Finding the Catalog Sleeper

Before diving into the world of Thoroughbreds, my analytical mind got its dopamine fix through daily fantasy sports, DraftKings football contests to be exact.

It made watching football even more fun, if that is even possible. And I had a few pretty good Sundays in there, if you know what I mean.

One of the keys to my DraftKings success was finding sleepers.

Anyone who has played fantasy football knows the concept. The stars are easy to identify. Everyone knows who they are, everyone wants them, and the price reflects it. The real edge comes from finding the player whose expected production is greater than what the market is charging for him.

Maybe an injury created more opportunity. Maybe a receiver's target share was quietly rising. Maybe the box score had yet to catch up with the player's underlying opportunities. Maybe a player simply had a better matchup than the market appreciated.

The point was always the same.

Find something meaningful that the market was underpricing.

As I have gotten deeper into Thoroughbred racing and yearling sales, I have found myself thinking about the same principle.

Does a yearling catalog have sleepers?

I think it does.

A catalog sleeper is a yearling whose underlying racing case appears stronger than the commercial market is likely to recognize. The horse still has to pass every evaluation that comes after the catalog. Our work starts earlier. We are looking for information embedded in the pedigree and production record that may deserve more weight than the market gives it.

An Into Mischief or Gun Runner yearling out of a Grade 1-producing mare does not require much detective work. The page announces itself. Plenty of smart buyers will arrive at the same conclusion.

The more interesting question is whether there are pages where the evidence of a racehorse is hiding in plain sight.

When you are trying to find a quality racehorse, pedigree glamour can only take you so far. Look for toughness. Look for robustness. An unraced dam is perfectly acceptable if she throws runners. Do her foals get to the races? Do they keep starting? Do they win? If they lack black type, have they earned $100,000 or $200,000 the hard way?

Because there is real information in a horse that makes 18 starts, wins six races and earns $200,000.

There is information in a mare who produces several of them.

And some of that information can get lost on a catalog page where our eyes naturally gravitate toward the bold type.

Looking for Racehorses

We went back through Keeneland September Book 2 looking for families that repeatedly produce actual racehorses.

Starters and winners matter. So do repeat starts, repeat winning and meaningful earnings. Several siblings that keep showing up and doing their jobs can tell us something about a family that a quick scan for bold type may miss.

Class still matters. A family full of durable runners needs enough quality somewhere in the pedigree to support graded-stakes ambition. We are comfortable finding that class under the second or third dam when the generations between that class and the subject continue to produce racehorses.

Imagine an unraced mare with six starters, five winners, 75 combined starts and three six-figure earners. Her second dam produced a Grade 3 winner, and the third dam anchors an active graded family.

That page interests us.

The dam's own racing résumé tells us very little. Her produce record tells us considerably more.

The reverse deserves attention too. A Grade 1-winning mare brings obvious class and commercial appeal. Once she has had enough foals of racing age, her production record begins to speak for itself. Some great racemares become outstanding producers. Others produce a string of lightly raced or ordinary horses.

At that stage, production deserves increasing weight.

Starts, repeat racing, longevity and meaningful earnings also provide a useful family-level robustness signal. They tell us what the family has historically produced. The individual yearling still has to answer separate questions through physical inspection, veterinary work and repository review.

That is where the sleeper idea comes together.

The best fantasy sleeper was never simply the cheapest player on the board. Cheap players were almost always cheap for good reasons.

A sleeper had to offer mispriced production.

We are looking for the same thing here: racehorse production, a credible source of class, and a reason the market may give the page less credit than we do.

Sometimes that reason is sire fashion. Sometimes the first dam was unraced or modest. Sometimes the best black type sits a generation deeper. Sometimes the family has produced several durable six-figure runners without producing the boldface horse that catches everyone's eye.

Those are the pages where we start looking for an edge.

There is a recent example of what we mean.

Percy's Bar sold for $52,000 as Hip 2480 in Book 4 of the 2024 Keeneland September sale. She was by Upstart out of an unraced mare, Honestly Deb. A quick commercial read could move past that page pretty easily.

A deeper read was more interesting.

Under the second dam were horses such as Praetereo, an 11-time winner who earned $715,319, and Defense Wins, a 13-time winner who earned $261,963 and was Grade 1-placed. There was toughness, repeated racing, meaningful earnings and legitimate class sitting underneath an unraced first dam.

Percy's Bar went on to become a Grade 1 winner.

The result gives us the benefit of hindsight. The part that interests us is what was knowable before she ever ran. The racehorse evidence was already sitting there in the catalog, and the market ultimately valued the yearling at $52,000.

That is the kind of disconnect we are trying to find.

Here are five Book 2 yearlings that caught our attention.

Hip 429
Practical Joke out of Soot Z, by Empire Maker

Soot Z gives us a strong combination of production, accumulated racing and close graded quality.

She has produced four winners from five starters. Her runners have combined for 76 starts, giving us enough history to see more than a promising beginning.

The headline horse is Amalfi Sunrise, a Grade 2 winner. The broader production record matters just as much to our sleeper thesis. Multiple runners have won, accumulated starts and developed into meaningful earners.

The second dam adds another layer of toughness and class. Bella Chiarra won nine races, earned $636,088 and became a Grade 2 winner.

