For the fourth straight year, KARAKONTIE stood atop the Paulick Report’s First Team Turf Sire rankings on the All-Value Sire Team chosen by Joe Nevills.
“I’ve been doing this segment for four years, and KARAKONTIE has been the First Team Turf Sire every single time. This isn’t from a lack of trying on my part to find a horse to beat him. He’s just that dominant in this field,” Nevills says.
It’s been another big year for KARAKONTIE, who has five stakes winners and 12.5% stakes performers from his 65 turf runners this year. The group is led by multiple Grade 1 winner and likely Eclipse Award finalist She Feels Pretty. His percentages put him only behind Not This Time and Army Mule by stakes performer percentage and his 7.7% stakes winners put him behind Not This Time and Grazen.
A miler himself, KARAKONTIE has shown that he can sire horses who go both short and long with stakes winners from 5 ½ furlongs to 1 ½ miles in 2025. The sire of a Kentucky Derby runner this year in Flying Mohawk, Nevills wouldn’t be surprised to see him with more runners in the Derby starting gate in coming years.
“With that being said, it’s not hard to look at Karakontie and picture him being able to impart some more distance into his foals. The 14-year-old son of Bernstein has maintained a racy frame well into middle age, and his foals tend to have the kind of stretch and stride that could carry them over a route of ground.
“Knowing this, it stands to reason how he could sneak a horse in the Derby starting gate, even though the whole point of the series is to spotlight dirt prowess, with a horse going two turns on the turf-friendly all-weather surface at Turfway Park for the Jeff Ruby. It’s a highly specific path to Churchill Downs, but one that can be exploited with the right horse,” he said.
Read Joe Nevills’ full reasoning for why KARAKONTIE again leads his ranking here.