Freshman sires catch the eye at OBS
Million-dollar Maxfields and an Independence Hall
By Frances J. Karon
In 2024, three first-crop stallions were represented by seven-figure 2-year-olds at the in-training sales, with one apiece: Tiz the Law (unraced Moona Lisa, $1.9 million filly); Win Win Win (Grade 3 winner Nooni, $1.8 million filly); and Authentic (winner Verifire, $1 million colt, who made a belated but impressive debut last week). So far in 2025, with just one 2-year-old sale behind us, we’ve seen three seven-figure 2-year-olds by two first-crop stallions, Maxfield (Street Sense) and Independence Hall (Constitution), both of whom are drafting behind the initial success of second-crop stallions by their respective sires.
McKinzie, a Grade 1 winner by Street Sense standing at Gainesway, got a pair of Grade 1-winning 2-year-olds—dual Grade 1 winner Chancer McPatrick and Scottish Lassie—in his first crop. In a very tight earnings race between the top three freshman sires of 2024, McKinzie in second place finished $13,539 behind leader Vekoma (Candy Ride), and $4,450 ahead of Tiz the Law (Constitution) in third.
In the wake of McKinzie’s strong start, the demand for the first Maxfields, who like McKinzie is a Grade 1 winner by Street Sense, led to a $1.25 million filly (bought by Marquee Bloodstock) and a $1 million colt (who will be exported to Japan by purchaser Mitsu Nakauchida) at OBS March. De Meric Stables consigned the filly and Wavertree the colt, who breezed in the same time, :9 4/5.
The Maxfield filly, whose dam is All in With Aces (Quiet American), has a ready-made pedigree, as a half-sister to Grade 1-winning millionaire Hard Aces (Hard Spun) and multiple stakes-winning sprinter Astrollinthepark (Divine Park).
The Maxfield colt’s catalog page, while not as “sexy” as the filly’s page—there are no graded stakes winners under his first three dams, and just two under his fourth dam—is quite interesting for multiple reasons. He’s the second foal out of stakes-winning turf sprinter Eyeinthesky (Sky Mesa), and his five-cross pedigree shows that he is inbred 3x3 to Caress (Storm Cat), a mare whose three Grade 3 wins included the Poker against males.
Caress is Maxfield’s granddam through her daughter Velvety (Bernardini), and she’s also the dam of Sky Mesa (Pulpit), the sire of Eyeinthesky and thus the broodmare sire of the million-dollar Eyeinthesky 2-year-old. Caress was a full sister to two Grade 3 winners, including Bernstein, who in his day was a leading sire in Argentina from his dual-hemisphere stints. In N. America, among his best progeny aside from Breeders’ Cup winners Karakontie and Tepin (champion turf female in the U.S. and winner of the G1 Queen Anne at Royal Ascot) was Dream Empress, winner of the G1 Alcibiades.
Dream Empress is the second dam of Chancer McPatrick, that dual Grade 1-winning son of McKinzie, meaning that Chancer McPatrick’s granddam is by a full brother to Caress, the granddam of Maxfield. (Also note that Chancer McPatrick’s dam is by Bernardini, the broodmare sire of Maxfield.)
Street Sense has sired 10 graded stakes winners out of A.P. Indy-line mares, and of course this includes Maxfield, so the ’23 Eyeinthesky colt is bred on the Street Sense/A.P. Indy cross like his sire. He’s 4x4 A.P. Indy.
Maxfield stands at Darley, alongside his sire as well as Speaker’s Corner, a Grade 1-winning son of Street Sense out of a Bernardini mare with first yearlings this year.
Now to the other million-dollar 2-year-old by a freshman sire, by Independence Hall. Independence Hall, a Grade 2 winner standing at WinStar, had a modest introductory stud fee of $10,000. His big colt, out of minor stakes-placed Orecchiette (Harlan’s Holiday), flew under the radar as a weanling ($32,000) and yearling ($165,000), but when he worked in :9 4/5—the same as the Maxfields—he caught the eye, and sold to JPM Bloodstock out of the Eddie Woods consignment on a $1 million bid. He’ll reportedly head to trainer Mark Glatt in California.
