Taylor Made Stallions’ multiple Graded stakes winner Tacitus, a son of perennial leading sire Tapit out of Champion Older Female and five-time Grade 1 winner Close Hatches, sired his first reported foals in New York on Monday, Jan. 16. The first arrivals were a colt out of the Bustin Stones mare Super Stone bred by Jerry Bilinski, DVM, and born at Waldorf Farm, and a filly produced from the stakes-winning Courageous Cat mare Lady Joan bred by Irish Hill Century Farm 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 out of Lady Joan. “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 who banked more than $3.7 million in a stellar racing career, while recording six triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures. He broke his maiden in his second career start at two and from that point forward, he competed exclusively in Graded stakes company for the next three years.
As a sophomore in 2019, Tacitus won the $400,000 Tampa Bay Derby (G2) in his 3-year-old debut, stopping the clock in a new stakes-record time of 1:411.90 for 1 1/16 miles, just .15 off the track record in Oldsmar. In his next start, Tacitus overcame a troubled trip in winning the $750,000 Wood Memorial (G2)—a race also won by his champion sire—and vaulted to the top of the leaderboard for that year’s Kentucky Derby (G1).
A game third despite a wide trip in the Kentucky Derby, defeating Grade 1 winners Improbable, Game Winner and War of Will, Tacitus remained one of the top 3-year-olds of his crop, subsequently finishing second in the Belmont S. (G1) and the Travers S. (G1). The following season at age four, Tacitus won the 1 ¼-mile Suburban S. (G2) at Belmont Park, overpowering rivals for an 8 ¾-length victory in the sparkling time of 1:59.51.
Tacitus, who stands the 2023 season for $10,000 S&N and bred 188 mares in his initial book, is produced from Juddmonte’s 2014 Champion Older Female Close Hatches, a descendant of 1982 Broodmare of the Year Best in Show.
For more information about Tacitus, contact Travis White at (859) 396-3508 or Brock Martin at (270) 498-3722.
