Medaglia d'Oro Better than Ever at 20

With eight select yearlings in Fasig-Tipton's upcoming Saratoga sale–including a full-sister to his GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint winner Bar of Gold; a filly out of a full-sister to the dam of his multiple Grade I-winning star Elate; and a colt out of a half-sister to his two-time champion Songbird–it is not unreasonable to expect fireworks from Medaglia d'Oro this summer. After all, he had eight yearlings bring $1 million or more last year in the sales ring, the year after he had seven individual Grade I winners on the racetrack and, somehow, he only seems to get better each year. Medaglia d'Oro has made a career of making brilliancy seem routine.

“Medaglia d'Oro showed what he can do on the racetrack and also his prowess in the sales ring, which is really the bullseye for an elite stallion. To be able to get you that top runner but also that commercial score just earmarks what a special stallion he is and we're obviously very lucky that he stands here at Jonabell,” said Darren Fox, sales manager for Darley at Jonabell Farm.

“Obviously a horse of Medaglia d'Oro's caliber would be the cornerstone of any stud farm,” continued Fox, “and he just continues to go from strength to strength.”

Those of us around racing 20 years ago were awash in the Eclipse campaigns of Charismatic (Summer Squall), Anees (Unbridled), Victory Gallop (Cryptoclearance), and Artax (Marquetry). All were top racehorses who had moments of brilliance on the track, but not necessarily in the breeding shed. No one would have guessed a bay colt born that year by Ireland's juvenile champion El Prado (Ire) would set first the racing and then the breeding world on fire, leaving reverberations that will surely be felt for generations to come.

El Prado was a very good sire, to be sure, but was one of a very few sons of Sadler's Wells to find success at stud in North America. There were plenty to be found across the pond–and this was even before the days of Sadler's Wells greatest gifts to Europe in super sires Galileo (Ire), who is only a year older than Medaglia d'Oro, and Montjeu (Ire), three years his elder–but grass racing wasn't as popular in the U.S. at the time as it is now. El Prado's other exceptional sire son, Kitten's Joy, would not be born for two more years. The smartest minds in the business could not have remotely guessed two decades ago that El Prado, who stood for just $10,000 the year Medaglia d'Oro was conceived, would be the sire of two of the top stallions in North America and certainly could not have predicted Medaglia d'Oro's prowess on dirt himself, first as a racehorse and then as a sire.

Medaglia d'Oro's female family was sprinkled with nondescript black-type, but, other than some graded action deep under his third dam, there was nothing to indicate the star he would become. After he broke his maiden at second asking, he was sold privately and transferred to the barn of Hall of Famer Bobby Frankel. Frankel could do little wrong with the horse, immediately winning the GII San Felipe S. and putting him on the Triple Crown trail. Medaglia d'Oro wouldn't win a Classic, with his best finish a second in the GI Belmont S., but he did take the GI Travers S. and Jim Dandy S. before the year was through. He would eventually add the GI Whitney H., GI Donn H., and several other graded stakes as well as two consecutive runner-up finishes in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic and a second in the G1 Dubai World Cup.

“As a race horse, Medaglia d'Oro was ultra tough, ultra consistent, and just performed at the highest level time and time again,” said Fox. “An elite performer, he did run first or second in 15 over 17 starts, and in 14 of the starts he ran triple-digit Beyers up to a high of 120, so [he was] just an amazing, consistent, high-performing athlete through every year he raced, so he certainly is a rare performer in that regard.”

But the best was yet to come.

Medaglia d'Oro entered stud in 2005. It turned out to be a banner year for new sires, as his fellow first-timers in the breeding shed included what are now legendary names like Tapit (Pulpit), Candy Ride (Arg) (Ride the Rails), and Speightstown (Gone West). All found success right out of the gate, siring a minimum of two Grade/Group I winners with their first crop, but when the dust settled, only one had a Horse of the Year in that first crop. That, of course, was Medaglia d'Oro with the spectacular Rachel Alexandra, Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old filly. Medaglia d'Oro's other champions to date include Songbird, Vancouver, Passion for Gold, and Wonder Gadot. The striking bay has sired four individual Breeders' Cup winners, a Classic winner, two Kentucky Oaks winners, and a Golden Slipper winner among his 130 black-type winners. Of his 66 graded stakes winners, 22 are Grade/Group I winners .

“What makes Medaglia d'Oro special is obviously his ability to get elite performances on both surfaces, just his versatility, he's the only stallion in the world that has sired five Grade I winners on dirt and turf in the last five years, so that just really highlights what [he] can do,” said Fox.

And he's not done yet.

Medaglia d'Oro has 111 current juveniles, 106 current yearlings, and 102 foals of 2019, many out of mares that would be the envy of any stallion manager's book. Ditto with mares in foal for 2020. Judging by the way his 2-year-olds were received at auction earlier this year, led by a $1.2 million colt at Fasig-Tipton's Florida sale in March, it would not be a stretch to conjecture that Medaglia d'Oro could still come up with several more stars. Nor would it be a stretch to imagine him as a mainstay in the breeding shed for several years yet.

“At 20 years of age,” said Fox, “he looks absolutely phenomenal. He's had another great season in the breeding shed, excellent stats and, as you can see by his condition, doesn't look a color of his age, so we're really thrilled with how he's been performing in the shed, and how he looks in his general health and vitality.

“We're very excited about what the future holds for Medaglia d'Oro and his dynasty as a sire of sires.”