STILLWATER, N.Y. – It was thematically fitting when American Pharoah was bred to Wait No More in his first season at stud. After all, American Pharoah was the horse who ended America’s 37-year wait for a Triple Crown winner.
Waiting never made it to the racetrack for his internationally successful sire, but has earned his own little piece of notoriety. A young sire for Irish Hill and Dutchess Views Stallions in Stillwater, Waiting became American Pharoah’s first son to sire a winner in the United States. His daughter Nacho Problem is already stakes-placed, and she runs in Saturday’s Catch a Glimpse Stakes on the King’s Plate undercard at Woodbine.
“We’re very proud of that,” stallion manager Bill Leak said. “He was the first son of American Pharoah to stand in the U.S., and now he’s got his first winner under his belt, and I think there’s going to be more to come."
Waiting, foaled in 2017, was bred in partnership by Zayat Stables, which bred and campaigned his sire, and Florida-based Arindel, which bred and campaigned his winning dam. Arindel also raced Wait No More’s dam Wait a While, a multimillionaire who won 10 graded stakes and was voted the 2006 Eclipse Award champion 3-year-old filly.
Although American Pharoah is the sire of 61 stakes winners, his Grade 1 winners in the U.S. have almost all been fillies. Outside of son American Theorem, who had a five-year racing career highlighted by a score in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby, the stallion is represented stateside by Grade 1-winning daughters As Time Goes By, Harvey’s Lil Goil, and Marketsegmentation. American Pharoah’s other career Grade/Group 1 winners are Japanese champion Cafe Pharoah, the colt Van Gogh, and the filly Above the Curve in Europe, and the geldings Riff Rocket and Goldrush Guru in Australia.
Thus far, the majority of American Pharoah’s top sons have gone to Japan, a country where he has been quite popular. Four Wheel Drive, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint when it was a Grade 2 event, was purchased to enter stud in Japan in 2021. He is the sire of 44 winners to date, but no stakes horses as of yet. Van Gogh entered stud in Japan a year later and is represented by six winners to date. Cafe Pharoah joined them at stud in 2024.
Waiting was one of American Pharoah’s first sons to enter stud in the U.S. when he was retired while unraced for the 2022 season. He was joined in North America by unraced Very Cool in Oklahoma in 2022, and by the winner Know It Now in Alberta in 2023. This year, there was an influx of sons of American Pharoah in regional markets, with Grade 1 winner American Theorem and Grade 2 winner Forbidden Kingdom retired to stand in California, and stakes winner Determined Ruler retired to Indiana.
Now well-settled in New York, the solid bay Waiting looks out of his home stall with a remarkably calm eye that calls to mind his famously kind-tempered father. Leak agrees that the young stallion shares characteristics with his sire but sees his championship female family in him as well.
“I’ve personally never seen American Pharoah in person, but many people have and have seen Waiting, and they mention how similar he is,” Leak said. “He’s a little stockier, has a little more mass to him, a little more bone, which I think comes through that dam side, but [he] definitely has the American Pharoah characteristics as well.”
In a competitive regional marketplace that has seen a number of accomplished stallions arrive in recent years, Waiting bred 23 mares in his first season, 18 in 2023, and four in 2024, according to statistics from The Jockey Club. Thus far, the stallion has had three starters from his first crop, all New York-born juveniles bred by Arindel. Nacho Problem, the only one to make more than one start, is out of the operation’s homebred winning mare by its Florida stallion Brethren.
Nacho Problem, trained by Amelia Green, was third in her debut on May 3 at Aqueduct against open company, then fourth against statebreds on June 8 at Saratoga. Shifted to turf – which she has plenty of in her pedigree – for her third start on June 29 at Aqueduct, she won on the lead, holding on to win by three-quarters of a length.
She subsequently stepped up to stakes company for the Colleen on July 27 at Monmouth and finished third, beaten three lengths total but just half a length for second. She again sprints on turf against open company in the Catch a Glimpse.
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