Tacitus Sires First Foals in New York

Taylor Made Stallions' multiple graded stakes winner Tacitus, a son of multiple leading North American sire Tapit out of Champion older female and five-time grade 1 winner Close Hatches, sired his first reported foals Jan. 16 in New York. The first arrivals were a colt out of the Bustin Stones mare Super Stone bred by Dr. Jerry Bilinski and foaled at his Waldorf Farm, and a filly produced from the stakes-winning Courageous Cat mare Lady Joan bred by and foaled at Irish Hill Century Farm. "She is what I was expecting a Tacitus foal would look like," Rick Burke of Irish Hill Century Farm said of the filly. "She has plenty of leg and good bone. She looks a lot like him." A Juddmonte Farms homebred trained by Bill Mott, Tacitus was a three-time graded stakes winner and multiple classic-placed performer who banked more than $3.7 million in career earnings. Tacitus won the 2019 Tampa Bay Derby (G2) in his 3-year-old debut, stopping the clock in a stakes-record time of 1:41.90 for 1 1/16 miles. In his next start, he won the Wood Memorial Stakes (G2) and followed with a third in the Kentucky Derby (G1) and seconds in the Belmont Stakes (G1), Jim Dandy Stakes (G2), and Travers Stakes (G1). At 4, Tacitus won the Suburban Stakes (G2) and placed in the Woodward Handicap (G1) and Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes (G1). Tacitus stands for $10,000 and bred 188 mares in his initial book.