Our #Pedigeek “Term of the Week” is:

Crop

Whew, boy! The maiden special weight races at Saratoga Race Course, as usual, are tough. The first race on Runhappy Travers Stakes day is no exception. After unleashing the likes of Echo Again last Saturday, trainer Steve Asmussen has the 9-5 morning-line favorite, King’s Glory, entered. Then there’s the Brad Cox first-time starter, Verifying, by 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify, whose first crop of runners has already produced three stakes winners, two of them graded-stakes winners. While both of these youngsters have a more than big chance to wow, I’m going to look to the outside and Standard of Proof, who is a second crop representative of 2017 Horse of the Year, and now sire-sensation, Gun Runner.

While the word “crop” may bring to mind a field of corn or some other kind of farmed produce, when talking about a stallion, we’re referring to his progeny. In the case of Justify, who bred his first mares in 2019, his first crop of foals were born in 2020 and are now 2 years old. Gun Runner, who retired in 2018, had his first crop born in 2019, so they debuted in 2021 and are now 3 years old. Impressively, representatives of that first crop include last year’s champion two-year-old filly Echo Zulu and two of our Grade 1-winning Travers Stakes entrants in Cyberknife and Early Voting (the latter, like Standard of Proof, owned by Klaravich Stables and trained by Chad Brown).

Standard of Proof was conceived in 2019 when Gun Runner’s first crop was just being born, and he was foaled on March 28, 2020. The colt’s mother, Jemmabelle, is daughter of Street Sense, who was named champion 2-year-old male of 2006 and went on to become the first Breeders’ Cup Juvenile victor to also capture the Kentucky Derby. Jemmabelle was not a stakes-quality racehorse, but her half-sister Moyo Honey finished third in the Grade 2 Bayakoa Handicap in 2016.

Additionally, Standard of Proof’s second dam (maternal grandmother) is Charming Lauren, by the brilliantly talented Meadowlake. Meadowlake was undefeated in three career starts, including an 8 ¾-length romp in the Grade 1 Arlington-Washington Futurity in 1985. He, like Gun Runner, sired a champion 2-year-old filly in his first crop: Meadow Star. While Charming Lauren was unraced, she is a full-sister to another of Meadowlake’s Grade 1-winning juveniles in Greenwood Lake, victor of the 1999 Champagne Stakes. Charming Lauren is also a three-quarter-sister to Success Express (Hold Your Peace), who won the 1987 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Yet another sibling, half-brother Charlie Barley (Affirmed), was a Sovereign Award winner as Canada’s champion grass horse in 1989. He set new course records for a mile at both Woodbine and Keeneland.

One more tidbit that you may find useful? Many people take note of the stud fee as compared with sales price when assessing a horse’s appeal. Once you see a yearling reach six figures, you can pretty much assume buyers liked what they saw. That said, some people still can’t resist doing “the math” in relation to stud fee to sales price. While you see Gun Runner’s stud fee listed as $125,000 in the program and that Standard of Proof sold for $170,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearlings sale, take in mind, the $125,000 is what a date with the stallion cost in 2022. Gun Runner commanded a fee of $70,000 in 2018, 2019, and 2020. In 2021, Gun Runner stood for $50,000, but then, that incredible first crop began to debut, and Echo Zulu capped her perfect, champion season in the NetJets Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 5. No wonder they not only bumped Gun Runner’s price up for 2022, but significantly so. Just this past weekend alone, we saw THREE second-crop Gun Runner scion win maiden special weight races, two of them at Saratoga, one of those babies being the aforementioned Echo Again. We’ll see if Standard of Proof can prove ready, too.     

Saturday, Aug. 27

Saratoga Race Course, Race 1, Maiden Special Weight, 2-year-olds, 6 furlongs, 11:35 a.m. ET

#7 Standard of Proof 7-2 ML

Trainer: Chad Brown

Jockey: Jose Ortiz