Multiple graded stakes winner Bucchero will relocate to Ironhorse Stallions (in the former Questroyal North) for 2025. Serita Hult Photo.
Coming off a breakout year that saw his son, Grade 1 winner Book’em Danno, stamp his sire as New York’s leading stallion, Bucchero will stand the 2025 season for Ironhorse Stallions at Questroyal North the former Sez Who Farm in Stillwater.
After five successful seasons in Florida, where he covered 471 mares, Bucchero stood the 2024 season at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds in Saratoga Springs under a one-year agreement.
“We have tremendous respect for the McMahon family and their history in New York and both parties wanted to see how Bucchero would fit with McMahon’s in-house stallions,” said Bucchero’s managing partner, Harlan Malter. “With Bucchero, Central Banker and Solomini, the top three stallions in New York in 2024, it made sense to let the McMahons focus on their homegrown stallions and our group focus exclusively on Bucchero.”
Bucchero will be the first stallion to stand under the Ironhorse Stallions banner, a fitting full-circle moment, as it was the syndicate of Ironhorse Racing Stable who purchased him as a 2-year-old. Ironhorse campaigned Bucchero through his 31-race career and ultimately was the driving force to stand him at stud upon his retirement.
“All of the partners involved in Bucchero have been his biggest supporters from Day 1 and it has been a privilege to be so heavily involved in both his racing and stallion career,” Malter said. “It is the logical next step to see where Bucchero can take us. As I said when he ran at Royal Ascot, ‘every time we have asked him to step up to the next level, he has delivered,’ and now he has done it in the breeding shed.”
Ironhorse Racing Stable and the stallion’s co-owners have actively supported Bucchero in both the auction ring and breeding shed. Ironhorse purchased multiple stakes winner and recent graded-placed Beauty of the Sea and stakes winner Mattingly at the OBS 2-year-ilds in training sales and co-owner Greg Kilka was the breeder of Book’em Danno.
The leading sire by earnings in New York in 2024 ($4,539,822 through Sunday), Bucchero has accomplished this feat without a single New York-bred runner. He is the rare regional sire to see his runners have immediate success in open company and on all surfaces.
Along with Grade 1 winner and millionaire Book’em Danno, the Grade 2-placed Buccherino and Grade 3-placed Beauty of the Sea, some 13 of Bucchero’s black-type horses have come in open stakes, with his most recent stakes performer Bucaro running a close second in the Ontario Display at Woodbine on synthetic after becoming a stakes winner in his prior outing.
Bucchero is currently the leading stallion in America on synthetic with more than $1.2 million of his $4.5 million in 2024 earnings coming across the increasingly relevant surface.
While showing his ability to produce top-level horses on turf and dirt in addition to synthetic, Bucchero has also produced incredibly consistent runners. To date, Bucchero starters (1,259) have run in the top three an astounding 49% of the time, tops among all U.S. stallions with more than 1000 starts.
“With the lucrative breeder awards offered in New York, the combination of Bucchero’s ITM stats, surface versatility and ability to produce open-company horses, we firmly believe that breeders will be richly rewarded by breeding to Bucchero,” Malter said. “We are all-in on New York, both breeding and racing.
“Starting Ironhorse Stallions will give us the ability to not only support New York breeders as a partner in producing the best possible New York-bred and -sired runners, but from a selfish side, we will be big buyers of New York-sired Buccheros and expect Ironhorse Racing Stable to focus the majority of its stable in New York. We have put together a great team and will be hitting the ground running working hand in hand with New York breeders as partners in the success of New York-bred racing.”
Lifelong horseman John Dowd will join Ironhorse Stallions as head of operations and bloodstock to go along with a growing team of experienced professionals in New York and Florida.
Malter addressed the question of why Ironhorse Stallions and why now?
“Our mantra is ‘we want to make racehorses to sell, not sales horses to race.’ We feel that Bucchero is a perfect foundation stallion for this philosophy and we hope New York breeders will join us in this goal. My sports background was as a baseball player and the classic Field of Dreams quote comes to mind in this endeavor: ‘If you build it, he will come.’ With the rich breeders program in New York, the huge commitment to a new Belmont and the amazing energy that Saratoga has rekindled, ‘they have built it, and we have come!’ ”
Bucchero will stand for $10,000 in 2025 with a “New York, New York” discount of $2,500 to any mare who will have a 2025 foal in New York or any prior breeder to Bucchero.
A limited amount of lifetime breeding rights will be available along with co-breeds to specifically approved mares. Information about Ironhorse Stallions and Bucchero can be found at ihstallions.com along with Bucchero’s dedicated and continually updated page at BuccheroStallion.com.
For bookings or inspection, contact Harlan Malter at 27B-UCC-HERO (272-822-4376) or info@ihstallions.com.
