Sponsored by Pedigrees360.Sorry to do this yet again, but the very fact that the exercise can be repeated every November shows that we're not looking at anything freakish; in other words, that there are valid lessons to learn.Because with daughters of Old Fashioned, Mitole, Big Brown, Ten Sovereigns (Ire) and Outwork among the 10 most valuable mares changing hands at Fasig-Tipton and Keeneland last week, why would anyone trying to seed a breeding program start by spending fortunes on fillies by glamor sires?For most of us, who can't play at the elite level, there's obvious comfort in the fact that market values play out so haphazardly. And, by the same token, those returning from Lexington with mares culled by other programs have just been offered plenty of encouragement from the racetrack.Because both the late developers who last weekend made significant ground towards the apex of the sophomore crop, Disco Time (Not This Time) and Fully Subscribed (Tiz the Law), in the process transformed the value of mares discarded at the 2022 Keeneland November Sale, when each was but a weanling.There's another, somewhat more tenuous link between the pair, in that Fully Subscribed won the GII Mother Goose Stakes–honoring one whose legacy has now been marginally increased by none other than Disco Time.True, she only surfaces as his 10th dam. Devoted as I am to depth of family, not even I could pretend that Mother Goose had contributed meaningfully to his talent!Mother Goose, one of the top juveniles of 1924, owes her principal legacy to her legendary granddaughter Almahmoud. The line to Disco Time instead comes through a daughter who left no such mark until the emergence, four generations on, of 1972 champion sprinter Chou Croute (Lt. Stevens).The line then lapsed again, so that Chou Croute remained the highlight on a sparse catalogue page for her Pennsylvania-bred great-great-granddaughter Disco Chick (Jump Start) at the 2018 Keeneland January Sale. Disco Chick's genetic functionality, however, was not in question: she had won 10 of 42 starts across five seasons, including four black-type sprints.That blend of speed and hardiness earned her a $180,000 transfer, through Nicoma Bloodstock, to no less a program than Juddmonte. She was evidently recruited to support its new stallion, Arrogate, by whom she produced consecutive foals: a son who ended up winning under a $5,000 tag, and an unraced daughter culled to KingFisher Farm for just $8,000 as a 2-year-old deep in the 2022 Keeneland November Sale.Disco Chick had herself been sold earlier in the same auction, for $35,000 to RPM Thoroughbreds, but Juddmonte elected not to offer her weanling colt by the emerging Not This Time. That has proved just as well, as we're of course talking about Disco Time, whose near 10-length romp in the Dwyer Stakes extends his unbeaten start to five.Disco Chick's purchasers did not at first gain due reward for their astute judgement, the Kantharos foal she was carrying at the sale having died. But they have since reiterated their shrewdness by sending her to the hot youngster Yaupon, who gave her a filly; and meanwhile by pushing the boat out for Justify.We must give a nod to Disco Time's late damsire, Jump Start having proved a consistently effective conduit for his excellent genes. He was out of a Storm Cat mare, so Juddmonte's choice of Storm Cat's grandson Not This Time for Disco Chick compounded his influence on the resulting foal.True to his sire and grandsire, both outstanding transatlantic influences, Not This Time is proving remarkably versatile. If anything, his astonishing recent spree on grass had almost threatened to become an embarrassment, given the commercial market's orientation. But Disco Time (107 Beyer) looks eligible to prove his best dirt performer since Epicenter, and to reiterate his sheer versatility. Even on grass, remember, Not This Time's spectrum ranges from Cogburn to Next. And Disco Time's performance was complemented by a runaway stakes winner on the main track at Laurel, in Balboa; while Jack's Time transferred his dominant form at Prairie Meadows to Churchill for a fourth consecutive dirt success.Admittedly Not This Time's third Grade I scorer of 2025, like his previous two, had come on grass at the Breeders' Cup the previous weekend. Turf Sprint winner Cy Fair was another to show how quickly you can hit a home run with the right mare at the breeding stock sales. His dam Remarqued (Arch) was moved on by his breeders, with the bonus of a Nyquist cover, for $225,000 to Hickory Grove Farm at Keeneland only in January. Last week, back in the same ring and again in foal to Nyquist, she was cashed out for $1.2 million.Fully Subscribed | Susie RaisherAnother Piece Of Sweet TimingIt still