WinStar Farm is essentially adding a new constellation for 2021, with four Grade 1-winning millionaires debuting at stud among the five new faces in its stallion barn. Two of those newcomers will continue to build on one of America’s most prominent sire lines. Grade 1 winners Global Campaign, Improbable, Promises Fulfilled, and Tom’s d’Etat will all debut at stud in 2021 at WinStar. Joining them on the roster is Laoban, who WinStar brings in from Sequel New York after an outstanding freshman season in which the stallion was represented by Grade 1 winner Simply Ravishing and Grade 1-placed Keepmeinmind. Tom’s d’Etat is likely the final significant son of the late leading sire Smart Strike to come to stud, while Global Campaign is by Smart Strike’s son Curlin. The arrival of Tom’s d’Etat to the WinStar stallion complex as a prominent stallion prospect in the Kentucky market is a testament to the patience of his connections in waiting for his star to rise. Tom’s d’Etat, who will be 8 when the breeding season begins, won 11 of 20 starts for GMB Racing in a career that began as a 3-year-old in 2016 and included two significant gaps due to physical issues – from August 2016 to March 2017, and from July 2017 to November 2018. In fact, sometime in 2017, Tom’s d’Etat’s story almost took a very different turn, trainer Al Stall Jr. recalled. “There was a time when I was going to give him to the starter at Churchill and Keeneland, Scott Jordan, who has a farm in Indiana – give him to him!” Stall said. “He said, ‘I’ll hustle up some mares, we don’t have any Smart Strike blood in Indiana.’ And then, for whatever reason, everything started staying together on him, and he finally got to prove the kind of talent we always thought he was.” Tom’s d’Etat won the 2018 Tenacious Stakes at Fair Grounds in his second start off a long layoff. The following year, he won the Alydar Stakes at Saratoga before taking the Grade 2 Fayette Stakes and Grade 1 Clark Handicap to end the season. He continued on as one of the top older horses in the country in 2020, winning the Oaklawn Mile over Improbable before taking the Grade 2 Stephen Foster in impressive fashion at Churchill Downs. He ran the 1 1/8 miles in 1:47.30, just missing Victory Gallop’s track and stakes record of 1:47.28 set in 1999. Tom’s d’Etat finished third to Improbable in the Grade 1 Whitney after a stumbling start, then was ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, which WinStar president and CEO Elliott Walden noted was “the end of a long career.” Walden also emphasized that WinStar has no qualms about bringing an older horse who took time to develop into the stallion barn. “I think people, they worry a little bit about his age, but, you know, we retired Speightstown at 6, went to stud at 7, and Distorted Humor went to stud at 6, so two of our linchpins over the last two decades were later-developing stallions,” Walden said. Tom’s d’Etat is from one of the final full crops by Smart Strike, best known as the sire of two-time Horse of the Year Curlin. He also sired two-time Eclipse Award champion and Preakness Stakes winner Lookin At Lucky; Breeders’ Cup winners and Eclipse champions English Channel and My Miss Aurelia; and 10 other champions worldwide. Smart Strike, by Mr. Prospector, died in March 2015, and his final crops, which gradually decreased in size, yielded few high-performing intact sons to carry his legacy. His 2013 crop of 100 foals, led by Tom’s d’Etat, did not include another prominent stallion prospect, as the other standouts from that crop are graded stakes-winning geldings Cleopatra’s Strike and Liam the Charmer and several stakes-performing fillies. Smart Strike sired 97 foals born in 2014, with his lone graded stakes-performing son from that crop the late Battle of Midway. That colt, third in the 2017 Kentucky Derby, seemingly capped his career by winning the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, his third stakes win of 2017. He was subsequently retired to WinStar, which co-owned him, and was expected to be a popular stallion. However, he was found to be subfertile. According to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred and resulting foal crop statistics, Battle of Midway covered 61 mares, resulting in seven live foals of 2019. Battle of Midway returned to the racetrack to be a graded stakes winner during his second campaign, but sustained a fatal injury during a workout in February 2019. Smart Strike was represented by 64 foals born in 2015, and a final small crop of four foals born posthumously the following year. Neither group has produced a graded winner. Tom’s d’Etat will become the fifth active son of Smart Strike at stud in Kentucky. The group is led by Curlin, who has become a perennial leading sire and a consistent classic sire. His offspring are led by Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and Eclipse Award champion