|
|
|
I’m Engaged will visit a Mr. Prospector-line stallion for the first time in 2019, when she heads to the court of one of our favorite up-and-coming sires, Munnings, in a Housatonic Recommended Mating.
We have mentioned repeatedly how highly we think of Munnings as a stallion, and with his stud fee reduced to $20,000 in 2019, he has to be the best value sire in the business (if he wasn’t already). To hit some of the highlights: from his first 413 foals of racing age, including 128 2-year-olds of 2018, he has 27 stakes winners — an excellent 7%. This includes a pair of Grade 1 winners and eleven total Graded stakes winners. If you take this year’s 2-year-olds out of the stats (he does have one juvenile stakes winner this year), he has 9.5% stakes winners/foals aged 3 and up, and 3.9% Graded winners/foals. He has also accomplished this without much help from his mates so far, as he has a 1.61 AEI/1.27 CI ratio.
With his better-bred crops coming shortly (starting with his 2018 yearlings, of which 64 averaged almost $80,000 this year, compared to his 2017 yearling average of $52,000 for 56 sold), these statistics are only going to improve in the coming years.
The female family of I’m Engaged has had success with Gone West-line stallions, including 2017 stakes winner Raucous, by Speightstown (the sire of Munnings). Raucous’s fourth dam, Starlet Storm, is the second dam of I’m Engaged. There are also two other winners by grandsons of Gone West out of granddaughters of Starlet Storm.
Meanwhile, Munnings and his sire-line have done quite well with daughters of Broken Vow and other sons of Unbridled. Although Munnings does not yet have any runners from Broken Vow mares, he does have a stakes winner from just ten foals out of mares by other sons of Unbridled, and his sire, Speightstown, also has a stakes winner on that pattern. Taking it back another generation, Gone West’s sons and grandsons have so far sired seventeen foals out of daughters of Broken Vow, ten of which have raced and eight of those have won, including a pair of 2018 juvenile stakes winners (one of them a Grade 3 winner). And Gone West’s sons and grandsons with mares by sons of Unbridled have achieved a strong 3.8% stakes winners from foals, including Grade 1 winner The Lumber Guy and Grade 2 winner Laughing Lashes among ten total stakes winners.
Physically this is about as much of a case of like-to-like as you could ask for, with both Munnings and I’m Engaged being well-balanced, muscular, medium-sized horses, although I’m Engaged is a tad on the feminine side and hopefully the pairing with Munnings will bulk up her foal a bit.
Raucous, by Speightstown from the female family of I’m Engaged, wins the Chelsey Flower Stakes
Munnings wins the G2 Woody Stephens
Munnings wins the G2 Tom Fool
Munnings breezes prior to selling for $1.8 million at Calder