Cross Traffic Sees Biggest Year-To-Year Gain In Mares Bred In 2019

The hardest thing for a stallion and his marketing team to do isn’t necessarily getting breeders to come through the door the first time, but getting them to come back.

Getting that to happen often requires the stallion to no longer stand on his own merits, but that of his foals. When those foals live up to the billing, breeders usually take notice.

The Jockey Club’s 2019 Report of Mares Bred was released on Thursday, giving the annual temperature test of which stallions were best able to catch and maintain the attention of breeders, and which ones might be falling out of commercial favor.

Speaking from a bulk standpoint, no stallion’s stock rose higher in 2019 than Spendthrift Farm‘s Cross Traffic. The son of Unbridled’s Song covered 188 mares in 2019, which was a gain of 128 mares from the 60 he saw last year.

The reasons for the drastic jump in mares aren’t hard to pinpoint. Cross Traffic was the leading freshman sire of 2018 by earnings, tallying $2,115,603 from 47 runners and 18 winners. His credentials as a stallion who can sire a top-shelf runner were verified by Jaywalk, who stormed through her division to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs and secure the Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old filly.

“Cross Traffic was the first leading freshman sire that we’ve had since Mr. [B. Wayne] Hughes bought the farm, so that was as fun a deal to have here,” said Spendthrift Farm’s Mark Toothaker. “That’s what you hope you have every year when you start the new horses, that you’re going to get the leading freshman sire, and for Cross Traffic to do it and come up with a filly like Jaywalk, that poured gasoline on the fire as far as the increase of seasons.”

Beyond his flagship runner, Cross Traffic racked up black type earners around the country and around the world, including Panamanian Group 2 winner Capocostello and stakes winners Dame Plata and Dancin Shoes.

In addition to bigger numbers, Toothaker said Cross Traffic’s 2019 book of mares also saw a noted increase in quality.

“We really got a good group of mares this year, and we had some breeders get involved with this horse that hadn’t done a lot of business with us, but seeing his success getting off to this start certainly helped attract some new folks into the fold for us, as well,” he said. “It’s certainly way more quality than he’d seen in the last crop or two, and the excitement of having a champion right there in the first crop inspired people to send much better mares.

Cross Traffic will stand for an advertised fee of $15,000 in 2020.

Cross Traffic’s road to a bigger book of mares was relatively straightforward, but the stallions that finished behind him took less conventional paths.

A Spendthrift alum saw the second-biggest jump in mares bred this year, with Warrior’s Reward posting an 82-mare gain from 22 to 115 in his first season at WynOaks Farm in Delta, Penn.

The son of Medaglia d’Oro covered his ninth book of mares in 2019, tying him with Lookin at Lucky as the second-most experienced stallion among this year’s top 20 gainers by mares bred. The longest-tenured among the top 20 was English Channel, whose book grew by 29 mares in his 11th season at stud.

Donnie Brown, managing partner of WynOaks Farm, said the change of scenery played to the stallion’s advantage.

“I think the Mid-Atlantic breeders and Pennsylvania breeders really appreciate the value that Warrior’s Reward brings to this area,” he said. “He can basically get any kind of horse at a fair price. He’s going to let your mare make a lot of decisions for you. If you think you have a good mare, he’s going to compliment her.”

Warrior’s Reward was helped into the 2019 breeding season by the emergence of Grade 3 winners Axelrod and Warrior’s Club. Axelrod was a particularly useful marketing tool for his sire, winning last year’s Grade 3 Smarty Jones Stakes at Parx Racing.

Brown also noted that Warrior’s Reward benefitted from a rising tide across Pennsylvania’s breeding industry. The state posted a 12.5-percent gain in mares bred from year to year, and Brown said late reports and a handful of reporting errors will push that margin even higher.

“It really says a lot about what’s going on here in Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic overall, and these state-bred programs,” he said. “They’re really jumping.”

Warrior’s Reward will stand next year for $5,000.

Souper Speedy experienced a renaissance season north of the border in 2019, growing his book by 81 mares the season after his first crop of juveniles helped him lead Canada’s freshman sire ranks in every category.

The Indian Charlie horse bred 104 mares during the recently concluded breeding season, after posting 23 mares bred in 2018. Souper Speedy’s 104 mares at T.C. Westmeath Stud Farm in Mulmur, Ontario was more than twice that of Canada’s next-busiest stallion, Reload with 49.

Souper Speedy’s 14 first-crop juveniles to hit the track last year produced eight winners for combined earnings of $505,352.

His first crop continued to gain steam as the runners turned three. Speedy Soul, her sire’s top earner as a juvenile, came back to rack up a trio of stakes wins in 2019, including the Bison City Stakes, the middle leg of the Canadian Filly Triple Crown. The filly also showed she could hold her own against open competition with a runner-up finish in the Grade 3 Ontario Colleen Stakes.

The race that best displayed Souper Speedy’s potential future as a leader of Canada’s stallion ranks was this year’s Bold Ruckus Stakes at Woodbine, an Ontario-sired race where Souper Speedy accounted for all three parts of the trifecta: winner Souper Hot, runner-up Souper Success, and third-place Corduroy Road.