IS this the best value sire standing in the highly-competitive US stallion market?

At $5,000, Cupid is the least expensive of the 14 sires rostered for 2022 at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky. Last weekend he sired the third stakes winner from his first crop when Sterling Silver won the Franklin Square Stakes at Aqueduct, her second start and victory.

Last year Cupid’s first crop of juveniles threw up 20 winners and they included God Of Love, a Grade 3 winner, and The Sky Is Falling whose three wins in four starts include a pair of stakes wins. Cupid already has eight individual winners in January and he looks like a sire to follow.

Perhaps breeders did not expect precocity from this $900,000 yearling buy. A son of the very successful and influential Tapit (Pulpit), Cupid was beaten on his only two-year-old start. He won half of his eight starts at three, and they featured a trio of Grade 2 wins.

Improving with age, he captured two of his three outings at four, notably the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita, and a place at stud was assured.

Cupid’s fee has fallen rapidly from $12,500 to this year’s $5,000, and it doesn’t make sense given the success he is enjoying. This could be the year to take advantage of the value for money.