The arc of a young stallion’s career seldom follows a smooth path. For example, Quality Road was the leading first-crop sire of 2014 when his sons Hootenanny and Blofeld won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf and Grade 2 Nashua, respectively, but neither followed through at 3. Quality Road’s second crop included little of merit, and he went very cold in the marketplace until his current crop of 4-year-olds came along, including champion Abel Tasman and Grade 1 winners City of Light, Salty, and Klimt. Quality Road is now the hottest young sire on the planet. The bumps in the road for Quality Road’s Lane’s End barnmate Union Rags have been of a somewhat different character. He finished second on the first-crop sire list in 2014 after his daughters Dancing Rags (out of Home Court, by Storm Cat) won the Grade 1 Alcibiades, and Union Strike (Classic Strike, by Smart Strike) captured the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante. But he was quickly pigeonholed as a “filly sire” when his daughter Paradise Woods (Wild Forest, by Forest Wildcat) captured the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks and no top colts emerged from that first crop. :: DRF BREEDING LIVE: Real-time coverage of breeding and sales As it usually does, that imbalance appears to be resolving itself, and Union Rags’s stallion career may well be on the verge of a similar blast-off. His second-crop son Free Drop Billy (Trensa, by Giant’s Causeway) won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity last fall, and his first-crop son Catalina Cruiser (Sea Gull, by Mineshaft) is now unbeaten in four starts, including the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap and the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien Stakes, and appears to be another Grade 1 winner in the making. Union Rags is a third generation Lane’s End stallion. His grandsire Dixieland Band, by Northern Dancer, was bred and raced by Lane’s End owner William S. Farish’s mother-in-law Mary Sharp, and was the first stallion to stand at Lane’s End. Dixieland Band twice ranked among America’s top five sires on the general sire list and led the broodmare sire list in 2004. Union Rags’s sire, Dixie Union (She’s Tops, by Capote), was Dixieland Band’s best American-raced son. Winner of the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational and Grade 1 Malibu, he never reached quite the heights achieved by his sire, but sired 48 black-type winners, including four Grade 1 winners. Union Rags was clearly Dixie Union’s best son. He was bred in Kentucky by Phyllis Wyeth, who famously suffered seller’s remorse after selling the big, flashy colt for $145,000 at the 2010 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling sale. She bought him back for $390,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Florida 2-year-old sale the following spring. But for a wide trip in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, when he failed by a head to overhaul the free-running Hansen, Union Rags would have been champion 2-year-old male of 2012 after winning the Grade 2 Saratoga Special and Grade 1 Champagne. He won the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth in his first start at 2, but showed he was not the easiest of rides during unlucky trips in both the Florida Derby and Kentucky Derby. Belmont’s wide expanses were tailor-made for such a big, long-striding colt, and he retrieved his reputation with a gritty win over Paynter in the Belmont, his last start. On the balance of form, Union Rags was arguably the best colt of his crop, and his pedigree is impeccable. His half-sister Tempo West, by Rahy, is dam of champion Declaration of War, by War Front, and his dam, Tempo, by Gone West, is a half-sister to stakes winner Marry Me Do, by Blushing Groom, out of multiple graded winner Terpsichorist, by Nijinsky II. Union Rags’s third dam, champion Glad Rags, by High Hat, won the 1966 Irish 1,000 Guineas, and was imported by Wyeth’s parents. Catalina Cruiser is almost as well connected. Bred at Lane’s End by Will Farish, he is the third foal out of Sea Gull, a winning Mineshaft mare whose first foal, Eagle, by Candy Ride, has won the Grade 3 Ben Ali and earned $754,186. Sea Gull is half-sister to stakes winner Private Ryan, by Quiet American, out of stakes winner Exclusive Bird, by Storm Bird. His fourth dam, Grade 3 Falls City Handicap winner Flama Ardiente, by Crimson Satan, is the dam of top sire Mt. Livermore, by Blushing Groom, and Group 1 winner Magical Wonder, by Storm Bird. The names of Blushing Groom and Storm Bird appear frequently in the female lines of both Union Rags and Catalina Cruiser, who is inbred 4x5x4 to dominant sires Northern Dancer and Mr. Prospector. Catalina Cruiser was purchased for $370,000 by Martin Anthony at the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale and races for Hronis Racing and trainer John Sadler. Sea Gull has since produced the 3-year-old colt Shoreline, by The Factor; the 2-year-old filly Royal Flight, by Candy Ride; and a yearling filly by War Front. She was bred back to Candy Ride last spring.