Stormin Fever is Hot

Don’t look now, but there is a sire who is quietly building one of the most impressive foal crops of 2007. With one of the horses to beat in Saturday’s Travers, arguable the best filly in Canada, and one of the top turf fillies on the East Coast, Stormin Fever has become a red hot sire. Last year he was the leading sire of juveniles in California by both winners and earnings. In 2010, Stormin Fever is only building on that success, and is on his way to having his finest year at stud to date. And the best may be yet to come, as horses like A Little Warm, Biofuel, and Check the Label are surging to the tops of their respective divisions. Regally bred, the 16-year-old sire is a son of the outstanding sire, and sire of sires, Storm Cat, and out of a mare by the great Seattle Slew, named Pennant Fever.

On the track, Stormin Fever ran successfully for Edward Evans over four seasons in the late 90’s. A winner of eight races, he was a graded stakes winning sprinter, and also finished second in back-to-back renewals of the Grade 1 Vosburgh Stakes. Stormin Fever was perhaps best known as a runner, for coming within a whisker of defeating Horse of the Year Skip Away in the 1 1/16 mile Iselin Handicap. Here is the a video of that outstanding performance.



Standing at Golden Eagle Farm in California, Stormin Fever currently carries a modest $5,000 stud fee. This surely is quite the bargain as he has already sired nearly 30 stakes winners, including three grade one winners. Known as a sire for any surface, it is interesting to note that his three star performers this year have all flourished on different surfaces, A Little Warm on dirt, Biofuel on synthetics, and Check the Label on the grass. Before this year, this versatile stallion was best known as the sire of the millionaire Sweet Talker who won the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on the turf in 2005, as well as the winner of the Santa Margarita on dirt that same year, Tarlow. Other current runners of note for Stormin Fever include Mambo Fever and King Ledley.

What’s in store for offspring of Stormin Fever for the rest of 2010? We will find out more in a few days, as A Little Warm will try to carry his speed ten furlongs for the first time and win the prestigious Mid-Summer Derby. Or maybe a signature win will come at Keeneland this Fall, when Check the Label lines up with a big chance to emulate Sweet Talker in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Or could the sire get his first Breeders' Cup winner when Biofuel makes another attempt in November? She almost won the Juvenile Fillies last year, and she is my current longshot selection for the Ladies’ Classic. One thing is for sure, Stormin Fever is a stallion on a roll.