With the Saratoga/Del Mar meets coming up, I thought I would take a look at who the best turf broodmare sires are and see if there were any surprises. Well, let’s just say that there were no surprises in the top 10, but it was surprising how the top 10 actually stacked up.

Here’s how I came up with the top ten:

I looked at how many stakes wins a broodmare sire had on the turf in the last ten years. I took the top ten horses and then arranged them by the amount of stakes wins their progeny have had by the amount of stakes wins their progeny have made. The top ten may be the usual suspects, but some Broodmare sires are just too good to be true.

The one surprise to me was seeing Thunder Gulch take the nine spot. I’ve always thought of him as a dirt sire and broodmare sire and never really thought he was that great on turf let alone the ninth best turf broodmare sire. Of course, your attention has probably drifted to the top right hand corner of this chart, and who can blame you. This is not a misprint; Sadler’s Wells has a Stakes Wins/Starts ratio of 93.00. He is basically the Lebron James of broodmare sires. The fact that he is better than his American counterparts isn’t that surprising, it is more the fact of just how much better he is. Keep in mind that I chose these two numbers for a reason. The reason is that certain Broodmare sires have a great stakes wins to stakes starts ratio because owners only run the progeny if they prove themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Take California Chrome’s sire Lucky Pulpit. An owner isn’t going to take a chance with a horse by Lucky Pulpit if he hasn’t proven himself in some way shape or form. This is why Lucky Pulpit’s ratio of stakes wins to stakes starts is pretty good, but his ratio of stakes wins to overall starts is not as good.

The next takeaway is Thunder Gulch. He clearly has had no problem holding his own as a broodmare sire over the years and is right behind Dynaformer and A.P. Indy. Think about this for a second, he is currently sitting behind the two most famous sires of all time. Dynaformer and A.P. do not even produce horses anymore, which means that provided all goes well Thunder Gulch will surpass them both. I would look for a few two-year old races with horses that have Thunder Gulch on the bottom and take a chance. I would highlight all ten of these sires, but Thunder Gulch is the only one who’s going to provide you with any value as the others have already been hyped as much as is humanly possible.

The best situation for you as a handicapper is to find three year olds who are making their debut and have one of these sires on the bottom. If you see a bunch of horses stretching out in distance, feel free to give extra consideration to any horse that has one of these ten Broodmare Sires as his own.

Next week I’ll discuss the other part of this equation; sires. I’ll talk about who the best sires are, whom they nick the best with, and when to play them.

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