keeneland during a sale in Del Mar, this time with $ 2.5 million.
Fast forward to this summer, and Flightline’s first feeding fleet are preparing to be introduced at the yearling auctions of North -America. On August 4 and 5 Fasig-Tipton Co. keeps the first top-of-the-line Jaarling sale of the year in the complex in Saratoga Springs, NY, just a stone’s throw from the historic Saratoga Race Course, and nine Flightline annuals will go through the auction ring on 31 July.
In 2024, only five teats per flightline – Speanlings were foals in their first year of life after they were weaned from their dam – sold at an auction in North America. They amounted to $ 2,325 million and produced an average of $ 465,000. Next Monday and Tuesday in Fasig-Pipeon, the average year-old price of Flightline in the middle of the hundreds of thousands, if not. In addition to wearing FlightLine’s Blood, many of these young people are produced by dams who have either made their brand races, from horse families who have status that is comparable to the Rockefellers or Kennedys (or today, Kardashians?), Or both.
What potential buyers will be looking for is a hint of the properties that Flightline has shown with difficult sparkle on the track: a very powerful mix of Speed and endurance. With an excellent pedigree itself (his father, tapit, is represented by four winners of Belmont Stakes), Flightline won at distances ranging from a six Furlong Sprint (twice) to the “classic” miles-and-a-quart from, well, the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Can he pass on those genetic superlatives?
Of course it is difficult to determine whether a thoroughbred of a yearling has the potential to approach at least the talent level of his father (or dam) – after all, they did not even start the basic principles of training. That is why in the coming days you will see every participant in the phasig-PIPTON sale per flightline or another stallion that is investigated at a level that Sumeric Cuneiform is approaching by dozens of blood stock experts. Breeding a Renpaard champion is partly data -driven science, partly intuitive art, but when it follows the financial rewards for owners, it can be amazing, not to mention the chance of having a permanent impact on the thoroughbred industry.
It is an exciting time, both for Fans of Flightline and those who always have one eye on the side of the next generation of horses, who could be another flightline. Many more flightline foals will be offered in the Behemoth Keeneland September Jaarling sale and various others at the sale during the remaining months of 2025. Next year more from his first crop will be offered at 2-year auctions in the spring, some of them with names inspired by the air Registered at the Jockey Club Undoubtedly – and then it starts racing!
As soon as they compete, in the coming years in the coming years will be “built up or silent” for Flightline’s Fleet on Race Course around North America and abroad. If even a modest percentage of his offspring approaches the excellence of their father, he will be assured of a long, productive and (for his owners) incredibly lucrative career in the breeding breed. That does not happen. Ghostzapper, FlightLine’s Speed-Figure Peer, is currently impeding his breeding restriction in Canada and has built up a reputation as a good, but not elite, father (many of his best runners are mares and mares). Flightline may not even reach that brand. But for the time being the expectation will be dedicated to a notch at Fasig-Tipton in Saratoga Springs while the second career of this incredible horse is increasing to a new height.
Don’t miss two American best racing live streams produced on the site in Fasig-Tipton next Monday and Tuesday about the Saratoga sale of selected yearlings. Our shows start both nights at 6 pm, organized by Ren CarothersersRachel Miller, and And Tordjman and with a roaming report of Alexa Zepp And special guests to provide insights into the fast, often exciting world of thoroughbred auctions. ‘Live from the phasig-fillon Saratoga Sale!Will flows on ABRs Facebook” XAnd YouTube channels.
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