As Thoroughbred racing heads into a new year, it faces the inevitable challenge of learning from the past 12 months and applying those lessons to a new year.
With 2026 at hand, BloodHorse has reprised its online year-end survey to ask some of the sport's leading individuals for their opinions on pertinent issues facing the sport.
Through Jan. 2 in the BloodHorse Daily and on www.bloodhorse.com, a select group of panelists will address issues such as field size, what participants tell newcomers they like most about the sport, fixed-odds wagering, foal crop size, the Breeders' Cup, and the Triple Crown. We continue the series today with a question about 2026 freshman sires.
While realizing there are countless other voices, the hope is that these answers will spark meaningful discussion within the industry.
Anyone who would like to offer their opinion is encouraged to submit it in writing to editorial@bloodhorse.com for inclusion in our Letters to the Editor. Longer pieces can be considered for an Industry Voices column.
To access our 2023 year-end survey, please click the following link for a pdf version.
Responses were edited for style and clarity.
Question: What freshman sire are you most looking forward to seeing his 2-year-olds race in 2026 and why?
Liz Crow, ELiTE Sales: I am most looking forward to seeing Jack Christopher 's 2-year-olds run, for obvious personal reasons (she was the buying agent for the stallion as a yearling), but also we purchased a few that look really nice down in Florida. He was a precocious 2-year-old himself and I'm excited to see his babies run. The other freshman sire I have really liked is Life Is Good . We have a few and have been extremely happy with them early on. They seem to enjoy their job on the track and are nice movers. This is a loaded class of freshman sires on paper and it will be a fun group to watch play out.
Bill Oppenheim, bloodstock analyst and journalist: I have to rephrase the question to add "besides Flightline ?" because how you can you not be excited to see the first 2-year-olds by "America's Frankel ," 6-for-6 lifetime with Beyer Speed Figures of 126 and 121?
But I'm excited also to see the first runners by Golden Pal , described by Wesley Ward as "the fastest horse I've ever trained" and by Uncle Mo out of the rocket turf sprinter Lady Shipman, by Midshipman . Uncle Mo was a big but beautifully balanced horse who was a record-breaking freshman sire in 2015 and has possibly authored a new branch of the Nasrullah line featuring Nyquist , Laoban, Mo Town , and Yaupon —and looks very good as a broodmare sire, too.
But Golden Pal inherited his sheer speed from Lady Shipman, who won 10 stakes on the lawn. Golden Pal won four grade 2's at 5 1/2 furlongs at Keeneland, including the 2020 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (now a grade 1), and also won the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint (G1T) at 5 furlongs at Del Mar in 2021. He was 0-for-3 on his trips to England so, okay, he didn't travel.
As a racehorse Golden Pal showed the size and class of Uncle Mo and the rocket speed of Lady Shipman; if he can reproduce himself at stud, "Katie bar the door."
Incidentally my take is this is the strongest group of upcoming freshman sires in recent memory so I'm looking forward to the whole group, which also includes Life Is Good, Not This Time 's Epicenter , Corniche , Jackie's Warrior , Jack Christopher, Gun Runner sons Early Voting and Cyberknife , Olympiad , and Mandaloun , all of whom entered stud in 2023 for $25,000-plus stud fees.
Ramiro Restrepo, bloodstock agent and owner: I got Life Is Good for myself. He's just an Adonis of a physical specimen. I even went back to see him out during the November sales. He's just an athletic bodybuilder. I mean, he reminds me of (former NFL wide receivers) David Boston, Terrell Owens. Just ripped and muscular and athletic. What a unit of an animal. His forearms and gaskins are just, like, just jacked. What a specimen of an animal.
My sleeper pick is Early Voting. Selfishly, I underbid him at the (2020 Keeneland September Yearling Sale) when I was really wet behind the ears as a bloodstock agent and chickened out at a number that if it had happened these days ... Because back then, you can't afford to make a mistake.
Mike Ryan and Klaravich Stables are really strong and super intelligent purchasers. It kind of gave me a lot of confidence to myself personally after the fact, when he became a classic winner, that I was seeing something in horses that were going on to do something.
Early Voting is a son of Gun Runner, big family and a real strong, stout horse. His babies were kind of a sleeper, pretty well received. I think he surprised a lot of people in the sales ring this year. The babies look a lot like him. I just think when you put all those pieces together, there should be a lot of excitement for Early Voting.
Tom Ryan, managing partner, SF Bloodstock and racing manager, SF Racing: Corniche is the freshman sire whose first crop of 2-year-olds in 2026 most excites me.
Corniche meets all the criteria to be a classy "ready-made" freshman sire: a champion 2-year-old, unbeaten at 2, with brilliant speed that carried around two turns, culminating in his 2021 Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) win. Horses only have to show brilliance once to know it's in their blood; he reproduced it several times at 2.
Watching him train in California, he did things only genuinely elite juveniles can do, and his stock have backed that up in the sales ring, where his first yearlings have repeatedly outrun his fee.
As for Flightline and Life Is Good, they have every chance to become globally important sires, and their first-crop yearlings have already dominated the top of the market, reflecting extraordinary expectations.
Their brilliance and the depth of mares they covered may well show up in 2026. Still, their profiles and the type of mares they attracted suggest many of their best runners could be even better at 3, whereas Corniche feels a touch more immediate in terms of widespread juvenile impact.
Steve Young, bloodstock agent: This is probably one of the deeper crops of first-year sires going into their 2-year-old year that I can remember. There are literally more than 10 horses that are first-year sires who have the kind of credentials you like to see.
There's too many to name, but I think Flightline is a generational talent. I loved him as a yearling at Saratoga and I think he is as talented a horse as there's been in the last decade or so. John Sadler did a tremendous job training him.
That being said, he's back to being a maiden, as all first-year sires are.
I thought his babies at the sales looked as good as could be expected, and then some. They had terrific power. They had balance and they had a lot of athleticism about them. I think his babies will run earlier than he did and I could see from the looks of horses by him that he's capable of throwing summer 2-year-olds and just about anything else.
I've seen numerous other babies by first-year stallions and bought a Jack Christopher last fall. He looked like a special horse at that time and I've gotten nothing but great reports about him out of Ocala.
I've also seen some very nice babies by Life Is Good and Nashville as well.
