And so we reach the apex of the fee pyramid we've scaled in stages all the way up from the basement.
In reality, this final ascent is too extensive to be coherent: we're clearly not comparing like with like, between stallions available at $60,000 and la crème de la crème at $250,000. But since we can hardly reveal to an unsuspecting world that Into Mischief is a pretty good stallion, let's establish our parameters straightaway. Our purpose today is to seek the residual value that lurks even at this rarefied level, perhaps even to find a horse with the scope someday to be promoted into the real elite. In effect, that will confine our quest to those standing between $60,000 and $125,000.
We will, however, briefly take in the view from the top. For the seven that have detached themselves from that penultimate tier nowadays include NYQUIST, who justified last year's giddy leap from $85,000 to $175,000 by including four elite scorers among his dozen graded stakes winners in 2025. His incoming juveniles were sired at just $55,000, and retailed at $346,209 (median $300,000), so there's a lesson for us all-in terms of judging a stallion prematurely-in the backwards step he took with a single graded stakes winner as a second-crop sire. The reality is that his 36 stakes winners have come at a ratio matched or bettered by his much cheaper neighbors Hard Spun, Street Sense and Midshipman. But his good ones have been very good, and 11 Grade I winners from his first six crops put Nyquist on track to keep consolidating as his mare upgrade cycles through.
Heading the other way, in terms of career trajectory, is former champion TAPIT who barely made the top 30 of the 2025 general sires' list. But that is all about his diminishing footprint, his book having been carefully managed for several years already, and $185,000 must be as close to “value” as you can find at this level. No need to reprise his eye-watering aggregates, but it's worth reiterating that he retrieved his broodmare sire crown in 2025, when his daughters produced 13 graded stakes winners. His latest yearlings kept him in the top six at the sales, and the bottom line is that this is a breed-shaping influence now with an extremely finite span of activity. If you can get to him, it is a privilege beyond price.
Of the top quintet, the one anomaly of 2025 was the way JUSTIFY was mysteriously undervalued by the domestic market, which evidently treated his sensational impact in Europe as somehow cause for hesitation. As a result, he retreats to $200,000 from $250,000. A year after City Of Troy emerged from his second crop to win the Derby at Epsom, two sons from his third respectively won the 2,000 Guineas and St Leger. The fact that he has already won all three British colts' Classics, across the distance spectrum, shows just what European breeders have been missing by neglecting the kind of dirt sires who set off fast but then keep going. Justify has barely got started, yet already has nine elite scorers. With 244 mares paying top dollar last year, he is going to be a breed-shaper. If you want to be narrow-minded, that's your prerogative, but gosh they'd pay anything to be using him in Europe.
Of those above him, nothing to say. If you could afford $250,000 for INTO MISCHIEF or the young pretenders vying for the succession, NOT THIS TIME and GUN RUNNER, or $225,000 for the enduing gold standard represented by CURLIN, then you'd just pay it-and choose between them according to the make and shape of your mare, and what else she might need to complement her strengths.
That quartet lived up to their fees as four of the only five sires to achieve a median of $500,000 or more with their latest yearlings. The interloper was FLIGHTLINE, whose debut crop put him second in the averages with 57 sold of 65 at $737,274 and a median of $600,000, behind only Gun Runner on both indices. At this point I will reliably point out that anyone who thought he was worth $200,000 to conceive those horses should be glad to pay $125,000 now, though nobody can yet say whether even so freakish a runner (albeit notoriously over the span of just six starts) will be an equal success in his new career. The only guarantee is that the restrained management of his books will continue to serve his clients well, which can itself only help to maintain full subscription.
GOOD MAGIC holds his fee at $125,000, leaving his backers to hold their nerve after a single stakes winner in 2025. That hardly tells the whole story, as he had three seconds in elite company. Cynics might treat the rise of Baeza to point out that the wondermare Puca (Big Brown) also had a considerable role in Good Magic boasting Classic winners from both his first two crops. But his retort is obvious, as he has also given us three other Grade I winners-bringing him up to four sons at stud in Kentucky already-while his incoming yearlings will be the first following the major fee hike earned by Mage. Remember he only narrowly missed the freshman title, before Mage had ever run, which earned him an initial advance from $30,000 to $50,000. That was duly the conception fee of the 102 yearlings offered last year, of which 80 retailed at $295,643 (median $200,000).
