CURLIN’s fee for 2023 at Hill ‘n’ Dale was increased from $175,000 to $225,000, and was announced before the Breeders’ Cup.

At the meeting he sired three Grade 1 winners, Malathaat in the Distaff, Elite Power in the Sprint and Cody’s Wish in the Dirt Mile. He looks assured of a top-three finish now this season, and perhaps that fee could have been set at $250,000 had his owners waited. That said, champion sire-elect Into Mischief will command a quarter of a million in 2023, while the likely runner-up Quality Road is set to cover at $200,000.

An initial stud fee of $75,000 at Lane’s End Farm for Curlin was almost halved for the next four years, and fell to a career low of $25,000 for 2013 and 2014. A small rise was followed by a massive jump to $100,000 with a move to his present home six years ago. Horse of the Year at three and four, his only seasons to race, Curlin’s $100,000 fee was for one year only, and moved in increments to $175,000 over the last three years.

Never out of the money in 14 starts, Shadwell’s 10-time winner Malathaat won her sixth Grade 1 and took her winnings to just short of $3.8 million with success in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff, a race in which she was third last year – the only time she finished out of the first two. Champion last year, the four-year-old Malathaat has certainly repaid Sheikh Hamdan’s investment of $1,050,000 at the Keeneland September Sale.

Matched

Malathaat has matched her dam and grandam in being a Grade 1 winner. She is out of Dreaming Of Julia (A.P.Indy), winner of the Frizette Stakes and placed in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

Raced by Barbara Banke’s Stonestreet Stables, Dreaming Of Julia shared with her dam, Dream Rush (Wild Rush), the distinction of winning half her starts, though the latter ran 16 times and won twice at Grade 1 level, in the Darley Test Stakes and Prioress Stakes.

All of Curlin’s Breeders’ Cup winners this week are from his 2018 crop. Cody’s Wish was part of a magic few days for Godolphin, and their homebred has won seven of his 11 starts and never been out of the money. He did not race at two and his six starts last year didn’t include a stakes race.

This year all his runs have been in stakes, and his win in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile follows victory in the Grade 1 Forego Stakes.

Cody’s Wish is out of the Grade 1 winner Dance Card (Tapit). She cost Godolphin $750,000 at two, won four of her seven starts including the Grade 1 Gazelle Stakes, and ran third in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint. Dance Card and Cody’s Wish are the only Grade 1 winners in five generations of this family.

Elite Power

Juddmonte enjoyed success in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint on dirt with Elite Power. What a year it has been for the $900,000 yearling purchase who did not race at two, was unplaced on both his starts at three, and this year has won five of his six outings. His first run in a stakes race was victorious, landing the Grade 2 Vosburgh Stakes, and this was his second stakes run.

Elite Power is the only runner from his Grade 2-winning dam Broadway’s Alibi (Vindication), and she cost his breeders, Alpha Delta Stables, $2.15 million as a four-year-old. She has finally, nine years later, justified that investment. Broadway’s Alibi’s stakes-winning dam, Broadway Gold (Seeking The Gold), is a half-sister to the Grade 1 Florida Derby winner and Grade 1 sire Dialed In (Mineshaft).