American Pharoah settles in

American Pharoah
American Pharoah at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky. That sure looks luxurious! Photo by Nichola Henry of the Thoroughbred Daily News.

Monday morning, American Pharoah, the first horse to win the Triple Crown and the Breeders’ Cup in a single year, took the short van ride to his second career as a breeding stallion. He received a police escort to Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky., where he seems to be settling in to his new life.

Ashford stallion manager Richard Barry, who is responsible for overseeing the colt’s transition to farm life, explained in an article in the Daily Racing Form that AP will start his new life with 23-year old Thunder Gulch as a baby sitter in the paddock next to him.

“Young horses, when they get out, tend to run around a lot,” Barry said. “And if you put a 23-year-old boy beside him, he’ll kind of look at him and go, ‘Son, you can run on your own.’ And he’ll spend an hour looking at Thunder Gulch eating grass and trying to get him to run, and he won’t run anywhere. And then he’ll figure out that he should eat some grass himself.”

Not such a bad life for a horse, whose could be worth as much as $100 million over his lifetime if he proves himself as a sire. There’s no word yet on his stud fee for the upcoming breeding season. Currently, Ashford’s highest price stallion is Giant’s Causeway, who stood for $85,000 in 2015. Storm Cat holds the record for the highest stud fee so far. From 2002-2007 he commanded $500,000/live foal. Currently the leading sire in the U.S. is Tapit who stood for $300,000 in 2015.

 

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