For the very best Thoroughbred racehorses, their overall career arc only begins on the track. It doesn’t end when they pass the finish line for the final time, not by a long shot, because no matter how much they made while racing, the big money – the really, really big money – is in the breeding business.

Exhibit A is Flightline. The bay Tapit horse, who was purchased for $1 million as a yearling by West Point Thoroughbreds, first raced in the spring of 2021 at Santa Anita Park, where he won by 13 ¼ lengths. He then commenced to reel off five more wins by overpowering margins through November 2022. After he wrapped up his racing career with a 8 ¼-length domination of the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland Race Course, Flightline was retired boasting credentials as arguably the fastest dirt racehorse in North America this century., and he was honored as 2022’s Horse of the Year by Eclipse Award voters. Only Ghostzapper, who won nine of 11 races and was Horse of the Year in 2004, consistently produced speed figures comparable with Flightline’s.

Flightline was owned by a partnership of established industry figures including West Point during his time on the track, and following his finale at Keeneland, his owners vanned him off to prestigious Lane’s End Farm in nearby Versailles, Ky., to launch his stallion career. The group offered a 2.5% interest in Flightline at the Keeneland November Sale following the Breeders’ Cup, and it was purchased for $4.6 million, which pegged his estimated overall value as a stallion at about $184 million. Flightline’s initial stud fee for 2023 was set at $200,000, and that first season he covered (was mated with) 152 mares. Power up the calculator, and you have a cool $30.4 million for his first year at stud, compared with the $4.5 million he earned while racing.

Those 152 mares bred in 2023 produced 124 foals in 2024, and last year at Lane’s End, Flightline was bred to the exact same number of mares for his second go-round. His fee was reduced to $150,00, a not uncommon practice in the breeding industry as the new-sensation buzz shifted to stallions making their own first appearances. Last fall, another 2.5% share in Flightline was auctioned off by Keeneland during a sale held at Del Mar, this time bringing $2.5 million.

Fast forward to this summer, and Flightline’s first fleet of foals are preparing to be introduced at North America’s yearling auctions. On Aug. 4 and Aug. 5, Fasig-Tipton Co. holds the first top-of-the-line yearling sale of the year at its complex in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., just steps from historic Saratoga Race Course, and nine Flightline yearlings are set to go through the auction ring as of July 31.

In 2024, only five weanlings by Flightline – weanlings are foals in their first year of life after being weaned from their dam – were sold at auction in North America. They totaled $2.325 million, producing an average of $465,000. Next Monday and Tuesday at Fasig-Tipton, expect Flightline’s average yearling price to remain in the mid-hundreds of thousands, if not higher. After all, in addition to carrying Flightline’s blood, many of these youngsters are produced by dams that either made their mark racing, come from equine families holding status comparable to the Rockefellers or Kennedys (or today, Kardashians?), or both.

What prospective buyers will be looking for is some hint of the traits that Flightline displayed with effortless brilliance on the track: a highly potent mixture of speed and stamina. Sporting an excellent pedigree himself (his sire, Tapit, is represented by four Belmont Stakes winners), Flightline won at distances ranging from a six-furlong sprint (twice) to the “classic” mile-and-a-quarter distance of, well, the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Can he pass those genetic superlatives on?

Inspecting yearlings at Fasig-Tipton Saratoga. (Mathea Kelley/BloodHorse)

Of course, it’s difficult to determine whether a yearling Thoroughbred has the potential to at least approach the talent level of his sire (or dam) – after all, they haven’t even started the basics of training. That’s why in the coming days, you’ll see each entrant in the Fasig-Tipton sale by Flightline or any other stallion scrutinized at a level approaching Sumerian cuneiform by dozens of bloodstock experts. Breeding a champion racehorse is part data-driven science, part intuitive art, but when it succeeds the financial rewards for owners can be staggering, not to mention having the chance to make a lasting impact on the Thoroughbred industry.

It's an exciting time both for fans of Flightline and those who always have one eye side-glancing at the next generation of horses, any one of which could be another Flightline. There’ll be many more Flightline foals offered at the behemoth Keeneland September yearling sale and several others at sales over the remaining months of 2025. Next year, more from his first crop will be offered at 2-year-old auctions in the spring, some of them with aerial-inspired names registered with The Jockey Club no doubt – and then the racing begins!

Once they’re competing, the next few years ahead will be “put up or shut up” time for Flightline’s fleet at racetracks around North America and overseas as well. If even a modest percentage of his offspring approach their sire’s excellence, he’ll be assured of a long, productive, and (for his owners) incredibly lucrative career in the breeding shed. There’s no guarantee of that happening. Ghostzapper, Flightline’s speed-figure peer, is currently winding down his breeding tenure in Canada having established a reputation as a good, but not elite, sire (many of his best runners have been fillies and mares). Flightline might not even reach that mark. But for now, anticipation will be turned up a notch at Fasig-Tipton in Saratoga Springs as this incredible horse’s second career ascends to a new altitude.

Don’t miss two America’s Best Racing livestreams produced on-site at Fasig-Tipton next Monday and Tuesday covering the Saratoga Sale of Selected Yearlings. Our shows will start at 6 p.m. ET both nights, hosted by Ren Carothers, Rachel Miller, and Dan Tordjman and with roving reporting from Alexa Zepp and special guests to offer insights into the fast-paced, often thrilling world of Thoroughbred auctions. “Live from the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale!” will stream on ABR’s Facebook, X, and YouTube channels.