The well-bred but unraced American Thriller was sent to proven sires Candy Ride and Maclean’s Music for her first two match-ups, and in 2025 will get a shot with a young stallion who got off to a strong start and now has significant upside in Hill ‘N’ Dale’s Army Mule.
Just to hit the highlights on why we love Army Mule at the moment, even though he only ran three times, he was undefeated by a combined 22-1/4 lengths, including a win in the G1 Carter with a 114 Beyer; and even though he was the son of a regional stallion, his looks and stride were good for an $825,000 price tag as a 2YO in-training; and even though he started at the low end of the stud fee spectrum in Kentucky when made a $10,000 proposition his first year at stud (albeit at a farm, in John Sikura’s Hill ‘N’ Dale, which has made a regular habit of identifying brilliant but very lightly-raced prospects who succeed at stud), his progeny came out firing as 2YOs in 2022 and he wound up 4th on the Freshman Sire List behind Bolt d’Oro, Good Magic and Justify, who had all started at much higher fees and had at least a third more foals than Army Mule.

Army Mule’s total of five black-type winners was just one less than the six that each of those top three freshman sires had, and he had seven additional black-type horses to his credit as well. Since then, Army Mule has added Grade 2 winner Danse Macabre and Grade 1 winner One In Vermillion to his tally, as well as 2024 Grade 3 winner Federal Judge. He is now up to 13 black-type winners from 142 runners (9.2%), with nine additional black-type horses (15.5%). And his AEI to CI ratio is an excellent (1.36/1.09). That CI also indicates that what Army Mule has achieved so far has been done without much help at all from his mates, which is not surprising for a stallion starting at the fee he did in Kentucky.
Army Mule had a somewhat quiet 2024 (though Federal Judge was a brilliant winner of the G3 Phoenix and among the favorites for the G1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, while classic-placed Stanley House hit the board in a handful of graded stakes this year), but that wasn’t totally unexpected with his smallest crop of 2YOs coming to the races in ‘24. But he covered a third more mares in 2022 (115) than he did in 2021 (83), once people had seen his first yearlings and his first juveniles at the breeze-up sales, and that crop will be racing as juveniles in 2025.
His 2023 book was almost twice as big again (at 199) after that first crop had run in 2022, despite a fee raise to $12,500 (which went even higher towards the end of the breeding season as his book filled up). He covered 160 mares in 2024 at an advertised fee of $25,000 following the graded scores by One In Vermillion and Danse Macabre.
With a slight drop to $20,000 for 2025, knowing what Army Mule has already done and what he has every right to do in the next few years, Army Mule looks like easily the best value in Kentucky this year. The commercial market has still been kind to him despite his quiet year (his yearlings averaged $74,572 in ‘24 for 44 sold; in ‘23 it was $75,765 for 40 sold), and it will continue to embrace him as his better-bred yearlings come through starting in 2025.
In American Thriller, he gets a mate that comes from a deep, classy and commercial female family that features her BTW dam Thrilled (a full-sister to G3PW Beside Herself, a $475k broodmare purchase in ‘24 carrying her first foal), her G3W second dam Excited (a full-sister to BTW Wait Til Dawn), and her BTW third dam Path of Thunder (a full-sister to G1W Spain). Many members of this family are part of the Coolmore broodmare band, and as such there are relatives to American Thriller in the pipeline by the likes of Uncle Mo, Justify, American Pharoah and Munnings.

There haven’t been many foals in this family sired by AP Indy-line stallions (those not having been prevalent at Ashford for whatever reason), but Army Mule has five winners from seven runners out of Unbridled-line mares like American Thriller, including a BTW (and a pair of winners from three runners out of Empire Maker granddaughters more specifically). He also has a BTW from just two foals out of Uncle Mo mares (he being American Thriller’s broodmare sire) — so that all bodes well, we think.
We also believe that Army Mule’s speed and precocity, as well as his powerful but “neater” physical will complement American Pharoah’s own proclivities and that of her family, which have tended more towards distance racing in the more recent generations (although her full-sister, Girl Like You, was a 2YO winner sprinting for Joseph O’Brien in ‘24) — and this blend ought to produce a very commercial foal that goes on to a successful racing career!