(Read on Substack at: https://housatonicbloodstock.substack.com/p/housatonic-recommended-matings-for-ab7)
No More Excuses was a $102,000 yearling by the regional sire Not For Love, which speaks to her attractiveness as an individual. After winning 14 races and earning over a quarter-million dollars on the track, she has consistently produced beautiful, commercially appealing foals — earning herself trips to higher stud fee stallions each year. In 2024 she’ll visit her most expensive mate yet, and also the one that perhaps fits her better than any she’s gone to before, when she heads to Hill ‘N’ Dale for a date with Army Mule.
Despite being by the regionally-based Friesan Fire, Army Mule nevertheless brought $825,000 as a 2YO in-training based on his powerful physique and excellent pre-sale breeze. Campaigned by St. Elias Stable with trainer Todd Pletcher, Army Mule only ran three times, but won all three of those starts by open lengths, including the G1 Carter in just his third career start. Given a shot at stud at Hill ‘n’ Dale (also the starting place of such lightly-raced but successful stallions as Candy Ride and Maclean’s Music), Army Mule started at an initial fee of $10,000. His first crop, which raced in 2022, overcame that lower fee and a relatively low quality of mares (his career CI currently sits at 1.04) to rank Army Mule 4th on the Leading Freshman Sire List, behind only Bolt d’Oro, Justify and Good Magic — who each also had between 30 and 50 more foals to take to the races than Army Mule did.
With another year under his belt, Army Mule now has ten black-type winners plus six more black-type earners to his credit from just 109 starters, giving him an excellent 14.7% black-type earners/runners, and he has a very strong 1.49 AEI to go with that 1.04 CI, which is a pretty incredible ratio indicating that he’s achieving all this early success with practically no help from his mates.
Having received a fee bump to $25,000 for 2024 (he was officially $12,500 in 2023 but with seasons trading for close to double that later in the season during which he ended up covering a total of 199 mares), we fully expect that Army Mule’s statistics will look even better in a few years as the foals from these higher quality of mares come to the races. And he has already received a commercial boost on the basis of his race results with 40 third crop yearlings averaging $75,940 in 2023 (a big jump from the $59,155 averaged by 29 second crop yearlings sold in 2022 — both these yearling crops conceived off of $7,500 advertised fees).
His status as a son of Friesan Fire is actually a point in his favor with regards to No More Excuses, as she is a half-sister to that stallion’s Maryland Million Classic-winning son Saratoga Bob — making this matchup one we’ve been thinking about for a couple years now. In addition, the A.P. Indy/Not For Love cross has been very successful despite Not For Love’s status as a regional stallion, with his daughters having produced the A.P. Indy-line G1Ws California Chrome and Max Player among 19 total stakes winners bred this way (TrueNicks rates it an “A”).
Physically, as mentioned earlier, No More Excuses is a strapping, stretchy mare of perfect conformation and with tons of substance — she’s very easy to match with just about any type stallion, and should be a very nice like-to-like with Army Mule, who might benefit from the bit of length that she has over him. We also like that he’ll bring some precocity to the mix, as her family can tend to be a bit later-maturing. And whereas Army Mule was a bit fragile (a trait that he isn’t passing on so far), No More Excuses was hardy and tough, facing the starter 48 times in her career.
So we’re keeping our fingers crossed for a foal from this pairing that is successful both commercially at the sales and on the racetrack!
