MOST stallion careers end in relative failure. That’s a fact. The measure of success has many parameters, and in the stallion world fashion can play a major part in deciding whether a sire can indeed be considered successful or not.

Take Afleet Alex (Afleet) as a case in point. Winner of two of the three Triple Crown races in the USA, and placed in the Kentucky Derby, he went to stud at Gainesway at four. Last season he completed his 16th season, but declining support has led to the decision to pension him at the age of just 20 years. His juvenile crop this year numbers just a dozen, while he has a mere four yearlings on the ground.

Afleet Alex’s two-year-olds bring the total number of horses of racing age by him to just over 1,000, an average over his entire career of some 70 or so a year. He has sired 39 blacktype winners, which is three per crop on average, and just about one-third of these were at graded stakes level. He was not a complete failure, but he was not a roaring success either.

Six of Afleet Alex’s 14 graded stakes winners were successful at the highest level. Dual Grade 1 winner Iotapa and Del Mar Oaks winner Sharla Rae are his best fillies, while his sons who succeeded at the top level were the Travers Stakes winner Afleet Express, Florida Derby winner Materiality, fellow Hopeful Stakes winner Dublin, and the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Texas Red. He also sired the Canadian champion Skywire and the Grade 2 Breeders’ Cup Marathon winner Afleet Again.

Reasonable record

Afleet Alex has compiled a reasonable record as a broodmare sire, his daughters responsible for 13 blacktype winners, all but two of them on dirt. One of these stands out. Afleet Alex’s daughter La Gran Bailadora is dam of the 2019 Grade 1 Belmont Stakes winner Sir Winston (Awesome Again). He ran fifth recently in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup, having won a Canadian Grade 3 in December.

Foaled in Florida, Afleet Alex sold as a yearling for $150,000 and then made just half that amount as a two-year-old. A month after his purchase he broke his maiden by more than 11 lengths at Del Mar and was even more impressive a fortnight later when capturing an allowance at the same track.

It was then on to Saratoga and, a little more than a month after his debut, he set a record time when winning the Grade 2 Sanford Stakes.

Stepped up in trip and class, he took his unbeaten record to four with victory in the seven-furlong Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes. After that he ran second in the mile and half a furlong Grade 1 Champagne Stakes and chased Wilko home in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

He won two of his first three starts in his sophomore year, including the then Grade 2 Arkansas Derby by a record distance, before finishing third behind Giacomo in the Kentucky Derby.

Triple Crown

His shortened career, due to injury, saw him run twice more, in the second and third legs of the Triple Crown, and he won both. His win in the Preakness Stakes is certainly worth looking at again as he stumbled, nearly went to his knees, his nose almost touched the dirt, and yet he recovered to win by almost five lengths.

These efforts earned him the Eclipse Award for best three-year-old colt and only Saint Liam denied him being crowned Horse of the Year. His initial stud fee of $40,000 for his first three seasons has been in a largely downward trajectory since, being at an all-time low of $6,500 in 2020. No fee was advertised last year.