Complexity is buzzing alone at the top
A share in the freshman sire sold for $510,000 yesterday, and he has quality prospects around the globe
By Frances J. Karon
“Think about it!”
That’s Airdrie Stud’s tagline, and it’s a pretty simple one, because Airdrie likes to let their horses speak for themselves. These days, the farm’s freshman stallion Complexity (Maclean’s Music), who has stood for an advertised fee of $12,500 since his first season in 2021, has had a lot to say, with black-type winners in three countries and on three surfaces. And people have been listening: a share in Complexity offered by Airdrie sold for $510,000 before last night’s session of the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling sale began. The night before, the stallion’s Charlatan yearling half-brother—both are out of the unraced Yes It’s True mare Goldfield—sold for $1,500,000.
Complexity’s 2-year-olds have accomplished all of this a month before their sire himself even debuted back when he was two and won a 6 fur. maiden special at Saratoga in September and followed up with his Grade 1, the one-mile Champagne S., in October. (He later won the G2 Kelso H., also over a mile, at four.)
My colleague Sid Fernando wrote about Complexity and the freshman sire race here on July 1st, when the leading first-crop sires were Complexity ($12,500 stud fee in 2021), Vekoma ($20,000 fee in 2021), and Thousand Words ($7,500 fee in 2021), only one of whom—Thousand Words—had a stakes winner at the time. Sid wrote, “…early season 4 1/2- and 5 1/2-furlong maiden sprints will give way to longer races, and quality will be measured by listed and graded stakes along the way to the year-ending Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup events with big purses that heavily influence which young sires will sit atop the standings at the close of 2024.”
A month later, those three stallions are still the Northern Hemisphere’s leading freshman sires (with Thousand Words overtaking his Spendthrift studmate Vekoma for second place) and two of the trio—Complexity and Thousand Words—have already attained that all-important ‘measure of quality’: graded stakes winners.
Complexity, in particular, is lighting it up. But maybe that should come as no great surprise, as—like his sire Maclean’s Music and Charlatan, the sire of Complexity’s $1.5 million yearling half sibling—he was bred by Stonestreet, a farm that has an uncanny knack for breeding and/or developing top stallions.
On July 13th, Complexity’s Jeremiah Englehart-trained colt Mo Plex (dam by Uncle Mo), a $45,000 2-year-old purchase, followed up on his June maiden score at Belmont At the Big A to win the 6 fur. G3 Sanford S. at Saratoga; on July 19th, Mark Casse trainee Mensa (dam by Medaglia d’Oro)—a $740,000 digital horse-in-training purchase in April, on the heels of his maiden win at Gulfstream—won the 5 fur. Victoria S. on the all-weather at Woodbine in Canada; and on August 1st, Black Forza (dam by Harlan’s Holiday), a maiden winner in Ireland, won the 6 fur. G2 Richmond S. on the turf at Goodwood in England for trainer Michael O’Callaghan. Complexity is also the sire of a stakes-placed filly, French Horn (dam by Congrats), who was third in the Astoria S. at Saratoga during the Belmont Stakes festival in June.
COMPLEXITY (2016 Maclean’s Music – Goldfield, by Yes It’s True)
B: Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings, LLC
O: Klaravich Stables, Inc.
T: Chad Brown
Record: 10-5-1-0, $616,350
Highest achievement: Grade 1 winner
Last Auction Price: $375,000 Keeneland September yearling
Black Forza is the most intriguing of Complexity’s stakes horses, as he’s only the second group/graded stakes winner on the turf from the Maclean’s Music sire line, despite grandsire Distorted Humor’s ability to get good turf horses—to the tune of eight Group/Grade 1 winners—when bred to turfy mares. I’m Very Busy, a Grade 2 winner by Maclean’s Music’s Preakness-winning son Cloud Computing (who now stands at Pin Oak Lane Farm in Pennsylvania), is the other graded stakes-winning Maclean’s Music line turf horse.
Regarding Black Forza, it was a bold move to pinhook a first-crop yearling whose sire and grandsire are dirt horses and who had no top quality turf winners on his catalog page (although there are plenty of turf champions and Classic winners, such as Secreto, Caracolero, and Crowned Prince, beginning one generation off the page) to England, but that’s what Powerstown Stud did when they spent $65,000 on Complexity’s Harlee Honey colt at the Fasig-Tipton July sale. (He’d previously sold for $27,000 as a weanling.) Black Forza went on to sell to trainer Michael O’Callaghan for £220,000 (roughly $274,000) at the Goffs US 2-year-olds-in-training sale, and now he’s 2-for-3 and a Group 2 winner.
Complexity getting a good European turf horse right out of the gate stands to increase his market demand significantly with a versatility that makes him more appealing globally. Note that his Grade 3-winning half-sister Valadorna (Curlin) was stakes placed in her only turf start, and that their stakes-winning second dam Folly Dollar—unplaced in her only try on the grass—was by Digression, a Royal Ascot-winning champion 2-year-old on the turf in England.
There are 10 Northern Hemisphere-based freshman sires represented by at least one stakes winner, and Complexity’s three stakes winners place him alone at the top, with Mohaather (Showcasing), Sergei Prokofiev (Scat Daddy), and Thousand Words (Pioneerof the Nile) at two apiece. Aurelius Maximus (Pioneerof the Nile), Caracaro (Uncle Mo), Earthlight (Shamardal), the deceased Improbable (Carson City), Sands of Mali (Panis), and Vekoma (Candy Ride) each has one stakes winner. Complexity is also the only freshman with two group/graded winners, with Earthlight, Moaather, Sergei Prokofiev (all in England or Ireland) and Thousand Words (in the U.S.) each at one.
With a long five months left in the freshman sire race and, yes, some of the later-blooming sires expected to pick up steam, there may yet be some jockeying around at the top of the freshman sires table, but consider this: Complexity’s two group/graded stakes winners would have been enough for him to lead N. America’s freshman sires last year by the metric of graded stakes winners, and it’s still only the first week of August.
As the $510,000 share price attests to, Complexity won’t be standing for $12,500 next year. There’s too much that can happen between now and the end of the year to say what his 2025 stud fee will be, but based on last night’s share price, it would be somewhere in the $50,000 to $75,000 range.
Right now, Complexity leads all of his Northern Hemisphere peers by: earnings; individual winners, with 13—he’s tied with Vekoma—from 22 starters, and his progeny have won straight maidens in five major racing countries (the U.S., Canada, Ireland, England, and Japan), and at Saratoga, Belmont At the Big A, Churchill Downs, Saratoga, and Gulfstream; group/graded stakes winners; individual stakes winners; and stakes horses, with four.
In a numbers game where quantity can get you a foot in a revolving door, Complexity is producing quality, which is what you need to keep you around for the long haul.
Think about that!