pfrsue wrote:
Definitely. Let's ignore the fact that Barbaro and Bernardini never raced each other outside of the Preakness, so the question of who would have won if the breakdown hadn't occurred is pure speculation.
And ALL of this is irrelevant to the given discussion, that being, whether Bernardini is likely to be a reliable sire of sires, and his own stallion performance.
To be honest Bernardini's stallion performance to date reminds me a LOT of what Coolmore did with Fusaichi Pegasus--the lone Derby winner by Mr. Prospector, had a few very nice runners early on, fee jacked to $125,000, and subsequently fell, and fell, and fell, to where he is now.
You can make the same pedigree comparison: Mr. Prospector out of a Danzig mare! (Quiet American, while not the overall sire that Danzig was, is fast becoming an absolutely amazing broodmare sire.) You can make the same performance comparison: Only son of Mr Prospector to win the Kentucky Derby! vs. Only son of A.P. Indy to win the Preakness! You can make the same comparison of him standing at a juggernaut farm with the same kind of intense, high-quality mare support behind him.
In his first crops, Fu Peg sired Bandini, Roman Ruler, Andromeda's Hero, and the gallant Australian-bred Floral Pegasus. Only one, Roman Ruler, is still in Kentucky. Bernardini has Wilburn, Algorithms, To Honor and Serve, Stay Thirsty, and Bold Warrior in Kentucky and a few more elsewhere. If Bernardini does a Fu Peg-esque decline, these sons will end up competing directly against the produce of their sire, rather than being the poor-man's version, which will hurt them commercially.
At this point, and I know Pete for one will disagree with me, I think that he's an incredibly risky gamble at $150k. A big part of that gamble is to get a To Honor and Serve, where the syndication price makes up for the initial outlay, but for that to make sense, the stallion has to be producing consistently very high quality. Right now, Bernardini is not producing that quality, nor has he produced it consistently enough (like, say, War Front) to up the chances of winning that gamble.
LOL
