Emerging Market the Exception for Sire Candy Ride

Few certainties exist in Thoroughbred breeding. We can, however, state two things with confidence, having been involved in more than one study on factors that influence mating outcomes. One is that, irrespective of the quality of mates, the quality of a stallion's output will decline in his senior years, and the other is that there is a very strong correlation between the racing class of a mare and her potential as a producer. There is another saying, though, concerning "the exception that proves the rule." A striking exception to the two "rules" stated above was presented by the March 21 Louisiana Derby (G2) victor, Emerging Market. He was conceived when his sire, Candy Ride (ARG), was 23 years old, and his first two dams failed to claim a single placing in a combined 11 starts. If he makes the Kentucky Derby (G1), Emerging Market will also be attempting to break a "rule," or at least set a new precedent: the Louisiana Derby was only his second start, the first being a three-quarter-length victory in a Feb. 7 Tampa Bay Downs maiden special weight, and no horse has won the Kentucky Derby with only two previous starts since Leonatus in 1883. Despite coming up with a classic candidate at an advanced age, a look at Candy Ride's stud career reveals it follows a very typical arc, including conforming to our observation that, irrespective of the subsequent quality of his mates, a stallion more often than not fails to improve on the results of his first season at stud. Although he was undefeated in six starts in Argentina (where he was champion miler) and the United States—including a smashing victory over Medaglia d'Oro in the 2003 Pacific Classic Stakes (G1)—Candy Ride, due to his unfashionable pedigree, stood his first season at a fee of just $10,000, a fee that was then raised to $12,500. If we consider his first three crops, all sired at either $10,000 or $12,500, we find that Candy Ride was represented by 25 individual stakes winners, 11 graded and seven grade 1. By way of contrast, his three most recent crops, sired at fees of $100,000, $75,000, and $75,000, have yielded only five stakes winners, three graded and one grade 1. We also find that in his first—and least expensively sired crop—came four grade 1 winners: Evita Argentina, Misremembered, Capt. Candyman Can, and El Brujo, and since then Candy Ride has never been represented by more than two winners at the highest level from a single crop. That said, between that first crop, conceived in 2005, and his most recent crop of 3-year-olds, Candy Ride has been responsible for 120 individual stakes winners, half of them graded. Among his other grade 1 winners are 2017 Horse of the Year and champion older dirt male Gun Runner, now a major sire; 2013 champion 2-year-old colt Shared Belief; 2018 champion 2-year-old colt Game Winner; 2025 Dubai World Cup (G1) winner Hit Show; classic sire Twirling Candy; and successful young sires Vekoma and Rock Your World. Although the closest she came to the winner's circle in three starts was 14 1/4 lengths, Emerging Market's dam, Wild Empress, does not lack on the score of pedigree, as she is by Empire Maker out of the Seeking the Gold mare Trappings, who, to Offlee Wild, produced She Be Wild, champion 2-year-old filly of 2009 and winner of that year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1). Trappings' dam, Duck Trap, a daughter of Affirmed, captured the 1998 Dade Turf Classic Stakes and 1996 Audubon Oaks and was several times stakes-placed. A half sister to the stakes-winning and graded-placed Penn Fifty Three, Duck Trap is out of Lilya's for Real, the ancestress of several other stakes winners, including 2002 Canadian champion turf horse Portcullis; the 2002 Prioress Stakes (G1) heroine Carson Hollow; and graded scorers Chublicious and Part the Seas. A full sister to multiple black-type winner Shananie and black-type winner Really Smiling, Lilya's for Real is out of Mousam River, who earned bold black type with a win in the 1977 Young Ladies Handicap at Suffolk Downs. By Cohoes, Mousam River was bred on similar lines to the Cohoes son Quadrangle, conqueror of Northern Dancer in the 1964 Belmont Stakes, and a half brother to Mousam River's third dam, Deans List. We mentioned that, as a major stakes winner by an aged stallion with first and second dams that showed an almost complete lack of athletic talent, Emerging Market is something of an "exception that proves the rule." One definition of this phrase is that it emphasizes that the exceptions are very narrow and have distinct characteristics that confirm the rule's validity in all other cases. The narrow and specific case in this instance is the cross of Candy Ride with mares by Empire Maker, which has now produced four graded stakes winners, including Separationofpowers, successful in the 2018 Test Stakes (G1), 2017 Frizette Stakes (G1), and 2019 Bed o' Roses Invitational Stakes (G3), and Rock Your World, who captured the 2021 Santa Anita Derby (G1). There are five other graded stakes winners by Candy Ride out of mares by other sons of Empire Maker's sire, Unbridled—four graded, including the 2018 Clark Handicap (G1) victor Leofric, whose broodmare sire is Unbridled's Song. Looking at the pedigrees of Candy Ride and Unbridled, we can see that Candy Ride is by Ride the Rails, a grandson of Fappiano, and that Unbridled is by Fappiano (meaning Fappiano is 4x4 in the pedigree of Emerging Market). Candy Ride also goes back to a half sister to the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby) winner Le Fabuleux, the broodmare sire of Unbridled (in fact, Candy Ride's fourth dam is by a grandson of Wild Risk, the sire of Le Fabuleux).