Tattersalls October 2026 · Justify
Justify’s Best Is Still Ahead
Justify’s European earnings since 2023, his Tattersalls Book 1 draft and the mare books behind the crops still to come.
BloodHorse’s preview of Justify’s Tattersalls Book 1 draft this week brought me back to the question behind The Justify Disconnect. Newsells Park’s Julian Dollar called this “the first main European crop of yearlings he’s had.” Ten were catalogued, his largest representation at the sale, and by Wednesday Lot 260, the colt out of Stars At Night, had made 1.6 million guineas (US$2,224,488) to M. V. Magnier of Coolmore and partner White Birch Farm.
Read the BloodHorse preview: The List: Justify Positioned for Tattersalls Breakout, by Joe Perez, October 6, 2026.
A few weeks ago, we looked at rising prices and falling sale rates for Justify’s yearlings in Keeneland’s first two books. The average had reached $476,282, the median remained at $350,000, and 39 of the 60 offered were reported sold in our September 19 snapshot. I came away thinking the market was making increasingly sharp distinctions within his stock. Tattersalls gave me a reason to look again at the other side of the equation: what Justify has already done in Europe, and what is still coming behind it.
In September I treated timing as the last piece of the Justify story. Europe makes it the main one. The more I worked backward from the horses already on the track to the mare books behind them, the more the chronology stood out.
Four Straight Seasons on Top in Europe
Beginning in 2023, when his second crop started racing, Justify has led American-based sires by European progeny earnings in every completed season and again through October 6 this year. His European runner population over those four seasons has ranged from 29 to 42.
| Year | European runners | European earnings | Adjusted rank* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 36 | $1,511,635 | 1 |
| 2024 | 42 | $4,258,901 | 1 |
| 2025 | 31 | $2,139,533 | 1 |
| 2026 to Oct. 6 | 29 | $2,155,528 | 1 |
*Ranks calculated from the sires listed in BloodHorse’s annual European tables, all surfaces, using standing location in the relevant breeding season. Sergei Prokofiev stood in England through 2025 and became eligible after moving to Canada for 2026.
City of Troy and Opera Singer, both from Justify’s 2021 foal crop, took the Cartier awards for two-year-old colt and filly in 2023. City of Troy followed with the Derby, Eclipse and Juddmonte International in 2024. Opera Singer won the Nassau Stakes, and Ramatuelle added the Prix de la Forêt. One crop produced elite European form from seven furlongs through a mile and a half, at two and three.
The next crop extended the pattern. Ruling Court won the 2025 2,000 Guineas. Scandinavia won the St Leger and Goodwood Cup at three, then the Ascot Gold Cup and a second Goodwood Cup at four. Justify’s best European horses have arrived in successive crops, across the juvenile program, the Classics and the major staying races for older horses.
Nine of Justify’s 12 individual Group or Grade 1 winners have earned that distinction on turf, in Britain, France, the United States, Canada or Australia. His three dirt G1 winners are Arabian Lion, Just F Y I and this year’s Santa Anita Handicap winner British Isles.
Justify himself never ran on grass. He won all six of his starts on dirt, the Triple Crown among them. The turf comes through his sire line. Scat Daddy won the Champagne and the Florida Derby on dirt in America, then sired No Nay Never, Caravaggio, Sioux Nation and Lady Aurelia, all Group 1 winners on European turf. Scat Daddy’s sire, Johannesburg, was unbeaten at two for Aidan O’Brien, winning the Phoenix Stakes, Prix Morny and Middle Park on turf before taking the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on dirt. His dam’s side, through Ghostzapper, is American dirt speed. He carries both, and his runners show both.
City of Troy and Scandinavia also account for large shares of the European earnings totals, so I wanted to know how much of Justify’s ranking depended on the headline horse. Subtract his chief earner in each season and leave every rival’s full total untouched. He still finishes first in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and second in 2026 to date. The stars have driven the story, but the earnings underneath them are substantial enough to keep him at or near the top of the comparison.
Tattersalls Got His Strongest European Draft
His European yearling presence had been thin relative to the record he was building on the track. In 2024, three were offered at Arqana August and one at Tattersalls Book 2. In 2025, two were offered at Arqana August, one at Goffs Orby, and five were catalogued at Tattersalls Book 1, with three making the ring. This year, Arqana had four, Goffs Orby two, and Tattersalls Book 1 opened with ten.
Ten is twice Justify’s previous Book 1 catalogue high. Two had been withdrawn by Wednesday, leaving eight for the ring. In terms of both representation and page quality, this is the strongest group of Justify yearlings I have seen catalogued at a European sale.
Five of the ten dams have already produced stakes winners. Entreat, the dam of lot 462, has produced both Camille Pissarro and Golden Horde, a French Derby winner and a Commonwealth Cup winner. Dreamlike, whose colt is lot 454, is the dam of Program Trading, a three-time American Grade 1 winner on turf.
Winter, the dam of lot 328, won four Group 1 races including the English and Irish 1,000 Guineas. Best Terms, represented by lot 388, was England’s champion two-year-old filly and has produced nine winners from nine runners, including three stakes winners. The Stars At Night colt is a half-brother to Poker Face and Star Devine.
