Tapit has emerged as one of the most influential and breed-shaping stallions of the past half-century.
Yearlings by Tapit brought $2.7 million, $2.6 million, and $2.5 million—the three highest prices of Keeneland September’s elite Book 1 session—to vault the champion sire atop the standings by both average and gross.
Three-time champion sire Tapit officially counted his 100th black-type stakes winner Aug. 21, according to records compiled by The Jockey Club.
Three-time leading sire Tapit realized his 23rd Grade 1 stakes winner when John Oxley’s homebred 3-year-old filly Dream Dancing thrust her nose across the finish line first in the Aug. 19 $300,000 Del Mar Oaks.
Gainesway’s champion sire Tapit reached another milestone June 10 when his son Tapwrit won the 149th Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park. For the third time in four years, a son of Tapit has won the “Test of the Champion.”
With his dominating 3¼-length victory in the $500,000 Gold Cup at Santa Anita, Cupid became the 21st Grade or Group 1 winner by Gainesway’s three-time leading sire Tapit and earned a 106 Beyer Speed Figure.
Gary and Mary West’s 3-year-old Tapit filly Actress made a splash, literally and figuratively, when she broke her maiden in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico May 19, her third career start.
With the final entries taken and post positions drawn for the 143rd Kentucky Derby, five contenders for the May 6 Churchill Downs classic have ties to Gainesway stallions.
A pair of high-priced Tapit offerings added fuel to a record-setting OBS March sale of 2-year-olds in training that set records in gross and average price.
Tapwrit tossed his hat into the spring classics ring March 11 with a brilliant performance in the Grade 2 $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby, dispatching a field of nine other hopefuls. The handsome, muscular gray son of leading sire Tapit set a stakes record for the 1 1/16-mile major prep for the Kentucky Derby and also earned 50 Kentucky Derby points.
Though Tapit has led the general sire list for three consecutive years with record earnings in each, siring three graded stakes winners on the same day, March 4, was a noteworthy accomplishment even for him.