Gainesway's hallmark sire Tapit continued to build on his already sterling career at stud Nov. 6 at Keeneland when his son Essential Quality became his sixth Breeders' Cup World Championships winner after taking the TVG Breeders' Cup Juvenile Presented by Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (G1).
Among his World Championships winners, Tapit has been represented by three others in juvenile races and two earned Eclipse Awards for their connections.
Tapit got off to a fast start as a stallion with 2008 champion filly Stardom Bound in his first crop. Stardom Bound not only won the Bessemer Trust Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1), she also captured the Del Mar Debutante Stakes (G1) and Oak Leaf Stakes (G1). Tapit's son Hansen came along in 2011 to score an upset in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile by holding off heavily favored Union Rags to win by a head.
Now comes Essential Quality, a Godolphin homebred trained by Brad Cox, who previously proved himself in top-level competition by taking the Oct. 3 Claiborne Breeders' Futurity at Keeneland.
A 19-year-old son of Pulpit, Tapit has sired 138 black-type winners that include 86 graded/group winners. Of his stakes winners, 30 earned black-type at 2 and among these eight were grade 1 winners as juveniles.
His other elite performers at 2 include Laragh, another first-crop grade 1 winner that won the Hollywood Starlet Stakes (G1); Chasing Yesterday, a half sister to 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah , who won the Starlet; Tell a Kelly, who won the Darley Debutante; and Sweet Loretta and Pretty City Dancer, who dead-heated in the 2016 Spinaway Stakes (G1).
Prior to the opening day of Breeders' Cup, Tapit ranked a close third on the North American general leading sires list with $9,175,648 in progeny earnings for the year. Essential Quality's $1.04 million share of the $2 million Juvenile purse will be enough to raise Tapit's progeny earnings in excess of $10.2 million and push him past Ashford Stud's Uncle Mo for the runner-up spot behind Spendthrift Farm's Into Mischief .
Tapit is a fixture among the top sires and reigned as North America's leading sire for three consecutive years in 2014-16, while rewriting the record books each of those years for the most progeny earnings achieved by a stallion in a single season. In 2016, his runners amassed $19,245,198 on the BloodHorse general leading sires list.
Darley's first-crop sire Nyquist likely sewed up leading freshman sire honors Nov. 6 when his daughter Vequist won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1). Nyquist, a son of Uncle Mo , was already at the top of the standings by progeny earnings with $1,108,381. With Vequist's Breeders' Cup earnings, his total climbs to more than $2.14 million, which can typically seal the deal.
Ashford's American Pharoah got a big boost toward the 2019 leading freshman sire title after his son Four Wheel Drive won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (G2T), and Spendthrift Farm's Cross Traffic earned the freshman title after his daughter Jaywalk won the 2018 Juvenile Fillies.