CONSTITUTION seems to have found his level for now, standing at $110,000 for a fourth year after again making the top six in the general sires' table. Mindframe delivered his third Grade I victory, and arguably was his first true headliner since Tiz the Law emerged from his debut crop. It's a significant rise but deserved for a horse who dipped to $15,000 during the 2019 bubble, underscoring that he's found his stride over the past couple of seasons.. His latest yearlings, indeed, were his first as a six-figure cover and averaged $297,056 ($215,000 median) for 71 sold of 79 offered. Overall he's up to 52 black-type winners at 6.3 percent of named foals, 25 at graded level, and duly sets Flightline a solid standard to meet as heir to their ageing sire.
PRACTICAL JOKE finished just a few cents behind Constitution and looks tempting at $75,000. In 2025 his fee was doubled, for the second year running, to $100,000-which turned out to be precisely the median meanwhile achieved by his latest yearlings. Those, however, were sired at just $25,000, and posted an average of $147,872. Moreover there were no fewer than 263 mares that deemed him deserving of a six-figure fee last year, so there's a ton of action coming down the line. His best days lie ahead, which is saying plenty for the sire of five Grade I winners already.
OSCAR PERFORMANCE climbs for the fourth year running, this time to $60,000 from $45,000, in what has proved a superb return to the stallion game for his farm. He had a very small crop of juveniles, sired at just $12,500 in his bubble, but he has been fully subscribed since and the pipeline is overflowing. In the meantime his maturing stock kept him in the game with nine stakes scorers, five at graded level including GI Saratoga Derby winner World Beater, from 144 starters. His first revived book, still only conceived at $20,000, averaged $104,704 ($70,000 median) for 51 sold of 65 offered. The momentum is inexorably upwards from here, and it is high time the big European programs cottoned on.
The Spendthrift system has worked out metronomically in the past four freshman championships, and the last three cycles have each catapulted a young stallion to a fee that implies he may yet break into the elite. Each was given-and seized-major opportunities, and will benefit from sustained quantity while cycling through upgraded quality.
It tells you much about this weird business that the senior of this trio, OMAHA BEACH, achieved a higher average ($201,689) with his first crop of yearlings in 2022, when absolutely unproven, than he did with his fourth, when his established prowess saw 63 of 81 sold at $128,701 ($90,000 median). His fee, however, has more than doubled for 2025-from $35,000 to $75,000-after Grade I wins for members of both his first two crops, in Kopion and Nevada Beach. That takes him to 25 stakes winners overall, from 295 starters, and the 16 he assembled in 2025 were exceeded only by the biggest of big guns.
In terms of ratio, mind you, the next guy did even better: with a second crop in play, VEKOMA had 15 black-type winners from 188 starters to smash his way as high as 13th in the general sires' list. Never mind all the volume that sustains these young horses, this one is proving uncannily consistent. Measured by the simplest of all measures, winners to starters, he was batting off the charts: 117 into the winner's circle in 2025, representing 62 percent against around 54 percent for Gun Runner and Not This Time. Vekoma duly hit plenty of home runs for those who used him on the bubble at $15,000 in 2023: of 106 resulting yearlings, 90 changed hands in 2025 at $163,715 (median $132,500). But a giddy hike from $35,000 to $100,000, while eventually likely to have an impact on the racetrack, leaves little margin for error in the meantime to a stallion now charging a lot more than many sires with numerous Grade I winners to their credit.
One of his big rivals, McKINZIE, famously has three of those already from just four graded stakes winners overall, and only nine black-type scorers of any description. This horse has a very useful propensity to hit the bull's-eye with his sharpest arrows, and of course his elevation from $35,000 to $75,000 last year should result in an eventual upgrade on the track. But he has been a buzz horse from the outset and looked after his own bubble clients nicely with 69 of 83 yearlings processed at $172,442 (median $100,000) in 2025.
