Bucchero’s proven consistency and versatility (which he demonstrated on the racetrack and is now passing along at stud) make him exactly the type of stallion that’s perfect for the New York-bred market, where the installation of a synthetic surface is imminent at Belmont, and where breeder bonuses for state-sired runners are twice what the bonus would be for an out of state (i.e., Kentucky)-sired runner. Not to mention a program where state-bred restricted races have purse parity with their open-company equivalents.
Bucchero was a winner and black-type performer each year from 2YO through 6YO; on dirt, turf and synthetic; and from 5 furlongs to 1-1/16 miles. He scored his biggest victories when going back-to-back in Keeneland’s Woodford Stakes-G2 at 5YO and 6YO at 5-1/2 furlongs on turf. That status as predominantly a turf sprinter, when combined with being a son of Kantharos, meant that he started his stallion career in Florida rather than Kentucky. But the unwavering and vocal support of his ownership group meant that he got every chance in Florida, covering 471 mares in his five years there.
His oldest runners are 5YOs in 2025, and from 214 foals of racing age he has sired 160 runners, 110 of which have won a race. Most impressively, his runners have finished in the top three in 49% of their races, which is an astronomical figure for a sire’s runners.
Bucchero has so far sired seven black-type winners, including 2024 Grade 1 winner Book’em Danno, and another nine of his offspring have earned black-type (which equates to 16 black-type horses from 160 runners, a very strong 10%). He has a higher AEI than CI, which is a ratio that we put a lot of stock in, and his runners have shown the same surface versatility as Bucchero himself did (Book’em Danno is a G1W on dirt, Beauty of the Sea is a black-type winner on turf, and Bucaro is a black-type winner on all-weather). Most interestingly, though, with Belmont Park adding a synthetic surface shortly (as mentioned above), Bucchero is the leading US synthetic sire already, despite all of his foals of racing age having been conceived in Florida where purses are significantly lower than what they are in Kentucky and what they will be for his state-sired runners in New York.
Book’em Danno is out of a Ghostzapper mare, which is what makes Bucchero especially intriguing for Zarella, a daughter of Ghostzapper. Bucchero has an additional winner from his only other foal out of a Ghostzapper mare, and he also has two winners from two runners out of mares by Ghostzapper’s sire Awesome Again, one of those being black-type placed. TrueNicks rates this Kantharos/Awesome Again cross an “A+”. And the success of Bucchero (and Kantharos) with Ghostzapper mares is not too surprising, given that other Storm Cat-line stallions have also clicked with such mares to produce the likes of Triple Crown winner Justify (by Scat Daddy), plus Eclipse Champions Drefong (by Gio Ponti) and Up to the Mark (by Not This Time).
In addition to this being a strong cross for Bucchero, Zarella is a half-sister to a winner by the Storm Cat-line stallion Into Mischief, which led us to send her to a son of his last year on this same broad cross.
Physically, Bucchero will suit Zarella well — like many from Ghostzapper/Awesome Again line, she is a solidly-made, slightly close-coupled mare, but with plenty of leg, and he is a muscular, medium-sized individual who prefers a mare with some leg.
All of which leads us to believe that their foal will be a precocious and talented runner to rack up New York-bred bonuses for many years on many surfaces once it reaches the races!