Expert says DQ shouldn’t affect horse’s stud value
The horse who ran first through the finish line and into the center of controversy surrounding this year’s Kentucky Derby is an overachiever.
Maximum Security wasn’t supposed to be this good. Regardless of post-time odds Saturday or how the race finished on the track, his remains a rags-to-riches type of story — given his relatively obscure pedigree and debut in a lowstakes claiming race — that we won’t get to see play out in a run for horse racing’s Triple Crown. That could ultimately impact his future value as a sire.
As for the stewards’ decision to disqualify him for “drifting” out? “That’s not going to be a factor,” said Ric Waldman, a bloodlines expert and consultant who has managed the breeding of some of racing’s most successful sires. “With that traffic problem that he caused, in breeders’ minds, it shouldn’t take away from the impact that he has made as a racehorse.”
Before the Kentucky Derby, Maximum Security had won all four of his races by at least 31⁄2 lengths. “I didn’t think, as a claiming trainer, which I am, that he was that attractive,” trainer Jason Servis said before Saturday’s race.
That had to do with a lot of factors, but first among them was Maximum Security’s lineage. His mother is Lil Indy, winner in two of 19 starts, both claimers. His father is New Year’s Day, winner of the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. New Year’s Day’s sire was Street Cry, who produced 2007 Derby winner Street Sense and legendary Australian champion Winx. But New Year’s Day was retired to stud after only three races because of a bone chip. The 2018 stud fee for New Year’s Day was listed as $5,000 by Bloodhorse.com.
It was also announced in January that New Year’s Day had been sold to Brazilian owner-breeder Luis Felipe Brãndao dos Santos and would be relocated to South America, according to Bloodhorse.
“Usually, the customary Derby winners or exciting 3-year-olds have more of an exciting pedigree that you can hang your hat on or you can go back and find why it happened more readily than you can with Maximum Security,” Waldman said. “But you have to keep one thing in mind: An exciting racehorse still attracts breeders’ attention. And Maximum Security, irrespective of all the obscurity (in his background), is a very exciting racehorse . ... There will still be plenty of interest as long as he’s priced right and breeders are attracted.”