Returning to the Spendthrift conveyor belt, YAUPON was preceded by rave reviews for his physique and covered more mares in his debut season than any other stallion bar Gun Runner. He duly dominated the freshman table, albeit in what proved a historically underachieving intake with a single graded stakes success between them. But at least Yaupon can boast of eight black-type scorers, from 82 starters, which beats his late sire Uncle Mo's seven (from 75) when himself champion freshman back in 2015. In this day and age he must be congratulated for a second crop of yearlings that very nearly matched the returns of his first, who of course were not “burdened” by the proof that he could replicate his own speed: 99 sold of 112 at $163,3030, for a $130,000 median.
Having dealt with the rookies separately, the newest name in this tier is CODY'S WISH. He is such a monster that we may have to get involved ahead of his first starters, but let's see what the going rate is then: he has been dropped from $75,000 to $60,000 despite a strong debut with his weanlings (average $277,224/median $235,000).
Life Is Good | Sarah Andrew
VALUE PODIUM
Bronze: QUALITY ROAD
Elusive Quality-Kobla (Strawberry Road {Aus})
$100,000 Lane's End
His fees between 2019 and 2024, either $150,000 or $200,000, left this horse nowhere to hide, his new fee looks a very sensible compromise relative to an impressive body of work: 95 stakes winners at a formidable 8.3 percent of named foals, including 17 at the highest level (the latest two in 2025, Clicquot and Hope Road).
And of course he remains a shimmering commercial stallion: the 33 yearlings he sold last year (of 39 offered) did something pretty extraordinary, achieving a considerably higher median at $450,000 than their $409,090 average. Stallions generally cover a multitude of sins with a few outliers, but Quality Road is just a superbly reliable operator at the sales. He deserves all the patience he may require.
Silver: LIFE IS GOOD
Into Mischief-Beach Walk (Distorted Humor)
$60,000 WinStar
I know, I know: a sheer guess. And I'm always chiding people for wasting mares on guesses. But the other recurring theme of this series has been the inconsistency, at ringside, of those who claim only to support new sires in the hope of catching the next big thing while still affordable, only to slink away from the same stallions just as they approach the hour of truth.
Unproven as his seed remains, Life Is Good has now taken his third consecutive fee cut since offering the same goods at $100,000 in his debut season. That investment paid off at the yearling sales, where 81 yearlings (96 offered) averaged $310,740, with a median $275,000. And with a battalion of runners out of mares deemed worthy of a six-figure cover, this tremendously dashing animal can hardly fail to make a big impact on the freshman table.
Well, he can. Of course he can. But if you truly believed in him at $100,000, you need to follow through now.
It was only natural, and very sporting, to try to stretch out his speed. But just remind yourself of the way he pulverised top-class horses when sticking to his strengths: from the day he announced himself by thrashing Medina Spirit by eight lengths, to his destruction of a peak-form Knicks Go in the GI Pegasus. Breeders will never tire of this cross and Into Mischief has surely never sent a faster son to stud.
Gold: TWIRLING CANDY
Candy Ride (Arg)-House of Danzing (Chester House)
$75,000 Lane's End
There's a limit to how far you could hike his fee, when he pays such a penalty at the sales for his proficiency on turf: $186,070 (median $135,000) was a perfectly respectable yield for his latest yearlings, next to their $60,000 conception fee, but made it hard to reward him adequately for a year in which he banked more prizemoney than any American stallion bar Into Mischief, Not This Time and Gun Runner. Another three Grade I winners take him up to a dozen overall, among 62 stakes winners at 5.7 percent of named foals.
His ratios are in line with those of his venerable sire CANDY RIDE (Arg), himself available in the evening of his career at just $60,000-tempting enough, for the sire additionally of Gun Runner and Vekoma…. And while his turf earnings were second only to Not This Time, Twirling Candy is similarly versatile in terms of metier, with graded stakes winners in 2025 from 5.5 to 11 furlongs. That evokes his own record, as a Grade I winner both in a dirt sprint and round a second turn on turf.
Remember he only reached $40,000 in 2020, having bumped along at fees between $10,000 and $15,000 for his first five years at stud. He has had to earn his stripes, and still can't get the credit he is due, but no racetrack program either side of the water should be neglecting the opportunity his slow-burning trajectory has produced.
The post Kentucky Value Sires for 2026: Part 6 – The Big Guns appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.