Europe has already paid for the best of this generation. Godolphin gave €1.25 million for the Joie de Soir colt at Arqana in August. Magnier paid €1.4 million for the Multilingual filly at Goffs in September. Now Lot 260, the Stars At Night colt, has made 1.6 million guineas at Tattersalls.
The Breeder Response Is Only Now Arriving
In a June 2025 analysis for The Owner Breeder, John Boyce counted the “stakes horses or producers” in each of Justify’s mare books.
Figure 1 · The mare books
Breeders came back after Europe saw his 2023 juveniles
Show the data
| Mating year | Stakes horses or producers | Resulting NH foal year | First NH juvenile season |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 169 | 2020 | 2022 |
| 2020 | 134 | 2021 | 2023 |
| 2021 | 97 | 2022 | 2024 |
| 2022 | 72 | 2023 | 2025 |
| 2023 | 130 | 2024 | 2026 |
| 2024 | 182 | 2025 | 2027 |
The 2022 book marked the low point at 72 stakes horses or producers. Support recovered to 130 in 2023 and jumped to 182 in 2024, the first book assembled after Europe had seen City of Troy, Opera Singer and Ramatuelle as two-year-olds.
Northern Hemisphere covers moved the same way. After separating Southern Hemisphere-time covers, Justify went from 146 mares in 2022 to 222 in 2023 and 263 in 2024, an increase of about 80 percent in two years.
Coolmore had every incentive to act on that evidence aggressively. Justify stands for the operation at Ashford, and once his first European runners began to establish themselves, Coolmore and other major European breeders increasingly sent elite turf mares to him in Kentucky. By 2024, as Martin Stevens reported, that support included 57 daughters of Galileo, among them Minding, Magical, Rhododendron and Winter, with Together Forever, the dam of City of Troy, returning as well.
Godolphin sent Dickinson and With The Moonlight, while the Aga Khan Studs sent Tahiyra. By then, breeders were pairing Justify with some of the best-performed and best-produced turf families available.
The dams of his Grade 1 winners show how that plays out. His three dirt Grade 1 winners are out of mares by Distorted Humor, Street Cry and Pure Prize. His three British Classic winners and Opera Singer are all out of mares from the Sadler’s Wells line, by Galileo, High Chaparral and Sadler’s Wells himself. His other turf Grade 1 winners, Hard to Justify, Aspen Grove, Ramatuelle and Voyager, are out of mares by Quality Road, More Than Ready, Raven’s Pass and Lea, which tells me the turf ability is his own.
The Galileo cross adds Classic distance to it. Ten of his 58 Northern Hemisphere black-type winners are out of Galileo mares, and his European winners have averaged 10.36 furlongs, against 7.73 for his North American winners. The 2024 book was built around that cross.
The foals from the 2024 book are the yearlings selling now, and Lot 260, out of the Galileo mare Stars At Night, is one of them. They race at two in 2027 and reach Classic age in 2028.
Where That Leaves Justify
Justify’s European runners have benefited from elite mares and leading stables, and the population remains small enough that a few exceptional horses can move the totals. The incoming crops give him more of the kind of opportunity that produced City of Troy, Opera Singer, Ruling Court and Scandinavia. Coolmore is still sending him that kind of mare. Ylang Ylang, the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile winner it bought at Tattersalls, is in foal to Justify, Magnier said this week.
The sequence tells me more than any single yearling price. Support began recovering in 2023. The 2024 book was much larger and deeper, and its first runners arrive next year. If that generation produces top horses at anything close to the frequency of the earlier crops, the European population could look very different by 2028 and 2029.
That leaves two Justifys under one name. The one out of American dirt mares is the horse Keeneland’s front books are built to buy, and it has produced all three of his dirt Grade 1 winners. The Galileo-cross Justify is a European Classic type standing in an American sale ring. At Keeneland this year, the 11 out of Galileo, Frankel and Gleneagles mares sold for materially less than the rest of his yearlings, with almost identical clearance. At Tattersalls, the Galileo-mare colt made 1.6 million guineas. The 2024 book produced more of both, and the two markets are pricing them very differently.
I expect the next phase to put more high-class Justifys in training at the same time, across more distances and more seasons.
Methodology. European runners, earnings and ranks come from BloodHorse’s annual European progeny earnings tables, all surfaces, in U.S. dollars, with 2026 figures through October 6. Thoroughbred Intelligence recalculated the ranks using each sire’s standing location in the relevant Northern Hemisphere breeding season, so Sergei Prokofiev counts only from his 2026 Canadian season and American Pharoah only through 2025. The chief-earner test removes Justify’s leading earner in each season and leaves every rival’s total intact. Tattersalls counts are catalogued entries as of October 7, two of them withdrawn, and results are provisional while the sale continues. The dollar figure for Lot 260 is BloodHorse’s conversion at US$1.39 per guinea. Mare-book quality uses John Boyce’s count of stakes horses or producers. Northern Hemisphere covers are The Jockey Club totals less mares bred to Southern Hemisphere time. The Group 1 count is horses by the surface of their Group or Grade 1 win, as of October 7. Dams and dam sires of his black-type winners are from Coolmore’s Northern Hemisphere stud record for Justify, which lists 58 black-type winners. The Keeneland comparison of yearlings out of Galileo, Frankel and Gleneagles mares is from The Justify Disconnect. Sources: BloodHorse, Tattersalls, Arqana, Coolmore, The Owner Breeder, The Jockey Club and TrueNicks.