That gives this page an appealing pattern. The first dam produces runners and already has a graded winner. The second dam demonstrated both durability and graded ability herself. Practical Joke supplies a proven source of class from the top.

There is plenty here for buyers to recognize. What interests us is the amount of actual racehorse production underneath the obvious pieces of the pedigree.

Seventy-six combined starts from the first dam's runners gives the page some substance. The graded quality gives that substance a ceiling.

Sleeper angle: Repeat runner production backed by close graded class.

Hip 438
Army Mule out of Starship Diva, by Eltish

Hip 438 may be our favorite example of the blue-collar racehorse family.

Starship Diva has produced six winners from seven runners.

One won 15 races and earned $261,474. Another won six and earned $139,184. Another won three and earned $126,930. Another won nine and earned $122,104. Two more became three-time winners with earnings above $100,000.

That is a lot of racing.

The immediate page lacks the kind of graded-stakes headline that automatically attracts a crowd. The underlying record shows a mare repeatedly producing winners with longevity and meaningful earnings.

Then the class arrives underneath.

The second dam produced Miss Macy Sue, an 11-time winner of $867,230 and the foundation of a family that developed into serious graded-stakes quality.

Army Mule provides additional racing ability from the sire side while leaving room for the female family's underlying production to be the reason we are interested.

This is exactly the sort of page that rewards reading beyond the bold type.

Sleeper angle: Blue-collar durability with class sitting underneath.

Hip 1109
Mage out of Pachinko, by Tapit

Pachinko offers another version of the same lesson.

Her own racing career was modest. Her production record has become considerably more interesting.

All three of her starters are winners.

Final Gambit has earned $972,064 and won the Grade 3 Jeff Ruby Steaks. Havildar has continued racing through age six, earned the equivalent of more than $118,000 and became Listed-placed. Conceit is a three-time winner with earnings of $249,883.

Three starters. Three winners. A graded-stakes winner. Multiple meaningful earners.

Pachinko's offspring are beginning to answer the question that matters most for this exercise.

Can she produce racehorses?

The evidence so far is compelling.

Mage adds another layer because his stallion career remains young. That uncertainty can create opportunity when the female family is supplying more evidence than the market gives it credit for.

Hip 1109 represents one of our favorite sleeper patterns: a mare whose production record tells a stronger story than her own racing résumé.

Sleeper angle: Production outrunning the dam's racing reputation.

Hip 405
Twirling Candy out of Season Maker, by Pioneerof the Nile

Season Maker made one start and finished unplaced.

Her broodmare career has started much better.

All three of her runners are winners, including juvenile stakes winner Falling Leaves.

Three starters remain a small sample, so the evidence carries less certainty than a mare with an extensive production record. The early signal still gets our attention, particularly when we look directly underneath her.

Second dam Season's Greetings was a stakes winner and Grade 2-placed at two. She later produced Grace Hall, winner of the Grade 1 Spinaway and three Grade 2 races. Grace Hall also placed in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and Kentucky Oaks.

That gives Hip 405 an appealing combination.

The first dam has produced a winner every time she has sent a runner to the races. The second dam supplies serious Grade 1 architecture. Twirling Candy adds a proven source of high-level racing ability.

For us, what Season Maker is producing carries more weight than her one start on the racetrack.

Sleeper angle: An unplaced mare beginning three-for-three as a producer over a Grade 1 family.

Hip 1107
Epicenter out of Outstanding, by Galileo

Outstanding brings more obvious class than some of the other mares on this list. Her production record makes the case more interesting.

She has three starters and three winners.

Masteroffoxhounds has raced through age nine, earned $722,187 and won two Grade 2 races. Totally Justified became a stakes winner at two, has earned $311,640 and placed in both the Grade 2 Jessamine and Grade 3 Regret.

That is an appealing combination of quality and longevity.

The family behind Outstanding supplies an even higher ceiling. Her dam produced Magician, winner of the Breeders' Cup Turf and Irish 2,000 Guineas.

Epicenter's stallion career remains in its early stages, which creates a wider range of market opinion than we would expect around an established sire. That uncertainty sits above a mare who has already demonstrated an ability to transmit racing quality.

Hip 1107 represents a more sophisticated version of the sleeper thesis. The page carries recognizable class, while the combination of durability, production and uncertainty around the young sire creates the potential disconnect.

Sleeper angle: Proven transmission and longevity underneath an evolving sire market.

Back to DraftKings

The part I always loved about daily fantasy sports was that the answer arrived quickly. You spent the week building a thesis. Then Sunday afternoon told you whether you were right or wrong.

Thoroughbred racing requires considerably more patience.

These five yearlings will take more than a year to tell us what they ultimately become. Some will validate the signals in their pedigrees. Some will not, hopefully teaching us something in the process.

That is part of the appeal. The analytical exercise remains familiar. Find the underlying production. Understand what the market sees. Look harder at what it may be missing. Then put the names down before the results arrive.

For Keeneland September Book 2, these are five catalog sleepers we think deserve a closer look.

Now we get to wait and watch.

Research by Thoroughbred Intelligence. Catalog sleeper candidates are identified from pedigree, production, racing and commercial data available before sale. Physical, veterinary and repository evaluation remain independent parts of the acquisition process.