One of the stallion prospects retiring for 2025 that we are most excited about is Prince of Monaco, who enters stud at Claiborne Farm, and we will be recommending him heavily in his first year.
Bred by Stonestreet Farm, Prince of Monaco is a son of the Eclipse Champion, leading sire, and sire-of-sires Speightstown, out of a young Medaglia d’Oro mare from a wickedly fast female family. His fantastic physical led him to be purchased by “the Avengers” group at Saratoga for just shy of a million dollars.
Debuting over just 5 furlongs at 2 for Bob Baffert, Prince of Monaco won by 8 and was named a TDN Rising Star. In his second start, he set a stakes record in the Grade 3 Best Pal Stakes, earning a 103 Beyer Speed Figure, and he then triumphed in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity as a 1/9 shot, making him the only Grade 1-winning juvenile sired by Speightstown over that stallion’s long and successful stud career.
Prince of Monaco returned at 3 to finish a close 2nd in both of Saratoga’s historic, Grade 1, 7-furlong sophomore sprints, namely the Woody Stephens and the H. Allen Jerkens. His Ragozin numbers in both of those races were better than the winners’. He retired with three wins and two 2nds from six starts, and figures to have a huge chance to join Speightstown’s successful stallion sons.
Prince of Monaco is bred on what is probably Speightstown’s best cross, being out of a Medaglia d’Oro mare, as the other successful runners bred that way include Grade 1 winners Rock Fall, Olympiad and Competitionofideas. But another extremely successful nick for Speightstown has been that with Tapit mares, a nick which has resulted in Grade 1 winner Lexitonian, Grade 2 winners Bonny South and Finite, Grade 3 winner Scalable, black-type winner Cambria, etc. TrueNicks rates it an “A”. As such, we think that Prince of Monaco will be a perfect mate for the black-type winning young mare Why Not Tonight, by Tapit’s son Tapiture.
Why Not Tonight was the first black-type winner for our friends at Wasabi Ventures Stables, having taken the All Brandy Stakes as a 4YO (to go with a trio of wins at 3). Why Not Tonight’s most successful sibling, a six-figure earner named Lost Weekend, is sired by a horse called Great Notion, a grandson of Gone West just like Prince of Monaco. So that gives us additional confidence in this mating on paper.
Why Not Tonight also has a big, beautiful physical to go with her racing success, which should match perfectly with Prince of Monaco. It’s a nice case of like-to-like, except that Why Not Tonight is just a tad long-bodied and Prince of Monaco a bit better balanced, which should hopefully result in a big, well-balanced and commercial foal.