It can only help Independence Hall’s sale prospects that Tiz the Law, the first son of Constitution to the breeding shed (at Coolmore America) and a year ahead of Independence Hall at stud, was narrowly in third place on that freshman sires’s list. Although that $1.9 million Tiz the Law 2-year-old purchase, Moona Lisa, now three, remains unraced, last year her sire’s juveniles had justified hype for his progeny. With 50+ fewer foals than both Vekoma and McKinzie, Tiz the Law’s two graded stakes winners among five stakes winners placed him in the best company. No freshman sire anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere had more graded winners or more overall stakes winners than Tiz the Law, so Independence Hall benefits from this association as a son of Constitution, too.
Odds and ends: The 2025 first-crop sires race is underway in Europe, where Space Blues (Dubawi) had the first winner for any new sire this season when Power Blue won a maiden race at the Curragh earlier this week. Space Blues stands at Kildangan Stud in Ireland…Pioneerof the Nile was recently represented by stakes winners Arrest Me Red in the listed Big Daddy at Turfway and, on the same day, Eamonn in the listed Silks Run at Gulfstream. Both sons are 7-year-old sprinters who were making their 2025 debuts, and the dams of both are by Medaglia d’Oro. Pioneerof the Nile sired three stakes winners from eight foals out of seven individual Medaglia d’Oro mares; Arrest Me Red, a Grade 2-winning millionaire, is the best of these. The cross has also worked with Pioneerof the Nile’s best son, American Pharoah, who has N. American Grade 1 winner Marketsegmentation and Australian Group 1 winner Goldrush Guru out of Medaglia d’Oro mares…
German-bred Gavea (Gleneagles), a new stakes winner who won the listed Mardi Gras at Fair Grounds, is inbred 3x4 to Sadler’s Wells and Urban Sea through the Group 1-winning full brothers Galileo and Black Sam Bellamy. She’s the 12th black-type winner inbred to Urban Sea—not including eight inbred to Urban Sea’s son Galileo—and the first through Black Sam Bellamy, a highweighted horse from 11-14 fur. in Italy. Urban Sea now has stakes winners inbred to her through five of her eight stakes-winning sons and daughters (Galileo, Sea The Stars, Black Sam Bellamy, all of whom were Group 1 winners; and fillies All Too Beautiful, a Group 3 winner; and listed winner Melikah). Gavea is the 42nd stakes winner for her Coolmore-based dual-Guineas-winning sire Gleneagles…Mozu Ascot, a multiple Grade 1-winning miler in Japan, was represented by his first stakes winner when Faust Rasen won the Grade 2 Hochi Hai Yayoi Sho Deep Impact, a trial for the Japanese 2000 Guineas. A son of Frankel, Mozu Ascot stood at Arrow Stud on Hokkaido…In South America, another Frankel son—minor N. American stakes winner Gidu—was represented by his first group winner, Takeshi Frank, in the Clasico Agustin B. Gambier at La Plata in Argentina, where Gidu stands…Soontobeking recently became the first stakes winner from the first crop of Irish Hill & Dutchess Views Stallions’s King for a Day in the Gander S. at Aqueduct, restricted to New York-breds. King for a Day is the ninth individual son of Uncle Mo to sire a stakes winner…Wooded, a Group 1 sprint winner at three standing in France at Haras de Bouquetot, also got the first stakes winner from his first crop over the weekend: Woodshauna in the listed Prix Montenica at Chantilly in France. Wooded’s full brother Bucanero Fuerte, a Group 1 sprint winner at two, is new this year to Tally-Ho Stud in Ireland, standing alongside another new, Group 1-winning Wootton Bassett son in King of Steel…And, just for fun, Pioneerof the Nile is the grandsire—through his son Shupanga (winner of one race)—of the winner of a Quarter Horse race at the Sandy Ridge At the Red Mile meeting, where Otoole of the Nile won a 250-yard dash last Monday…
