Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Justify to stand for $150,000 in debut season at Ashford
Triple Crown winner Justify will debut for an advertised stud fee of $150,000 in 2019, while Triple Crown winner American Pharoah will stand for $110,000, Coolmore announced on Sunday.
The two horses are the centerpieces in Coolmore’s 2019 roster for Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky.
Mendelssohn and Mo Town also are listed as newcomers in the Ashford lineup for 2019, confirming a pending retirement for Mendelssohn. A son of late Ashford sire Scat Daddy, as is Justify, Mendelssohn won last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf and this year’s United Arab Emirates Derby, finished second in last month’s Travers Stakes, and is pointing to the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Mo Town, who will debut for $12,500, is a Grade 1 winner on turf. He is a son of Ashford sire Uncle Mo and was co-bred by Glennwood Farm, which also bred and raised Justify. Mendelssohn’s fee will be announced at a later date.
As the first Triple Crown winners to come to the modern Thoroughbred bloodstock market, American Pharoah’s fee was placed at a high level, and Justify’s price has been strongly anticipated.
American Pharoah, who won the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Classic after taking the Triple Crown, entered stud for an advertised fee of $200,000 in 2016, which not only made him the most expensive incoming stallion in North America since champion Ghostzapper commanded the same fee in 2006, prior to the recession, it tied him as the second most expensive stallion on the continent overall, behind only perennial leading sire Tapit at $300,000.
It was later revealed that some breeders were sending approved mares to American Pharoah on a two-for-one deal as Coolmore sought to assemble a quality book for the stallion, not an uncommon practice to support a young stallion in a competitive market.
American Pharoah’s fee was private for both 2017 and 2018. Meanwhile, his first crop to come to market has been a smashing success. His yearlings are averaging $474,755 worldwide, and he recorded three seven-figure offspring to finish as the fifth highest ranked sire by average price at the bellwether Keeneland September yearling sale, which concluded Sunday.
Unlike American Pharoah, who competes against his own sire, WinStar’s Pioneerof the Nile, and grandsire, Gainesway’s Empire Maker, also at six-figure price points in the market, unbeaten 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify has supply-and-demand economics in his favor.
Scat Daddy died of a suspected cardiac event in December 2015 at the young age of 11 as his star was still on the rise. His stud fee had been slated to climb to $100,000 for 2016, placing him among North America’s elite sires, after he stood for $35,000 in what turned out to be his final season.
Justify and Mendelssohn will be the most accomplished sons of Scat Daddy to come to stud in Kentucky thus far. His only representative in the state for 2018 was Tu Brutus, at Crestwood Farm, with a handful of other sons around the continent such as Daddy Nose Best (California), Finale (New Mexico), Handsome Mike (Florida), and Scatman (New York).
Ashford’s stallions covered an average book size of 113 mares in 2017, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred (the 2018 figures have not yet been released). Coolmore’s Adrian Wallace said that Justify’s book will include 40 to 50 of Coolmore’s own mares, and that the farm expects him to be “supported by some of the best international breeders around” in his first season.
“We haven’t got any firm commitments yet, but plenty of interest,” Wallace said on the day the horse shipped to Ashford from co-owner WinStar Farm last week.
In keeping with Justify’s international appeal, Wallace said Coolmore will ship mares from Europe to Kentucky to be part of his first book.
Joining American Pharoah and Justify as a six-figure horse on Ashford’s roster is young classic sire Uncle Mo, priced at $125,000, the same fee he stood for in 2018. The rest of Ashford’s roster includes Classic Empire at $35,000, Practical Joke at $30,000, Declaration of War and Tale of the Cat at $25,000; Air Force Blue and Munnings at $20,000; Lookin At Lucky at $17,500; Vancouver and Verrazano at $15,000; Cupid at $12,500; and Competitive Edge and Fusaichi Pegasus at $7,500.