feels wrong to see a Mother Goose Stakes–once middle leg of the Triple Tiara, and won by the likes of Chris Evert and Ruffian–run in November. But it may have produced a winner equal to its heritage in Fully Subscribed, who gave the GI Kentucky Oaks runner-up a decisive beating.Her dam Sweetbaby (Candy Ride {Arg}) was offloaded for even less than Disco Chick at the same 2022 November Sale, for $25,000 to Rusty Roberts. She did not have anything like as good a racetrack record, albeit having won three modest races on turf/synthetics, but did offer a far superior pedigree. In fact Payson Stud had retained her at $650,000 as a yearling, being out of the its homebred turf star Rutherienne (Pulpit), whose eight graded stakes included the GI Del Mar Oaks.Rutherienne's record as a producer is not so impressive, and even this very timely update couldn't get her weanling daughter by Up to the Mark past $85,000 at Keeneland on Monday. (Incidentally, another daughter, the 13-year-old Simple Elegance (Street Cry {Ire}), sells with a Sea The Stars (Ire) cover at the upcoming Tattersalls December Sale.)Rutherienne had won both her juvenile starts when her dam Ruthian (Rahy) was sent back to Pulpit, producing GIII Violet Stakes winner Ruthenia; and the latter's two best foals, both stakes winners, were by Sweetbaby's sire Candy Ride (Arg). Evidently there was some interest in replicating the flavors behind his damsire Candy Stripes, who was by Blushing Groom (Fr) out of a Lyphard mare: Ruthian was by Blushing Groom's son Rahy, while the next dam Adoryphar was by Lyphard.It was Adoryphar's purchase as a yearling that brought this family into Virginia Kraft Payson's program, presumably with an eye on her third dam, the 1959 champion handicap mare Tempted. Adoryphar started her career in France before migrating to set a Saratoga track record over 1 mile 3/16ths on grass, but it was decided to give up on her great-granddaughter Sweetbaby just a few weeks before Payson's death in January 2023. Her first foal by Nyquist had made only $25,000 at the September Sale.Fully Subscribed herself followed her dam directly into the ring, but was retained at $65,000–only to be let go for $35,000 the following September. Pinhooked through Caliente Thoroughbreds, she began to revive her fortunes when her breeze at OBS the following April prompted Klaravich Stable to give $300,000.The way she is progressing now will delight those who picked up her dam so cheaply, though Jose d'Angelo was ahead of the curve when landing Sweetbaby's yearling daughter by Highly Motivated for $40,000 at Fasig-Tipton only last month. Sweetbaby has since produced a brother to Fully Subscribed, and been sent to the promising Maxfield.A regular tale of winners and losers, then, but there's no doubt into which category we can put the sire of Fully Subscribed. Tiz the Law had notched his fifth graded stakes winner only an hour previously, on the same Aqueduct card, when Tiz Dashing won the GIII Hill Prince Stakes. Too late for a fee increase! He remains at $30,000 next spring, even though his third crop of yearlings are averaging $134,321, up from $58,200 last year.Tiz the Law's ratios of graded stakes winners and performers (2.6/5.6 percent of named foals) hold up extremely well against the more expensive pair with whom he contested the freshman title last year: Vekoma stands on 3.0/4.4 percent; McKinzie, whose good ones have tended to be very good, on 1.5/2.9 percent.Vekoma | Autry GrahamNot A Vintage Crop…YetVekoma won that three-way battle by bare cents, and Yaupon again looks like keeping the freshman title at Spendthrift. The same farm had dominated the 2023 race, with the top four, while Bolt d'Oro had edged out Good Magic and Justify in 2022.That year's freshmen accumulated 13 graded stakes winners from their first juveniles; while last year's managed a dozen. In between, the class of 2023 mustered just three–and the present mob are on course for another debacle, only Knicks Go and Rock Your World having so far eked out a graded stakes win.But it is every bit as hasty to judge new stallions too quickly as to give them so much opportunity in the first place. Plenty, after all, themselves thrived only round a second turn with maturity. Oh, well: he who lives by the sword, and all that. The reality, for most stallions, is that their first book will also be their biggest and best. Unfortunately that creates a self-fulfilling demand for unproven sires. On the other hand, it also creates wonderful opportunities for those willing to form their own conclusions, and perhaps even to take a little time doing so.The post Breeding Digest: Disco Confirms Timing Is Everything When Buying Mares appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.