Fire At Will, winner of the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Keeneland, will stand the 2023 season at Sequel Stallions New York. Breeders’ Cup/Eclipse Sportswire Photo.
Fire At Will, winner of the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf in 2020, will stand the 2023 season at Sequel Stallions New York in Hudson. The 5-year-old son of Declaration of War will stand his first season for $6,000.
Fire At Will will be available for inspection during Sequel Stallions New York’s open house from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at 167 Maple Lane in Hudson.
Campaigned by Three Diamonds Farm and trained by Mike Maker, Fire At Will won three of six starts and earned $675,932.
“He is absolutely the fastest 2-year-old I have ever trained on the turf,” Maker said.
Fire At Will bounced back from a troubled trip in his debut at Saratoga Race Course to win the $93,000 With Anticipation Stakes there less than a month later as a maiden over a sloppy and sealed surface. He showed his affinity for the grass with a 2-length victory in the Grade 2 Pilgrim Stakes at Belmont Park before a 3-length tally over an international field in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Keeneland Race Course.
Fire At Will, who topped the likes of Grade 1 winner Gretzky the Great and Grade 2 winners Mutasaabeq and Battleground in the Juvenile Turf, was an Eclipse Award finalist in the champion 2-year-old male category in 2020.
Fire At Will returned to the races in 2021 and contested the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes on dirt at Gulfstream Park before a third in the Grade 3 Transylvania Stakes on grass in his final start at Keeneland.
Out of the Kitten’s Joy mare Flirt, who sold in foal to Lemon Drop Kid for $500,000 at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November mixed sale, Fire At Will was originally purchased by Three Diamonds for $97,000 at the 2019 Keeneland September yearling sale. He was offered this month as a stallion prospect via Fasig-Tipton Digital.
“Recent Fasig-Tipton Digital Sale graduate Fire At Will presents a great opportunity to breeders in New York,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning Jr. “He was a brilliant Breeders’ Cup winner at 2 and has an outstanding pedigree. Becky Thomas and her team at Sequel have added another really exciting stallion prospect for the 2023 breeding season.”
Fire At Will is the first foal out of Flirt, who is a half-sister to Pegasus World Cup Turf contender and Grade 1 winner Decorated Invader (by Declaration of War), stakes winner Jubliant Girl and stakes-placed Cabral. Flirt, who is also from the family of top sire Stormy Atlantic, is also the dam of the unraced 3-year-old Mendelssohn colt and $310,000 yearling Sacred Rhyme and a 2-year-old filly by Lemon Drop Kid that sold as a yearling for $210,000.
“This is, perhaps, the most powerful stallion family in the world today,” said pedigree expert Alan Porter.
