Domestic Product and Sierra Leone have shared trainer Chad Brown’s barn for the past two seasons. The month of November found them again sharing a barn, this time at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud. But now their paths diverge.
While Breeders’ Cup Classic hero Sierra Leone was at co-owner Coolmore’s farm for a vacation before rejoining Brown, Domestic Product was settling into his new life, having retired after finishing third in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. He joins his successful sire Practical Joke – in turn by leading sire Into Mischief – on the Ashford roster and will debut for a fee of $30,000.
“Practical Joke has been extremely popular with breeders ever since he first arrived here,” Coolmore’s director of sales Charlie O’Connor said. “He has enjoyed terrific success both on the racetrack and in the sales ring, and we’re delighted his son Domestic Product will be joining him for 2025.”
Practical Joke was talented and game enough to earn multiple top-level placings around two turns and finished a gallant fifth in the 2017 Kentucky Derby. However, his calling was around one turn, with Grade 1 wins in the Hopeful, Champagne, and H. Allen Jerkens Memorial, as well as the Grade 3 Dwyer.
Domestic Product, trained by Brown for Klaravich Stables, as his sire was, had a similar profile. He was second in the Grade 3 Holy Bull and won the Grade 3 Tampa Bay Derby this year to qualify for the Kentucky Derby, in which he finished 13th after losing a shoe. He then finished second in the Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth Park. Domestic Product competed at a mile or shorter for the rest of his career, emulating his sire by winning the Dwyer and Jerkens before going on to the Breeders’ Cup.
Practical Joke went to stud in the same year as a pair of future Hall of Famers – Gun Runner, who has been nothing short of phenomenal, and the late Arrogate, who made a mark with just three crops sired.
Practical Joke has acquitted himself well in strong company. He has been second to Gun Runner by earnings on the first-, second-, and third-crop sire lists and sits second to him on the fourth-crop list this season. He is the sire of 11 Grade/Group 1 winners to date – four in the United States and seven in Chile, where he also has shuttled. Gun Runner is the sire of 10 Grade 1 winners to date and Arrogate has sired six, all domestically.
As O’Connor noted, Practical Joke has been popular throughout his stud career. In five of his seven seasons at Ashford, he has finished in the top five busiest stallions on The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred – including leading the list in 2021 and 2024. Some of that popularity should rub off on his first son to join him at Ashford.