Vino Rosso, classic-placed Eclipse champion Good Magic, champion Stellar Wind, Belmont Stakes winner Palace Malice, and Preakness Stakes winner Exaggerator. Smart Strike also is represented in Kentucky by Lookin At Lucky, sire of Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and champion Accelerate and Kentucky Derby winner Country House; English Channel, the sire of nine Grade 1 winners; and Dominus. Stall noted that Smart Strike’s sireline is known not only for classic prowess, but for its versatility on various surfaces, which could lead to Tom’s d’Etat attracting a wide range of mares. “Theoretically, there should be some grass there, even though we tried him on grass and he literally did everything but stop and graze,” Stall said. In addition to being from a prominent sireline that has produced successful stallions, Tom’s d’Etat also is from a female family that has produced successful sires. His dam, Julia Tuttle, is out of a full sister to perennial standout sire Candy Ride. Global Campaign will join Curlin’s growing group of sons at stud as he continues to expand that arm of Smart Strike’s legacy. Curlin’s first son to stud was Palace Malice, who finished among 2019’s leading freshman sires with Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Structor to his credit. Curlin is represented by top 10 national freshman sire Exaggerator and Florida leaders Jess’s Dream and Ride On Curlin. He will have Grade 1-winning Connect and Keen Ice in the 2021 freshman class, while the first foals by classic performers Good Magic and Irish War Cry will be yearlings. Vino Rosso’s first foals will arrive next year. Global Campaign, who won the Grade 2 Peter Pan in 2019 for WinStar and Sagamore Farm, blossomed as an older horse, winning the Grade 3 Monmouth Cup this year before breaking through with a Grade 1 triumph in the Woodward. He finished third in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Global Campaign is a half-brother to Grade 1 winner Bolt d’Oro and to stakes winner Sonic Mule. “I think Global Campaign is a really talented horse and with that pedigree, as far as being a stud goes, I don’t think there’s anybody more qualified than him,” trainer Stanley Hough said. Tom’s d’Etat will debut at stud for an advertised fee of $17,500, while Global Campaign will stand for $12,500. Like his stablemates in the WinStar barn, Improbable, by City Zip, also became a star with maturity for WinStar and partners China Horse Club and SF Racing. He won the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity and the Street Sense as a juvenile, and took the Shared Belief and was Grade 1-placed at 3, but turned in his best season in 2020 at age 4. After finishing second to Tom’s d’Etat at Oaklawn, he earned consecutive Grade 1 triumphs in the Hollywood Gold Cup, Whitney, and Awesome Again. He then finished second in the Classic to Authentic. “It was a big effort,” Walden said. “He ran 67 feet farther than the winner, which is eight lengths, and he got beat by 2 1/2. So we take nothing away from the winner, who ran a great race, but if we got a better trip, who knows. Go back and look at this horse’s race record and workout pattern. He breezed or raced nearly every week for more than two years. It was phenomenal. He breezed more than 50 times fast and is so extremely sound. Part of that is his motion. He’s poetry in motion. Improbable is such a perfect-looking horse. He is the epitome of balance and size.” Improbable will stand for $40,000 in his debut season. That is the second-highest fee for a new Kentucky stallion, behind only Authentic, debuting for $75,000 at Spendthrift Farm. Rounding out the quartet is the speedy Promises Fulfilled, whose fee is set at $10,000. The son of Shackleford raced successfully around two turns early in his career for Robert Baron, finishing third in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club as a juvenile and winning the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth to start his 3-year-old campaign. Shortened up in distance, he won, in succession, the Grade 3 Amsterdam, Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens, and Grade 2 Phoenix, defeating the stalwart Whitmore in the latter. As a 4-year-old, Promises Fulfilled won the Grade 2 John A. Nerud. Promises Fulfilled made his final start in October 2019. An injury ended plans for a 2020 campaign. “What intrigued me about him was he was on the lead in 15 of his 17 starts,” Walden said. “Really genuine race record. He didn’t duck anybody. He won the Fountain of Youth as well, so not only was he an accomplished Grade 1 sprinter, he carried that speed. “He was the only horse to be in front of Justify – I know it was short-lived, but that was hard to do,” Walden added, referring to the opening six furlongs of the 2018 Kentucky Derby. “We were hoping to have a big year with him, and he injured a tendon. He danced every dance.”