Although he has only 94 foals of racing age, runners by the Maryland stallion Blofeld continue to put up incredible statistics, and he remains the most promising stallion in the Mid-Atlantic as his biggest crop of 2YOs readies to reach the races in 2025.
Thus far, 68 of those 94 foals have run, and 58 of them are winners (85%). Eight of them are black-type winners (12%), and eight more are black-type placed (for 24% black-type horses to runners, which is astronomical). His average earnings per starter sits at $101,241 (and his highest earner has just over $400k in the bank — meaning the average is not skewed by a single outlier, as further witnessed by his median earnings per runner of $74,494). His AEI vs. CI ratio remains outstanding at 1.46 vs. 1.16. Although Blofeld’s 2YO crop of 2024 was his smallest ever at just 20 foals, he has a pair of black-type winners among the eight runners from that bunch, including the undefeated, three-time Ohio-bred stakes winner Silver Kiss and open company winner Beautiful Blome.
And Blofeld’s 2024 total of five black-type winners from 55 runners gives him the highest percentage (9.1%) of any stallion anywhere in the country!
With at least 55 yearlings having just turned 2YO for 2025, we fully expect Blofeld to move further up the Mid-Atlantic sire rankings (which are based on gross earnings, rather than percentages) by this time next year. And given that he’s been the most popular stallion in the region for three years running, he will maintain that trajectory for the foreseeable future.
His proven status makes him a perfect match for a mare being bred for the first time, and he should be a great fit for the $273k earner Dulce Kiara for that and plenty of other reasons.
Dulce Kiara is a daughter of the former Maryland stallion Bandbox, one of the early sons of leading sire Tapit, who scored his biggest victory in the G3 General George Handicap at Laurel for Ellen Charles and Rodney Jenkins and then stood in Maryland at Northview, where he sired seven black-type winners in a short stud career.
Interestingly, TrueNicks rates Dulce Kiara to Blofeld as a “D”, looking at the cross of Quality Road with Pulpit-line mares. But from just a single foal of racing age out of such a mare, Blofeld himself has sired the black-type winner Johnyz From Albany. And when Blofeld has been crossed with A.P. Indy-line mares more generally, he has produced three additional foals to race, all winners, including another black-type winner and a black-type placed winner — so 50% BTWs and 75% BTHs, meaning this is yet another case where we think that nick ratings are pretty limited in their utility and applicability. (Indeed, the Blofeld/AP Indy cross rates an “A++” on TrueNicks.)
Dulce Kiara’s female family hasn’t had chances with stallions from Blofeld’s Gone West sire-line, but it has succeeded with a variety of Mr. Prospector-line stallions through the generations, and we see no reasons that it can’t have success with Blofeld, too. Especially as Dulce Kiara’s Blofeld foal will have 3×4 inbreeding to Storm Cat, and half of Blofeld’s black-type winners are inbred to that former Overbrook legend.
Physically, Dulce Kiara and Blofeld are a nice case of like-to-like as good-sized, lengthy and well-balanced individuals. Blofeld was at his best up to a mile and at 2YO, which should add a nice dose of precocity to Dulce Kiara, who did her best running short (on both dirt and turf; Blofeld’s offspring have also been successful on both) but from 3YO through 6YO.
So all-in-all, this is a mating that we are very excited about and have a lot of confidence in to kick off Dulce Kiara’s breeding career!