Bill's Columns

APEX (Annual Progeny Earnings indeX) Stallion Ratings are a proprietary method of assessing sire performance developed at the newsletter Racing Update in the 1990’s; essentially they are an enhancement of the average-earnings index. Rankings both by progeny earnings and the average-earnings index are liable to be dramatically skewed by one big earner; APEX ratings address that issue by indexing the frequency with which sires have runners which attain specified earnings thresholds, by identifying three class bands: A Runners (the top 2% of earners/runners in a given jurisdiction in a year, part of year, or season); B Runners (the next 2%); C Runners (the next 4%); and ABC Runners (the top 8% combined).

Like the average-earnings index, APEX ratings are calculated on an annual basis, in other words, for each region, each year (or, for Mid-Year APEX, part of a year; these figures were calculated by the Jockey Club Information Systems through racing of July 12). The figures cover three Regions in the Northern Hemisphere: North America (US and Canada); Europe (Britain/Ireland, France, and Germany); and Japan. The calculations for each region each year are simply added together going back seven years, and include only sires with 10 or more 3-year-olds of the final year covered (in this case, foals of 2017). At Midyear 2020 there are APEX ratings assigned to 705 sires, 97 in Japan and 608 in North America and Europe (sires are included even if they’ve been exported, died, or retired, for as long as they have 3-year-olds in North American-, European-, or Japanese-sired crops).

Of the 608 North American and European sires rated, 368 have had 200 or more year-starters since the beginning of 2014. One horse is counted as one year-starter each year it starts, up to seven, and one horse can be an A Runner every year its earnings reach the A Runner earnings threshold, again up to seven. Over time, we find that 4% of foals become A Runners at some point during their careers, which is roughly the same percentage as Listed and Group winners combined.

After three consecutive semi-annual runs where he was upstaged for the number one ranking by his son Frankel, Galileo has reclaimed the top spot among the 368 North American and European APEX sires with 200+ year-starters, with a blockbuster 6.16 A Runner Index (that’s 12.32% of runners), with Frankel (5.54, or 11.08% of runners) coming a close second. Dubawi (4.95, or 9.90% of runners) is third, followed by the top three American sires: War Front (4.18), Tapit (3.48), and Medaglia D’Oro (3.41). The latter is tied with the top NA/EU sire by A Runner Index with his first 4-year-olds, F2016 Sea The Moon (3.41); his sire, Sea The Stars (3.23) and the late Shamardal (2.95) are other European sires who rank among the top 12. Three more American sires are among the top 12: Uncle Mo (3.28), Curlin (3.14), and Ghostzapper (2.87), so the top 12 are split evenly, six in Europe and six in North America.

Though young sires can make a big splash when they first start out, it’s noticeable that older, more established sires tend to dominate this list; only seven of the top 50 sires have their first 5-year-olds (first foals 2015) or 4-year-olds (first foals 2016) this year. Of the top 19 sires with A Runner indexes of 2.67+, only three have fewer than 1,000 year-starters: Frankel (605), who has only had runners since 2016; Sea The Moon (205); and Fastnet Rock (873, which is still about 125 starters a year). Similarly, 20 of the 23 sires with 200+ year-starters and A Runner indexes of 2.50+ are older, more proven sires.

Having said that, the 2016 sire crop seems quite a strong one, especially in Europe, which supplies four F2016 sires among the top 30. All four have between 14-17 A Runners to date, though Sea The Moon (3.41), who stood this year for what looks like a bargain £15,000 at England’s Lanwades Stud and had his first G1 winner this year, at Royal Ascot when Alpine Star won the G1 Coronation S., has the highest A Runner Index of the four. Coolmore’s Australia (2.60) has had a good spring, as his first runners have turned four and he has his second crop of 3-year-olds, while the now well-established six-figure sires Kingman (2.50) and No Nay Never (2.37) also achieve high rankings. To be fair, none of the top American F2016 sires even had 200 year-starters: New York’s Central Banker (2.27), a son of the increasingly influential Speightstown, barely misses, with 198 year-starters; Mucho Macho Man (1.79) and Uncaptured (1.70), who made a good start in Florida and was scooped up for South Korea, also rank among the NA-EU F2016 top 15, with 168 and 176 year-starters respectively. Another F2016 sire who has had a very good 2020 so far is Anodin, who made a very slow start at stud but is now up to a 1.87 A Runner Index.

Three F2015 sires, now with their first 5-year-olds, rank among the top 50: Camelot (2.39); Declaration of War (2.23), an ex-Coolmore sire who stood one season in Ireland and four seasons at Ashford in Kentucky before his sale to Japan (final US crop yearlings this year); and Intello (2.02), who has rotated between England’s Cheveley Park Stud and France’s Haras du Quesnay. The leading American F2015 sire is Paynter (1.76), who is up to third among this sire crop with 18 A Runners, and who was undoubtedly the 2020 bargain of the year, at just $10,000 at WinStar. But the overall F2015 leader is Darley’s Farhh, a lightly-raced but very good son of Pivotal who has only 116 year-starters, but 10 A Runners, for an impressive 4.31 A Runner Index.

The youngest group covered by APEX ratings are sires with their first 3-year-olds, their first foals in 2017, and there have been some impressive starts, including three sires with 100+ year-starters and A Runner Indexes above 3.00: Ashford’s American Pharoah (3.24), who is so far scoring more on turf than on dirt; WinStar’s Constitution (3.06), the best son so far by Tapit, and sire of the strong G1 Travers and Kentucky Derby favorite, Tiz The Law; and Darley’s Night of Thunder (3.04), the only horse to ever beat Kingman, and Dubawi’s best son to date. No fewer than eight F2017 sires with 75+ year-starters have kicked off with A Runner Indexes of 2.00+, also including: Ashford’s Competitive Edge (2.70); Ireland’s Ballylinch Stud’s Make Believe (2.45), sire of the G1 Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby) winner Mishriff; Florida’s Journeyman Stud’s over-achiever Khozan (2.36); Lane’s End’s Liam’s Map (2.23), sire of two 2-year-old G1 winners in 2019; and Gainesway’s Karakontie (2.00), another $10,000 over-achiever. Besides Liam’s Map, Lane’s End has two other prominent F2017 sires, and both are showing promise with their first 3-year-olds: Honor Code (1.50) is the sire of G1 Santa Anita Derby winner Honor A.P.; and Tonalist, whose A Runner Index was 0.93 on July 12, but improved to 1.40 when Country Grammer won the G3 Peter Pan on Saratoga’s opening day, July 16.

One caveat we must add is that, being earnings-based, the thresholds for top 8% runners thus far in 2020 have understandably been lower than in the past, due to the interruption of racing and purse reductions resulting from Covid-19. In 2019, for example, the mid-year earnings thresholds for the five jurisdictions which we cover (North America, Britain/Ireland, France, Germany, and Japan) ranged between 56%-70% of the previous year’s (2018) final earnings thresholds. This year the North American and European thresholds have ranged between 32-48%, with only Japan (68%) following what was previously the normal pattern. There are always a certain number of horses who were A Runners using mid-year thresholds who ended up as B Runners or even C Runners at the end of the year through not adding sufficient earnings in the second half of the year, and that could happen even more this year, although if earnings remain suppressed through the remainder of the year it would be correspondingly less of an issue.

For more articles by Bill Oppenheim, APEX ratings, and Brianne Stanley’s Worldwide Sales Ticker, please visit www.billoppenheim.com. Twitter @billoppenheim