This past weekend’s jam-packed racing schedule, the last gasp of the win-and-you’re-in Breeders’ Cup stakes races, created many surprises, but at the top of that list may be the drama in the leading freshman sires list. Most expected Triple Crown Winner American Pharoah to be the prohibitive favorite to take that coveted position of leading freshman sire, and, though his progeny have acquitted themselves well, he stands at number two, behind Winstar’s Constitution.

Constitution, who came to stud with a $25,000 fee and stood this year for $15,000, is, compared to American Pharoah, a huge bargain. American Pharoah’s fee at Coolmore America has been private, though it was rumored to be $150,000 his first year, dropping to $100,000 since. An even bigger surprise: in third place is Coolmore’s other freshman sire, Competitive Edge, whose original fee was only $10,000, dropped to $5,000 for 2019.

In fourth place, the only freshman sire with two Grade One winners, is Liam’s Map, another relative bargain, who went to stud at $25,000 and stood this year for $20,000. Both American Pharoah and Liam’s Map represent the Unbridled sire line, though the former does so through Empire Maker and Pioneerof the Nile, while the latter is a son of Unbridled’s Song. Constitution is a son of Tapit, so he has in his pedigree a strong dose of Fappiano that is also featured in the previously mentioned young sires. But Competitive Edge is a pedigree outlier, being a son of Super Saver, not known as a sire of sires (nor was his own sire, Wavering Monarch), though yearling sales averages indicate that many think his son Runhappy has a very bright future.

Constitution had his first Grade One winner this weekend, when Tiz the Law took the Champagne S.-G1 at Belmont, and his son Gouverneur Morris finished a good second in the Breeders’ Futurity-G1 at Keeneland. His first crop has earnings of just over $1,391,000. Behind him with just over $1,203,000 is American Pharoah, but all of his graded stakes horses have succeeded on turf, a huge surprise for a horse who so excelled on dirt, and perhaps responsible for his lower yearling average at auction in 2019.

Competitive Edge has no graded stakes winners, but his first crop keeps producing winners. As mentioned, Liam’s Map is the only freshman sire with two Grade One winners, Basin, the winner of the Hopeful S. at Saratoga, and Wicked Whisper, who took this past weekend’s Frizette S. at Belmont.

This competition between relatively low-priced young stallions, with the wild card of American Pharoah and his lack of production on dirt, is reminiscent of the great Storm Cat’s beginnings at stud, when William T. Young of Overbrook Farm reportedly couldn’t fill the freshman sire’s book at $10,000, and had to give away seasons and beg friends to breed to the stallion. Then, his first crop hit the track running like crazy. He was leading freshman sire by a mile. And his legendary career, with a maximum stud fee of $500,000, was underway. Is Constitution the next Storm Cat? Or Competitive Edge? Or Liam’s Map? Probably not. But thus far, the battle for leading freshman sire is, to say the least, interesting.