War of Will, Omaha Beach offer 'vindication' for sire War Front

Bernie Sams, Claiborne Farm’s bloostock manager, has for the last few years insisted to breeders that War Front — America’s priciest stallion, at $250,000 — isn’t just a turf sire.

“They look at you funny,” Sams said.

That figures to change after this season with top 3-year-olds War of Will and Omaha Beach building resumes on the dirt that will lead to stallion careers of their own.

The colts have taken similar career paths, as both ran multiple times on turf, went winless, then broke out thanks to a surface switch. Sams says what he’s witnessed is “vindication” with Omaha Beach winning the Arkansas Derby (G1) in his last start and War of Will taking the Preakness Stakes over the weekend.

“For him to get a classic winner in America, on dirt, on a big stage like the Preakness with everyone watching really justifies why he’s the most expensive sire in the country,” Walker Hancock, Claiborne Farm’s president, said of War Front. “It’s big for him. When the sales come around this fall, I think you’ll see a lot more people looking at the War Fronts than turf buyers and Europeans.”

Early on, however, War Front produced graded dirt winners such as The Factor and Departing.

“Then obviously Coolmore saw his brilliance and bred a lot of mares to him, took them over to Europe, and that’s how he got stamped as a turf sire,” Hancock said. “But all along, he’s been solid on both turf and dirt.”

Hancock assumes War Front’s stud fee won’t change in 2020 — $250,000 appears to be the ceiling — and said Claiborne will continue its “supply and demand thinking” with a book limited to about 75 mares.

Danzig, War Front’s sire, bred until age 22.

“If War Front can get five more seasons, that would be awesome,” Hancock said. “Anything after 20 is pretty much all gravy. I don’t see any reason that he’d be tailing off or falling off the next couple years, so hopefully he can follow his father’s hoof prints.”

Sams has made attempts to pair War Front with more top dirt mates, though War of Will, out of a Sadler’s Wells mare, is certainly not a product of that approach. And yet he has also won the Lecomte (G3) and Risen Star (G2) on dirt in addition to the Preakness.

War of Will and Omaha Beach are both athletic, pace-pressing types of runners.

“I think that’s probably War Front as much as anything,” Sams said. “They’re pretty tough — pretty resilient. There’s a lot of fight in them, it seems like.”

With Omaha Beach already slated to stand at Spendthrift Farm upon retirement, and War of Will certain to attract attention from top Kentucky farms, Sams added: “Hopefully he can get a sire who goes on and carries it.”