For the second straight year, BLAME was awarded a place in the Thoroughbred Daily News’s ‘Value Sire’ series when the consistently brilliant stallion was given Silver by Chris McGrath in the ‘Established Stallions’ division.
The sire of 38 stakes winners, led by five Grade 1 victors, with 16.63% stakes performers, BLAME can get breeders any kind of horse. Early on, he sired a classic winner on turf in the same crop that saw him sire two Grade 1 winners on dirt.
He again impressed in 2019 when Abscond won the Natalma (G1) followed by the brilliant Nadal looking like a top Kentucky Derby (G1) contender in 2020 with his undefeated career headlined by an easy three length Arkansas Derby (G1) victory.
“To sample just a few established names too excellent to be embarrassed by the comparison, across-the-board BLAME can match or surpass the ratios for stakes winners/performers, graded stakes winners/performers and Grade I winners/performers of Candy Ride (Arg), More Than Ready, Munnings, Twirling Candy, Street Sense and Kitten’s Joy. In individual categories, moreover, he can match even more expensive and prestigious stallions,” McGrath writes in the article.
BLAME has again put together a strong year in 2021 with eight stakes winners and was just half a length from registering another Grade 1 winner.
For those looking further than the track, BLAME is already proving to be an elite broodmare sire in the making with his daughters producing 8.2% stakes winners and eight stakes performers. The first foals out of his daughters are only four with that group including stakes winner Padovana and those born in 2018 are headlined by Group 2 winner Sacred and Group 3 winner Bellharbour Music.
That crop is followed up by juvenile One Timer winning the Listed Victoria Stakes and Speakeasy Stakes earlier this year.
To see McGrath’s full analysis of BLAME in Tuesday’s TDN, click here.